Rude meme

[altivo]

From numerous people. At least I choose the less rude wording of the results:

I am smarter than 96.99% of the rest of the world.
Find out how smart you are.

Since I got all 25 answers right, I presume this means that approximately 3% of all people who take the test get them all right. Note that it says "smarter" rather than that I have a higher IQ. Many of these questions depend on the ability to quickly recall the relationship between metric measurements and English, or other such factoids. A reference librarian should be expected to score at the high end of such a test.

[Edit: As of 14:05 the next day, the percentile ranking for a perfect score has risen to 99.78. I sort of wondered if discussion of the questions would raise the number of people getting higher scores, but apparently not, or at least not yet.]

Comments

[marzolan.livejournal.com]

Ooo... a smart person.

Want to do my physics homework?

Kidding of course, but it would be nice if it were done.

[dongstyle-ltd.livejournal.com]

It seems it also has a knowledge bias towards people living in the US.

As an Australian resident, I'm not expected to make imperial/metric conversions (I only know them in detail because I like numbers) nor know the political geography of America (however I did know that the common language in Brazil was portuguese).

I think it'd be interesting to construct a series of these with a greater range of questions to test for such. I can also think of a few people I know who would be able to do so ;)

[lobowolf.livejournal.com]

I missed one (they didn't say which one). I noticed there were a lot of questions designed to screw you up if you hurried. All in all, I'm not going to put much stock in it :D

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I'm probably too rusty in physics for you to accept my work. Anyway, that would defeat the purpose wouldn't it?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, there was a definite US bias. Though I should point out that most US residents are pretty ignorant of metric measures and will have problems with those questions too, including the one about a pound of dimes vs. a kilo of dimes. I would like to see a distribution/frequency chart of scores. I'd also like to see that for each question. ;p

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I'm betting that more people miss the "easy" questions, like the one about how many cows does a farmer have left alive if all but 8 died, than the ones that you actually have to think about, like the metric vs. English measurement ones. Also, probably a lot of folks miss the affect vs. effect question.

[kistaro]

I missed one; still, not a bad score. I'm not sure whether I missed the question on months with 30 days (4?) or the qusetion on who wasn't part of the Rat Pack (Al Capone?), but I think it was probably one of those. The Rat Pack one was mostly a guess, given that I have no idea who or what the Rat Pack was, but Al seemed sort of like the odd-one-out there.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

You got both of those right.

[linnaeus.livejournal.com]

I got 25/25, and it ranked me as smarter than 98.33%, which implies that you just got smarter in the time since you took the quiz without even realizing it. ;)

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

*raids your fridge while you're taking the test*

Intelligence has far less practical application than you'd think :D

[miktar.livejournal.com]

Wahey - I got none right. ^^;

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

That's odd, because I got 25/25 and it only ranked me as smarter than 97.24%. Me thinks the quiz results are BS.

[soanos.livejournal.com]

Well, what about us finns? :P

DEfinite US bias. I wonder how people would fare with a quiz with a finnish bias :)

Anyway, interesting to see why themakers of these quizzes need to compare their "intelligence" and try to make themselves feel better because thay are smarter than the others. I bet the maker of that quiz only picked the questions he knew the answers to so he could get the first 100%... :)

But my, you are a smart horsie. I am just a dumb zebra from Finland :P

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Nope, you aren't dumb. You speak English much too well for that (or at least, write it much too well.) XD

[altivo.livejournal.com]

No, the quiz results aren't BS, they just are valid only for the quiz itself.

The percentile should in fact vary up and down as more and more people take the thing. In theory, it will stabilize once the sample gets large enough. From what different people have said overnight, the percentile value of a perfect score is still climbing, and is now well over the 98th.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

*SNAP*

Be sure and watch out for the mouse trap in there...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

By not taking it?

