Okcupid.com, the latest social networking portal I've visited, has a heavy emphasis on tests and multiple choice questions. Their premise is if you answer enough of these truthfully, you can find people of like interests. I find their mathematical approach interesting.
There is a facility for users to create their own and, upon approval by a moderator, these are available to others. Many of them are lame variants of the purity test. I wanted to do a geekier one with some humor. So, here's the quiz. Answers and explanations are at the bottom. Enjoy!
There is a facility for users to create their own and, upon approval by a moderator, these are available to others. Many of them are lame variants of the purity test. I wanted to do a geekier one with some humor. So, here's the quiz. Answers and explanations are at the bottom. Enjoy!
- What is an actinoid?
- A curiously strong mint
- Radioactive element with atomic numbers 89-103
- Something your ex- did all the time.
- The small worm that causes jock itch.
- What should you do with a dangling participle?
- Go to your doctor and get some antibiotics.
- Flaunt it if you got it.
- Use it to arouse experimental physicists
- Rearrange the sentence to change the modifier
- Why does Teflon stick to the pan?
- Elven magick.
- The pan is made of solid teflon.
- It's sprayed on in very thin layers.
- Double-sided duct tape.
- Which of these is the largest planet in our solar system?
- Uranus (snort)
- Neptune
- Saturn
- Jupiter
- If you drop a penny from the top of the Empire State Building, approximately how fast will it be moving when it hits the ground?
- About 182,262 miles (300,000 km) per hour
- About 200 miles (320 km) per hour
- About 25 miles (40 km) per hour
- The penny would burn up on reentry.
- Which mammal has the largest average brain size?
- Human
- Dolphin
- Cow
- Squirrel monkey
- What is generally believed to have caused dinosaur extinction?
- Cigarette smoking
- Radioactive fungi
- Meterorite impact
- Global boredom
- What is a source of kinetic energy?
- Rubber bands.
- Movement.
- Attraction between cousins
- The disco movement.
- If you wanted to clone yourself, which would be your best source for human DNA?
- eBay.
- Teeth.
- Hair follicles.
- Saliva.
- . When identifying victims of disasters such as plane crashes, which is the most useful to the forensics experts?
- Dental records
- Physical characteristics about the body
- Personal jewelry
- Their OKCupid user profile
- Which of these is not a real subatomic particle?
- Proton
- Neuron
- Electron
- Tachyon
- Matter has several phases, including liquid, solid and gas. Which of these is also a phase?
- Plasma
- Bose Einstein Condensate
- Supersolid
- Adolescence.
- Which sea creature has the largest bones?
- Sharks
- Jellyfish
- Starfish
- Salmon
- What's the largest component (by volume) in human blood?
- Plasma
- Red blood cells
- Platelets
- Red dye number 2
- How long does light from the sun take to reach earth?
- 4 hours, 12 minutes.
- As long as it wants. You have a problem with that?
- 8 minutes.
- Six days, seven nights.
- What causes auroras?
- Swamp gas.
- Solar wind hitting earth's magnetic field.
- Space garbage burning up in the atmosphere.
- Really bad hallucinogenic drugs.
- What causes tides?
- Swamp gas.
- Gravitational pull from the moon.
- The wind.
- Moving too quickly in the bath tub.
- The hypothalamus controls the endocrine and autonomic nervous systems. Which of these functions is your favorite?
- Feeding
- Fighting
- Fleeing
- Reproduction
- Why do many packages of pasta recommend you add salt to the boiling water?
- Flavor
- Salty water boils hotter, reducing cooking time.
- Reproduction!!
- Heavy lobbying by the Sodium Manufacturers.
- Can you build a concrete boat that floats?
- Yes, if the concrete is spread out enough.
- No way.
- Only if tethered to lead zeppelins
- An actinoid is a radioactive element with atomic numbers 89 - 103.
