AKICILJ: state standards

[redbird]

We're back to reading the mind of a committee. In this case, I have a state standard (Tennessee, in case you care) that says students should be able to "Identify the common outcome of all chemical changes."

What does this mean? My best guess is conservation of mass, except that's explicitly listed later on. Maybe that the identity of the substance changes?

Comments

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Do you think this was written by a sufficiently coherent person as to actually be talking about the "common outcome" in the sense of "the outcome all such changes have in common?" I know people who could start with "Identify common chemical changes and describe what they have in common," attempt to make the sentence shorter and more sophisticated, trip over their underpants, and come out with something like your original problem.

[redbird]

I don't know whether it was written by a person, and committees aren't good at coherence. (This one, at least, seems mostly to have been written by one committee, and I think they may have set foot in the same building at the same time.) I think "in common" is more likely than common as distinct from rare.