Online Test Discussion (Central), January 18, 2012

[cinemaniax7]

Tonight's test did seem harder. Perhaps it was just my head cold, or maybe I let the pressure get to me because of the cold. In either case, I thought the test was certainly fair. I know I spaced on Armenia, and I ran out of time trying to change my answer from Java to Borneo (only got B-O-R-N written). I know I missed a few others but will have to wait to see the transcript to know how I scored.

[Setho]

I think the reason a lot of people viewed the test as difficult was that there was a fair bit of pop culture with 2 questions about popular music, a recent tv show, and a recent movie. Thankfully those subjects are in my wheelhouse so I breezed through them.

[Some Dude]

I actually recorded it. Give me like half an hour or so, and I'll try to get it transcribed...

[trainman]

Whew, good to hear other people thought this test was on the difficult side -- I think this was the toughest J! test I've had in all the times I've tried out, either in-person or online. I might have gotten 40 if I made some good guesses -- I'll have to wait for the transcript.

That said, I do have an excuse: my cat decided to attack my typing fingers at about question 30, so I was bleeding for the rest of the test. (Don't worry, only a minor claw wound.)

[diablo456]

By our count, we got 46 or 47 questions correct. A few lucky guesses. Bolivar was the fictionalized hero by Marquez; Borneo was the 3rd largest island, the AMA was formed by Dr. Whoever in 1847. The one question we're uncertain of was the country music star. I can't remember the songs they listed, but I gave Taylor Swift as the answer. I'll look forward to the transcript as well, thanks to whoever is doing that.

[opusthepenguin]

I hated the way I couldn't highlight my response, delete it, and type something new. Hitting that backspace ate up precious clock.

You know about ctrl-a, shift-ctrl-left & shift-home, right? Every computer user should know all of those, along with ctrl-c, ctrl-v, ctrl-x & ctrl-z. Not to mention ctrl-b, ctrl-i & ctrl-u, which work in some programs, but not most.

Brian

I wasted time on my first correction trying to change "Lady Macbeth" to "Macbeth". Here's how it seemed to happen to me. I hit Home, which took me back to the start of the line. Then I hit shift-Ctrl-Right to highlight the first word. Either it wouldn't do it or it highlighted "Lady" but wouldn't let me Delete. So I hit Home again to take me back to the line start and started hitting Delete to get rid of "Lady" one character at a time. It wouldn't delete any characters at the front of the line. So I hit End, then backspaced to the beginning and retyped "Macbeth".

Now admittedly, that all happened quite fast and it's possible I did something wrong. But it spooked me enough that I didn't dare try again. (In retrospect, I could have experimented during one of the answers that I got right away.)

I'd be very interested to know if someone else was successful in using those shortcuts. And if so, what browser were you using? I was using Firefox 9. I wish I'd thought to practice on the East Coast test yesterday. Didn't even occur to me.

[Bamaman]

A Google search shows the song was by Swift. I saw the title and went with Eric Clapton before noticing it was a country song. (Didn't he have some song as a tribute to his son?) By then it was too late to think of someone else.

[opusthepenguin]

I know I spaced on Armenia, and I ran out of time trying to change my answer from Java to Borneo (only got B-O-R-N written).

That's better than me. I only got I-N-D-O-N-E written. Sigh.

[Some Dude]

Apologies if these aren't all completely correct...for the record, I got EXACTLY 35 right...

18th Century Writers
In 1791 he penned his Rights of Man

Spoiler

Thomas Paine

Country Singers
This 'Teardrops on My Guitar' singer won CMA's entertainer of the year awards in 2009 and 2011

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Taylor Swift

The Elements
This very hard metal is named for the Children of Uranus and Gaea

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Titanium

Second Largest Cities
Lahore in the Punjab Province is this nations second largest city

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Pakistan

Retail
The name of this retailer is meant to invoke the center of a marksmans Bullseye

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Target

Ancient History
Julius Caesar violated the Lex Cornelia Majestasis by crossing this stream

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Rubicon

Shakespeare
This title character asked 'Is this a dagger I see before me?'

