n always popular online feature, tests and surveys measure damn near everything. There are entire sites with hundreds of tests; tests to measure your intelligence, tests to measure your personality type, and many, many, many more. Want to know what type of dog you are, based on how you answer a dozen ridiculous personality questions? You're in luck, since you'll probably receive that very offer within your next day of surfing.

This page collects blog entries in which I talk about tests, report my test or survey results, or just blog on the topic in general.  More recent additions go on top.

August 5, 2003

Check out this Dante's Inferno Test to see what level of hell you are destined for.  Malaya saw the link first and took the test and was bummed to only reach the Third Circle.  Pfft! That's hardly out of Purgatory, FFS.  I took it an hour later and was gratified to see that my life has spiraled downwards sufficiently to achieve the Sixth Circle, adding my doleful sighs to the chorus of burning heretics.

I scored "very high" on every level from 3 on down, but got an "extreme" on Level Six, which I guess is why I'm assigned there for all eternity.  It's a respectably-grim fate, but still, I can't really be satisfied with failing to achieve at least the Eighth Circle, though I can probably only dream about dropping all the way down to the Ninth and being eternally encased in ice, my glazed eyes staring up through the crust to view Brutus, Judas, and Cassius serving in their eternal role as Satanpops.

As for the test, I like that there is no Heaven as a result.  At best you can hope for Purgatory, from which you may work for several thousand years to attempt to scale the mountain towards heaven.

What makes me think is that we all (I assume) take this for amusement and jollies and give it no thought at all.  Yet there must be someone out there who takes it and views their results with dismay. "Oh my God, the Fourth Circle!  I'm going to Hell!  I must repent and grow more virtuous!" Not that I'm saying anyone really believes in Dante's Mythology or organization of Hell, but I assume some wanna-be devout people view this as a guideline to try and improve their personal behavior.  And I suppose that's not an entirely bad idea, though I see tests and Biblical sort of quizzes as so out-dated and picky that they are worthless in terms of evaluating a person's real morality or worth.

A real evaluation of that sort of thing requires a paint store worth of shades of gray, and an infinitively-nuanced situational relativity gauge. Let's all just hope that if there really is a Heaven, St. Peter's got one, eh?

August 5, 2003

For another quick click thingie that Malaya pointed me to, try this one.  It gives you a vampire name.  No, I don't have any idea if they are actual historical figures or what, and no, it's not interesting for very long.  But hey, it was free.  And as a special bonus for all the people who get way too into the whole Dracula/Vampire thing, here is a past quote of the day to ponder.

¤ The baffling part of this [Goth wannabe vampires doing what they do] is that the modern "vampires" are claiming kinship not with the vampire that our ancestors actually believed in, but with the fictional vampire derived from that one. This is like somebody claiming to be related to Rhett Butler in the movie Gone with the Wind. "You mean Clark Gable," you say. "No, no: Rhett Butler. You know, the character in the movie. He's my cousin."
-- Paul Barber

March 24, 2003

This is completely stupid, but it made me laugh.  Gay test.  Just click it; it takes 5 seconds, there aren't any pops ups, and you'll giggle.

The really interesting thing about this one? It lead to this long homophobia article, where a gay reader wrote in about how stupidly upset one of his co-workers got when he took the test.

August 2, 2002

A friend sent me TheSpark.com, which has an IQ test, and a lot of other odd tests.  The IQ one is more like a real IQ test than that silly one I posted a couple of days ago.  It's also real long, and requires actual thinking.  Average time to complete it is 27 minutes.  I lost interest on page two after about 6 minutes, and just clicked through the rest of the pages to see how long it went on for.  My score was a 47, and since there were like half a dozen pages, I'll triple that and say I got 150ish.  My genius status is retained!

There are other amusing tests; take the gay one to see just how hetero or homo you are.  I'm 36% gay, testing as a heterosexual man. A friend of mine who is gay said he tested 51% gay.  Which seems a bit odd... 

There's also a sex test, which is of course one of the most popular tests they have.  Despite the popularity, it's pretty lame.

The Death test says I'll die at 73, which is patently ridiculous.  I'll either go in an accident well before then, or live to at least 100.  Both my grandfathers lived into their 90's despite awful diets, my dad is 60 and in perfect health, and I have a very healthy diet and exercise regularly.  *He said, defensively*

I'm surprisingly impure: 26% of people are more foul than me, 1% are like me, and 73% are more pure.  And here I thought I was pretty wimpy, on both the sexual and chemical intake aspects of the test.

