Two 9-year-olds complete Indonesian ham radio exam Two young people aged 9 were among the 291 people who took the amateur radio exam in Surabaya using the new online State Amateur Radio Examination (UNAR) and Licensing system The Indonesian Government regulator reports that Muhammad Raihan Yudhistira and Raditya Danish Pratama were the first children participants in the online exam which was held on November 5, 2017. The article doesn't clarify if the 9-year-olds were actually able to get an amateur license after passing the exam. It appears that the amateur radio regulations in Indonesia ban young people under 14 from holding an amateur license. Read the full story at http://sdppi.kominfo.go.id/info_view_c_27_p_3302.htm The entry level (Siaga) license in Indonesia permits the use of 144 MHz and 430 MHz bands with 10 watts output after passing a straight forward rules, regulations and operating type exam lasting just 20 minutes. The exam appears to be set to meet the required amateur radio standards defined in ITU Recommendation M.1544-1. This can be downloaded from https://www.itu.int/dms_pubrec/itu-r/rec/m/R-REC-M.1544-1-201509-I!!PDF-E.pdf This Entry Level exam is significantly below the level of the UK Foundation which requires passing a written exam of almost 3 times the duration in addition to a raft of practical assessments which must be successfully completed. There is a sample online 20 question exam (in Google English) available for the Indonesian Entry Level Amateur Radio license, you are allowed up to 20 minutes to complete the exam https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=id&u=https://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/story.php?title=nzq5mjywlzum&prev=search The country has 4 license classes and it appears that a Morse test is still required for the top 3 classes: Penegak - Advanced Penggalang - General Siaga - Novice Pemula - Entry Level The Exam Question Pools and Answers for the Indonesian Pemula/Siaga, Penggalang and Penegak level licenses are available online for easy memorizing, PDFs can be downloaded from http://amatirradio-indonesia.blogspot.co.uk/p/lisensi-amatir-radio.html Indonesian amateur radio license regulations http://www.orari-bali.org/library/PERMEN33-2009.pdf http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2018/march/two-9-year-olds-complete-indonesian-ham-radio-exam.htm
This is not exactly uncommon. Here there have been a few examples of 10 year olds that have been "given" the Swedish "Full licence" that at least in theory is supposed to be on the HAREC level (which is above the FCC Extra Class) For some reason, these occurences stopped when it recently became mandatory for independent witnesses to attend the exams.. 73/ Karl-Arne SM0AOM
Why not? If we can assume that there was nothing fraudulent here with the testing then all we have is an example of a couple exceptionally talented children passing a government issued exam.
My son, when 8 Y/O passed his Novice exam back in the day with the CW requirement. All it takes is some study.
No, it doesn't. It takes intelligence too. That cannot be obtained from study. I wonder that too. Here's something to consider. Imagine two people going in for a test, any test really but an Amateur radio test is a good example. One is 24 years old and the other 12 years old. The 24 year old gets the scores back and barely passes the Technician exam, and is so proud of having been licensed after months of studying hard. Then a 12 year old gets the scores back and has aced all three exams in one sitting, and leaves with an Amateur Extra license. The 24 year old might see this and will have to come to one of two conclusions. The first being that the child somehow cheated. Perhaps the examiners gave a score not earned, or the child merely memorize the test and not have any real understanding of the material, or whatever. The second conclusion is that the child is just plain more intelligent. If the testing was separated by time, such as someone now in their 60s remembers when they took a test 30 or 40 years ago and sees a child today taking a test on what is supposed to be the same material, then that adds another possibility. That the test got simpler in time. Well, the option that the child is simply more intelligent still applies. I believe that too many see stories like this, with 9 year old children passing an exam to get an Amateur radio license, as evidence of some cheating or the testing getting easier. There is that third option, that these kids are just really smart and motivated. If someone cannot accept this possibility then, well, draw your own conclusions. Here's one thing to consider about people that "just memorize the answers", memory is a measure of intelligence. Any test of intelligence will include some measure of ones ability to recall information. The question pool to go from nothing to Extra in one sitting is at least 1200 questions. Someone that can memorize that much information, and recall it with sufficient precision to pass all three tests, is a very intelligent person by most any definition of "intelligence".
Definition of intelligence (1) : the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations : reason;also : the skilled use of reason (2) : the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (such as tests) I'll take the scientific definition over yours. Memorizing 1,200 questions - as far as I'm concerned - is not intelligence. The onboard computer in your car does better than that, by using (really!) simple logic components. You turn right; and your right turn signal comes on. You hit something you weren't supposed to; and you airbag deploys. Tires low? Your dashboard will tell you. It's a conditioned response, not intelligence. Here's another thing to consider, rarely mentioned: most 12 (or 9, or 5) year olds don't have a care in the world and are 100 percent focused on the test. Most 24 year olds, however, have bills to pay, relationships to work on, and jobs they're doing their darnest best not to get fired from; and are constantly distracted by all of that at the test session - whether they realize it or not. The stress factor, between the two, is astronomical. I'm not surprised a 24 year old can't "ace" their test; but a 9 year old can. And when those "aces" turn 24 and end up in the same situation as that other 24 year old.... they may end up being the dumbest rocks in the yard. Apples and oranges, amigo. It really isn't as simple as you may think it is. No, I don't have the definitive answer either.
