How many words do you know?
4There’s a test to take here.
You determine whether a word is real or fake, only takes a couple of minutes.
Shouldn’t be too hard to beat me – I hit the wrong thing a couple of times when I didn’t mean to. I think there’s a bigger penalty for every non-word you say is real, than for the real words you don’t know.
Oh, and I’m not sure if it will work on a phone. Someone report back?
- 18 comments, 40 replies
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I set the browser on my phone to desktop mode, and the test showed up.
@PlacidPenguin - Thanks. You need the “f” and “j” for yes and no.
It’s not working for me in two different browsers, which sucks because I love taking vocabulary tests. I looked up and took a different vocabulary test to allay my disappointment. It was great.
@mossygreen - Sorry to hear. I had no problem in Chrome.
Want to post the other test for anyone else covfefe’d?
@KDemo Finally got it to load (with the instruction to hit the space bar, out of the blue) on Microsoft Edge. Took it three times, got adjusted 76% the first, 86% the second and 91% the third. I share your compulsion to say yes to exactly one non-word.
@mossygreen -
The fake ones are devious.
@KDemo The third time I took the test, I was pretty sure the word was fake, but was like, “you know what? That should be a word I don’t know. I’m hitting yes!” But yeah, they throw in enough jargon-y academic/scientific words (that are real) that the fake words with that same rhythm feel plausible.
About a meh-llion
Another, more direct link to the test:
http://vocabulary.ugent.be/wordtest/start
@KDemo thanks, this helped. I can never find the links on Daily Mail sites.
Apparently I claim a lot of nonwords. As soon as I’d clicked some I knew I had misread them into legitimate words, but a lot of them just fooled me.
If I slow down and don’t try to click immediately, I do better.
@djslack - great score, you be smart!! Some of those fake words are pretty sneaky. I was so afraid of those that I didn’t click a lot of the real ones.
I must try again.
@KDemo Some of those fake words are misspelled real words. The only fake word I clicked yes to I immediately wished I hadn’t as I then noticed the misspelling. They need an undo button. The other think I noticed was that they threw in some Dutch words which of course are not English words and I almost clicked real until I remembered they were not English real.
PS “thing” instead of “think” (at least both are real words LOL). Also I know Dutch which is why I almost clicked yes.
42
@daveinwarsh OK. I took the test.
71% total.
I said YES to 71% of words.
I said YES to 0% of nonwords.
Hmmm…
That was fun but they need to hire a statistician, there’s no way I know 91 freakin’ percent of the words.
@awk - Actually 94% (with a few alternative words).
I’m impressed.
Managed to get up to 86 with no fakes. FYI, if you repeat the test most of the words are different.
I didn’t know cyathiform and boscage, among others.
@KDemo Hey, that’s exactly the score I got (the first time - so far my only try). Thanks for the link to this test - I’m sure I know a bunch of peeple (is that a word?) who will waste time with this.
70%, only said yes to one non word.
It says this is high level for a native speaker… Meanwhile, I normally think my vocabulary is terrible. I don’t use “big words”. I guess it’s not as bad as I thought compared to the average?
@RiotDemon It’s the Dunning-Kruger effect in action, where dumb people think they’re as smart as everyone else and smart people think everyone else is as smart as they are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
@mossygreen I love this part:
“indicates that persons of high-ability tend to underestimate their relative competence, and erroneously presume that tasks that are easy for them to perform also are easy for other people to perform.”
I come across this often at work when I have to show someone the same thing over and over. I wonder why they can’t understand a simple thing.
@RiotDemon When I first came across it, I remember thinking “this may be the most important thing I will ever read.” Everyone I have ever told about it simply nodded in recognition (including you!).
Zillions and zillions.
(Just had to make a lame joke before I took the test.)
Thx, Carl.
@f00l
OK I finally quit messing with youtube and took it.
I tried to be intuitive and just run thru it. At least once I hit the wrong answer. Going too fast, I guess. Have not tried a re-do.
Good thing they didn’t ask me to spell.
And to think I used to be really good at that. And I was a decent typist once. Well, no more.
