How good is your handle on science?

[huw-l]

This online quiz https://www2.oakland.edu/secure/sbquiz/

was set up as part of a study to look at misconceptions about common bits of scientific knowledge. 47 basic questions. It's surprisingly hard. I had to think quite carefully about some of the questions.

To my eternal shame as a qualified biologist I got a couple of the biology questions wrong :(
And my geology knowledge sucks.

[vbloke]

I got two wrong
35: A baseball hit with the same force will travel farther on a humid day as opposed to a dry day.
and
39: It is unlikely that Chicago could experience a major earthquake in the next 500 years.

*pats self on back*

[tkingdoll]

Ha ha! I suck. I got half right. But then I've had precisely zero science education, so actually that's not bad.

[Araneus]

83%. I got the baseball one wrong as well (assuming that the air density had increased due to the water, rather than displacing heavier molecules).

Some of the others I just misunderstood what they were asking, either missing the fact that they were trick questions (the bulb with a battery and only one wire) or assuming that they were when they weren't (igneous rocks getting transformed into sedimentary, I assumed that everything would get transformed into a "metamorphic" rock only).

[Admin]

Ha ha! I suck. I got half right. But then I've had precisely zero science education, so actually that's not bad.

;D;D;D

Well I got 41/47 - 87%

I made a couple of daft mistakes (bubbles in boiling water are mostly air ::) - I know that's not true so why did I pick it? :ponder:) and I think that a couple of questions are wrong or at least badly worded.

I mean, the sun is never directly overhead in the USA? - it bloody well is if you live in Hawaii. If they meant continental USA they should have said so.

Magma that appears at volcanoes does originate in the mantle - there are huge convection cells in the Earth's core which bring it up (they work much like treacle boiling but on a much slower time scale).

Still, not as bad as I thought I'd done before seeing the results.

[Mashuna]

Unfortunately the link now appears to be dead. I'm sure I'd have got every single question right though. Eventually, anyway.

[Cuddles]

Yeah, link is dead. Much as I'd like everyone to assume I would have had full marks, from what John says I'm fairly sure I'd have made the same mistakes as him. I'm a sucker for being far too picky over badly worded questions, as those who have read my posts about IQ tests might have guessed.

[Admin]

The link has /secure/ in it. Perhaps it was meant to be hidden for use only by authorised users.

[Araneus]

Secure just means it was encrypted (HTTPS), there was no authentication or anything. It is possible however that they did not expect the quiz to be taken by outside users (it was certainly very US-centric) and perhaps the sudden influx of pedantic Brits motivated them to remove it.

Alternatively, it may just have come to the end of its allocated time period.

[CatWoman]

Oh that's a shame - I was just about to have a go ::)

[Admin]

Oh that's a shame - I was just about to have a go ::)

I've copied them all. Would you like me to put them up just for you? ;) :cheesy: ;D

[CatWoman]

Err, is that the dinner bell I hear ??? ;D

[Admin]

Err, is that the dinner bell I hear ??? ;D

Question 1: Correct.

What was Pavlov's dog thinking as it started salivating?


How did you answer the question before it was asked? ???

;D ;D ;D

[CatWoman]

;D :cheesy:


How did you answer the question before it was asked?

:ponder: Now that is a question I am really struggling with - I will have to go away and think about that :tongue:

[Corpse Cruncher]

If I get 1 right it would be a miracle. Science has never been my forte, but we will see.

[Matt]

Well the link appears to be working again with a modified set of questions.

I got the arrows on the food chain wrong because I felt the question was badly worded. I cerainly knew what they meant.

I got the question about the mirror wrong to my shame. After a long hard think and a bit of drawing I can see what they mean.

I was suprised to find how much water is in the Oceans (plus seas plus bays which they didn't mention)

I was also tripped up by the Magma Question.

Finally there was a question which I quote

"Phases of the moon are caused by the relative positions of the moon, Earth, and the sun. The sun lights the moon and it is always only half lit. Since the moon revolves around Earth, we see the moon from different angles and see fractions of the portion of the moon that is lit. The phase of the moon you see depends on how much of the sunlit side of the moon faces your position on Earth. According "

To which I replied true. This was appernetly incorrect, the explanation given.

"Earth has an average distance of about 150,000,000 kilometers from the sun. However, in the northern hemisphere, Earth is actually closer to the sun in December, although it is one of our coldest months. This is because the reason for the seasons does not have to do with how close Earth is to the sun at a given time, but instead on how concentrated or directly sunlight hits Earth’s surface. In June, the northern hemisphere of Earth is tilted towards the sun and the sunlight is more direct. According to the National Science Education Standards, students in grades 5-8 should understand that “Seasons result from variations in the amount of the sun’s energy hitting the surface, due to the tilt of the earth’s rotation on its axis and the length of the day"

Shurely Shome mishtake?

Anyway 39/44 - 88.6% actually given as 37/44 84% as I simply forgot to selct the correct answer after writing the correct explanation. D'Oh!

[Cuddles]

Yeah, question 41 has its answer mixed up with 43. I've sent them an e-mail about it. Give yourself an extra point. :smiley:

I got 41/44. I got the question about the food chain wrong and I agree that it was rather badly worded. It asks if the arrows signify what is eating what and they do. What the question apparently was asking was something about the direction of the arrows and which way they should point, but that was far from obvious. I also got the one about Australia's longest day wrong, but that was because I'm hopeless at dates and thought it was in November, nothing to do with the science.:-[