How much do you know about science topics?

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by AiniA

A few things come to mind from my teaching experience. If a test has not been developed very carefully - choose the longest answer. Test creators tend to be more exact in wording for right answers than wrong answers. If a random number generator has not been used c) tends to be the most common correct answer. Do not change an answer you have chosen unless you have a really compelling reason to do so. First reactions to a question tend to be correct.

I always drill my adult students in the "longest answer" theory. We do enough practice questions to prove the point, and at least one exception which reminds them not to assume it's always true.

I haven't found a lot of value in leaning toward any particular sequence ("c" or whatever) answer. The bias isn't significant enough to really change the outcome in most cases.

I don't teach the "don't change your answer" advice. I've actually found that answering too quickly, without looking for small words like "not" or fully reading each answer after the question, is usually the problem. Test designers need to make up reasonable wrong answers, so it's easy to be fooled into picking one if you just go with your gut.

My recommendation is to SKIP any that you aren't sure of, and come back to them after you've completed the obvious ones. Very often you re-read it with a different perspective, and the answer becomes obvious. Or sometimes a later question gives you a clue to the process or formula you need to answer the skipped one.

Originally Posted by Bill Seal

A lot of questions in the second test are like history tests. It doesn't matter WHO, but WHAT If Bernouli hadn't formulated the relationship between velocity and pressure, somebody else would have, and airplanes would still fly and pitchers could still throw a curve.

This is a real pet peeve of mine. I once took an elective course in a subject which interested me, geology. I wanted to learn how the rocks formed. Instead it was nothing more than a weekly vocabulary list, learning the names of all the various formations. Totally irrelevant to me. I'm still not 100% sure I can tell a syncline from and anticline. Or exactly what schist is.

For the same reason, I avoid trivia games. It seems to me 90% of the questions are along the lines of "name the person who starred in/played for such-and-such." I don't consider that knowledge. Trivia indeed. So why do people act like knowing those things means you're smart?

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

...I wanted to learn how the rocks formed. Instead it was nothing more than a weekly vocabulary list, learning the names of all the various formations. Totally irrelevant to me. I'm still not 100% sure I can tell a syncline from and anticline. Or exactly what schist is.

Famed Stanford theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind giving a lecture on general relativity:

"The basic Newtonian equation #1...I always forget which law is which...there's Newton's first law, second law, and third law...I can never remember which is which, but they're all pretty much summarized by F=MA"

https://youtu.be/hbmf0bB38h0?t=166

[AndyEss]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

I think most of the frequent posters on CF can ace this test. We are not a representative selection of society

I believe that sailors in general have been self filtered for intelligence, creativity, initiative.

Nations that have had a significant interaction with maritime trade and warfare tend to be more successful than those barely involved with dealing with the challenges of using the sea for their own purposes.

That, or we are all nuts for going out in our cockleshells onto a media that is anything but forgiving.

[jimbunyard]

Are You a Science Genius?

Don't think 'genius' has much to do with how many questions one can answer, but when and how one uses the answers one knows to solve specific problems.

A corrollary is that the more one 'knows', the more one realizes how little they know...

[Biljrat]

Gotta give Gord credit as a most awesome source of knowledge here, but I have to challenge the test as a measure of science IQ. Science is 99% hard work for data, 10% luck analytically, and 1% imagination how it fits into the puzzle (it was my understanding that there would be no math). I've come the conclusion we're all an experiment and humans should sail more and think less. As my favorite movie asks (and I sometimes pose to the PhDs I work with) - "If you have one bucket that contains 2 gallons and another bucket that contains 7 gallons, how many buckets do you have?"


Thanks Gord!

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by Biljrat

...As my favorite movie asks (and I sometimes pose to the PhDs I work with) - "If you have one bucket that contains 2 gallons and another bucket that contains 7 gallons, how many buckets do you have?"

Consider asking them this:
"What term do we give for 9 with respect to the average of numbers 1, 14, and 15?"

Insist on a single-word answer...

[Fiftybucks]

I got 11 out of 11...
However... yet I'm not smart enough to get all the way around Florida in the ICW without running aground with only a 4.5' draft. Cruising is harder and multiple problems coming at you all the time. Book smart in cruising doesn't make up for experience.

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by Singularity

Consider asking them this:
"What term do we give for 9 with respect to the average of numbers 1, 14, and 15?"

Insist on a single-word answer...

Wrong.....

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

Wrong.....

It's not a trick question and there is a correct answer. The question does test intuition (and I presented it in an easier manner to catch).

[passage_paul]

The question regarding antibiotics.. I get that ofc antibiotic resistance is a serious concern.. but antibiotics being flushed into the water system is also part of that.


I got it correct but the impact of watersheds being contaminated by antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals man is causing serious issues and resistances that we haven't even begun to realize.

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by Singularity

It's not a trick question and there is a correct answer. The question does test intuition (and I presented it in an easier manner to catch).

I meant the number 9 is the wrong answer to the average of the three numbers.

[SeanPatrick]

10 out of 11


Better than 70%
Worse than 16%
Same as 13%


I missed the one about antacids. Oh well.


36 out of 41 correct on the second quiz for a grade of B.

[SeanPatrick]

Originally Posted by skipmac

When I was in college, a long, long time ago, there was a story going around about a test given by one of the profs. The first line at the top of the page said, "Read the entire test through before answering any of the questions."

The last line of the test said, do not answer any of the questions, just turn in a blank test form with your name on it. Legend has it that in a large class only one person got it right.

This exact scenario actually happened to me in high school. I was the one who got it right. I wasn't very popular that day.

[passage_paul]

Really surprised at the spread between males and females... yikes!


The racial spreads are pretty alarming as well... good grief.


I can't imagine anyone who felt they were a dullard would even waste time to take the quiz... I assume most folks who take it feel fairly confident in what they know...

[jimbunyard]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

Wrong.....

Less???