BASIC Level "Science Test"

[prplchknz]

We didn't create it, we just found some scary uses for it.

I didn't see the all so i was like true, stupid words hiding from me.

 

[durentu]

I believe they did the research independantly and offline.

I don't believe our online results affect the numbers at all.

It might not be independent of our efforts.

Could be that a few dozen results isn't statistically significant to nudge a data set of a few million? just guessing.

 

[Kyrielle]

12/12 Those weren't too hard, but I could see how the average person wouldn't know about these things without being interested in them first. I would have thought "basic" science questions would be more related to the main laws of Newtonian physics, limited chemistry, limited biology, and a little bit of "earth science". The sorts of things people should know about how the world works on a very basic level so that they could survive just fine on a day-to-day basis.

I would not expect the average person to know what stem cells can do, how lasers work, or how big an electron is. These are things that are interesting to know, but will not make or break your understanding of the world. That a person knows that atoms exist and they are extremely small, that cells make up your body and can be damaged, and that lasers can damage your eyes because they are very bright is good enough really.

 

[prplchknz]

12/12 Those weren't too hard, but I could see how the average person wouldn't know about these things without being interested in them first. I would have thought "basic" science questions would be more related to the main laws of Newtonian physics, limited chemistry, limited biology, and a little bit of "earth science". The sorts of things people should know about how the world works on a very basic level so that they could survive just fine on a day-to-day basis.

I would not expect the average person to know what stem cells can do, how lasers work, or how big an electron is. These are things that are interesting to know, but will not make or break your understanding of the world. That a person knows that atoms exist and they are extremely small, that cells make up your body and can be damaged, and that lasers can damage your eyes because they are very bright is good enough really.

I'm pretty average haven't taken science since highschool, the worlds just dumb in general.

 

[Laurie]

I got the tsunami wrong, which I thought I might. It also counted my correct answer as incorrect (what was found on mars) It read my correct answer as a wrong one :/ I even when back and checked and I had marked the correct answer. That might help explain some low scores!

 

[BlueScreen]

All twelve right. Though my dog could probably get 9 or 10.

I heard the literacy level was low enough at one stage that companies wanted to support schools so people could understand their advertising.

 

[Snoopy22]

12 for 12.

 

[Spartacuss]

All 12, but I was expecting something a lot harder based on the chart. Damn!

+1
Is current science education a joke or are people not retaining the basic stuff?

 

[The_Liquid_Laser]

I only got 10 out of 12 correct. I didn't know that aspirin prevents heart attacks nor have I ever heard of anyone taking aspirin for that purpose. The other one that threw me was "recently" finding water on Mars. I thought they discovered that a while ago.

Most of the others tended to be things I actually learned in a science class.

 

[ygolo]

It might not be independent of our efforts.

Could be that a few dozen results isn't statistically significant to nudge a data set of a few million? just guessing.

There could be a lot of people on-line taking it. Also, most serious institutions would only take on-line statistics under much more controlled environments.

It would be unwise of them to claim them to be U.S. statistics, also... for the very reason that there could be people from all over the world taking it.

Pew usually does phone or in person surveys, I think. They may use the on-line results for something else. A basis for funding of a study of net users vs. not.

Also, I don't really see this as a failure in science education. Rather, I see it as a failure of people to either pay attention to science news or to comprehend the science news they do pay attention to.

 

[Colors]

12/12, but those weren't really scienc-y questions. More like pop culture questions.

 

[Greydius]

12 right... that wasn't science, that was barely general knowledge...

....is it possible for someone to find a better basic level science test? That one felt kind of... lacking in substance.

 

[Asterion]

11/12, thanks to liquid laser, I know that I got the Aspirin question wrong, I had no freaking idea, and aspirin is made for the purposes of pain relief, I assumed it was some other random drug that just barely sound familiar. That is not science , it's just random knowledge.

 

[Athenian200]

That is not science , it's just random knowledge.

Agreed. Do you know how I know most of this stuff? Watching the news and constantly hearing commercials saying "If you take aspirin for your heart, consider... blah blah."

Basically, it really just measures how much attention you pay to TV commercials and the news.

 

[Asterion]

Agreed. Do you know how I know most of this stuff? Watching the news and constantly hearing commercials saying "If you take aspirin for your heart, consider... blah blah."

Basically, it really just measures how much attention you pay to TV commercials and the news.

There are also some articles that say that Aspirin might not even have beneficial effects on the heart. Knowing the general scientific method would be more useful, or even some sort of applicable ability with mathematics/theoretical thinking.

I don't watch television all that much, I just happened to recall learning about some of these things in school/while chatting with school mates/looking up things on the net. I'd suspect that you'd have trouble with these questions if you're either live under a rock or have simply never encountered the information required to answer the questions. You don't send a student into an exam room without teaching them anything, perhaps a test in which you are required to apply some kind of information to a problem would be a better measure of scientific knowledge?

 

[Lauren Ashley]

12/12, but those weren't really scienc-y questions. More like pop culture questions.

Exactly...You could work in science, but if you don't pay attention to current events you wouldn't be able to get 12/12 on this.

 

[runvardh]

You mean I actually know some pop culture, I thought that was all more entertainment and the like.

 

[Qre:us]

There are also some articles that say that Aspirin might not even have beneficial effects on the heart.

There's a pretty good understanding of the biological mechanism by which Aspirin works to affect the heart. A man won the Nobel prize for outlining exactly how Aspirin works in general. Asprin is one of the 'oldest' over-the-counter drug, introduced in the late 1800s, and most widely sold pharmaceutical drug, hence time and usage enough to study it in depth and its repercussions.

It's basically a blood thinner, meaning it stops platelets from aggregating by inhibiting COX-1 (an enzyme in the platelets) that's responsible for inflammation. Negatives of aspirin is that it can affect the stomach lining (COX-1 helps in forming the stomach lining, hence too much aspirin and you're killing your stomach lining) and the kidneys.

 

[Asterion]

There's a pretty good understanding of the biological mechanism by which Aspirin works to affect the heart. A man won the Nobel prize for outlining exactly how it works. Asprin is one of the 'oldest' over-the-counter drug, introduced in the late 1800s, and most widely sold pharmaceutical drug, hence time and usage enough to study it in depth and its repercussions.

It's basically a blood thinner, meaning it stops platelets from aggregating by inhibiting COX-1 (an enzyme in the platelets) that's responsible for inflammation. Negatives of aspirin is that it can affect the stomach lining (COX-1 helps in forming the stomach lining, hence too much aspirin and you're killing your stomach lining) and the kidneys.

That is awesome, did you look that up or just know it off the top of your head?

 

[Qre:us]

That is awesome, did you look that up or just know it off the top of your head?

My mother suffered from a heart attack in 2003 and I became well versed in the topic and drugs related to it. I also had to sit through a lecture in my undergrad Uni's biochemistry class, 3hrs, and the topic of the day was...dun dun dun...Aspirin.