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, I did not totally stink at it! Which for me is a minor triumph. Take that, Features Editor Jessica Winter! Bow down before me, you merely average folk! I edged you out (barely)!
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:
Well, this week I didn’t stink! I was, well, average! Which on this quiz is real progress, for me….
Bryan Caskey offered this quiz via email today. Y’all know I like quizzes, and this one was of the sort I really like — I got a perfect score.
Bryan introduced it gently, saying:
I’m currently in Vol. II of Shelby Foote’s Civil War, so that’s not really fair to everyone else. Give it a try, I’m sure y’all will all do fine.
http://www.quizfreak.com/can-you-answer-these-15-civil-war-trivia-questions/index1.html
Well, I’m not as well read on the subject as Bryan — the most involved book I’ve ever read dealing with that period was the science-fiction alternate history novel The Guns of the South (South African white supremacists travel back in time to supply the Confederacy with AK-47s — no, really; it’s a really good book).
But folks, you should know most of this stuff by osmosis. That’s how I picked it up.
Give it a shot. There are only 15 questions.
Oh, wait, tell a lie — I’ve also read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals. But that was more about politics than military history…
The trend continues.
There was a story in The Washington Post this morning about the fact that “One third of Americans think the government spends more on foreign aid than on social security.”
Stupid one third. Of course, this is a continuation of the stubborn belief that we spend some huge proportion of our budget on foreign aid, when we spend about 2 percent on it. People continue to get this wrong, against all reason, even though their foolishness has been written about over and over and over and over and over. This is related to the increasing irrational hostility toward government in general — most people don’t like the idea of foreign aid, so they overestimate how much is spent on it.
It’s the sort of thing that makes you want to give up on democracy. On your bad days, anyway. At the least, it underlines the superiority of representative democracy over the direct kind.
Anyway, the story said the findings came from one of those Pew quizzes I like so much, so I immediately went and took this one. I got 11 out of 12 right, putting me ahead of 96 percent of those tested.
But… and here’s the really, really embarrassing thing… I missed the same question as the stupid one-third did. No, I didn’t say “foreign aid.” I gave a different wrong answer. I knew the right answer, and if I had just done it in a hurry, I’d have gotten a 100. But I thought, “I haven’t compared these things in awhile. Maybe this other thing has overtaken the one I think it is. Maybe this is a fargin’ trick question.” So I chose the other thing. But it was, of course, the first thing.
The irony is that if I had done what I have to do taking the weekly Slate News Quiz, I’d have gotten it right. That test is timed, and I hate that about that test. I also hate that it is deliberately about details in the news, rather than about whether you know overall what’s going on, and the relationships between different facts (which is what Pew tests).
Anyway, this being Friday, I went and took that one. And bombed. See the results below.
I would do better on that if it weren’t timed. I can usually see through the red herrings and at least intuit the right answer if I take a little time. But you’re penalized for taking time. So I do badly. Note that I completed the test in one minute, 47 seconds. Which for me is barely enough time to properly consider one question, much less 12.
And yet, I took too much time on the other test. Go figure.
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 answer questions, my score suffers. I’m a think-first kind of guy.
But here’s one I happened to run across today that I like, and not just because I aced it: I like it because the questions have to do with general knowledge of the world in which we live. It tests whether you know enough to understand what’s going on around you.
That, and it’s not timed.
By the way, I would have had 100 percent except for one question that general knowledge wasn’t sufficient to deal with: I was shown a map of the United States with several states in the Northeast, the northern Midwest and West Coast shaded in. I was asked which of several statements was true about those states. Based upon an accurate knowledge of the political cultures of those particular states, there were two statements that were highly likely to be true. I mentally flipped a coin, and chose one. It was the other one.
In other words, it was a fargin’ trick question.
You’ll know which one I mean when you get to it.
Here’s the test. Have at it…
As y’all know, I’m getting into “The West Wing” about 15 years later than everybody else (they just started streaming the whole series on Netflix), and making up for the delay by getting really, really into it.
Like, as much into it as I am into Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels. Which is about as extreme as it gets. Or as extreme as I get, anyway.
So when I saw that Scout had provided us with a link to a “Which ‘The West Wing’ Character Are You?” quiz, I immediately took it. And I am entirely pleased with the results.
I am — of course, of course — Leo McGarry. No result could have pleased me more. Leo is exactly what I want to be when I grow up.
Sometimes these kinds of quizzes are pretty silly, but this one was obviously devised by geniuses…