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Macbeth

Las Vegas Hotels
There's a pyramid deluxe room at this Las Vegas hotel

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The Luxor

Composers
Rimsky-Korsikov composed a 1898 opera entitled 'Mozart and' this Italian Rival

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Salieri

Colleges and Universities
This School is the State University of New Jersey

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Rutgers

Slang
An event on 'Happy Days' spawned this expression for the moment when a TV show suddenly declines in quality

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Jumping the Shark

Mountains
This Mountain once called Peak XV is named for a man who died in 1866

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Everest

HBO
Based on books by George R.R. Martin, this HBO series follows the quest for power by the Stark and Lannister families

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Game of Thrones

American Novels
An epigraph to this Hemmingway novel contains a passage that begins 'One generation passeth away...'

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The Sun Also Rises

Historic Documents
A translation of its text begins 'King John, by the grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland...'

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Magna Carta

Astronomy
Betelgeuse is found in the armpit of this hunter constellation

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Orion

Painters
He used Tahitian titles for works like 1892s 'Fatata Te Miti'

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Paul Gauguin

Food
These are also called 'Cooking Bananas

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Plantains

8 Letter words
This 8 letter word that means 'abnormally swollen' often precedes 'vein'

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Varicose

World Literature
In 1770 this Frenchman wrote 'If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him'

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Voltaire

American History
Numeric Name for Woodrow Wilson's proposal for a post-WWI peace settlement

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14 points

Holidays and Observances
The name of this Holiday is Swahili for 'First Fruits'

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Kwanzaa

Adventure Novels
This Robert Lewis Stevenson novel grew from a map he devised to amuse his stepson

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Treasure Island

State Flags
A Palmetto tree is on the flag of this Palmetto State

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South Carolina

The Midwest
The first Olympics in the US were held in this midwest city in 1904

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St. Louis

Comediennes
This SNL stalwart co-starred in 'Bridesmaids' which she co-wrote

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Kristen Wiig

African American Authors
Books by this African American author include 'Beloved' and 'The Bluest Eye'

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Toni Morrison

The Human Body
Hypophysis is another name for name for this 'master gland'

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Pituitary

In the Garden
These Flowers got their name for the French for 'To think'

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Pansy

20th Century History
A war over these Islands in the South Atlantic lasted for just weeks in 1982

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Falklands

The Theatre
The Handspring Puppet Company won a special Tony for bringing the title Animal to life in this 2011 Drama

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War Horse

An Alphanumeric Catagory
The Clover is the emblem of this educational organization known in farming communities

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4H

Business Names
When Qantas was founded, the 'Q' stood for this

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Queensland

Mythology
Hephaestus is the Greek equivalent for this Roman God of fire

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Vulcan

Recent Bestsellers
This man appears in a black turtleneck on the cover of Walter Isaacson's biography of him

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Steve Jobs

Nations of the World
Yerevan is the Capital of this country in the Caucasus mountain region

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Armenia

Golf
Since 1949, the winners of this Golf tournament have been presented with a distinctive green jacket

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The Masters

Arts and Crafts
Akira Yoshizawa of Tokyo is a great modern practitioner of this art of paper folding

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Origami

Scientists
Henri Becquerel shared a 1903 Nobel Prize with these other two scientists

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Pierre and Marie Curie

Bible Books
Fittingly, Chapter 1 of this Bible book reports that there were 603,550 children of Israel

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Numbers

Rhyme Time
A group of three born under the zodiac sign of the lion

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Leo trio

Islands
Crossed by the equator, this island, the worlds third largest, is just off the Malay peninsula

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Borneo

Organizations
Dr. Nathaniel Chapman was the first president of this group that was founded in 1847

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The American Medical Association

The 1840s
John O'Sullivan coined this term for the USA's right to cover the continent

