March 20, 2004

Testing the Nation Again

Just as I did in December, I played along tonight with another installment of the BBC's Test the Nation. This time I played online, which has positives and negatives.

The questions are actually a little different, because there are extended video clips on the telly. You can't play along with the telly exactly, because as soon as a question is answered online, the next question pops up with just 10 or 15 seconds (depending on the section of the test) to answer. I think if I had just used pencil and paper like last time, my raw score would have been better. I was also taking it on my laptop using the touchpad with over sensitive buttons. Several time I brushed over the button while I was still moving the mouse to hightlight the correct answer.

An advatage of testing online is that the results are immediate. Everyone else is waiting until after the 10:00 news. A disadvantage is that sometimes it calculates the wrong result. The website told me I got 47 out of 75 correct. That was enough to be in the top 20%. When 10:30 came around and I actually marked my individual answers, I actually got 51 out of 75.

This time the test covered knowledge of the UK, in terms of history, geography, culture, and the like. You can go to the website and take the test for yourself. Feel free to post comments with your scores.

Posted by david at March 20, 2004 09:59 PM | TrackBack
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