Category: Games, Tests & Quizzes

A 12-question news-of-the-week quiz from News Desk at The New Yorker.

I got 11 correct out of 12. I forgot to apply Occam’s Razor when guessing.

A 14-question news-of-the-week quiz from News Desk at The New Yorker.

Yours truly got 13 correct out of 14. I missed that Super Bowl ad.

I personally find no reason to take this seriously, but I send it along for those among you who think computer games played over a couple of minutes can be indicative of anything, least of all brain age.

Free Brain Age Games

The following short quiz consists of four questions and will tell you whether you are qualified to be a professional manager. Scroll down for each answer. The questions are NOT difficult. But DO NOT scroll down UNTIL you have answered the question!

1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?

 
 
 
 
 
 

The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door. This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.

2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?

 
 
 
 
 
 

Did you say, open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator?

Wrong Answer.

Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.

3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All the animals attend … except one. Which animal does not attend?

 
 
 
 
 
 

Correct Answer: The Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. You just put him in there. This tests your memory.

Okay, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities.

4. There is a river you must cross but it is used by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage it?

 
 
 
 
 
 

Correct Answer: You jump into the river and swim across. Have you not been listening? All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting. This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.

According to Andersen Consulting Worldwide, around 90% of the professionals they tested got all questions wrong, but many preschoolers got several correct answers. Andersen Consulting says this conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of a four-year-old.

Thanks to Driskill for the quiz. First posted here five years ago today.

Fun weekend stuff from Gail Collins.

Two interactive tests via The New York Times.

Make certain you clearly understand the directions.

I aced both, though was slow on a few of the juggling tasks as my brain took it step-by-step.

As I always said about myself, “Three things I can do well. Five is four too many.”

Two photos. One has five changes. Can you find the changes in 45 seconds?

To test your knowledge of prominent people and major events in the news, we invite you to take our short 12-question quiz. Then see how you did in comparison with 1,003 randomly sampled adults asked the same questions in a January 14-17, 2010 national survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

Pew Research Center

Click the link above to read about the test.

Click here to test your news IQ.

I missed one.

Every single cover in The New Yorker archive is now a jigsaw puzzle.

Introducing the Covers Jigsaw Puzzle: The New Yorker

Brain Game: Math Square #9

Can you identify the homeland for these nine beers?

More difficult even than the soda pop quiz I thought.

We’re both old enough to recall when the Pepsi name applied to nothing but Pepsi. Then Diet Pepsi stormed onto the scene, followed by other options like Pepsi Free, Pepsi Clear, Cherry Pepsi, Caffeine Free Pepsi, Pepsi Lemon, Pepsi One, Pepsi Lime, and a few other varieties that came and went. At least the names of these soda pops made it obvious that they were Pepsi products. Today, PepsiCo and the other “big three” soft drink companies market several different brands nationwide, and it’s becoming increasingly tricky to pin them down by their parent companies. In today’s…quiz, we offer 11 soft drink brands, which you’ll identify as being a product of The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, or the Dr Pepper/Schweppes Group.

Soft Drink, Hard Quiz

Wow, this was difficult (for me at least).

While traversing America’s highways, it’s interesting to watch the signs when you leave one U.S. state and enter another. Some states offer billboards and welcome stations, making a huge production out of the fact that you’re now within their sacred borders. Others display only a tiny “state line” sign that you might miss if you’re not paying attention. Here are ten U.S. state pairs that may or may not lie next to one another. Can you identify whether or not these states share a common border?

mental_floss Blog » The 5pm Quiz

The Pew Research Center has a news quiz. 12 questions and they show your results and how you stack up.

Not-So-Poor Kenneth scored 12 correct of 12.

Thanks to my uncle for the link.

Questions relate to today’s birthdays.

