Are you scientifically literate?

[Faithfree]

52.

Percent?

[Audley Strange]

I realise its not a science quiz really. If your question is "which planet NAMED AFTER THE GODDESS OF LOVE, has a solar orbit of 224 days? You're just asking the name of a planet named after the goddess of love. Then when dupes get the answer right they think they're one of them Heisenbergs. I got 38, simply from answering the obvious question quickly. At best its testing your general knowledge.

[klr]

I realise its not a science quiz really. If your question is "which planet NAMED AFTER THE GODDESS OF LOVE, has a solar orbit of 224 days? You're just asking the name of a planet named after the goddess of love. Then when dupes get the answer right they think they're one of them Heisenbergs. I got 38, simply from answering the obvious question quickly. At best its testing your general knowledge.

You may be overestimating peoples' knowledge of ancient deities.

Seriously, a person who knows who the (Roman) goddess of love is, is also likely to more know the basic characteristics of Venus than someone who can't hack the Roman major deity roll-call. AFAIK, I first became aware of the Roman deities from their use as planet names, not vice-versa. Your mileage may vary of course.

In any event, all the planets and their moon are named after various mythological characters and suchlike, so references to same in a set of questions on the solar system is hardly out of place.

[FBM]

You answered 42 of 50 questions correctly for a total score of 84%.

I blew some easy ones, like the Brontosaurus question.

[Audley Strange]

Heh.

No, the science question would be "which planet has a solar orbit of 224 days." I'm sure less people would know the answer to that. If you then give them such obvious clues, you are not asking them the science question, you're asking them the general knowledge question.

Still it's just an example of why the quiz has little to do with scientific literacy, though I'll grant there are such in it, as it has to do with making an audience feel such without them actually having to be.

[Animavore]

39. Meh, chemistry let me down.

[Eddie]

39. Good enough.

Could have done better, missed some easy ones, but could have done worse too, cause some answers, mainly in physics area were a wild guess. It's been a while since I was studying it, and I never really liked it in first place.

[FBM]

ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms
Adv. 1. scientifically - with respect to science; in a scientific way; "this is scientifically interesting"

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/scientifically

I guess they squeeze by on a lexical technicality...

[MiM]

I realise its not a science quiz really. If your question is "which planet NAMED AFTER THE GODDESS OF LOVE, has a solar orbit of 224 days? You're just asking the name of a planet named after the goddess of love. Then when dupes get the answer right they think they're one of them Heisenbergs. I got 38, simply from answering the obvious question quickly. At best its testing your general knowledge.

I didn't get that question
43, and missed almost all my guesses.

[rachelbean]

I realise its not a science quiz really. If your question is "which planet NAMED AFTER THE GODDESS OF LOVE, has a solar orbit of 224 days? You're just asking the name of a planet named after the goddess of love. Then when dupes get the answer right they think they're one of them Heisenbergs. I got 38, simply from answering the obvious question quickly. At best its testing your general knowledge.

I didn't get that question
43, and missed almost all my guesses.

Either did I

45 out of 50, largely due to a science class I took recently, otherwise I would have forgotten half of it.

[Coito ergo sum]

43/50 - This test is mostly a case of "Can you remember what you learned at school?"

Sounds pretty close to what most tests are.

[Coito ergo sum]

I realise its not a science quiz really. If your question is "which planet NAMED AFTER THE GODDESS OF LOVE, has a solar orbit of 224 days? You're just asking the name of a planet named after the goddess of love. Then when dupes get the answer right they think they're one of them Heisenbergs. I got 38, simply from answering the obvious question quickly. At best its testing your general knowledge.

I agree with that. The test wasn't all that great. It was also fairly easy. Of the 6 I got wrong, 4 of them were boneheaded goofs where I clicked the wrong thing and immediately knew I had gone too fast and knee-jerked the wrong answer. A couple of them I just didn't know. My science education goes through college, though, so what I think is "easy" might well be just a reflection on 2 semesters of university level chemistry, 3 semesters of physics, astronomy, general biology, and other university level sciencey-like courses. I sometimes assume that everyone takes that stuff in college, and I have to force myself to acknowledge that the vast majority of university students don't take much science at all.

[klr]

I realise its not a science quiz really. If your question is "which planet NAMED AFTER THE GODDESS OF LOVE, has a solar orbit of 224 days? You're just asking the name of a planet named after the goddess of love. Then when dupes get the answer right they think they're one of them Heisenbergs. I got 38, simply from answering the obvious question quickly. At best its testing your general knowledge.

I agree with that. The test wasn't all that great. It was also fairly easy. Of the 6 I got wrong, 4 of them were boneheaded goofs where I clicked the wrong thing and immediately knew I had gone too fast and knee-jerked the wrong answer. A couple of them I just didn't know. My science education goes through college, though, so what I think is "easy" might well be just a reflection on 2 semesters of university level chemistry, 3 semesters of physics, astronomy, general biology, and other university level sciencey-like courses. I sometimes assume that everyone takes that stuff in college, and I have to force myself to acknowledge that the vast majority of university students don't take much science at all.

Correct, because they're... re not science students. I was a B. Comm. - a business student. Apart from brief forays into matters statistical, I don't think we went next nor near science. Neither would Law students, or the majority of Arts (humanities) students.

[Ronja]

43/50 - This test is mostly a case of "Can you remember what you learned at school?" Though I don't remember ever doing Bernoulli's principle, which is surprising because I did A-level physics . - and the rest I got wrong were remembering random names of things, which I've never been good at.

.

[Coito ergo sum]

Heh.

No, the science question would be "which planet has a solar orbit of 224 days." I'm sure less people would know the answer to that.

I wouldn't be able to answer "How many days does it take Venus to orbit the sun" except to estimate it. But, by process of elimination, I could be fairly sure it was Venus. We have 8 planets. Earth is 365, so that's out. 5 of them are farther out than Earth, leaving Venus and Mars. It's a 50-50 guess, at worst, but I would have chosen Venus due to remembering that Venus was something in the 200s.

If you then give them such obvious clues, you are not asking them the science question, you're asking them the general knowledge question.

Which for most people is asking too much anyway...

Still it's just an example of why the quiz has little to do with scientific literacy, though I'll grant there are such in it, as it has to do with making an audience feel such without them actually having to be.

I think most people would get about 50% on this quiz. I doubt the Ratzians who are open about their high scores are accustomed to winding up in the middle of the bell curve.