Secondary to the hierarchy itself or the claim about g floors which Darmani has already commented on: the tests you refer to for various levels don’t seem like reliable measures of the claims you’re making. As one example, I definitely understand pointers (I’ve written a memory management subsystem in C for a widely-used open source project) but I can’t make heads or tails of your pointer puzzle. I have similar quibbles for 4, 7, and 8.
Compound interest is a thing in the world people might not know about despite knowing arithmetic. It’s also underspecified (presumably compounds annually?) and it’s not clear how close your estimate has to be to “pass”.
Just in general, while actual pass/fail tests like that may be indicative, I find them too easily confounded by other factors to be strong solo evidence of whether somebody has a given piece of knowledge or ability. “Can write code in a mainstream language” is obviously a lot fuzzier, but for examples like this post I think that’s a pro, not a con.
The levels are about potential, not ability. The tests are not pass/fail (except for #8). They are pass/null tests. Ability implies potential. Lack of ability does not imply lack of potential. (Except nominally in the Bayesian sense.)
Secondary to the hierarchy itself or the claim about g floors which Darmani has already commented on: the tests you refer to for various levels don’t seem like reliable measures of the claims you’re making. As one example, I definitely understand pointers (I’ve written a memory management subsystem in C for a widely-used open source project) but I can’t make heads or tails of your pointer puzzle. I have similar quibbles for 4, 7, and 8.
The pointer puzzle was unfair. I have removed it. What quibble do you have with #4?
Compound interest is a thing in the world people might not know about despite knowing arithmetic. It’s also underspecified (presumably compounds annually?) and it’s not clear how close your estimate has to be to “pass”.
Just in general, while actual pass/fail tests like that may be indicative, I find them too easily confounded by other factors to be strong solo evidence of whether somebody has a given piece of knowledge or ability. “Can write code in a mainstream language” is obviously a lot fuzzier, but for examples like this post I think that’s a pro, not a con.
The levels are about potential, not ability. The tests are not pass/fail (except for #8). They are pass/null tests. Ability implies potential. Lack of ability does not imply lack of potential. (Except nominally in the Bayesian sense.)