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I don't buy it. Seems to measure vocabulary + problem-solving-specific-to-this-question. I bet plenty of "uncreative" people could easily do well if you just t

I don't buy it. Seems to measure vocabulary + problem-solving-specific-to-this-question. I bet plenty of "uncreative" people could easily do well if you just told them to pick specific things from different topics(e.g. an obscure food, an obscure job, etc...), which is all I did and I scored in the top 1%. You don't have to be creative at all to do that. You only have to think of such a strategy, and then pick some obscure things. Also, there seems to be some cultural bias - it wouldn't accept chow mein, but I bet pizza would have worked. Also, the instructions seem silly - the more close to "technical" the terms were that I picked, the higher they seemed to score.

jedberg 4y ago
> chow mein That's two words.
- Ansil849 4y ago
  >> chow mein > That's two words. No, it is a single open compound word. You can check this by consulting a dictionary, which will list 'chow mein' as "a noun".
  - jedberg 4y ago
    Just because it says "a noun" doesn't make it one word. That's like saying "brown pants" is one word. If you know Chinese you'd know it's two words, because mein means noodles and chow means fried (as opposed to lo, which means tossed).
    - Ansil849 4y ago
      > Just because it says "a noun" doesn't make it one word. In fact, it literally does, because "a" refers to a single entity. > That's like saying "brown pants" is one word. No, it is not at all like saying "brown pants" because in order for a word to be an open compound word the modifying adjective has to create a new noun. For example, 'living room' is an open compound word, while "brown room" is not. If you have trouble differentiating between open compound words and just words with modifying adjectives, once again, consult a dictionary. > If you know Chinese you'd know it's two words We are discussing English. In English, chow mein is what is called an open compound word, which is when two words come together to form a new single word. There are open compound words, like chow mein, and closed compound words, like notebook. But in both cases, open compound and closed compound words are singular words. Edit: and also, the site explicitly tells you to select "nouns". So your objection that chow mein is "two words" (it's not), is irrelevant.
      - jedberg 4y ago
        I'm aware of what an open compound is, and I still say chow mein isn't one of them. Show me a dictionary that actually refers to it as such. Furthermore since it's a borrow word, usually the "compoundness" comes with the borrow, and it's most definitely two words in Cantonese. > the site explicitly tells you to select "nouns" It says to select 10 nouns. It says "Only single words in English". It also doesn't allow "Living room", so as you say, your objection is irrelevant because it doesn't allow open compounds.
        Ansil849 4y ago
        > Show me a dictionary that actually refers to it as such. Here you go: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/chow-mein https://www.dictionary.com/browse/chow-mein Note how it is listed as "noun", not nouns. Just like living room: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/living-room https://www.dictionary.com/browse/living-room Note that there is no entry for "brown pants". Do you understand why both living room and chow mein are listed, but brown pants isn't? > and it's most definitely two words in English. No, it is not. Again, consult a dictionary. > It says to select 10 nouns. Yes, and "chow mein" is a noun. That the site doesn't seem to allow open compounds, but allows highly technical wording (despite saying to not use technical wording) would seemingly be a bug.
        jedberg 4y ago
        Your condescension is not necessary, nor is it correct. But I don't feel like continuing to debate someone who is so rude.
        julianlam 4y ago
        He is not being rude by asking you to consult a reference text.
        jedberg 4y ago
        > Do you understand why both living room and chow mein are listed, but brown pants isn't? I already told him I know what an open compound is. This is just rude.
natmaka 4y ago
Well put. The cultural bias may be approximated by comparing results obtained from English-as-the-mother-language speakers to those produced by people with less and less command of the language.
ALittleLight 4y ago
I got 90th percentile by rhyming my way through - box, fox, socks, locks, rocks, etc.
- kqr 4y ago
  But that, I would say, is a display of creativity. Instead of using mental associations between concepts to generate words, you deconstructed them into symbols and found associations through symbols that have little to no connection to the underlying word.
kqr 4y ago
They should really limit the test to the most common 10,000 words or something. I tried in good faith to not select obscure words (knowing from previous experience how the exercise works), but then I ended up typing in autoclave anyway, starting to wonder if it was too obscure or not. In hindsight, it was. It would have been nice to get that feedback before I submitted.
krisoft 4y ago
The task states: “Only single words in English.” Chow mein is not a single world, pizza is a single world.
- krisoft 4y ago
  Very interestring. I might be actually wrong here. So I assumed the problem is not cultural bias, but a tokenizer which does not have the concept of open compound words. For example a naive implementation which is just splitting the strings into chunks of printable characters would be suspectible to this problem. To test this I have tried it with various open compound words. My theory was that it will reject all of them. Turns out it is not the case! The site rejected “sweet tooth”, “apple tree”, “chow mein”, “banana split”, “school bus”, “life jacket”, “mobile phone”, but curriously accepted “rain forest”. This means that it has the ability to sometimes recognise open compound words. Curiouser and curiouser!
  - citrus1330 4y ago
    rainforest is a single word. it probably removes all spaces before checking for words.

jedberg 4y ago

> chow mein That's two words.