Given that I couldn't get through more than 33% of the IQ Test w/o growing bored, I figured the Lazy test would be in order.  Surprisingly, I'm not lazy at all, 93% of people are lazier, 1% are just as lazy, and 5% are less lazy.  I blame testing error.

I'm 67% datable, which is lower than average, but much much higher than reality.

Lastly, the Unintelligence Test, which seems to be a sort of common sense test, with various odd things thrown in.  I scored at "72%, which is significantly higher than the current average of 60%."  That's what they say, anyway. I'd say this test is about as valuable for judging your personality as a horoscope.  (Just the horoscope, not whether or not you actually read such things, which is a very good way to judge your personality.)

Go take some tests yourself, and measure your worth against that of the rest of society.  Or at least kill some time during your coffee break.

July 31, 2002

Check out this online IQ test I saw linked to from Fark.  I took it since it was quick, 13 minutes is their recommended max time, and it took me just under 10.  I thought 3 or 4 of the questions were iffy in their presentation, and that most of them were absurdly easy.  I mean there are like 10 that are basically "count these letters or numbers", in some cases backwards.  Who could get that wrong?  But then I'm a genius, at least according to that test.

The email they send you with your score doesn't list your right/wrong answers, so there's no debating that aspect of it.  The time does matter, I got 148 on my 10 minutes, and out of curiosity after I got my score, I hit back to it and entered my same answers at 13 minutes and 3 minutes.  I got 150 in 3 and 146 in 13, so the time is weighted, but like a feather, compared to your actual answers.

The iffy questions, in my opinion, are:

9 -- This one is really unclear.

If John looks into a mirror and touches his left ear, the image of John touches its right ear.  True or False?

Are they asking if you see your reflection reversed?  If you have a watch on your right wrist, and you raise it, the reflection raises the hand with a watch on it also, of course.  I don't understand the question, basically.

18 -- It requires you to know how many ounces are in a pound.  That's got zero to do with intelligence, and most of the world uses metric measures.  The terms should be defined in the question, or given in advance of the test.

22 -- There are two sets of numbers that add up to 17.  The question doesn't make clear if that's right or wrong.  I said "true", but if they meant "two and only two of this set of numbers" then I'd be wrong.

24 -- Word opposites are very arguable.

29 -- Well, you can make |-| \/ T out of seven toothpicks.  Does that count?  Do the letters have to be on the same plane?  Can you use one toothpick for the side of two letters, like |-|_| T?  It's unclear, anyway.

36 -- Does one "hello" suffice for two people?  I mean if person A says hello to person B, does that count for both?  Or does person B have to say hello to person A also?  (It's irrelevant anyway, since with 6 people each would say hello to five others, so that's only 30 total.)

37 and 38 -- The rules don't say if you are allowed to use scratch paper to help you visualize things.  Generally in IQ type tests I've seen you can't do that, but they have graphics for you to look at, since 3d spatiality is one major aspect of IQ; the ability to turn something around mentally and see what it would look like backwards.

I'd think (for most people) both of these would be very easy with scratch paper, and very hard with just their mind.  I did them in my head, but then I'm good at spatial relations things.  When I was a kid I could do all of those 3d type puzzles, making a cube from 6 odd shaped geometric figures, making a letter or square from the 7 pieces of a cube, etc, and it used to impress the teachers.  I didn't do them instantly, like some prodigy, but I could move them around a bit and see what almost worked and trial and error it pretty quickly.

And yes, the whole thing is an evil dirty scam to get you on their mailing list.  Being as I currently get about 70 emails a day at the D2 site, and for the last few months probably 75% of them are klez or various other viruses, I don't think one or two more a week from this IQ testing service will be a big deal.

I suspect it's pretty much a load of crap, overall.  The test is way too superficial and one-dimensional to be a real IQ test, it's 90% reading comprehension and ability to follow simple instruction, and seemed very easy.  Go check out the Mensa workout test if you want to see a real IQ style test.  Pretty much any random question from that is far more mental work than the hardest one from this iqtest.com site.

My take is that the IQTest.com people want you to score well, so you'll feel good about yourself and be interested in their other products.  Looking back over it to pick out the iffy examples I listed above, I noted 2 or 3 really dumb ones I missed just due to going fast, which would destroy me on a real IQ test.

I don't have any score to compare my genius 148 with, unfortunately, so I can't check on their claim that their quickie test is very accurate, when compared to other tests.  The last time I had my IQ tested I was in 5th grade.  IIRC I got 130, but IQ from age 10 doesn't mean a whole lot as an adult.  IQ is a lot like driving ability; everyone seems to think they are above average, often regardless of evidence to the contrary.

All site content copyright "Flux" (Eric Bruce), 2002-2007.