Tweet And I did really well — 10 out of 12 questions right! But it wasn’t good enough. My score of 40 on the Slate News Quiz was edged out by Bill Carey, who is the editorial director for strategy (whatever that is) at Slate, and Mr. Average just squeaked by at 408. Of course, […]
Tweet You know how, for the last three weeks, I did really badly on the Slate News Quiz but still beat the Slate staff person assigned to compete that week? Well, half of that happened this week. I only got five right out of 12, for an embarrassing 186. But this time, I got creamed […]
Tweet Things are increasingly weird over at the Slate News Quiz. For the third week in a row, I have been declared a “winner” for having scored higher than the designated staff ringer. Each time, I have done this in spite of having scored below the reader average. And this week, I outdid myself. I’m […]
Tweet The Slate news quiz is fixed! You may not have noticed this because it’s fixed in a reverse of the usual pattern. Instead of being rigged in favor of an insider, it’s somehow manipulated to make the general public win! Which is just perverse and counterintuitive. That’s why it took me a while to […]
Tweet Unable to resist the impulse to constantly humiliate myself, I take the Slate News Quiz most Fridays. Since it’s timed, which I hate, it only takes a moment. And sometimes, when I do slightly better than usual, I share the result with y’all. Today is one of those days. As you see, I defeated […]
Tweet I haven’t been posting any scores from the Slate news quiz lately, for two reasons: I really don’t like the new format. Try it, and see what you think. My scores really, really suck. This may be because of my recent aversion to pretty much all the news I encounter, thereby causing me to […]
Tweet Just thought I’d brag a bit. I got every answer right on Slate’s weekly news quiz! Which I haven’t done in awhile, or maybe ever. I didn’t rush myself, which helped — but cost me points. Still, I scored higher than the average, and higher than the Slate staffer who was the designated guy […]
TweetJust moments ago, in my previous post, I wrote the following: We know, thanks to the clever people who figured out stuff like quantum foam, that the universe tends toward entropy. Well, this one also tends toward stupidity… Right after that, I proved my theory by taking the Slate News Quiz: You see? Not only am […]
Tweet I never truly excel at the weekly Slate News Quiz, unlike our friend Doug. I’m just too deliberate, and this test rewards celerity. Also, I sometimes get the answers, you know, wrong. So I take satisfaction from such modest results as today’s. I came out looking pretty dumb, but not as dumb as certain other […]
Tweet A score of 374 out of a possible 600 (I think) is not normally something to write home about, but today it was enough to win! Although I didn’t actually win anything. And if I did, I should probably share it with the other contestants, because it was so close… Anyway, I’ve again humiliated […]
Tweet I accepted some time ago that I was never going to be a world-shaker on the weekly Slate News Quiz. Aside from the fact that it tends to value news that’s a little outside my areas of interest (like, you know, sports), it’s timed, which tends to rattle me. Because I never ever do nothin’ […]
Tweet For once, I didn’t totally embarrass myself on the Slate News Quiz — which, as you know from my constant whining about it, is timed and therefore tends to rattle me. Yes! Take a look at THAT, Aisha Harris! 419! You’d better go study up next time! That goes for you too out there, […]
Tweet Soldier: Oh, God is testing us! Boris: If He’s gonna test us, why doesn’t He give us a written? — “Love and Death,” 1975 Another week, another lackluster performance on the Friday Slate News Quiz. See if you can do better. Remember, it’s timed, which is one thing that keeps my scores down…
Tweet OK, there are a lot of reasons, but here’s a dumbed-down, grunt-grunt macho one he might actually understand: We need to make sure Germany stays on our side. Somehow I missed this news last week, until it turned up on the Slate News Quiz today: Six NATO countries squared off last week in the […]
Tweet As you know, I do poorly on the Slate News Quiz most weeks when I take it (timed tests are my bane, and often the news in question is too trivial), so when I do manage to kick it, I like to gloat. Hahahahahahahahahaha!
Tweet Normally I have trouble with the Slate News Quiz — its penchant for the quirky over the important, but even more the fact that speed affects the score, cause me to fall short most weeks. But I did all right this week. So I thought I’d boast…
Tweet As anyone who does get 100 percent on a U.S. citizenship test knows, the answer to that question is “no.” Although at the moment, that seems particularly unfair to me. Yes, you guessed it! I just took a citizenship test I saw promoted on the Christian Science Monitor site, and I crushed it — got […]
TweetThe Official SAT Question of the Day makes us want to visit all the #WrightSites. http://t.co/7WW65JEj9x pic.twitter.com/phzLONEcNC — Official SAT QOTD (@SATQuestion) April 14, 2015 Of course, I’ve only answered two questions so far — yesterday’s and today’s. But a journey of a thousand miles begins with, etc. Since some of y’all shared my enthusiasm […]
Tweet 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 […]
Tweet While going through my email, I paused a moment to take the weekly Slate News Quiz — which I always do horribly on, partly because you’re scored on how quickly you answer, which I hate, and it rattles me. This time, in my haste, I gave two wrong answers even though I knew the […]