Test your vocabulary Part 2

 

In the spirit of relentless self enquiry, the moment I finished the Vocabulary post on the cognitive challenge of learning words and using them accurately I came upon a demanding vocabulary test. It requires that you decide whether two words are the same or different.

http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/schmies.html

The test does not lack challenge. It bills itself as a test for people of above average intelligence, so it is likely to maximize stereotype threat. As a consequence, there are two categories of failure. You may be discouraged because you are a sensitive soul who does not like the implication that the test is testing you, and realise to your embarrassment that have blundered into an adult conversation while still wearing short pants, and that you are too dull to understand the concept of above average. Conversely, you may be discouraged by the simple fact that, after having started the test you realise that your vocabulary is not quite as good as you imagined. Either through threat or a paucity of vocabulary, potential failure stares you in the face. Mercifully, there is no way to know your results unless you post them, yet another clear example of the distorting effects of publication bias.

On a more technical note, there are 200 items, which ought to provide a high alpha, but there are no reliability stats available, nor any population norms at the moment. Consequently, it would be wrong to call it a vocabulary test in the psychometric sense, but rather a vocabulary competition. The only benchmark I can find is that 165 out of 200 is considered a reasonable score, which allows you to be posted up on a list somewhere, in the quiet precincts protected by the teachings of the wise. I have yet to receive an embossed certificate or discrete invitation to a sumptuous gathering of wordy interlocutors, but I live in hope.

169/200.