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Manifest Destiny

From page to small screen
A TV show based on this Grisham thriller debuted in 2012

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The Firm

Ballet
In a Stravinsky ballet, Prince Ivan summons this creature with a red feather

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The Firebird

Geology
Since limestone undergoes changes to become marble, marble is classified as this type of rock

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Metamorphic

Pop Culture
Beyonce is married to this rapper and music executive

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Jay Z

World Literature
'The General in his Labyrinth' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a fictional bio of this hero

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Simon Bolivar

Before and After
35th State that wrote 'A Room of One's Own'

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West Virginia Woolf

[kslgbr]

Tonight's test did seem harder. Perhaps it was just my head cold, or maybe I let the pressure get to me because of the cold. In either case, I thought the test was certainly fair. I know I spaced on Armenia, and I ran out of time trying to change my answer from Java to Borneo (only got B-O-R-N written). I know I missed a few others but will have to wait to see the transcript to know how I scored.

Missing Armenia probably bothers me more than any other because capitals is one of my strongest categories. I had Albania in my head and I knew that was wrong, but I couldn't get it out of my head. About 10 seconds after time ran out on that one, Armenia came into my head.

[Setho]

On the gauguin question all I got out was gauga, I couldn't even fully misspell his name!

[TenPoundHammer]

(Didn't he have some song as a tribute to his son?)

Tears in Heaven.

[Suze]

I think the reason a lot of people viewed the test as difficult was that there was a fair bit of pop culture with 2 questions about popular music, a recent tv show, and a recent movie. Thankfully those subjects are in my wheelhouse so I breezed through them.

Definitely not the reason why I found it a bit harder than yesterday. Pop culture is easy for me, except for the country music, of course.

[Setho]

I think the reason a lot of people viewed the test as difficult was that there was a fair bit of pop culture with 2 questions about popular music, a recent tv show, and a recent movie. Thankfully those subjects are in my wheelhouse so I breezed through them.

Definitely not the reason why I found it a bit harder than yesterday. Pop culture is easy for me, except for the country music, of course.

My thinking was based on all the comments about the Taylor Swift question. Perhaps not knowing the answer to that question right off the bat threw some people off their game.

[jeff6286]

A Google search shows the song was by Swift. I saw the title and went with Eric Clapton before noticing it was a country song. (Didn't he have some song as a tribute to his son?) By then it was too late to think of someone else.

I believe they cited "Teardrops on My Guitar", which was by Taylor Swift, so mistaking that for "Tears in Heaven" by Clapton could certainly be an understandable mistake.

[bpmod]

A Google search shows the song was by Swift. I saw the title and went with Eric Clapton before noticing it was a country song. (Didn't he have some song as a tribute to his son?) By then it was too late to think of someone else.

I believe they cited "Teardrops on My Guitar", which was by Taylor Swift, so mistaking that for "Tears in Heaven" by Clapton could certainly be an understandable mistake.

Would I know her name... if she cried on my instrument?

Brian

[econgator]

What was it that everyone seemed to find so rough? I found the questions to be pretty straightforward and scored 41/50.

And thanks to Some Dude for the transcript!

[Paucle]

I'd be very interested to know if someone else was successful in using those shortcuts. And if so, what browser were you using? I was using Firefox 9. I wish I'd thought to practice on the East Coast test yesterday. Didn't even occur to me.

I mentioned this in another thread- I first had a 4-word answer that I realized was wrong with about 5 seconds to go, hit shift-home and that highlighted my answer which disappeared as soon as I began to retype the correct 5 word answer. Got it in just as it got snatched away!

[kslgbr]

Looks like I got 35 right. First time I passed in 5 tries.

[jeff6286]

What was it that everyone seemed to find so rough? I found the questions to be pretty straightforward and scored 41/50.

I didn't find anything particularly devious or obscure, just things that either I didn't know, couldn't recall fast enough, or stupidly talked myself into a wrong answer.