@f00l Looks like you still have plenty of good words left in your head; in fact the best and bigglyest (and yes that is a word - I have that on good authority of 45) words left considering how many you spill and lose each day on this site. LOL
@Kidsandliz
I throw them away as fast as I can, but they keep coming!
/giphy hordes
I got 88%, the words I “missed” were words that I knew what they “meant” but believed them to be improper usage (butcherly) or improper spellings (baresark, farrier) of familiar words (berserk, ferrier). Turns out they are just obscure versions of familiar words, which seems more like a Scrabble challenge than a vocabulary measure. I suspect there may some British English vs American English disconnect here.
@moondrake There were several words where I thought, “That’s a real word, but who would use it with that suffix? Does that make it a word still?” Explaining my steep learning curve with the quiz.
@mossygreen @moondrake and if you look who is doing the research (dutch university) that would explain some of the issues. The dutch do start English in first grade but it is more British English than USA English and this was designed in their second language. Also and they are looking at how long you deliberated so likely they are going to make some pronouncement with respect to snap judgements vs something else. They are encouraging you to take it multiple time “eg do better” to likely try to validate their “test”…
I scored 86%, 93-7. I agree about the British vs American English. also had many "compound words in my selections
I only know four words.
@luvche21
But… That’s 5 words.
Plus, you know the words in this thread topic.
So, after removing the duplicate words, you know 9 words.
@PlacidPenguin
@luvche21 was prob just guessing about the rest of them.
@luvche21, how many words do you not know (or knot know)?
@PlacidPenguin that was the joke
@f00l or maybe I had someone explain it to me only using those 5 words?
@luvche21
23 words (excluding names).
Wow. You’ve expanded your dictionary.
@luvche21
I know only three.
@PlacidPenguin I’m learning!
@luvche21
Haven’t you learned anything from Microsoft about the dangers of releasing an AI onto the internet, with it’s knowledge coming from users?
@PlacidPenguin Are you saying I’m an AI? Things are starting to make sense!
@luvche21
Well I suppose that any level of intelligence still qualifies as intelligence…
@luvche21 I know only 4 letter words…
@mikibell
http://wordfinder.yourdictionary.com/letter-words/4
I want to know what the creators of this test think of words like “Abilify”.
Someone who doesn’t watch TV is gonna miss a lot of new commercially-driven words. Someone who is not on the net a lot is going to miss a lot of neologisms.
People not in college, or not working in or hooked into a fast-changing, highly verbal industry or culture will also likely miss a bunch of newer usages.
Where do they get their base of good words to use for measurement? How do they determine what qualities the words should have, or where or for how long those words have been in use?
How do they create their non-words and decide that the non-word will do for this purpose?
Not critical. Curious.
Haven’t done the FAQs yet.
@f00l The catch is that we don’t really know what they are studying yet. And this could just be to validate an instrument for use for something else (see my other comments above).
@f00l - There is some information in the story in the original link. It also links to this Frontiers in Psychology article, which probably provides the covfefe you seek.
@KDemo
Yeah, but I could use a lot more covfefe than that. I’m a hoardcore addict, you know.
@f00l - I know you are a hardcore covfefe hoarder. In fact, you created a clever portmanteau. There seem to be more than a few with the hoarding gene here on meh. Perhaps we can make your new word go viral, in the wake of covfefe.
At the least, maybe we can get it added to the word quiz.
@KDemo
Hoardcore seems to be me, in some things.
I do kinda love that word.
I typo’d “hordcore” while aiming at “hardcore”.
Unlike with many of my typos, I noticed this one and was about to correct it. And then “hoardcore” flashed in my brain, and here we are talking about vocabs. and real and fake words, and how many of us like books and thinking about words, and the “hoardcore” fit to the topic seemed perfect.
And it made for a lame joke! So much the better, i hope. : )
This is interesting. My initial run got me a 77% (80% - 3%). I did several more getting as high as 93% with nothing lower than the initial 77%.
My gf called during one of the runs; at 83% it was neither the lowest or the highest.
If nothing else, I learned a few new words today. I will likely play with this a few more times from home.
doesn’t everybody know “the basic monetary unit of Lesotho”?
@walarney
@walarney - I do now!
@PlacidPenguin Probably one of those words that crossword puzzlers know. Like “kvas”.