Tweet In keeping with my policy of posting the results on the rare occasions when I do well on the Slate News Quiz, and ignoring the whole business when I don’t, I share with you today’s result. Of course, a lot was at stake today. They had taunted me with the challenge, “Think You’re Smarter […]
Tweet OK, so this was a pretty modest achievement. I got two questions wrong, which means that if this were a test in school I would have gotten an 83, which even by South Carolina’s currently overly generous grading system would be a low B. But here’s the thing… Y’all know that I’ve always taken […]
Tweet As I’ve bragged here often, I tend to test well. Give me a written, and I’m in like Flynn. Except on the weekly Slate News Quiz. First, it’s timed — I don’t do well with timed tests; they rattle me. Second, the news it chooses to test on is not the kind that’s on […]
Tweet I’ll just post this and move on. If you’d like to take the quiz, here it is. Oh, and if you want to get the one that I missed, go with the funniest-looking answer…
Tweet Normally, this quiz totally humiliates me, partly because of its tendency to ask really trivial questions, and partly because I get rattled because your score depends on speed, and I like to think about my answers. So being on a timer rattles me. But this week, I CRUSHED both the average and the pathetic loser […]
Tweet Yes! In your face, Sharan Shetty! For once, I didn’t totally embarrass myself on the Slate News Quiz, beating both this week’s designated Slate staffer (the aforementioned Sharan Shetty, who had a really good score, but is a total loser compared to me) and the reader average. I got 11 out of 12, and […]
Tweet As I’ve boasted in the past, I tend to test well, but that does not apply to the Slate news quiz — something about the quirkiness of the topics, or the fact that it’s timed (which tends to rattle me), or something. Anyway, I’ve developed kind of a complex about it. But this morning, […]
Tweet Y’all know how I like to brag about my great scores on various quizzes (usually civics quizzes, but sometimes about fundamental understanding of issues in the news). But I’ve mentioned that I tend to do HORRIBLY on the weekly Slate news quiz — which I chalk up to two factors: The fact that you’re scored […]
Tweet As I said previously… I only have one beef about it… they’re supposed to be sending me emails to let me know when it comes out, and this week they didn’t. I had to think of it, and go hunt it down. And then, I slew it! I confess I have not thoroughly slain […]
Tweet A person who scores 220 on the Slate News Quiz should never be designated a “winner.” And yet that’s what Slate did this week, when I racked up that painfully humiliating result. That’s because the publication’s designated staff “ringer” only scored 191. This one even holds an “editor” title. I think maybe she was […]
Tweet I think I got a little overexcited, and hurried a bit too much. How else do I explain missing the one that asked, “The Pantheon, rebuilt during the reign of Emperor Hadrian, is a major landmark in which European capital city?” That was really, really stupid. If only I’d read it a tad more […]
Tweet Hey, y’all. I’ve been back from Boston for a couple of days now, but I’ve been way too busy for blogging. It’s not just catching up with work. The first night we were up there, there was a big thunderstorm down here, and it struck several trees in our front yard. My neighbor across […]
Tweet I should have posted this on Friday, when Doug sent it to me. Perhaps I held back out of envy. As he reported: Got a 100% for the first time on a Slate News Quiz… so I got that going for me, which is nice. (Caddyshack reference) For my part, I missed one, and […]
Tweet 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, […]
Tweet Week after week, when I remember to inflict the pain upon myself, I bomb in the Slatest news quiz. This is for a couple of reasons — it tends to ask about quirky news developments rather than the most important ones, and it is timed. Any time you score me on how quickly I […]
Tweet In the past, I’ve posted links to quizzes on political science, history and other such topics. I’ve done so partly because I thought y’all might enjoy taking the tests, and partly (largely) to give me an excuse to brag on my way-higher-than-average scores. But there’s a kind of test I’m not all that good […]
Tweet Or rather, the part of rest of the world that is dumb enough to take the Slate news quiz — which as we know is a terrible test, because I seldom do well on it. I had to be especially dumb to turn there for validation after doing particularly badly on the weekly NYT […]
TweetOr one a da men. That is to say, one of the 23 percent of New York Times readers who scored 100 percent on the weekly news quiz. Which is nice, since my score on the Slate quiz today was… not memorable. They must be slipping up there in the Big Apple, considering the way […]
Tweet Yesterday, I actually managed not to embarrass myself completely on the Slate news quiz — and then got all busy and forgot to brag about it. Not that 373 is normally anything to strut about (I’d rather it be something like this), but I did beat the average and the staff ringer, and that’s […]
Tweet Remember, folks, when I write about stupidity, you should listen — I really know what I’m talking about. As bad as my score was on the Slate quiz — lower than the picked staffer’s very low score, and way lower than the average — I knew even less than the number indicates. I got […]