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.
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*
Ha ha! I suck. I got half right. But then I've had precisely zero science education, so actually that's not bad.
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).
Originally Posted by tkingdoll
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?
) 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.
Unfortunately the link now appears to be dead. I'm sure I'd have got every single question right though. Eventually, anyway.
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.
The link has /secure/ in it. Perhaps it was meant to be hidden for use only by authorised users.
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.
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?Oh that's a shame - I was just about to have a go
Err, is that the dinner bell I hear ???
Question 1: Correct.Err, is that the dinner bell I hear ???
What was Pavlov's dog thinking as it started salivating?
How did you answer the question before it was asked? ???
How did you answer the question before it was asked?
If I get 1 right it would be a miracle. Science has never been my forte, but we will see.
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