Show HN: Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

areusmarterthanafifthgrader.com

12 pointstcistull44 comments

I got all 26 questions right, yet it said I'm in the 5th grade. Sounds like it should be called "Are You As Smart As a 5th Grader?" To determine if you're actually smarter than a 5th grader, the test should include questions that are beyond a 5th grade level.

I got 2 wrong. It also says I'm in 5th grade.

I got 3 wrong and it says the same. Also I’m not American so some of those questions were hard haha

I don’t know if it was just chance, but nearly every question’s correct answer was the first option. So I’d shuffle the order of the answers around if you’re not already.

It seems to be consistent. The correct answer was the first for all but the last question for me.

Ditto.

I'm not sure if that was meant to be a delibrate trap, I noticed about ten in, and by the 20th question I was thinking this is just silly .. and then almost gave the wrong answer on the 26th question.

The difference between HN coders and 5th graders is that we get paid to figure out the shortcuts fast, even if 1/26 times something breaks.

That was at the core of me (CTO) discussing recruiting tests with HR - developers will always jump to the meta level of the test, try to find out what the test is about, then answer accordingly. These "personality" tests annoyed engineering candidates and the results where doctored by the candidates, but HR wouldn't give up.

Hmmm - I coded aircraft control, exploration geophysics, and computational algebra systems. I do love a shortcut but triple checking to avoid physical crashes, expensive mistakes and other math people laughing is first nature over speed.

#6 on why I'm an atypical HN coder.

That's how I got the 26th question wrong. I stopped paying attention and just checked the first box even though I had a feeling it would be a trick

Same here, which allowed me to answer some questions I don't know, not being from the USA (imperial units?). I guess that's proper 5th grade thinking.

I got the impression it was intentional. A bit tongue in cheek.

I stopped after five after seeing this pattern as I assumed this is some kind of experiment.

> Who invented the lightbulb?

> Thomas Edison

> Nikola Tesla

> Alexander Graham Bell

None of the provided answers are correct.

I know it's referencing the TV show, but when did "smart" become synonymous with "know more than"?

Has it always been like that? English is my second language, so quite possible I have missed something.

Colloquially, it has meant that my entire life. As a fifth grader, I was an ass so I'm sure I told kids I was smarter than them because I did better on a test.

As I aged, "smart" became a nebulous concept.

Good point, hadn't thought about the point of view of a fifth-grader. I'm certain I too associated knowledge with being smart at that young age.

How about this one?

   "What do you call the number of times that one number can be divided by another?" A) Dividend, B) Divisor, C) Quotient.

And a minor UX nitpick: please wrap the input element inside of a <label> tag, it makes it much easier to interact with form elements (in that I can click on the text to mark the element):

      <label class="answer">
        <input type="radio" name="q4" value="wrong" /> Condensation
      </label>

Done! and Done!

I have one suggestion. The dialog at the end like "you got the following questions wrong: 23" can be easily mistaken for the number of questions answered wrong. I did!

If that be changed to avoid the confusion, it will be great.

Great point with the label!

The correct answer to that question would be the Logarithm. 32 can be divided 5 times by 2 before it becomes 1 and you can't divided it anymore. I think the phrasing of the question is incorrect.

That's the only question I got wrong because it did not make any sense to me.

One of the questions was about an element in the periodic table and I got to study periodic table in 8th or 9th grade.

So, apart from the obvious questions about American history I think getting them right also depends on the country you're from.

That said, a reasonably educated adult should be able to answer most of them excluding the country specific questions like unit conversion, history & constitution.

I am a reasonably educated adult (at least I believe so) and I did not know what the constitution of a string quartet is.

To me that question falls into the country specific category.

I just assumed it's an American thing to learn about western musical instruments at school.

When I was in the 5th grade, I learnt useful things like the metric system.

Almost perfect. I don't know US history well enough it seems.

Today I learned that a giraffe is taller than a whale.

A whale isn't that tall, considering it doesn't stand on legs.

This reminds me of that image riddle, "If a dog wore pants, which picture is correct?"

Let's make this the ultimate are you smarter than a fifth grader site - give me suggestions and I will build and deploy them right now!

This made me realize that the last time the Tropic of Capricorn's location was relevant to me probably was the 5th grade.

As someone who was very bright, in 5th grade, in the US, in the early 90s, I might have known 12-15 of those. Would have been more like 8th grade. We wouldn't have known capitols of other countries or generals until late middle school. World history didn't start until middle school. Same with chemistry/elements.

5th grade in the US is CM2 in France. No way that our pupils in CM2 can answer all these questions.

Some are obvious, some are 3 or 4 years ahead of our curriculum or not present (I am not sure that the composition of a string quartet is taught at all).

Is this really an image of the US curriculum?

Make the selection buttons bigger and brighter, the first time I failed to notice that my clicks didnt take. Also, I noticed that there's no way to be 'smarter' (25 of 25)

on it!

What ways would you like to see the "Smarter" than working? Any suggestions I can make rn!

Check the Radio Inputs now - should be bigger

There wasn’t a single question that a fifth grader wouldn’t know the answer to. How about asking about the core ideas of ethnomethodology? Eat my dust, fifth graders!

Is it just me or are all the answers the first item

Edit: it actually gave me 25/26 when I did that. I think I should've gotten all 26 (i.e. the answer to the 25th question is wrong)

The Tropic of Capricorn is in the Southern Hemisphere, but, FWiW Thomas Edison didn't invent the light bulb .. but that's a "correct answer" here.

Would've been way more fun if I could find out what answers I got wrong.

on it!

Check now

got all right except for US-specific questions, and a musical instruments one. Perhaps a generalised version would be even more fun; though I think that'd be devoid of history.

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