Professor Les Perelman at MIT created a “babel generator” with his students that can produce elegant essays that are gibberish.
Fred Klonsky offers examples here, as well as the link to the babel generator.
Try your luck at writing an essay that will fool the computer. It isn’t hard.
A reader recently submitted one of Shakespeare’s sonnets to the grading machine, and it got a low score. Or so he claimed.
Most PARCC exams will be computer-scored.
Here is an essay that scored a 6, which is very high-performing:
ScoreItNow!
Analyze an Issue Topic: In most professions and academic fields, imagination is more important than knowledge.
Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim.
In developing and supporting your position, be sure to address the most compelling reasons and/or examples that could be used to challenge your position
Your Answer:
Careers with corroboration has not, and in all likelihood never will be compassionate, gratuitous, and disciplinary. Mankind will always proclaim noesis; many for a trope but a few on executioner. a quantity of vocation lies in the study of reality as well as the area of semantics. Why is imaginativeness so pulverous to happenstance? The reply to this query is that knowledge is vehemently and boisterously contemporary. Benevolence, usually by confrontation, might enthrall career. If nearly all of the sanctions assure a concession of the swiftly or tantalizingly enthusiastic rejoinder, the consummate cognition can be more multifariously provoked. Additionally, an orbital is not the only thing simulation reacts; it also spins at knowledge. Our personal countenance on the accusation we diagnose can scrupulously be a circumspection. Be that as it may, knowing that inducement can be the oration, most of the avocations to my inspection belie toxic agreements. In my philosophy class, all of the appendages by our personal altruist of the inquiry we expedite allocate circumscriptions which advocate with accessions but reprove boundary that should potently be a aggregation and abandon performances for convulsions. Imagination which is contemptibly in how much we adhere assimilates melange of our personal advance to the administration we adjure as well. a quarrel will erroneously be a lamentation on the authentication, not an escapade. In my experience, none of the salvers by our personal amplification at the affirmation we authorize masticate consideration that journeys but incline. an abundance of vision changes plethora for careers. As I have learned in my literature class, humanity will always foretell calling. Even though the brain counteracts a gamma ray to veracity, the same pendulum may catalyze two different neutrinoes with the promptly erroneous contentment. Although the same neuron may receive two different brains, radiation processes orbitals of speculations on an appetite. The plasma is not the only thing a gamma ray oscillates; it also transmits neutrinoes for torpor at the authorization by imaginativeness. The assassination of imagination changes a plethora of calling. The less extraneous respondents articulate precincts, the more an explanation amplifies those in question. Irreverence, normally on the propagandist, exhibits career. As a result of culminating, all of the circumstances respond equally with careers. Also, vocation to accumulations will always be an experience of humankind. In my theory of knowledge class, some of the postulates of my aborigine sublimate embroideries by the search for semiotics. Still yet, armed with the knowledge that privation can be a conveyance or attests, many of the allocations for my exile ascertain recrudescence and agree. In my philosophy class, almost all of the celebrations at our personal demonstration by the avocation we induce forsake amygdalas which attain the amygdala with the civilization on excess that tantalizes accumulations or implore tyroes. Imagination which pledges subjugation may rivetingly be provocation or is faltering but not speculating of my appendage also. a situational augur feigns the people involved, not resourcefulness. Our personal congregation to the affront we stipulate should be the accession. The sedulously despicable imagination changes a quantity of noesis. The squalidly but drowsily ashen masochism, usually with the search for literature, circumscribes knowledge. Noesis which will effectively be an axiom changes a frugal knowledge. Additionally, while the neuron for respondum spins, the same brain may process two different orbitals at inducement. In my reality class, none of the accusations on my agriculturalist implore mournfully but slightly penal advocates but sublimate multitude. Still yet, armed with the knowledge that validation is pedantic, substantiated, and inflexible, all of the queries by our personal respondent with the assimilationist we edify commandeer the people involved of the countenance. In my experience, most of the tropes to our personal report for the casuistry we recount report. The explanation on career can virtually be irreverence that howls and annotates performances which accede at our personal scrutinization to the apprentice we command too. an authentication may be scrupulousness, not ligature by orators. Our personal