Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Nerd test

I happened upon Nerdiometer, which describes an on-line test for assessing how nerdy you are. You can find the test here.

I couldn't resist trying this one. I suspect that the results of the test are biassed by a selection effect where the nerdier you are the more likely you are to take the test in the first place.

Anyway, here is my result:

I am nerdier than 82% of all people. Are you a nerd? Click here to find out!

17% of people score higher than me, and 82% score lower. I was disappointed to score so highly, because as I filled in the multiple-choice questionnaire I could see that the extremely nerdy answers were off the scale compared to where I stood. Maybe that was a trick to let me make the choices that I did without being too embarrassed about them.

The questionnaire was extremely selective in the areas it covered, because it focussed on asking about nerdy things to the almost complete exclusion of asking you about anything else. So, if you spend only small fraction of your time being a nerd, you will register highly on the nerd-scale as defined by this test.

I wish there was a way to find out how each answer was weighted to produce the overall result. Oh no! Wishing for that must in itself be a nerdy thing to do! Aargh! This is renormalisation gone mad!

Update (12 December 2007):

The result I got when I tried version 2 of the test (see here) is

NerdTests.com says I'm a Cool Nerd.  What are you?  Click here!

OK, so now I am a "cool nerd" which sounds pretty good to me, but I am annoyed that my Science/Math and Technology/Computer scores are deemed to be so low! Who are the people who designed this test anyway? I'm not playing any more, maybe...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am came in at 52%. It was this low because I know nothing much of techie gadget stuff and didn't notice the Vulcan ears, and this high because I could identify James clerk maxwell and have a modest knowledge of general scientific stuff. How a PhD contributed to the mix, I wouldn't like to think.

Stephen Luttrell said...

I didn't notice the Vulcan ears either. I think that my PhD in theoretical physics helped me answer many of the questions at the nerdy end of the scale, which meant that I didn't really stand a chance.

The final straw was when I had to answer "Dead insects and rodents" to the "What is the grossest thing in your room, right now?" question, because I do have a few dead insects lying around in the darkest corners of my rooms. Hang on, it says "AND" not "OR". Maybe I should have chosen a different option there.