Apr 26, 2010
Come and almost fail a vocab test with me, k?
Like this post?
If you’re interested, take the University of Richmond’s Journalism Department’s vocabulary quiz and see how you fare.
I got a C—77%. It’s multiple choice, though, so that helps. If I’d had to write what each word means, I would’ve gotten more like 50%.
Which reminds me: I used to always get a smart-alecky kick out of the use-it-in-sentence vocab test. Because if you say, “Use legerdemain in a sentence,” then you just did use it in a sentence. This is the same reason that I also used to make the case that every word was sometimes a noun… I was a problem child in some respects.
Anyway, go take the quiz and let us know how you did in the comments.
(via TYWKIWDBI)
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I had a friend who would keep things simple. If he thought it was a noun he’d say “He had a legedermain”.
If he thought it was a verb he’d say “He spent all day legedermaining”.
Adverb: He ran very legedermainly.
That’s smarter than my method, but riskier, too.
I got a 73%. Ouch.
And I got 57, but I would have done better if it hadn’t been multiple choice.
I was feeling pretty fine after getting the first 18, but then the bottom fell out for a while, and I ended up with 78.
And I’m with Jamsco–I think I lost more b/c of the multiple choice than I gained.
Just to be clear, I was joking. If it hadn’t been multiple choice I’d have gotten like 8.
Dang. 68%.
Me too.
81, but I respectfully disagree with some of the answers.
39%, which is really awful, though I’ve never made any pretense of having a great vocabulary! I am proud, however, of getting jeremiad correct. What a great word!
Just for clarification, this Dana is not Uncle D., who will undoubtedly flunk the test in a couple days when I have the time to take it.
59%
I got 70%. Quite pleased, but now wanting to really check some of those words…
87%.
But I have a couple of complaints.
1. Do you really have to do your own math to get your percentage? (Oh wait. Now you’re going to doubt my results).
2. Word forms don’t match answer forms. e.g., #76. Perdition is a noun–a state of something– so the correct answer should be Damnation or State of being damned. OK. yes, i did get that one wrong, but on several I compensated and overcame the mismatch of word types.
Yes, I was going to make the same complaint with the same example. Also had trouble because “cheekiness” might not mean what I thought it meant.
But I got a 67, so even with some mulligans I would have been less than impressive.
93%
All that French, Latin, and Greek pays off!
93!?….way to go! geek! :P..sorry..i’m still sour about my 72%…
You’re the man! I’ve wanted to learn Latin in order to increase my ability to guess obscure words!
65%.
I agree with some who said that they were hurt because of some of the multiple choice options.
However…I know I benefited from it in other occasions! So I figure it probably all evened out in the end…
…fun quiz, though! Thanks. I’ll probably point others to it as well.
I didn’t realize that I’d need to go back and count, but I doubt that I did better than 50%. Vocabulary has never been my strogest suit.
If I’m going to be honest, 56%.
But I often got it right on the second quess, so can we bump it up to a 75% for a passing grade?? :-)
so funny you mention that!
i wrote a post a little bit ago about some self-observations when taking the quiz, and the desire to fake my score was among them…!
I had around 60%, which I guess is not bad for a second language (although it definitely helped that I know a litte Greek and Latin). But I disagree with some of the solutions – I don’t think “prosaic” equals boring, and “hubris” is much stronger than “cheekiness”.
So maybe I should get points for all the times I clicked “none of the above”…?
Great, I just misspelled my own name…
dang 71% i thought i was doing okay, all those little smiley faces, but then i counted… /sigh.
I got 20 out of 35 (57%), then I quit.
67%
Ditto on the fact that I disagreed with some of the multiple choice options and got wrong words I could use correctly in conversation, but I found that others guided me to the correct definition of words I wasn’t sure about. So it probably evened out in the end. Evened out to a failing grade. . . .
66 percent…and I thought I had a pretty good vocabulary!
54.
50% even – story of my life. Sigh!
60%…i was fooled often by ‘none of the above’!
51% I knew probably 20 of them, figured out about 20 of them and guessed well for the other 11. Twas fun.
75%
Aww man I got a C – 72%…i have to read more..sheesh..
87. dang.
Pretty dang good, I’d say.
84%.
84.
I’m pretty sure if Oedipus’s problem was ‘cheekiness’, then his fate was cruel and unusual. Wiseacre British kids are cheeky; ancient kings had hubris.
Gottem all. Easy peasy. :) (smug mode engaged)
I stop counting at 48 rights. but I think that is well enough when taken into account that English is not my first language. The words I knew I knew thanks to stydying different subjects. It was a fun test I would have wanted there to be at least 200 words in the test.
64.
Like several others, I’d disagree with some of the definitions (I missed prosaic for that reason, though I still got hubris).
69% – but being on the other side of the Atlantic, where English is spoken properly, I think that some of our definitions are different – divided by a common language, as someone once said!
78%. English is not my first language (French is). I think I did better because of this.
54% Oh my.
87%
58%. I started counting from the end which left me with a rather distinct feeling I might fail it if you count a fail as under 50%. I guessed a few of those so I would be right on 50% me thinks.
I found it more interesting to remember where I learnt many of the more esoteric words there.
77%, but I missed some of them more than once. How do you count that?
65% There are a lot of words I knew that I would not use anyway, for fear of being too obscure.