organism with the altruist we embolden laments state-of-affairs that is prototypical yet somehow fecund. By the fact that all of the probes are bemoaned for imagination, disrupting interlopers culminate to the same extent on cognition. Knowledge has not, and undoubtedly never will be scrupulous yet somehow agreed. However, armed with the knowledge that an amanuensis with exposures advances, all of the injunctions for my circumscription ruminate. By the fact that disparaging reprovers are incensed at knowledge, most of the circumscriptions protrude too by cognition. Vision will always be a part of human society. Noesis is the most precarious agriculturalist of human life. As I have learned in my semantics class, human society will always enlightenment career. Interference emits simulation to transmit plasmas. Despite the fact that the same pendulum may counteract two different gamma rays to diagnoses, the neuron receives interference. Gravity of dissemination for the assassin is not the only thing a neutrino inverts; it also processes pendulums at humanity to noesis. The sooner accumulations undertake salvers, the sooner an adjuration diverges. As a result of accounting, most of the concurrences which rationalize the abominable augur allude too by imagination. Calling has not, and undoubtedly never will be aggravating in the way we encounter mortification but delineate the reprimand that should be inclination. Nonetheless, armed with the knowledge that the analysis augurs stealth with propagandists, almost all of the utterances on my authorization journey. Since sanctions are performed at knowledge, a quantity of vocation can be more gaudily inspected. Knowledge will always be a part of society. Vocation is the most presumptuously perilous assassination of mankind.
LOL! Case closed.
I, in fact, read the whole thing. I think you can easily make such a text by putting some Spanish or Hungarian text into google translate.
Agree. Great example.
To be or not to be: that is the question:
Believe nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or that pain arms against the sea,
And by opposing end them? To die of sleep;
Not more; and a sleep to say in the end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
This body is heir to, ’tis a consummation
We honestly have to wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: maybe dream: Yes, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams are coming
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
You should give us pause: there’s the respect
This makes it strikes such a long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man insolence,
The pangs of despised love, the law delay
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he would make his farewell
With a bare bodkin? fardels who bear,
To grunt and sweat during fatigue life,
But it is the fear of something after death,
The undiscover’d country whose target
No traveler returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills is
As fly to others that you can not?
Thus conscience makes cowards of us all not;
And thus the native hue of resolution
There sicklied o’er the pale cast of thought,
And businesses large intestine and torque
In this connection, the power to turn short of breath,
And lose the name of action .– Soft Now!
The beautiful Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.
After putting Hamlet into google translate, having it translate it to Hungarian, and then having it translate back to English, I took a wellknown Hungarian translation (better than the original 🙂 ) and have google translate it to English. Here it is (I allow a little fun convo with Ophelia)
HAMLET
To be or not to be: that is the question.
Then Nemesbőd to the spirit, if tolerated
Adversity all Western and arrows;
Or if against a sea,
S weapons by opposing end them?
To die – elszunnyadni – nothing more;
And by a sleep well
The heart with grief, the original body,
Natural shocks:
Such a goal, as one shall óhajthat gracious.
To die – elszunnyadni – and alunni!
Maybe you dream about: it’s the rub;
Because what dreams were coming in death,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
This visszadöbbent. This consideration is
What is the misery so long enlivened:
For who would bear the scorn upon-csapásit,
Tyrant boszúját, proud man dölyfét,
Pangs of despised love, dust-deferred,
The insolence of office,
And all the kicks, which are unworthy
The abuse-tolerant merit:
If you could send at rest
With a bare bodkin? Who would like to wear this burden,
Sweating, groaning lived fáradalmin,
The dread after a death
Something – the Undiscovered,
No traveler returns which – not down
Lohasztja feel like, rather tolerate the
Who evil than unknowns
Toward hurry? Thus consciousness
Cowards of us all doing,
And the natural color of determination
The idea falls ill pale;
This is great skepticism by many,
Important Merényi turns out medriből
And lose the name of “complexity”. – But quietly!
The fair Ophelia. – Nice lady, you love it
Be all my sins.
Ophelia
Mr gracious to you, since you do not
I saw fönségedet?
HAMLET
Thank you for being undermined; well, well, well.
Ophelia
Sir, some of the memories stayed here,
I have long wish to return,
Please accept it.
HAMLET
No no. No one can ever gave.
Ophelia
my lord, because you know that a given;
And add scent sweet words:
Take back because illatjok dried up;
Precious heart poor to the rich gift,
If the transmitter has no intention of old.
Here’s Mr. sublime.
HAMLET
If! if! honest?
Using what I know from having studied a great deal of applied linguistics, I can point out some of the computer’s shortcomings. The computer knows how to recognize correct syntax with complexity and perhaps organization. I think it can also identify erudite lexicon (vocabulary). What it fails to identify is meaning! Meaning is the most important aspect of writing. Without it what we have it elevated gibberish. It still sounds better than Sarah Palin.
Writing samples should only be scored by humans as meaning is the most important element. A computer cannot understand voice, irony and style, too name a few. There are too many subtle aspects of writing that are far beyond the capacity of programming a computer to distinguish.
Well, the last sentence is actually meaningful in some cases
“Vocation is the most presumptuously perilous assassination of mankind.”
…especially when the vocation is standardized testing
sorry, meant to post that after first comment above
Is not meaning the primary purpose of language usage?
So the computer can’t “grade” (sic) for meaning, the main purpose of using language, but only secondary and tertiary considerations.
Now that, using computer “grading” (sic), makes about as much sense as a cat and dog mating to produce a chicken.
Some people use language to obfuscate rather than illuminate.
They are not interested in meaning but the exact opposite.
For these folks, it is quite natural to focus on cosmetic aspects of writing — lipstick on the pig, as it were.
The latter would not consider meaning to be an important element of essays.
Good point, Retired Teacher. I think a computer writes Sarah Palin’s speeches.
The real problem is that meaning is not considered important by the test makers* and all the focus is on mechanics.
In that regard, it doesn’t matter if the grader is human or computer
Imagine what a computer –or even human — grader would do with an e e cummings poem if a student wrote it as an answer on an essay exam.
(Mess-ed are the test makers, for they will be called sons of b!^@hes)
Cross posted.
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Question-Can-You-Generate-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Diane-Ravitch_LUCK_Standardized-Tests_Students-160407-102.html#comment591451
I tried Babel with three words: teachers, colleges, and certification. Here is the essay it generated:
Certification with the assassination has not, and doubtlessly never will be debauched but not antagonistic. Humankind will always disparage certification; whether by an avocation or to lassitude. Fascination for instructor lies in the area of theory of knowledge but also the study of philosophy. Instead of inspecting propagandists, teacher constitutes both a conjectured admonishment and an indubitable scrutinization.
Certification, normally at capstone, enlightenments recount. Due to the fact that some of the tyroes of adherents are abandoned for instructor, a dearth of college can be more awkwardly commissioned. Furthermore, according to professor of semantics Eli Whitney, human life will always reprimand teacher. Our personal interloper to the congregation we bemoan will be boundary. In any case, armed with the knowledge that an inspection may fundamentally be a reprover with dislocation, many of the respondents of our personal orator by the pledge we pommel incarcerate quarrels. In my semiotics class, nearly all of the organisms on my ligation admire those in question and corroborate the avocation of the amygdala. a pusillanimous enfranchisement dislocates advancements and is admonished, contentious, and pagan by my inquiry to the same extent. The thermostat culminates, not delineation. Our personal insinuation with the prison we augment surprises the assassination at a amanuensis. By avowing, obvious queries shriek also for certification.
As I have learned in my philosophy class, enfranchisement is the most fundamental agriculturalist of mankind. Although information oscillates, the same neutrino may receive two different plasmas to allegations. The orbital at protrusion produces neurons on reiteration to receive gravity. Interference is not the only thing a gamma ray spins; it also reproduces by certification. Decency with colleges changes lassitude to teachers. Because casuistries which acquiesce are rationalized of certification, colleges which should be an atelier or amplifies the appallingly articulated disruption can be more tremendously contradicted.
Buccaneer, often for responses, sublimates college. As a result of culminating, an abundance of teachers can be more fiercely magnetized. Additionally, although the same gamma ray may emit two different orbitals, information catalyzes a gamma ray. In my experience, most of the assassins with my epigraph cavort. Articulation will, still yet, be temporarily ascendant. In my experience, none of the affirmations at my escapade encompass the people in question. Ever since, an accusation that can timidly be the injunction on the countenance for all of the drones is precipitously but discrepantly gaudy by our personal inquisition to the advance we expedite. Subjugation circumscribes altruists, not an accumulation. In my theory of knowledge class, some of the assimilationists on our personal quip of the probe we belittle explain tyroes. The more demarcations at the realm of reality proliferate the soporific glutton that may be the pledge, the more juggernauts placate appreciation.
Teacher has not, and undoubtedly never will be toxic in the way we embark or surround the dictates involved. Still yet, armed with the knowledge that cornucopia for quibble protrudes, many of the reprimands with our personal precinct at the reprimand we enjoin report. From choreographing egregiously and antagonistically gratuitous circumspections, the people in question which decry appetites seethe equally of instructor. Certification by the sanction will always be a part of human life. Certification is raucously abominable by its nearly all of the sanctions to the domain.
How do we get a score to our Babel Essay? I tried it but didn’t see a score.
So Babel is definitely “career ready”. Advertising, politics, educational journalism- you pick.
SomeDAM Poet~ Illuminate vs. obfuscate?
Might I digress…PDiddy & Dr?Perry plan to call their new Harlem charter teachers, ILLUMINATORS. 👎🏾👀
WOULD OBFUSCATORS be a better term? Especially, given their brilliant education skills & ethics.
Just Food4Thought!
Essay sounds like something Sara Palin may have written in college.
You’re saying that back then she could actually put together a complete sentence? 🙂
In fairness to the computer-generated essay, in evaluating it you really have to dig beneath the surface. I thought it had kind of a Zen sensibility; what, after all, is the sound of “imaginativeness so pulverous to happenstance”? Truly, something for all of us to ponder.
🙂
Lenny, the more I think about it, the Gibberish Generator could be used to create David Coleman’s Close Reading materials. No prior knowledge needed, and interpretation would require HIGHER LEVEL THINKING SKILLS. Actually, being HIGH or HIGHER while reading those may help. Education Deform is full of insanity.
H.A.
Yes, they could hand out joints to students at the door on standardized test day.
It might have helped with last year’s sixth grade reading sample on the NY State PARCC test, which may well have been generated with Babel.
“As a result, the location of the [ephemeral indoor nimbus] cloud is an important aspect, as it is the setting for his creation and part of the artwork. In his favorite piece, Nimbus D’Aspremont, the architecture of the D’Aspremont-Lynden Castle in Rekem, Belgium, plays a significant role in the feel of the picture. “The contrast between the original castle and its former use as a military hospital and mental institution is still visible,” he writes. “You could say the spaces function as a plinth for the work.””
Poet, yes, that is definitely Babel. The end times can’t be far away when kids are expected to read such dreck.
My God, Poet! Teachers should collect these kinds of examples in one place (also in math). The collection would be a powerful weapon.
Who needs computers to grade essays when you have such objective criteria as these from NYSED for the Grade 8 Common Core essays:
LEVEL 4
clearly introduce a topic in a
manner that is compelling and
follows logically from the task and
purpose
demonstrate insightful analysis of
the text(s)
develop the topic with relevant,
well-chosen facts, definitions,
concrete details, quotations, or other
information and examples from the
text(s)
sustain the use of varied, relevant
evidence
exhibit clear organization, with the
skillful use of appropriate and varied
transitions to create a unified whole
and enhance meaning
establish and maintain a formal
style, using grade-appropriate,
stylistically sophisticated language
and domain-specific vocabulary with
a notable sense of voice
provide a concluding statement or
section that is compelling and follows
clearly from the topic and information
presented
LEVEL 3
clearly introduce a topic in a
manner that follows from the task
and purpose
demonstrate grade-appropriate
analysis of the text(s)
develop the topic with relevant
facts, definitions, details,
quotations, or other information and
examples from the text(s)
sustain the use of relevant
evidence, with some lack of variety
exhibit clear organization, with
the use of appropriate transitions to
create a unified whole
establish and maintain a formal
style using precise language and
domain-specific vocabulary
provide a concluding statement
or section that follows from the
topic and information presented