I got 18/20 : what will you score? | Hacker News Reader

I got 18/20 : what will you score?

news.bbc.co.uk

Wow, great discussion here. My day would be poorer if I couldn't find out the scores that everyone got on a basic spelling/grammar test.

In the spirit of informing the original poster so he can avoid posting this in the future, I'm going to announce that I flagged this, even though it's against the guidelines, because otherwise how would the OP know that this submission isn't particularly interesting?

Cool. I posted something the other day of direct relevance to programmers and it got no discussion, no upmodding, and sank without a trace. Today I post a fun quiz that touches on mispellings and grammar. It gets upmodded lots, gets loads of comments, and flagged. I agree it's nothing to do with being smart - that's typical media misuse of the term - but that's not the point.

Time and time again I see people mispelling, or misusing, words like lose/loose, or their/there/they're, and I'm constantly frustrated that hackers don't get it right. Some of them have good reasons for finding it difficult. Dyslexia is a real condition, evidenced by various brain scans and the like, and it can be difficult.

But there's no reason not to try.

And in case you think it doesn't matter, I invite you to read this post:

http://neil.fraser.name/news/2005/08/20/

Spelling, grammar, and other aspects of communication really, really matter. The examples given here are about communicating with other hackers, but the lessons translate to dealing with customers, investors, the press, and others.

In summary, I respect that you found it uninteresting, but I think good spelling and grammar is important and relevant, even for hackers. This was one way to raise its profile.

I agree that spelling and grammar matter. However, the page you linked to is not a good medium to generate that discussion (and in fact, if you look below, you can see there is no discussion of anything to do with grammar, just people posting their test scores and discussing the meaning of onomatopoeia). It would have been much more interesting to post an article that argued the points that you just mentioned.

With respect to articles sinking without a trace, unfortunately this happens to many interesting articles on HN - which is why it's important to not crowd out the interesting articles with silly stuff like this. There are many articles in the "new" queue with a single vote that were more deserving of a front page spot than this. That's why I flagged it and posted about it - as that's the only way I can express that feeling on HN.

I agree with many of the points you're making, and I suspect that we don't actually disagree on much. However, I still think that a significant proportion of hackers will find a small quiz like this interesting and entertaining.

In making the submission I was using the guidlelines:

    What to Submit

    On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find
    interesting. That includes more than hacking and
    startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence,
    the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's
    intellectual curiosity.

You have disagreed, others have agreed with you, I'm taking that on board and will use this new information when I consider future submissions. I do, however, think it's more relevant to hackers than an article on tinnitus

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=462454

or one on Nancy Pelosi (whoever she may be) RickRolling YouTube Viewers as reported here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=434046

Being a hacker, and not being an american, I found that completely irrelevant and uninteresting. But that's me.

I flagged neither. Perhaps I should.

I flagged neither. Perhaps I should.

I would have in your place, if you felt that the content was not worthy. I can make inappropriate submissions too, it's not like I have some sort of sacrosanct halo of perfection that stops me from submitting stupid things occasionally.

In defense of the Pelosi article, I thought it was interesting to see a very geeky meme breaking out of the geek circles, hence why I posted it. I didn't expect it to gather too many points, and it didn't.

Oh come on, you're just sour because you scored 8/20 ;)

Old school hacker on this end, new to this site and while I agree with your general sentiment I disagree with killing the subject once it gets past a certain number of active participants, it's a bit like a bully walking in on a game people are playing and tossing it out the window because you don't like it and / or are stronger.

If this test has anything remotely to do with 'smartness', then I don't want to be smart...

18/20, non-native English speaker.

I do think the test title is misleading, it does not test 'smarts', it tests your working knowledge of the English language. And it uses a pretty weird mix of arcane words and very easy common mistakes. It's a fun little test though!

For the record I failed on 10 and 17 :)

Yeah, I think it's phrased that way as it's questions someone supposedly should be able to get right at GCSE level (age 16 end of high school exams) or something.

20/20 here (native speaker though).

17/20, I'm French but actually I was wrong on non-specific stuff (metaphore etc.).

Maybe some questions are easier for us because they are about French-origin words ("Avarice", "Questionnaire" etc.)

I suppose they're Latin-origin words

20/20.

Only because one of the questions tests the spelling of a word which is an identifier on the project I am currently working on. I was corrected on the proper spelling of that identifier by a Japanese boss and an Indian outsourcing team in the same day.

That will teach me to butcher my native language.

ouch...

Same happens here in Holland, there is Belgium to our south and invariably the winner of the 'national language test' every year is a guy/girl from Belgium.

The maths quiz: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3513187.stm

19/20, due to a careless click in the spelling part.

In any case, I find the "How smart are you?" headline somewhat misleading. Is there really an objective way of measuring intelligence that takes into account cultural/linguistic differences? An English test hardly fits that criteria, although I suppose it's acceptable given the context and the expected readership.

20/20. There were two questions where I think their preferred answer is questionable at best (though clearly better than the other options offered). There's a word they defined wrongly, and a sentence from which they claim something's missing that's perfectly OK as it stands.

Please, please don't post answers here - people often read these comments before following the link, so any answers here will be spoilers!

If you have posted an answer, consider editing it.

Never heard the word onompmoimitea or what it was before, and I don't think I'll be able to remember it either (non-native speaker, though).

Onomatopoeia. I love saying that word, it totally rolls off your tongue. It actually just refers to written sounds such as boom, buzz, and the like.

Onomatopoeia (I learned to spell it by remembering it in pieces: Ono Mato Poe Ia, although that's not how it's pronounced) is the use of a word or words that sound like the thing they describe. Comic book sound effects--boom! bang! biff!--are a good example of this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onomatopoeia

I scored 20/20 at the obviousness detection test.

You seem very "Ostentatious."

19/20

I didn't choose the correct spelling of questionnaire.

I'm proud to say I got 20/20 the second time I took the quiz...

Same. One time was enough for me! :-)

16/20, non-native English Speaker

I look forward to their "math test" next week.

14/20 - I'm terrible at remembering what metaphor/similie/etc are.

20/20, native speaker.

15/20

20/20

Also 20/20. I'm relieved, as bad spelling and grammar is one of my pet peeves - so thankfully I'm not a hypocrite.

<fx: under breath> swine, mutter mutter ... </fx>

17/20, non-native English speaker.

I failed 3 question from the first batch because I've never seen these words before.

The other questions are just too easy. Come on, their and there? :-\

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