UKC

It's 50 questions but it's quite fun

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/1209/Are-you-scientifically-literate-...



My score 38 Correct
12 Wrong
76%
Could do better

In reply to krikoman:

'You answered 43 of 50 questions correctly for a total score of 86%.'

Need to brush up on some astronomical info. The planets and their moons were never really my thing.

In reply to interdit:

Well done!

In reply to krikoman:

I'd have agonised over a score less than 90% in the sciences when I was at school! I'm a little more chilled in my dotage now

The average score is given as 66%, which I think is probably higher than I would expect for the average population - I assume the test is being filled out by those with a scientific interest and the score is biased in that direction?

In reply to krikoman:

Working link:

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/1209/Are-you-scientifically-literate-...

In reply to krikoman:

Didn't load up for me, but am glad as it's The Christian Science Monitor. Are there any questions about evolution?

In reply to Skip:


I assumed working out how to make the link work was the first part of the test, but apparently not - see new link above.

Worth doing, despite it being the CSM.

In reply to Skip:

Question 10 is 'approximately how old is earth' with options of 6015 years, 100,000 years, 4.5million years or 4.5billion years. The detail it gives is as follows:-

"Correct

In the 17th century, an Anglican archbishop in Ireland named James Ussher added up the reigns of the kings and lifespans of the Biblical kings and patriarchs and concluded that the world came into existence on Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC. Science has yet to determine the exact date of the formation of our planet, but we can safely conclude that Rev. Ussher got the year wrong. "

Which I thought was quite funny considering the stupid site the quiz is on!

In reply to krikoman:

64% - And I thought I was quite sciencey. Did rush it a bit, but still

In reply to Removed User:



Thanks, you've passed part one of the test.

In reply to krikoman:

43/50 but some guesswork (never did biology at school)

In reply to Phil Anderson:


Same here... 64%

In reply to interdit:


I hope so. I got 54% and I follow Brian Cox on Twitter.

In reply to krikoman:
74% ftw

I'm interested in science but haven't studied it for nearly 30 years...

In reply to Skip:

I feel you're being a bit hard on the CSM. I appreciate that it is owned by a slightly strange religious organisation, but it is basically a mainstream news site. Bit of an emphasis on "think" pieces and feel-good news, but pretty good compared to the alternatives. No preaching that I can see, and their Sci/Tech coverage seems comparable to a mainstream UK newpaper.

More at http://www.csmonitor.com/About

(I have no relationship with the site or its parent organisation.)

In reply to Andy Hardy:


They wouldn't let me, because I was doing Chemistry and Physics!!
I used to read my mates books after his lessons and get him to ask questions for me.

It's a funny old world.

In reply to krikoman:

44/50 for me but a few of them relied on my shakey knowledge of classical greek rather than science.

In reply to krikoman:

42/50 for me.

Some I got right I guessed some I got wrong I should have known.

In reply to Clarence:


Its also not what science is..

This is what school science is going towards. That science is simply knowledge not the process. Just give kids facts to retain and regurgitate, not a robust systematic study through observation and experimentation.

Sorry for the rant but I can't stand how poor students are at designing a robust system to investigate a problem.. thats what science is. Know the basics but focusing on specific facts is a waste of time, they just need to know the basic organization of the sciences so they can teach themselves.

In reply to krikoman:

Got 86% so quite pleased.

In reply to krikoman:

45/50, 90%. Funnily enough most (3) of the questions I got wrong were astronomy based, which suggests I would have scored better when I was around 10 years old and loved reading about space.

In reply to krikoman:

42/50 (86%). Could have done better I suppose...

In reply to krikoman:

98%, didn't know what -nimbus was. Relied on my chemistry for most, and my ancient Greek for a few.

Good quiz, quite chemistry based, certainly the more obscure ones were.

In reply to Philip:

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/1209/Are-you-scientifically-literate-...

In reply to Philip:



Ever looked up and seen Cumulo nimbus? - I learned about those in a geography class, rather than a 'science class'.

In reply to JJL:


What you've done is link to your results page, which no one else can see. We all get a blank section. Deduct 3% for internet fail. Don't feel too bad. The OP did the same link.

In reply to krikoman:

I got 4%

I'm a dunce.

What do I do now?

In reply to L'Eeyore:




Minister for science?

In reply to krikoman:

86% should have done better.

In reply to krikoman:

72% not too bad

In reply to krikoman:

72%, not too bad for a sketchy 24yr old memory of A level physics, and no real biology or chemistry studies. A fair few I worked out, rather than knew, though.

In reply to krikoman:

90% for me and I probably benefited more from my knowledge of Greek and Latin than of Biology or Chemistry.

In reply to Roadrunner5:
Know the basics but focusing on specific facts is a waste of time, they just need to know the basic organization of the sciences so they can teach themselves.

But it's a science "quiz"! Of course it's not actual science. And besides, these sorts of facts (call it History of science, or science trivia, if you like) are still interesting, still worth knowing, still serve to generate interest, and can still be part of a thorough education. As this thread shows, we all love a quiz! My best science teachers (I was a shit one) always got some anecdote, trivia or historical detail into the (real) problem-solving.

