Things you always wanted to know the answer to [Vol. 5]
Discussion
The Mad Monk said:
It is also true that the French threw down their rifles pretty quickly in both world wars.
As an Englishman who will take most any opportunity to have a dig at our old enemy, I thought most grown ups these days had realised that the 'cheese eating surrender monkeys' thing is total hogwash?My knowledge of WWI is not as expansive as I'd like it to be, but my understanding is that the toll taken on France during WWI was just so utterly horrific (particularly the battle of Verdun) and the collective trauma so severe that the spectre of the same happening again in WWII was just too much.
2 million French soldiers, nearly 5% of the entire population, died in WWI. That's not 'losses' which includes injured and captured, that's dead. Millions of hectares of France were obliterated, and remain uninhabitable to this day, bones and explosives are unearthed every year in the iron harvest, and that's just in the areas that have been repopulated. Huge areas were so badly damaged that they are still completely off limits due to being saturated with shells and the dead.
In comparison, Britain lost just under 3% dead, and survivors at least had our untouched green and pleasant land to return to, but even that was such a harrowing experience that Britain was also loathe to go in for round 2.
But after a fashion we did, and so did France. Then Germany gave us an absolutely spanking in the first half of 1940, and had Britain not recovered 340,000 soldiers from the Dunkirk beaches, we'd likely have signed the same armistice as France.
Dunkirk was an almost unbelievable escape from nearly certain defeat, and was only as successful as it was because of the fierce resistance French soldiers put up, holding back the German Army as long as possible so that the British and remaining French could be evacuated; 18,000 French soldiers died to help us evacuate, Britain lost 3,500.
Halmyre said:
audi321 said:
How do the schools prevent the teachers who have children doing exams from tipping off their child of the content of the exam? When do they see the paper for the first time?
Don't know about the rest of the UK but for official SQA (Scottish Qualifications Authority) exams, the teachers don't see the exam papers prior to the exams. They're delivered in sealed packets and only the exam invigilators are allowed to open them.Do kids these days really know the exam questions ahead of time? Surely not? If they do then the education system is truly more fooked than I thought it was.
Strangely Brown said:
Halmyre said:
audi321 said:
How do the schools prevent the teachers who have children doing exams from tipping off their child of the content of the exam? When do they see the paper for the first time?
Don't know about the rest of the UK but for official SQA (Scottish Qualifications Authority) exams, the teachers don't see the exam papers prior to the exams. They're delivered in sealed packets and only the exam invigilators are allowed to open them.Do kids these days really know the exam questions ahead of time? Surely not? If they do then the education system is truly more fooked than I thought it was.
Daughter did get the heads up (legitimately!) regarding a shortlist of topics from a much longer list they've learnt in class for one of her a level exams she's just taken. Out of the four she's done, it was the toughest one.
Sway said:
No, they don't know exam questions ahead of time!
Daughter did get the heads up (legitimately!) regarding a shortlist of topics from a much longer list they've learnt in class for one of her a level exams she's just taken. Out of the four she's done, it was the toughest one.
Closest I ever got to know knowing the questions ahead of time was during my degree finals when we were on study leave, and we were all contacted to come back in for a special emergency lecture as it had been discovered that they hadn't taught us something that was coming up in one of the exam papers. Daughter did get the heads up (legitimately!) regarding a shortlist of topics from a much longer list they've learnt in class for one of her a level exams she's just taken. Out of the four she's done, it was the toughest one.
Clockwork Cupcake said:
Sway said:
No, they don't know exam questions ahead of time!
Daughter did get the heads up (legitimately!) regarding a shortlist of topics from a much longer list they've learnt in class for one of her a level exams she's just taken. Out of the four she's done, it was the toughest one.
Closest I ever got to know knowing the questions ahead of time was during my degree finals when we were on study leave, and we were all contacted to come back in for a special emergency lecture as it had been discovered that they hadn't taught us something that was coming up in one of the exam papers. Daughter did get the heads up (legitimately!) regarding a shortlist of topics from a much longer list they've learnt in class for one of her a level exams she's just taken. Out of the four she's done, it was the toughest one.
Didn't something like that happen a few years ago with (iirc) an English exam?
Where the content of the exam was a book/poem/whatever that wasn't in the list to teach?
There's something like that rattling in my brain.
deadtom said:
As an Englishman who will take most any opportunity to have a dig at our old enemy, I thought most grown ups these days had realised that the 'cheese eating surrender monkeys' thing is total hogwash?
"On 22 June 1940, the French delegation signed the Armistice agreement imposed by Germany at the very location of the 1918 Armistice signing. This entailed France’s surrender in the Second World War".The Mad Monk said:
deadtom said:
As an Englishman who will take most any opportunity to have a dig at our old enemy, I thought most grown ups these days had realised that the 'cheese eating surrender monkeys' thing is total hogwash?
