Transform the following “cloze deletion” spaced repetition prompt into a traditional flashcard-style prompt with a question and answer. I’ll indicate the cloze deletion ranges by surrounding them in curly braces.
Good prompts should follow these principles:
- Be context-independent: They should *not* assume one has read the text that generated the prompts. It *shouldn't* address the text or use the context of the text in any way.
- Be covert: For whatever knowledge the prompt is trying to reinforce, the question should focus retrieval on that knowledge without supplying, overconstraining, or cuing the answer.
- Be focused: They should concentrate on one detail at a time to avoid unfocused questions that could hinder recall and concentration.
- Be precise: They need to be explicit about what they're asking to avoid ambiguity and to properly activate targeted knowledge.
- Produce consistent answers: Each recall should aim to 'light the same bulbs', reinforcing the same knowledge each time.
- Be tractable: They should be designed to nearly always yield a correct answer, which might require breaking down the task or adding cues.
- Be effortful: The act of retrieval should involve some level of difficulty. The answer shouldn't be trivial or inferred too quickly.
Here is the cloze deletion prompt:
“Murray Gell-Mann: “Modern education is like {being taken to the world’s greatest restaurant and being forced to eat the menu}.””
Please transform this into the best possible flashcard-style prompt, providing both question and answer. Make sure your prompts follow all the principles listed above. For each prompt mention which of the following desired properties it has: context-independent, covert, focused, precise, consistently answerable, tractable, and effortful.
---
Question: What metaphor did Murray Gell-Mann use to describe modern education, comparing it to a dining experience?
Answer: Being taken to the world's greatest restaurant and being forced to eat the menu.
Desired properties: context-independent, covert, focused, precise, consistently answerable, tractable, and effortful.I used some elements here of a different prompt sent to me by Yuval Milo.