Marni Ko
This blog is called “Living,” and for the most part we’re all in favour of getting out there and doing so. Living, that is. But let’s face it, there are times when you just want to stay at home and let life pass you by for awhile. For those moments, I recommend an online quiz.
Online quizzes have the advantage — unlike, say, watching “Days of Our Lives” — of letting you think that you’re actually improving yourself, or getting to know yourself better, or contributing to the sum of human knowledge. All you’re really doing, of course, is vegging out, while perhaps letting the spouse and kids fend for themselves for a bit. But there’s absolutely no reason that anyone — including you — has to know that.
For example, want to find out what kind of American accent you have? Perhaps you’ll answer: I’m not American. But don’t let that stop you; I’m not either, and I didn’t let it stop me. (Remember, the goal here is to waste time.) Being from Alberta, I thought I might sound like a Texan. But this amazingly precise quiz ended up telling me: “Outsiders probably mistake you for a Canadian a lot.”
Oh. Er, right.
If you’re feeling a little dumb (after, say, taking the “What kind of American accent do you have?” quiz), find out whether you deserve your high school diploma or not. If that goes well, try the Famous Monkey Challenge Trivia Quiz, a four part, 60 question blockbuster on Geography, History, Science and Technology, and Random Trivia. Finally, really suck it up and test your IQ.
Perhaps by now you’ve decided that you need to brush up on your basic knowledge of, oh, everything. If so, try the quizzes at syvum.com. These have the advantage of letting you learn the basics of dozens of subjects (English, Physics, various languages) before testing yourself. Syvum also has a pretty dang handy interactive recipe calculator, which allows you to recalculate ingredient amounts and cooking times based on the number of guests you’re expecting. But I digress.
You can study English as a second language here, or sharpen your knowledge of African American History here. Or take the original internet political quiz, described by the Washington Post as “a valid measure of a person’s political leanings.” Twenty little questions and you’ll know where you stand. Or lean.
But back to wasting time. At Blogthings you’ll find innumerable mindless quizzes. They’re innumerable because you have to keep refreshing the webpage to see new ones. But if you want to find out if you’re spoiled, what your beer personality is, or how Sagittarius you are, help has finally arrived.
Inventive folks can create their own quizzes at Quizfarm, Go-Quiz, or Quizzilla. The latter, on a recent visit, boasted over a million quizzes taken in just one day. Maybe that’s what happened to all the people who used to watch “The Apprentice.”
Once you’re done, find out if you’re addicted to the internet yet here. If the answer is yes, it’s time to get back out there and live again. Really. Get up from that computer. Don’t let life pass you by! Your spouse and kids are calling!
Or perhaps you’d like to participate in some internet polls.