[miktar.livejournal.com]

No, I literally got them all wrong. People always overestimate me. ^^;

[miktar.livejournal.com]

Then again, I get caught by trick questions, and I don't know inches at all. ^^;

[miktar.livejournal.com]

I used Google this time for everything but the maths (that'd be too much like cheating), and I still have trouble with inches, miles and all that stuff which I refused to use Google to solve.

Your Number Correct: 16/25
Average Number Correct: 18.78/25
Percentile: 22.77%

Kinda proves I never got me an edumacation. Ah well.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I had a suspicion that this was a fairly new test and the percentiles would shift farther as more people took it. ;p There were enough "trick" questions in that to make sure that getting all of them right would take some luck I think.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Nah, I think it proves that the test has a heavy US bias. Questions that are worded trickily and also depend on knowledge of US geography or US-centric units of measure are essentially irrelevant or unfair to folks who live somewhere else.

As I've said, though, US schools don't teach geography any more and they do little more than touch on metric measures in passing. I expect that Americans under the age of 30 will not do well on this test either.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Inches? Isn't that one of those cheesy gay magazines? (Actually, it is. Or was at least. I wonder if the European edition was called Centimeters?)

[miktar.livejournal.com]

No idea - I never read gay magazines.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Read? Who said anything about reading? ;p

[miktar.livejournal.com]

Insert: Stare at, peruse, consider or consume. Whatever is applicable. In fact, I tend to walk a wide circle /around/ the gay literature shelf at the book stores.

[delphinelicorne.livejournal.com]

Hmm, the question are really really for US culture. There are several question that I didn't even know what they were talking about, like US history or geography. Got 20 questions right.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

I wonder how people would fare with a quiz with a finnish bias

Now that would be just awesome. It could involve counting recently dead pop artists.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That may be a bit extreme. While there is certainly trash, there is some excellent stuff as well.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, like so many of these quiz things, it is US centered and also done from a very young perspective. People over 30 will tend to do much better on this quiz than the teens and twenties in the US I suspect.

[miktar.livejournal.com]

I realize that - I don't avoid it because I'm unaware of what is there. I avoid it because certain parts of me disagree with it. It, being a 'special shelf exclusivly for gays'. I don't see the 'Heterosexual Section' shelf, if you catch my drift.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Heh. The 'heterosexual' section is usually labeled "Romance" but it also creeps into "Science Fiction" far too much.

I understand what you mean. Actually, in many bookstores here, the gay literature shelves have all but disappeared. The reason is that many of the authors who appeared there ten years ago are now in the mainstream, like Felice Picano for instance.

I have in the past preferred to go to a specialty bookstore that features gay and lesbian writers, such as Unabridged Books in Chicago. Now that I don't live in Chicago and it's way too far to go just for books, I usually order from Amazon. ;p

[miktar.livejournal.com]

*nods* I guess it also helps (or hinders, depending) that I'm not at all interested in gay literature, it holds as much appeal to me as reading about the stockmarket. Go figure.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh. The way I feel about gaming. OK. ;p

[miktar.livejournal.com]

From what I gather, pretty much.

[songcoyote.livejournal.com]

Heh... the cultural bias was painfully apparent to me, and I have always lived in the US :)

I got 'em all right, and my percentile at test time was 99.21, so I think you're right about the number eventually settling down.

Not a "useful" test, I think, but a briefly amusing one :)

Light and laughter,
SongCoyote

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yep, not a useful test. It's been interesting watching the percentile float up and down, but I'm not surprised that a perfect score continues to drift upwards. That's unfortunate.

The trick questions were clever, but the choice of subject matter on which to build them was painfully parochial.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Just write the quiz in Finnish. I guarantee that over 99% of us will probably flunk. ;p

[marzolan.livejournal.com]

Not really. it's a labreport, and it's stupid. I basically retype the instructions and toss my data in. Not difficult, just a pain in the ass

[heavens-steed.livejournal.com]

I only got 21 out of 25 correct...

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

*Howl yowls dancing about with a mouse trap on his whiskers*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

See? I warned you. *takes it off* There.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That appears to be about the norm: missing 3 or 4.