If you want to claim that memory is not intelligence then that's fine. What I've seen though is that intelligence is highly correlated with memory. Here's a recent study on this: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9191/9a983711a49b6a3ba4b7e215505b8bda820b.pdf There are studies, and so called "studies", that will claim forgetfulness is a sign of intelligence like this one: https://curiousmindmagazine.com/sci...ul-is-actually-a-sign-of-higher-intelligence/ What is important in this claim is that an intelligent mind will forget details not deemed important. Someone forgetful on mundane matters, like someone's phone number, does not mean they are any more or less intelligent than average. An intelligent person will still be able to recall later what they find important to recall. I'm claiming that human memory correlates to human intelligence. Certainly a tape recorder is not intelligent, it can only replay exactly what it was told. People with good memory have been shown to be able to process what they've been told, and THAT is intelligence. If a person is too stressed out to recall the material needed to pass a licensing exam then they probably should not get a license. If a person is too stressed out to do well on an intelligence test then does that not in fact show reduced intelligence regardless of the reason? Assuming what you say is true, that stress has an effect on a person's ability to recall relevant information then that has effectively lowered their intelligence. Seems to me that no matter how you slice it a passing score on a written exam should be sufficient to show a person is capable of operating a radio safely. Seems to me that it is that simple. Someone able to pass a written test is sufficient to show a person has learned the material required to get a license. We've been doing these written tests for a very long time now, if the test fails to show that a person is able to apply the material tested for then this would show in poor behavior and unsafe operation of the radio. These tests don't call for perfect recall on the material, they require only 3 out of 4 correct. My guess is that the licensed person will learn what they missed "on the job", the stress of the test means they missed a few questions they would not otherwise, etc. We have the means to address those that pass the tests and still perform badly, no test will be perfect. Some will "fail the test" and remove themselves from the airwaves, and they will be remembered in the Darwin Awards. Those removed from the air by failing the test in other ways will be remembered in FCC records as revoked licenses. In that paper I linked to above they show a memory recall to intelligence correlation of r=0.80, give or take a few hundreths. That's a very high correlation that's only seen in things like genes determining eye color. I'm sure that the FCC knows this and that is why they allow the question pool to be published. Maybe they don't know this on the same level as shown in that study on intelligence vs. memory, but they know that there is no harm in releasing the question pool. Someone that can memorize and recall a question pool and NOT learn from it is a rarity. We can't just toss out the testing system we have because of a few anomalies out there, and we can't arbitrarily deny licenses to people that have passed the test. If you want to make the claim that someone so young cannot comprehend the material on the test then I'd like to see how you came to that conclusion. Here's what I've seen, and that study I linked to above supports, is that memory recall to such detail and precision as to pass an Amateur radio test will correlate highly with being able to apply the material generally. This is backed up by the few people that pass the test and later demonstrate unsafe and rude behavior with a radio. The few that pass without understanding the material at the time will learn the material later or face punishment for breaking the rules, either by government enforcers or the rules of physics. The same goes for people that understood the material at the time but failed to understand and apply it later, there's more to enforcing the rules than the written tests.
I know this older fellow all my life,and has a hell of a memory for people and places,but is not the brightest bulb,and only made it to the sixth gtade. So i would so memorizing is maybe more a habitual thing than maybe intelligence. Maybe?
The claim is that memory of complex information is nearly indistinguishable from intelligence. Remembering names and places is not complex information. This correlation between memory and intelligence is so high that the government is using tests based on pools of publicly available questions and answers to determine if one is able to interpret and apply the information being tested upon. They've been doing this for a very long time with very few incidents of the testing failing to filter out those that should not have a license. If someone wants to claim that these 9 year old children, or other children like them, merely memorized the question pool to pass the tests, but failed to have an understanding of the material, is making a very bold claim. With every correlation there will be outliers. Outliers don't mean the trend is not there, only not perfect. I can say that men tend to be taller than women but providing a singular woman taller than a singular man does not disprove this. I back up the claim that memory correlates to intelligence with a link to a scientific paper I found with a simple Google search. There are many other papers just like it and so it appears that in the scientific community there is little dispute of this. The only refutation, that I have seen, of this correlation between memory and intelligence is the claim that sometimes intelligent people will be forgetful of mundane details. This is even a trope by which many characters in popular culture have portrayed. Anyone remember the Disney film "The Absent Minded Professor"? Well, maybe not, because that's a bit of mundane trivia that intelligent people would discard as unhelpful information.
