I took this fun science literacy quiz, and got 47 out of 50 questions correct.
The ones I missed were all in biology and life sciences, my weakest subject. Since so many of the angroids label climate skeptics as “scientifically illiterate”, and because climate change is specifically mentioned, I thought it would be fun to share and to have readers post their scores. Many of the questions are simple, like the first one:
Then there’s some tougher ones, like about Planck’s constant and some that require some simple physics math, F=ma and stuff like that. There’s a bit of irony in whose website the poll is on.
The Christian Science Monitor.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/1209/Are-you-scientifically-literate-Take-our-quiz/
Surprisingly, there wasn’t a single question about climate change, even though they mention it. If you feel like taking it, don’t succumb to the temptation to look up everything on the Internet…there’s no sport in perfect scores.
Mike McMillan says:
April 7, 2012 at 11:54 pm
…. Fortunately iI was a fan of Roy Chapman Andrews.
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I also read all his books. At one time (age 10?) he was my favorite author.
Only 31 out of 50 I’m afraid……
41 out of 50, after a feed and few beers at the pub. The geology question about rock types I could still recall from Secondary School, which made me chuckle for some reason.
Oh dear – only 37 out of 50 (I’m disappointed, but I was only a computer scientist, not a physicist)
A poxy 36. I found myself going through the extremely rude mnemonic I wrote for the periodic table back in the 60’s. Herbert had his little bride, bed creaking, ni… [SNIIIIP]
46 (poor on the planetary stuff). Al Gore apparently got 5,000,000 – which, as David Cameron said, shows he really knows his stuff!
I got 46 which is probably pretty good for someone who graduated in chemistry over 40 years ago and has never worked as a scientist exception when I had a vacation job in a lab. It is a test of scientific general knowledge rather than of understanding of scientific theories, apart from the few questions involving calculations which do assume a basic understanding of the theories involved. The questions I got wrong were the ones about the physicist Joule, a dinosaur name, clouds, and the recently discovered object that is bigger than Pluto.
42, seems a familiar number?
44 🙁
Though I did it at speed. And two of the wrong ones were from clicking the wrong answer when knowing the right one.
Stuff I had to work out took the longest (e.g. time for the sun’s light to reach us). Still averaged about 13 seconds per question.
29 right for someone who got C in his GCSE isn’t half bad I reckon.
Some of the questions weren’t anything but common sense though. Some other ones weren’t anything but remembering boring teachers’ classes.
I like how the answer 6015 kept coming up in relation to age of the world/universe though.
In my comment a couple of minutes ago I meant to write “except” not “exception”!
Left school at 16 in 1962 with a few GCE “O” levels. Still managed 46. Come on Phil, Mike and Kevin, how many did you get right?
32 out of 50 – I’m made up. My only science “qualification” is ‘O’ Level Biology. I guess I must have picked up some more stuff since school!
43/50 . . and out of the seven wrong’uns I was totally convinced I was correct on four. It’s very hard to break some prejudices. The other three were just wild assed guesses.
32 out of 50: For a psychologist whose last course was in 1965, I am relieved !!!!!!
47, and missed the meteorology one! Radon and mitosis also got me. >:(
BTW, immediately below the questions is a link to an Earth Day ‘Climate Change’ quiz: http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2011/0422/Earth-Day-How-much-do-you-know-about-climate-change-Take-our-quiz/greenhouse-gas
Since it’s about 3:20 a.m. here, I’ll postpone that bit of aggravation.
38. Damn biology! And I really must brush up on my laws if motion. It’s been thirty years since I’ve had reason to recall those. Still, good on solar system and basic physics. Ok for a creative industry type I reckon!
If using Firefox, install the Ghostery add-on. Blocks tracker scripts. Overall, increases speed considerably, though it has its own little twitches.
BTW: Knowing the lyrics of this little song won’t help.
One major delay I had in the quiz was one of the options: “hydrogen fluoride”; (IIRC) “Wasted” a lot of time laugjhing at that choice.
48/50, no degree, autodidact, don’t watch television, read a lot.
Didn’t get the mitosis one (biology is a weak point) and, like the climate models, I don’t know about clouds.
37, my excuse? My mother tongue is German?!
42, but then I’m an historian, and from this side of the pond how do I know what the US postal service does with dinosaurs, and….
Excuses, excuses!
Test crashed when I was at 33/36. Can’t believe Protium tripped me up. Not bad for an artsy doofus with a Ph.D. in International Relations, though.
45/50 and a bit ashamed. I should have got at least three and maybe a fourth of the ones I got wrong, I do have a Computer Science / Physics degree from several decades ago.
masgramondou says: (April 7, 2012 at 11:32 pm)
“I will note that a bunch of them could be answered by anyone who had a decent background in Roman/greek language/mythology”
Given how much Latin & Greek (and to a lesser extent their mythology) is used in scientific nomenclature I would say that a passing knowledge of them is very useful, verging on necessary, for work in the scientific field.
If you know the roots of the words then you can more readily read and understand the literature, rather than having to rote learn each Latin / Greek derived word.
Jim
49/50 here. Particularly interesting that it’s described as a test of scientific literacy, rather than knowledge. Most of those questions I knew straight away, but at least 20% or so were ones where I had to think about what I did know and what was presented to me, and use that information to work out the answer.