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I got 37,300. They claim this is not quite 95th percentile, which I am a tad skeptical accurately represents my vocabulary-size percentile relative to the general population. Perhaps this survey is being forwarded around unusually literate people at the top end, or more than 5% of responders are cheating. Where are the fake words to catch cheaters? I Googled a lot of what I didn't recognize, and everything I checked…
Some of these don't look like real words (e.g. splarge, which is definitely something that you could make up). I assume they're real, though. Anyway, my score: http://testyourvocab.com/?r=36192
Edit: And, also to add, I followed 2 criteria for whether I know the word or not.
1. What's the absolute definition?
2. And can I find the equivalent or meaning of it in my native language? (which is Tamil, an Indian language, if anyone cares.)
Obvious point : The only people interested in finding out their scores will be the kind of people who think their vocab is something worth competing on. There's no way this is a fair sample across all English-speakers.
I wouldn't say the ONLY people. This could be the next 'IQ test' where it seems the near opposite, the lesser intelligent ones are who are obsessed with them. Going by magazines, common forwards and so on it seems the average man loves a good self-quiz.
And in the back of my mind, I thought that the bulk of quiz magazines were sold to women, no? (Though I'm probably being too pedantic...)
lots of people here are saying they scored lower than what they expected, and that maybe other people cheated. that could be it, but it could also be that hacker news folks tend to be overconfident. this would match the stereotype of this group being mainly male nerd entreprenuers, which could score worse on things like this but perceive themselves to score much higher (a feeling not a fact backed by studies that i c…
I never really considered Hacker News to be full of overconfident people. If anything, to me being part of HN is a humbling experience. It reminds me that there are so many people out there that are smarter or more experienced than me, and I've seen other people say similar things.
Some of these don't look like real words (e.g. splarge, which is definitely something that you could make up). I assume they're real, though. Anyway, my score: http://testyourvocab.com/?r=36192
Clearly my American public school education has served me well. >_<