Incorrect answers: Altoids are the "Curiously Strong Mint." Jock itch is caused by a fungus. - A dangling participle is a misplaced modifier. For example: "Trying to finish this blog entry, Jim's banana bread burned." The banana bread was not blogging. A better way to word this: "While Jim was trying to finish this blog entry, his banana bread burned."
Incorrect answers: Antibiotics are only good for bacterial infections. (A dangling participle is not a bacterial infection.)
I don't know what arouses experimental physicists. I suppose you could ask them. - Teflon, the Dupont brand name for polytetrafluoroethylene, is applied to the pan in layers. Interestingly, Teflon is now being used for a lot of other applications, including clothing and dental floss. It's one of the most slippery substances known.
Incorrect answers: A pan of solid teflon wouldn't be sturdy enough to cook with. (And I believe it's not going to be a great conductor of heat.) Elves do cookies, not cookware. - Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system.
- The penny would hit closer to 25 miles an hour. I gave partial credit for the 200 mph.
Incorrect answers: 186,262 mph is the speed of light. - Dolphin brains are slightly larger, on average, than humans. But do dolphins blog? I don't think so.
Incorrect answers: Cows are a lot bigger then people, but their brains are smaller. Squirrel monkeys are smaller than human brains. - Dinosaur extinction is believed to be caused by a meteorite impact. When I was in school, it was believed to be in the Yucutan peninsula area. A story last week suggested Australia. I don't know, I wasn't around.
Incorrect answers: Cigarette smoking is hazardous to your health and makes you smell stinky to your coworkers. It didn't have much effect on dinosaurs since they didn't have the opposable thumbs to hold matches.
Radioactive fungi may have killed dinosaurs, though the radiation would have been from a meteorite impact.
Global boredom leads to creation of online quizzes. - Kinetic energy is motion from movement.
Incorrect answers: Rubber bands have kinetic energy when you shoot them at someone.
Disco Stu might assert disco a source of energy. - Teeth are the best source of DNA on this list.
Partial credit was given for Saliva, because it's not the saliva, but stuff floating around in it. Hair follicles can be used if they're taken at the root of the hair.
Although you could probably buy DNA on eBay, you probably wouldn't find our own. - Dental records are the most useful because teeth are hard and incinerate at very high temperatures (in excess of 1,500°F). Physical characteristics about the body and personal effects are used to corroborate the intification.
Incorrect answer: the veracity of most okcupid profiles is unclear. - Proton and Electrons are subatomic particles.
Incorrect answers: Tacyhons are often mentioned in Star Trek and other science fiction/space opera. Their existence has never been proven.
A neuron is a type of cell used to transmit messages to and from your brain. - Plasma and Bose Einstein Condensate have been demonstrated repeatedly. Supersolids are believed to be another phase, though they were only announced in January.
Adolescence is a phase of growing up. Once you get past it, it doesn't really matter. (nyuk, nyuk). - Salmon are the only one of these with bones. Sharks have cartilage.
- Human blood is mostly plasma. Partial credit was given for Red blood cells, which are a smaller constituent.
There are a small amount of platelets.
- Sunlight takes about eight minutes to reach the earth.
Incorrect answer: there would be no "night" on the sun. - Auroras are caused when supercharged particles from the solar wind hit the earth's magnetic field.
- Tides are caused by the moon's gravitational pull on earth.
Incorrect answers: Wind can cause waves. So can moving around in the bathtub. - The hypothalamus controls all four of these functions. My favorites are reproduction and feeding. I hope yours are, too.
- The instructions recommend adding salt for flavor. Pasta is bland without it.
Incorrect answers: Salt does increase the boiling point of water, but this has nothing to do with cooking pasta.
Yes, reproduction is fun.
To my knowledge, there is no Sodium Lobby, though if there was, they'd be republicans.
- You can make a boat out of any material, provided you can displaces its weight. We have a few floating bridges in the Seattle area.
Incorrect answer: While Led Zeppelin does play hard rock, they would not take too kindly to being tethered to concrete boats.
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