Anyway, 43 so 86%, but one was a genuine miss-click cos of my fat thumb on the iPhone, so I'm claiming 87%, cos I really did know all those lucky guesses!

In reply to Philip:

Me too. I think this is pretty hard as a test of 'scientific literacy'. I can't imagine a well-educated generalist getting more than half of these questions right. It did strike me that there were a lot of stiff chemistry questions, but I'm a biologist so I was dredging the memory a bit for the physical sciences (and had a couple of lucky guesses where I'd narrowed odds down to 50%). To be fair there were some obscure biology questions for a non-biologist.

I wonder how many we'd get in a 'humanities literacy' (or even a 'literature literacy') test of similar rigour?

In reply to krikoman:

35 correct 70%. Failed Physics and Chemistry O level

In reply to L'Eeyore:




Knitting?

76% helped by some inspired guesses - I should have done a bit better on biology although there were few questions on plant ecology (my speciality) but my childhood interest in Astronomy helped (surprised myself how much I managed to remember)

In reply to Roadrunner5:



Sadly it's not just science my daughter has just done the SATS tests and the was one printed in the Sunday paper, I can't even remember the questions but one of then contained "Subordinating conjunction ".

While all knowledge is power would children befit more for knowing how to use English rather then what a "Subordinating conjunction" is? I've never needed to know this information in my lifetime.

Which sort of marries with my thoughts on taking kids out of school, surly a lot of children benefit educationally from travelling to new countries, discovering different foods, people and languages. shouldn't education be an holistic experience rather than a feat of memory?

Sub rant over.

In reply to Roadrunner5:

47/50 for me (failed on -nimbus, symbol for friction coefficient, and surface gravity), but you are completely right.

Rant mode on:

IMO this quiz reveals something fundamental about the scientific illiteracy even of well meaning media types who try to do something pro science.

The person setting the quiz seriously appears to believe that asking the rough numerical value of e rather than a few of the important properties of that number, or memorizing the names of some random moons can tell you anything about scientific literacy.

No wonder I regularly meet undergrad students unfamiliar with the concept of a logarithm, and hence unable to develop an intuitive feeling for how systems behave that exhibit logarithmic or exponential relation between parameters.

It is the understanding of systems, not the regurgitating of results where scientific literacy becomes apparent.

CB

In reply to cb294:

47 out of 50 (heck, I can never remember which way round mitosis and meiosis are!), but I must agree with CB that random facts are not science, even if one might have stumbled across them and might remember them.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Exactly,

Ok it's a quiz but you can still quiz on systems and general theory, on experimental design, on problems..

I'd love to get into curriculum design as I really worry we're producing a generation who can't problem solve, they want answers and get frustrated by a problem where they don't know the answer and struggle to work through the process logically.

I think this highlights what we think science is..

In reply to Roadrunner5:


True, though I wonder whether this is really any worse than it ever was. Historically we would have only taught science at degree level to the top 5% to 10% of the cohort. Nowadays we teach it to about 40% of the cohort, so, understandably many of them are a lot less good at it.

Maybe the top 5% to 10% as just as good at problem solving and scientific insight as they ever were, and we only expose the lesser ability of others because we're trying to educate many more to higher levels?

I agree with you about curriculum design, but perhaps it is inevitable if you're teaching middling-ability students, where with "facts and more facts" they can at least learn them, whereas with problem solving they would always flounder whatever.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Hah, beat me by one! My biggest weak area was astronomy, although I did know the moons of Jupiter and I made a lucky if partially informed guess about the gravity one.

I'd agree that a knowledge of Ancient Greek can give you some of the answers, without having to know anything about the actual subject of the questions.

But yes, it is a quiz, which by its very nature is about asking simple questions with straightforward answers. (Although I did get my calculator out to double-check my answer to the one about how long light takes to reach us from the Sun, just to make sure that my memory wasn't failing me. Of course, I could still have mis-remembered the distance from the Earth top the Sun...)

I thought that the mechanics questions did actually require some understanding of the subject.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

One thing I always considered important about Degrees was the fact that they showed an ability to problem solve and an ability to weigh up all the arguments. If people can't do that then perhaps other forms of further education would be more appropriate.

In reply to L'Eeyore:


Perhaps, but the powers that be have decided to move from a system where 10% of the cohort get degrees to one in which 40% get degrees. That inevitably changes what a degree is.

In reply to krikoman:

72% , Not bad considering I haven't done any science since school 15 years ago.

There were a few which I should have known but got wrong, however I can live with myself.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

In the teaching statement that I had to write for professorial job applications I stressed the importance of teaching a largeish syllabus of facts first, even if this may look decidedly old fashioned.
All this modern emphasis on "problem oriented learning" or "skills" can come later. IMO, for this to be productive the students must have first acquired a body of knowledge that they can then use to quickly check any claims arising from the explanations they develop for the question/problem they are given.