"On 22 June 1940, the French delegation signed the Armistice agreement imposed by Germany at the very location of the 1918 Armistice signing. This entailed France’s surrender in the Second World War".The Mad Monk said:
"On 22 June 1940, the French delegation signed the Armistice agreement imposed by Germany at the very location of the 1918 Armistice signing. This entailed France’s surrender in the Second World War".
my point wasn't that they didn't surrender in WW2, it was that the idea that the French are cowardly and give up at the first sign of a fight, is total rubbishdeadtom said:
The Mad Monk said:
"On 22 June 1940, the French delegation signed the Armistice agreement imposed by Germany at the very location of the 1918 Armistice signing. This entailed France’s surrender in the Second World War".
my point wasn't that they didn't surrender in WW2, it was that the idea that the French are cowardly and give up at the first sign of a fight, is total rubbishI am old enough to remember watching de Gaulle on the newsreels striding through Paris on its liberation by the Allies as though he had done it singlehandedly himself.
"De Gaulle entered the city in the late afternoon of August 25, declaring Paris liberated by the French while barely mentioning the Allied forces, which had lost 50,000 troops since June 6.
The french army was badly lead, some units fought well and held the germans back while they had ammunition and fuel in their tanks, but once those were exhausted resupply wasn't there and sometimes units collapsed allowing others to be outflanked. They were not trained or really equipped for manoeuvre warfare and the speed of german advance more often than not overwhelmed their ability to make decisions and act, also hindered by a lack of effective radio communications leaving them using telephones and dispatch riders.
The Mad Monk said:
deadtom said:
The Mad Monk said:
"On 22 June 1940, the French delegation signed the Armistice agreement imposed by Germany at the very location of the 1918 Armistice signing. This entailed France’s surrender in the Second World War".
my point wasn't that they didn't surrender in WW2, it was that the idea that the French are cowardly and give up at the first sign of a fight, is total rubbishI am old enough to remember watching de Gaulle on the newsreels striding through Paris on its liberation by the Allies as though he had done it singlehandedly himself.
"De Gaulle entered the city in the late afternoon of August 25, declaring Paris liberated by the French while barely mentioning the Allied forces, which had lost 50,000 troops since June 6.
. Clockwork Cupcake said:
Sway said:
No, they don't know exam questions ahead of time!
Daughter did get the heads up (legitimately!) regarding a shortlist of topics from a much longer list they've learnt in class for one of her a level exams she's just taken. Out of the four she's done, it was the toughest one.
Closest I ever got to know knowing the questions ahead of time was during my degree finals when we were on study leave, and we were all contacted to come back in for a special emergency lecture as it had been discovered that they hadn't taught us something that was coming up in one of the exam papers. Daughter did get the heads up (legitimately!) regarding a shortlist of topics from a much longer list they've learnt in class for one of her a level exams she's just taken. Out of the four she's done, it was the toughest one.
hidetheelephants said:
The french army was badly lead, some units fought well and held the germans back while they had ammunition and fuel in their tanks, but once those were exhausted resupply wasn't there and sometimes units collapsed allowing others to be outflanked. They were not trained or really equipped for manoeuvre warfare and the speed of german advance more often than not overwhelmed their ability to make decisions and act, also hindered by a lack of effective radio communications leaving them using telephones and dispatch riders.
Yep. The French soldier fought well where they could. They were let down by poor leadership who still had a WW1 mindset and had failed to modernise their army to the same extent as the Germans from tactics to equipment to logistics.
It annoys me when people taunt them for their cowardice. The French squaddie held ground where they could and fought valiantly against overwhelming opposition many times and often against hopeless odds. Their senior commanders let them down even before a single shot was fired.
Sway said:
Didn't something like that happen a few years ago with (iirc) an English exam?
Where the content of the exam was a book/poem/whatever that wasn't in the list to teach?
There's something like that rattling in my brain.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/educa...
audi321 said:
How do the schools prevent the teachers who have children doing exams from tipping off their child of the content of the exam? When do they see the paper for the first time?
In the international Schools, the problem with "tipping off" is not the teachers but actually the exam coordinators and stoopid students. (Usually in Asia). All IB and IGCSE exams are held on the same day all over the world to reduce the chance of cheating. Unfortunately due to the different time zones they can't all be sat at the same time. So every year there is a leak on the dark Web, with someone selling the full exam papers for $300-$400 per download. For the coordinator it's easy money, but for students it's really dumb, because they are helping others get higher grades which will raise the average boundaries and they could end up getting a lower score.
My wife is the exam coordinator for her school. Our kids are there, but not at exam age. I'm now very curious as to what steps will be made to ensure she doesn't help them. I'll ask when she gets home.
hidetheelephants said:
The french army was badly lead, some units fought well and held the germans back while they had ammunition and fuel in their tanks, but once those were exhausted resupply wasn't there and sometimes units collapsed allowing others to be outflanked. They were not trained or really equipped for manoeuvre warfare and the speed of german advance more often than not overwhelmed their ability to make decisions and act, also hindered by a lack of effective radio communications leaving them using telephones and dispatch riders.
Not that dissimilar to the British Expeditionary Force at the time I should think, the difference being we had somewhere to run to and learn the lessons before having another go. Gassing Station | The Lounge | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff