I don't think you are seeing the forrest for the trees. He is trying to explain the problem in an abstracted and condensed form. He is not suggesting that the combustion example is literally the question you get.

Although the GRE tests e.g. so important in the US, are almost literally of this kind. It requires massive memorization to score well on. I know because I had to take the damn thing to get into a US university.

> No test would ever ask that question about combustion. Even not knowing a word wasn't penalized - if the student could convey the idea with a picture or slang or whatever, that would be fine too.

The example is not meant to be taken this literally. Rather it is that the type of explanation you are expected to give is often very narrowly defined.

I have plenty of experience with this. I remember in my algorithm class. I helped a lot of students who struggled with understanding algorithms. At the exam several of them got much better score than me despite me knowing I had far better grasp of the concepts. The difference is that I used my own words to explain concepts, while students who got top score basically regurgitated the teacher.

I have helped high school students with math problems. I tried showing them different ways to solve the same problem to get them to understand how to think about a problem. However they were terrified of learning alternative ways of doing it. They insisted I teach them to solve the problem EXACTLY as their teacher had. Step by step entirely mechanically. That is what the school system encourages: regurgitation. They may not be asked to say individual words like "combustion" but the get accustomed to solving problems in a very standardised mechanical fashion.

> Whenever I had the freedom to, I'd make my tests open-book or bring-your-own-notes. I'd also give them any formulas they'd need. Rote memorization wasn't going to help them.

In many ways that may be counter productive. E.g. in my physics class I memorized very few equations. Instead I learned to understand them and derive them myself. During test I could derive any equation I needed. If I had been allowed to bring the book, I could have simply looked up the equation. No need to understand it. No need to be able to derive it yourself.

Hence I don't think that really solved any problem. That is like using Google as a substitute for real understanding.

And really the problem runs far deeper than this. The problem is that many of the school books themselves don't actually teach any understanding.

Chemistry books are a good example of this. They just spit out facts starting from the atom and building it up. A few years ago I came across a chemistry book that really opened my eyes on how to approach the material. It starts with chemical reactions, and add theory to help you understand and predict things about these reactions.

They add one little piece of theory for each problem. As you hit on new problems to explain a chemical reaction, they add another piece of theory. Or rather they refine the theory. Rather than an incremental presentation of atom theory it is an iterative explanation. They begin with very simple models of chemical reactions which does not involved atoms at all.

You end up with modern atomic theory towards the end of the book as that is needed to grasp more complex reactions or details.

The important part of this approach is that it teaches scientific thinking. It teaches how to think about chemistry. It teaches that science is about building models and using those for making good predictions.

Science as taught today turns it all on its head. It gives you the answer before you even heard the question in a sense. You are explained atom theory without a clear sense of why it is needed.

In a sense the teaching method is no different than religious instruction. An authority tells you facts you must believe in, but you are given no rational reason for why you should believe these things.

Why does any of this matter? Because we live in a world full of "fake news" and pseudo science, and people cannot tell the difference because they have only been taught to listen to authorities. They have not been taught why this explanation makes MORE sense than an alternative explanation.