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Show HN: Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?
- weekendvampire 2y agoWould've been way more fun if I could find out what answers I got wrong.
- 8bitsrule 2y agoMake the selection buttons bigger and brighter, the first time I failed to notice that my clicks didnt take. Also, I noticed that there's no way to be 'smarter' (25 of 25)
- tcistull 2y agoLet's make this the ultimate are you smarter than a fifth grader site - give me suggestions and I will build and deploy them right now!
- tithe 2y agoHow about this one? "What do you call the number of times that one number can be divided by another?" A) Dividend, B) Divisor, C) Quotient. And a minor UX nitpick: please wrap the input element inside of a <label> tag, it makes it much easier to interact with form elements (in that I can click on the text to mark the element): <label class="answer"> <input type="radio" name="q4" value="wrong" /> Condensation </label>
- tcistull 2y agoDone! and Done!
- devsda 2y agoI have one suggestion. The dialog at the end like "you got the following questions wrong: 23" can be easily mistaken for the number of questions answered wrong. I did! If that be changed to avoid the confusion, it will be great.
- tcistull 2y agoGreat point with the label!
- sjrd 2y agoThe correct answer to that question would be the Logarithm. 32 can be divided 5 times by 2 before it becomes 1 and you can't divided it anymore. I think the phrasing of the question is incorrect. That's the only question I got wrong because it did not make any sense to me.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- langcss 2y agoAlmost perfect. I don't know US history well enough it seems.
- TheCleric 2y agoI don’t know if it was just chance, but nearly every question’s correct answer was the first option. So I’d shuffle the order of the answers around if you’re not already.
- mistercow 2y agoIt seems to be consistent. The correct answer was the first for all but the last question for me.
- defrost 2y agoDitto. I'm not sure if that was meant to be a delibrate trap, I noticed about ten in, and by the 20th question I was thinking this is just silly .. and then almost gave the wrong answer on the 26th question.
- noduerme 2y agoThe difference between HN coders and 5th graders is that we get paid to figure out the shortcuts fast, even if 1/26 times something breaks.
- KingOfCoders 2y agoThat was at the core of me (CTO) discussing recruiting tests with HR - developers will always jump to the meta level of the test, try to find out what the test is about, then answer accordingly. These "personality" tests annoyed engineering candidates and the results where doctored by the candidates, but HR wouldn't give up.
- defrost 2y agoHmmm - I coded aircraft control, exploration geophysics, and computational algebra systems. I do love a shortcut but triple checking to avoid physical crashes, expensive mistakes and other math people laughing is first nature over speed. #6 on why I'm an atypical HN coder.
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- saagarjha 2y agoIs it just me or are all the answers the first item Edit: it actually gave me 25/26 when I did that. I think I should've gotten all 26 (i.e. the answer to the 25th question is wrong)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- defrost 2y agoThe Tropic of Capricorn is in the Southern Hemisphere, but, FWiW Thomas Edison didn't invent the light bulb .. but that's a "correct answer" here.
- beepbooptheory 2y agoToday I learned that a giraffe is taller than a whale.
- magicalhippo 2y agoI know it's referencing the TV show, but when did "smart" become synonymous with "know more than"? Has it always been like that? English is my second language, so quite possible I have missed something.
- boomboomsubban 2y agoColloquially, it has meant that my entire life. As a fifth grader, I was an ass so I'm sure I told kids I was smarter than them because I did better on a test. As I aged, "smart" became a nebulous concept.
- magicalhippo 2y agoGood point, hadn't thought about the point of view of a fifth-grader. I'm certain I too associated knowledge with being smart at that young age.
- kmoser 2y agoI got all 26 questions right, yet it said I'm in the 5th grade. Sounds like it should be called "Are You As Smart As a 5th Grader?" To determine if you're actually smarter than a 5th grader, the test should include questions that are beyond a 5th grade level.
- rahimnathwani 2y agoI got 2 wrong. It also says I'm in 5th grade.
- joshdavham 2y agoI got 3 wrong and it says the same. Also I’m not American so some of those questions were hard haha
- chrisfosterelli 2y agoThis made me realize that the last time the Tropic of Capricorn's location was relevant to me probably was the 5th grade.
- devsda 2y agoOne of the questions was about an element in the periodic table and I got to study periodic table in 8th or 9th grade. So, apart from the obvious questions about American history I think getting them right also depends on the country you're from. That said, a reasonably educated adult should be able to answer most of them excluding the country specific questions like unit conversion, history & constitution.
- BrandoElFollito 2y agoI am a reasonably educated adult (at least I believe so) and I did not know what the constitution of a string quartet is.
- devsda 2y agoTo me that question falls into the country specific category. I just assumed it's an American thing to learn about western musical instruments at school.
- bongodongobob 2y agoAs someone who was very bright, in 5th grade, in the US, in the early 90s, I might have known 12-15 of those. Would have been more like 8th grade. We wouldn't have known capitols of other countries or generals until late middle school. World history didn't start until middle school. Same with chemistry/elements.
- LordRatte 2y agoWhen I was in the 5th grade, I learnt useful things like the metric system.
- gnuly 2y agogot all right except for US-specific questions, and a musical instruments one. Perhaps a generalised version would be even more fun; though I think that'd be devoid of history.
- cmeacham98 2y ago> Who invented the lightbulb? > Thomas Edison > Nikola Tesla > Alexander Graham Bell None of the provided answers are correct.
- _sys49152 2y ago[dead]
- BrandoElFollito 2y ago5th grade in the US is CM2 in France. No way that our pupils in CM2 can answer all these questions. Some are obvious, some are 3 or 4 years ahead of our curriculum or not present (I am not sure that the composition of a string quartet is taught at all). Is this really an image of the US curriculum?
- satisfice 2y agoThere wasn’t a single question that a fifth grader wouldn’t know the answer to. How about asking about the core ideas of ethnomethodology? Eat my dust, fifth graders!