Ansil849 4y ago
>> chow mein > That's two words. No, it is a single open compound word. You can check this by consulting a dictionary, which will list 'chow mein' as "a noun".
- jedberg 4y ago
  Just because it says "a noun" doesn't make it one word. That's like saying "brown pants" is one word. If you know Chinese you'd know it's two words, because mein means noodles and chow means fried (as opposed to lo, which means tossed).
  - Ansil849 4y ago
    > Just because it says "a noun" doesn't make it one word. In fact, it literally does, because "a" refers to a single entity. > That's like saying "brown pants" is one word. No, it is not at all like saying "brown pants" because in order for a word to be an open compound word the modifying adjective has to create a new noun. For example, 'living room' is an open compound word, while "brown room" is not. If you have trouble differentiating between open compound words and just words with modifying adjectives, once again, consult a dictionary. > If you know Chinese you'd know it's two words We are discussing English. In English, chow mein is what is called an open compound word, which is when two words come together to form a new single word. There are open compound words, like chow mein, and closed compound words, like notebook. But in both cases, open compound and closed compound words are singular words. Edit: and also, the site explicitly tells you to select "nouns". So your objection that chow mein is "two words" (it's not), is irrelevant.
    - jedberg 4y ago
      I'm aware of what an open compound is, and I still say chow mein isn't one of them. Show me a dictionary that actually refers to it as such. Furthermore since it's a borrow word, usually the "compoundness" comes with the borrow, and it's most definitely two words in Cantonese. > the site explicitly tells you to select "nouns" It says to select 10 nouns. It says "Only single words in English". It also doesn't allow "Living room", so as you say, your objection is irrelevant because it doesn't allow open compounds.
      - Ansil849 4y ago
        > Show me a dictionary that actually refers to it as such. Here you go: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/chow-mein https://www.dictionary.com/browse/chow-mein Note how it is listed as "noun", not nouns. Just like living room: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/living-room https://www.dictionary.com/browse/living-room Note that there is no entry for "brown pants". Do you understand why both living room and chow mein are listed, but brown pants isn't? > and it's most definitely two words in English. No, it is not. Again, consult a dictionary. > It says to select 10 nouns. Yes, and "chow mein" is a noun. That the site doesn't seem to allow open compounds, but allows highly technical wording (despite saying to not use technical wording) would seemingly be a bug.
        jedberg 4y ago
        Your condescension is not necessary, nor is it correct. But I don't feel like continuing to debate someone who is so rude.
        julianlam 4y ago
        He is not being rude by asking you to consult a reference text.
        jedberg 4y ago
        > Do you understand why both living room and chow mein are listed, but brown pants isn't? I already told him I know what an open compound is. This is just rude.

natmaka 4y ago

Well put. The cultural bias may be approximated by comparing results obtained from English-as-the-mother-language speakers to those produced by people with less and less command of the language.

ALittleLight 4y ago

I got 90th percentile by rhyming my way through - box, fox, socks, locks, rocks, etc.

kqr 4y ago
But that, I would say, is a display of creativity. Instead of using mental associations between concepts to generate words, you deconstructed them into symbols and found associations through symbols that have little to no connection to the underlying word.

kqr 4y ago

They should really limit the test to the most common 10,000 words or something. I tried in good faith to not select obscure words (knowing from previous experience how the exercise works), but then I ended up typing in autoclave anyway, starting to wonder if it was too obscure or not. In hindsight, it was. It would have been nice to get that feedback before I submitted.

krisoft 4y ago

The task states: “Only single words in English.” Chow mein is not a single world, pizza is a single world.

krisoft 4y ago
Very interestring. I might be actually wrong here. So I assumed the problem is not cultural bias, but a tokenizer which does not have the concept of open compound words. For example a naive implementation which is just splitting the strings into chunks of printable characters would be suspectible to this problem. To test this I have tried it with various open compound words. My theory was that it will reject all of them. Turns out it is not the case! The site rejected “sweet tooth”, “apple tree”, “chow mein”, “banana split”, “school bus”, “life jacket”, “mobile phone”, but curriously accepted “rain forest”. This means that it has the ability to sometimes recognise open compound words. Curiouser and curiouser!
- citrus1330 4y ago
  rainforest is a single word. it probably removes all spaces before checking for words.