1. Who was Eisenhower’s direct superior in the Army chain of command when he was Supreme Allied Commander in Europe?
2. How many actors have portrayed James Bond in the 22 Bond films?
3. Which schools won the national basketball championship the two years out of 12 when John Wooden’s UCLA team did not?
4. John Dean’s wife was quite evident during the Watergate hearings. What is her first name? (Their 37th anniversary was yesterday.)
5. “Night Court” was on for nine seasons (193 episodes). What was the character name of the assistant D.A., the clerk or the bailiff? First names will do.
6. In what current television series is Adrian Pasdar a cast member?
7. Is Usher his real first name or his real surname?
8. Who was Time’s Man of the Year for 1945?

[I intend to make Today’s Trivia Quiz a continuing feature. Do you want me to post the answers? Right away? After a while? In a comment? Some other way?]

There is a Twilight Zone episode where a businessman makes a pact with the Devil, which allows him to go back in time so that he can capitalize off of his knowledge about the future. It turns out though that the businessman’s knowledge about the future is all superficial and thus he is unable to jump start any technological advancements by traveling back in time. This would likely be the plight of most contemporary humans if they were sent back in time. While we rely greatly on technology, most of us don’t know much about how it actually works and where the materials to make it come from.

If you were to travel 2000 years into the past, how useful would you be in jumpstarting technological advancements? This 10 question quiz will help you figure out your technological usefulness.

Take the Technology Quiz. Yours truly got 7 correct of the 10.

Link via kottke.

Anyone can look these up. How well can you do from knowledge you already have? Answers are in comments (no peeking).

1. Of the 50 states, 24 meet the sea (or tidewater); that is, their lowest elevation is sea level (well, actually Louisiana (minus 8 feet) and California (minus 282 feet) go below sea level, but that’s irrelevant here). Of the remaining 26 states that do not meet sea level, which has the lowest elevation?

Special bonus question: Which has second lowest elevation?

2. Of the 50 states, the 13 westernmost states have elevations above 11,000 feet. Texas has the next highest elevation (8,749) followed by South Dakota (7,242). The next highest elevation is in a state east of the Mississippi River. Which state is it?

3. As we all know since Katrina, New Orleans has sections of the city that are below sea level (minus 8 feet is the lowest). Which of the 50 largest cities (by population) has the highest elevation? (As a point of reference, the 50th largest city is Wichita, Kansas, population 354,000.)

4. The mnemonic for remembering the Great Lakes is HOMES. Arrange the letters by the size of the lakes.

Special bonus question: Four of the lakes are within 32 feet of the same elevation. The other is 326 feet lower. What comes in between the lowest lake and the next one upstream?

5. Of the 50 states, which is the easternmost, southernmost, westernmost and northernmost?

1. Based on their age when they took office, Theodore Roosevelt (42) is the youngest president the U.S. has had. John F. Kennedy (43) is the second youngest. Who is the third youngest president? Fourth youngest? (Both were 46 and some months. Barack Obama is fifth youngest.
2. Who was the oldest president?
3. Alaska is the largest state, Texas second. Which state is the third largest? Fourth largest? Fifth?
4. Rhode Island is the smallest state, Delaware second. Which state is the third smallest? Fourth smallest? Fifth?
5. The highest mountain in the eastern U.S. is in which state?
6. The largest county in the U.S. is San Bernardino, California (20,105 square miles). The smallest county (26 square miles) is?
7. The boundary with Mexico is 1,933 miles. The boundary with Canada is about (1) half as long, (2) the same as with Mexico, (3) half again as long as the boundary with Mexico, (4) more than twice as long as the boundary with Mexico?
8. Three first ladies earned post-graduate degrees. Which three?
9. True or false, the Liberty Bell cracked ringing to celebrate the Declaration of Independence.
10. The monarch to whom the Declaration of Independence is addressed is (1) Louis XIV, (2) Elizabeth I, (3) Edward VIII, (4) George III?

Bonus question: Quick, without looking, are there more red stripes or white stripes in the American flag?

Answers in comments. No peeking.