Science Quiz

BruceJohnJennerLawso

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My sister sends me this link. 13 questions, which I thought were quite easy, but apparently only 7% of the sampled people get them all correct.

http://www.pewresearch.org/quiz/science-knowledge/

Even adjusting for my nerdiness I don't think these should be very hard.

13/13 here, although a handful of them are moderately tricky. The one about testing a cure on 1000 volunteers neglects the fact that 1000+ examples would probably be available beforehand without needing to use any of the volunteer group to act as baseline cases. Somewhat subjective there, but otherwise straightforward.
 

boogabooga

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13/13 here, although a handful of them are moderately tricky. The one about testing a cure on 1000 volunteers neglects the fact that 1000+ examples would probably be available beforehand without needing to use any of the volunteer group to act as baseline cases. Somewhat subjective there, but otherwise straightforward.

It's not subjective at all. It is asking if it is better to use a scientific control...or not. This is a basic part of the scientific method and should be understood by every 9th grader.

To be fair, if it were 13 questions on 9th grade spelling and grammar, I would probably miss a few "easy" questions. It's harder when it's not your thing.
 

Quick_Nick

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At least 50% of people got about 9 or more correct and 25% got 11 or more. That's something I guess. Still kinda scary though.
These are results from adults. Maybe you would get higher results if you surveyed people who more recently attended highschool or early college.
 

boogabooga

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The "Electrons are smaller than atoms" bit is especially tricky. Are we talking mass, or are we talking Compton wavelength?

Since every atom is composed of at least 1 electron in an outer shell...
 

asbjos

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I got 12/13. I believe that it was a relativly easy quiz. I answered wrong on the last question, as I've never heard about "fracking". I don't know if it's because of my age or the fact that I'm a non-native English speaker.

---------- Post added at 09:04 ---------- Previous post was at 09:00 ----------

Yeah, it turns out that "fracking" is "hydraulisk oppsprekking" in Norwegian and I've not heard about that before, so I don't think that I could have answered that correctly.
 

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mikusingularity
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Got 13/13. Barely heard of "fracking". The worst question was "Which gas makes up most of Earth's atmosphere?"; only about 20 percent of the 1006 people surveyed got that right.
 
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Keatah

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13/13 -- I'd say that half of the answers I learned through casual conversation outside of the formal education system.
 
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Urwumpe

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13/13, but I agree some questions there require more context. Also the cultural bias is a bit strong there, especially since as European, I can't answer the demographics at the end correctly. :rofl:

BTW, fracking is "Fracking" in German. We like words that sound like what they mean.
 

Quick_Nick

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I feel like to get much more than half wrong, you have to live under a rock. And likely BE a rock to get 0/13.
 

Spacethingy

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Quite odd that fracking is so unheard of, given its political sensitivity at the moment in several countries, although I guess that explains why older participants got that one right more often.

The gender difference is fascinating - females are always lower in the test, except for the two questions about pharmaceuticals. I wonder why?

Nice find, thanks Andy44.
 

C3PO

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Quite odd that fracking is so unheard of, given its political sensitivity at the moment in several countries, although I guess that explains why older participants got that one right more often.

asbjos does have a good excuse. Norway is probably the last place it will catch on. No limestone and loads of oil. :lol:

The gender difference is fascinating - females are always lower in the test, except for the two questions about pharmaceuticals. I wonder why?

And I noticed another thing too.

Which is the better way to determine whether a new drug is effective in treating a disease? If a scientist has a group of 1,000 volunteers with the disease to study, should she
 
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Evil_Onyx

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13/13 here, I would be surprised if anyone form this forum got many of the questions wrong, as most of us have an interest in sciences and technology.
I am not all that surprised by the lower result by females, as other than the question about lasers, the results are close. And women are more more likely to aware of heath related issues.
 

PeterRoss

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13/13 Piece of cake except of fracking - never heard of it, but I was going to choose Natural Gas as answer anyway before I decided to ask Wiki. So, yeah, I cheated a bit.

Interesting is results statistic. There are only two questions which have the better correct answer percentage among women than men, and these questions are about medicine - i.e. something they have to deal with in real life more often.
 

Proximus

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12/13 I hate to say :facepalm:
Caught out by "fracking" also.

Think I will show to the other half this evening and observe her score :hmm:
 

PeterRoss

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I feel like to get much more than half wrong, you have to live under a rock. And likely BE a rock to get 0/13.

To get 0/13 you have to have really bad luck. Even a rock should answer around a half of the questions correctly by chosing random answers. On the other hand, you can get 0/13 if you know all the correct answers but want to play the fool because of some reason.
 

MattBaker

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13/13 and have to say everything was kinda easy...

As an European disliking our EU energy minister I of course know of fracking.
 
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