In my field of research, the immediate focus on molecular biology - at the cost of other disciplines even including genetics, never mind old fashioned zoology - in the background training of our grad students is becoming a huge problem.

However, before you can even start doing proper biology you will need solid maths skills, and the foundations for this must be laid in school, ideally starting in primary school. However, school maths is largely being reduced to arithmetics, i.e. using a pocket calculator.

I guess the reason for this is that we are much too lenient with celebrities bragging on TV about how they were always bad at maths. In a way they are messing with our kids´ brains. Instead we should be demonstrating that maths may be hard but getting to the core of problems can be fun, and is in any case useful whatever you will do later.

This whole "bad at maths" culture should be treated the same way as if someone claimed they couldn´t read: Yes, maths may not be your strength, but better do something about it rather than celebrate your deficit, it is nothing to be proud of, here is help...

CB

In reply to Roadrunner5:


I'm not sure about this. I don't think knowing a few facts stands in the way of being able to figure out a problem. My impression is that people can either do both or neither. It certainly takes longer if you have to reinvent the wheel all the time because you don't have any background knowledge to rely on.

For anything other than basic skills of logical thinking surely problem-centred (or patient-centred) learning is limited by the database of facts on which students are basing it?

In reply to cb294:


You beat me to it.

If you want kids to appreciate how valuable it is to have both a good store of basic science facts, solid maths and practical problem solving skills, make them watch 'The Martian'!

In reply to cb294:

I think the move to reduce biology to molecular biology is slowly being countered, or at least that's my impression here in France (which I think went further in that direction than other countries). But I'm appalled at the lack of knowledge (or even interest) of what might best be termed 'natural history' amongst some biology students who, although they may understand a lot about gene expression or structure of proteins have no idea about how whole organisms function & even less of communities or ecosystems.

I always remember the late John Harper (prof at Bangor) saying that his ideal plant ecology PhD student would have a good knowledge of natural history together with a degree in maths.

In reply to Dave Garnett:

My pet hate is that my children hardly derive or prove (in maths) anything they learned in school. If you not only memorize a scientific law, but have to retrace how one arrived at that law, you will be better off than someone who learned what the scientist´s dog was called. We should strive to get children interested into the science for its own sake, not with the help of distracting "human interest" stories. No idea how to achieve this, first TV, then computer games, and now "social" media seem to have killed curiosity and attention span (look, a cute cat...)

I know that this partially appears to contradict what I wrote above, but thinking about it, what I am probably looking for is a solid and importantly also broad grounding in the disciplines underlying the subject that is actually studied (which can then be addressed problem oriented, etc..).

CB

In reply to Doug:


Precisely. Try to do developmental biology with students who have heard the word animal at some point in the fourth semester.

CB

In reply to cb294:

Not in my daughters school, emphasis on mental maths which is really great as far as I'm concerned, mental maths and estimating can get you a long way and is a great indicator in large and complicated calculations if something is going wrong i.e. you've made a mistake, because it doesn't "feel" right.


Oh! and no calculators allowed, so far!

In reply to krikoman:

Sounds excellent, but I was of course exaggerating slightly.

CB

In reply to Coel Hellier:

But the ability to marshall facts and use them was useful. I was quite proud of my estimate for the time it takes light to reach us from the sun using a rough estimate of the lag on a satellite phone, the rough distance to the moon, the fact that a geostationary orbit is quite small compared with the moon's, the fact that the moon almost exactly eclipses the sun and that the moon is a bit smaller compared with the sun than Mercury looked in the recent transit - though it would have been easier just to know how far away the sun is!

In reply to cb294:


It's not really as old fashioned as you think... modern research that shows that "skills" are invariably linked to context and body of knowledge, and that "context-free skills" although they sound nice don't really exist in the brain, are driving teaching back round to making sure the body of knowledge is there before learning how to manipulate it. It will take a while to bed down though.

edit: 88%. Turns out I don't know any astronomy...

In reply to Robert Durran:


I now feel bad that I just knew that it was 8 minutes.

(Though light-travel time to the Sun is a number one has to use routinely in astronomy.)

In reply to Robert Durran:

I'm intrigued that you haven't included the size of the Sun in your estimate. Care you share your rough workings?

In reply to climbwhenready:

One lives in hope...
CB

In reply to krikoman:

88%. UKC seems to be doing well above average (if everyone who's done it is reporting)

In reply to Jimbo C:

I admit I lied further up thread, I actually scored 50% and considered I did quite well for a subject that I would consider one of my worst. These sort of tests and threads rarely get responses from people who don't do well in the subject matter.

And less seriously - thanks to all the scientists that gave me encouragement to improve my scientific knowledge

In reply to Jimbo C:

Unlikely, too much self reporting bias.

CB

In reply to Dave Garnett:

If you read I never argued against basic facts.. But very specific facts?

What donyoubteach the student? They must learn the basics, taxonomy, physiology, the basics of cell biology..

Do they really need to know the specifics of which cellular markers, which antioxidants do what.. Just what each term is, the main ceullar cycles..

But learning specific moons on each planet? Why does that matter?