Record-High Number Still Have Not Passed QRR

One year after the Faculty of Arts and Sciences imposed tougher Quantitative Reasoning Requirement (QRR) standards for incoming students, a record-high 1143 first years have not passed the mandatory data and computer tests.

This embarrassing record comes as the faculty's subcommittee on the QRR considers including the requirement in the Core Program as an 11th subject area.

Professor Harry R. Lewis said the poor results are not the focus of the subcommittee discussion, but added that the failures indicate students' lack of reasoning skills.

"The students are demonstrating the same problems as in the past," said Lewis, a member of the subcommittee. "We feel this is for intellectual reasons. The present QRR is simply not fulfilling the purpose for which it was instituted."

Three hundred and thirty-four students have not managed to pass either part of the QRR, while computer tests have still to be administered to 1113 students. The number of students who had not finished the computer test at this of the year was 997 in 1989 and 750 in 1988.

Three More Chances

QRR directors estimate that there will be over 3000 computer tests administered in the spring term, as students rush to complete the requirement before the end of the school year.

And the 364 students who have not yet passed the data test have only three more opportunities to do so this term. Those who have not passed both parts of the QRR by the end of spring term are automatically put onto academic probation under College rules.

"I just don't know how to type, so I didn't see the point in taking the test," said Jason Kral '93, who has not yet passed the QRR. "It just forces students to regurgitate information."

Jennifer Carr '93, another first-year student who hasn't yet taken the computer test, called the requirement impractical.

"The only computer skill you need to get through college is how to work a word processor," Carr said.

Although discussion in the subcommittee is still in the preliminary stages, Undergraduate Council member Joel D. Hornstein '91 said there has been discussion of a major QRR revamping.

Possible Changes

"One of the probable outcomes of making the QRR a Core requirement is that computers will be deemphasized," said Hornstein, who is a student liaison to the faculty subcommittee.

Pat Yoon '93, also a student representative to the Core committee, added that the faculty seem less interested in the computer training than the poor data results. Any QRR Core courses that the subcommittee would recommennd would place added stress on mathematics, Yoon said.

Joseph W. Marks, lecturer for the Computer Science 1 course, said the subcommittee should be conscious of the consequences of taking computer skills out of the requirements. He said it would be bad to ignore that computers are becoming an integral part of modern education.

While a deemphasis of the computer requirement that has plagued students over the past years may come as a relief, the institution of a math requirement may not.

Statistics as of December 15 also show that after two data tests 57 percent of the freshmen class had passed, although this was still a 10 percent improvement over the figures for last year's class.