Commonly misused word nitpicking :)

[altivo]

Acquired from dakhun and aerofox:

Advanced
You scored 93% Beginner, 93% Intermediate, 100% Advanced, and 66% Expert!
You have an extremly good understanding of beginner, intermediate, and advanced level commonly confused English words, getting at least 75% of each of these three levels's questions correct. This is an exceptional score. Remember, these are commonly confused English words, which means most people don't use them properly. You got an extremely respectable score.

Thank you so much for taking my test. I hope you enjoyed it!

For answers to the Beginner section only (the first ten questions), visit my blog: http://shortredhead78.blogspot.com/. I will post the answers to the other questions as soon as possible.



Hey! If you liked my test, send the link to your friends.

The Commonly Confused Words Test
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=14457200288064322170

Test statistics:

* Compared to users who took the test and are and in your age group:
o 100% had lower Beginner scores.
o 100% had lower Intermediate scores.
o 100% had lower Advanced scores.
o 100% had lower Expert scores.
* With respect to Beginner, users aged 55 to 59 scored highest.
* With respect to Intermediate, users aged 55 to 59 scored highest.
* With respect to Advanced, users aged 55 to 59 scored highest.
* With respect to Expert, users aged 55 to 59 scored highest.

EDIT: An afterthought. I would dearly love to see George W. Bush take this test and publish his scores (honestly). Oh, and note that the test author, in the score report above, uses "levels's" as the genetive or possessive form of "levels", which is not correct. ;)

Comments

[doco.livejournal.com]

English Genius
You scored 93% Beginner, 86% Intermediate, 87% Advanced, and 77% Expert!

I must admit, I don't feel like a genius.. :P I'm little surprised that the age group 55 to 59 scores highest, although I think the "users in your age group" thing may be *slightly* broken (as it seems to get 100% with everybody).

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Excellent scores. But then, your English is always good.

I had the same thoughts about the scoring. I'm not surprised that the highest scores in all categories might fall in that age group, though. At least in the US, schools taught these things much more rigorously when I was in elementary school than they do today. Now correcting grammar or word usage is considered bad for the students' "self esteem" so of course they end up believing that it doesn't matter at all.

These changes actually started between the time I was in third grade and when my brother (20 months younger) got to third grade. He is a corporate vice-president now and earns at least ten times my income, but he still can't spell plain English. (And no, he doesn't have learning disabilities or anything like that. He just missed the learning at a critical time in life.)

[drelonek.livejournal.com]

Advanced
You scored 93% Beginner, 86% Intermediate, 93% Advanced, and 44% Expert!
You have an extremly good understanding of beginner, intermediate, and advanced level commonly confused English words, getting at least 75% of each of these three levels's questions correct. This is an exceptional score. Remember, these are commonly confused English words, which means most people don't use them properly. You got an extremely respectable score.

Blah.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Not blah.

Of course I'd expect good scores considering your line of work and the quality of your usual writing here. You did very well indeed. It's an extremely difficult quiz.

[drelonek.livejournal.com]

My quality of writing isn't all that great. :P

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Compared to much of what I see on LJ, you are well above average. Few of us are Ernest Hemingway, of course, but I rarely see spelling or grammar errors in your posts. Bad spelling is endemic to LJ, mostly.

My scoer

[ruwhei.livejournal.com]

You scored 100% Beginner, 93% Intermediate, 100% Advanced, and 66% Expert!

This leads me to believe we made the same mistakes, Tivo...

Re: My scoer

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Quite possibly, if they were mistakes at all. :) Since I almost never find a grammatical slip in your writing, we must agree about this stuff.

On the other hand, I'm suspicious of the scoring in this test. Fooling around with it, some folks on IRC got scores that just couldn't be right. Like zero on several parts. And if each part has ten questions, even though some had two words in them to get right, so you might get half credit, how do you come up with scores like 93% or 66%? Seems to me it should all be multiples of 5%

Worse yet, everyone gets told that they scored better than 100% of the people in their age group who have taken the test. This can't be right. It says that even when you get low scores.

Still, it does ask the right questions. It just doesn't score them properly I'm afraid.