I know I shouldn’t feel pumped for beating a lowly intern, but I so seldom do well on the Slate News Quiz (it’s timed, and that rattles me) that I deserve to celebrate, just a bit.

Even though, you know, I cheated. Just a little…

Here’s what I did: On the very first question, I could see the right answer immediately. But then I hesitated, thought a bit more, and clicked on a different answer — and it was wrong! I had been right to start with!

I wasn’t going to proceed on that basis, starting in the hole, so I allowed myself a mulligan; I started over.

I ended up knowing most of the answers, and beating both the intern (take that, young Lila Thulin!) and the average by a fairly substantial margin (405 to 316 to 342, respectively).

So I made myself go back and do it again, deliberately getting the first answer wrong. But then, I accidentally correctly answered another question I’d gotten wrong the first time (No. 4), so I had to deliberately screw up another one (No. 12).

But I failed set things right. I ended up with a higher score, 431, the second time — probably because I did it faster.

So, there is wrongness still in the universe, and it’s my fault, and I seem to be incapable of setting it right. But I still slam-dunked this quiz! See how you do.

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