True. I'm French native but my English is better (educated in Australia) so this created a weird situation for me where I got 14/20 for advanced words and 19/20 for expert words.
To be fair, I think I messed up a few advanced words by accident but I think the general pattern would hold because many of the expert level words seemed to have French root. So it felt like it got easier towards the end for me. Grandmaster words were a bit weirder on the whole.
I'm an engineer and read mostly non-fiction so this probably explains the gap too.
Fun fact: there's a test you can do called wordsum which correlates extremely highly, like .71, to IQ. It's just asking you 10 vocabulary questions. It turns out knowing advanced vocabulary correlates really well to IQ.
I can see how that’s confusing. But I always remembering people saying “can I speak candidly about this?” With them following up going off on the subject in detail and lots of emotion.
I suggest skipping the submit button and just showing it's correct when pressing and moving on after a sec or so. Having to click on submit twice really breaks the flow.
Also in all the words I tried I noticed out of the 4 options one is the correct one, another is the opposite of the correct one, and the other 2 are random stuff. You can basically skip any option whose antonym isn't present as well.
Another suggestion: update an estimate of words known after every word. E.g. start out with a range of 0 to 170,000. Then after the first word, show 100 to 170,000. Etc.
Users get drops of information and can stop whenever they feel. I stopped well before 100.
These should maybe be checked through. Many are the second or third definitions, and some even reference the word in the definition e.g Lethargic: exhibiting lethargy
It seems like the right answer is usually the longest of the choices, I managed to get a few just by picking the longest. It would also be nice if there was a "I don't know" instead of guessing and skewing the results by getting it right, though maybe thats accounted for
Presumably it's a random batch of words since you can run the test again. I wonder how much the word selection affects the outcome. I got 66,750 with 20/20/15/17/14.
I'm curious how the difficult is chosen because "obfuscate" was included in the hardest difficulty but I would not consider that to me a difficult word.
Also I found that some of the definitions were not completely correct.
apparently 54,000. Seems like it is including even fictional words though in this test (like from fiction novels). Ironically I scored higher on the expert words (18/20) than the "advanced" words (11/20)
Interesting concept, but 100 words is really quite a lot to get through... It's tiresome trudging through the easy words at the start, and I never got to see the interesting words before getting bored.
I've seen other systems like this calibrate far more quickly by assigning a sort of score and confidence behind the scenes. Confidence starts out low and increases over time - correct/incorrect answers rapidly adjust score at the beginning, then things settle down.
In practice this means you get a sequence of increasingly uncommon words initially, until you get one wrong, then you drop back to something easier until you start getting things right again, and eventually circle around words at your level.
Also - too many clicks per word. It's low stakes, just let me click the definition once and I'll live if I misclick (or add an undo button).
This reminds me of a learning resource that I can't find again: you start with an assessment of how many words you know and then you get new words in context with every session (and maybe some spaces repetition). It was mostly from newspaper articles and catered for every level of English. It was a website (ca 2013), not an app. Any ideas?
I like this but it should be all operable with keyboard to be faster ie up down and 1234 for options and if its righht you just move on, maybe show synonyms in the success ui.
Super fun, got 70,250. Friends have always lightly ribbed me for having to go home and look up words i've used. Those remaining 100k words must be really obscure.
One suggestion would be more convincing decoy choices, some were pretty silly. But I have no idea how they come up with them.
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[ 6.2 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] threadI scored 71,000.
I use the language to understand not get an effect
To be fair, I think I messed up a few advanced words by accident but I think the general pattern would hold because many of the expert level words seemed to have French root. So it felt like it got easier towards the end for me. Grandmaster words were a bit weirder on the whole.
I'm an engineer and read mostly non-fiction so this probably explains the gap too.
obsequious
laconic
sanguine
quotidian
enervate
On the other hand, I was able to correctly guess these words that I'd never seen before:
omphaloskepsis
crepuscular
absquatulate
callipygian
houghmagandy
quire
And then there were these, which were just totally foreign to me:
hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia
nudiustertian
ergophobia
tittynope
Final estimate: ~73000 words
It's annoying that you need to click 3 times per question, and the buttons are in 2 different places.
Maybe would be better to just let me click the answer I want and then instantly show me the next question?
Also who is Sandi?
I suggest skipping the submit button and just showing it's correct when pressing and moving on after a sec or so. Having to click on submit twice really breaks the flow.
Also in all the words I tried I noticed out of the 4 options one is the correct one, another is the opposite of the correct one, and the other 2 are random stuff. You can basically skip any option whose antonym isn't present as well.
Users get drops of information and can stop whenever they feel. I stopped well before 100.
If one long versions you choose that, if two, then you choose the one that would be more useful to have a word assigned to it.
I'm curious how the difficult is chosen because "obfuscate" was included in the hardest difficulty but I would not consider that to me a difficult word.
Also I found that some of the definitions were not completely correct.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2806377
Fun!
I've seen other systems like this calibrate far more quickly by assigning a sort of score and confidence behind the scenes. Confidence starts out low and increases over time - correct/incorrect answers rapidly adjust score at the beginning, then things settle down.
In practice this means you get a sequence of increasingly uncommon words initially, until you get one wrong, then you drop back to something easier until you start getting things right again, and eventually circle around words at your level.
Also - too many clicks per word. It's low stakes, just let me click the definition once and I'll live if I misclick (or add an undo button).
F.e. Frugal - Economical with money or goods
I don’t think frugal means economical it means rather over the top …
Yeah I don’t know how to define it properly but I don’t need to learn new words if they don’t even teach the right meaning
Ai slop
English is not my native language. I get my vocabulary from browsing the Internet. There is no way I know that many words.
One suggestion would be more convincing decoy choices, some were pretty silly. But I have no idea how they come up with them.
3 clicks per is what gives it away. and the little compliments. and that it's 100 questions