Welcome to the Bandwagon: Musings on the OCA Test Administered in the Name of Scientology
Tentatively Sub-subtitled "why personality tests are rubbish and why scientology is even more so, chapter 1 (footnote 1)"
footnote 1: to have nothing to do with my continued disdain for tom cruise and related parties.
"I settled down to the 'personality test'. This consisted of 200 questions of the type much favoured by women's magazines (Are you considered warm-hearted by your friends? Do you enjoy activities of your own choosing? Are you likely to be jealous? Do you bite your fingernails?).
Eventually, a young man took my answers away for "processing". When he returned, he was waving an impressive-looking piece of graph paper, around which were printed figures, symbols, and various bits of McLuhanistic jargon. Across the paper was drawn a line that looked something like the Boat Race course. This, the young man told me, was my personality curve.
The young man airily drew a ring round the area of Putney, and said that this represented "other people". A similar ring in the region of Barnes Bridge indicated "myself", while another drawn round Mortlake Brewery apparently represented "life". On the basis of all this, the young man gave me a 20-minute personality analysis, which mainly consisted of portentous-sounding pseudo-scientific neologisms ("You've got quite a bit of agity and you are moderately dispersed, but we can help you to standard tech.") He seemed a bit vague about what these words actually meant.
At the end, he said to me impressively, "So you see, it's all very scientific - thanks to the fact that our founder is a man of science himself".
"Oh yes, very scientific indeed," I said.
I hadn't the heart to tell him that his super-scientific system had failed to detect the fact that I had marked the "don't know" column against all 200 questions in the test."
.....
In the course of the session the following information was elicited from the Scientology staff member:
(i) The test was devised by "Oxford students, or the Oxford Dictionary people", he did not know which;
(ii) He did not understand the word 'percentile' - although it was he who brought the word into the discussion. He looked it up in the Concise Oxford Dictionary without success and decided it meant 'percentage'. He thereafter interpreted '90th percentile' as 90 per cent.
-The Fallacy of the Oxford Capacity Analysis (OCA)
Chris Owen
this is all very much in line with the ten question rot they quiz you with to determine if you need scientology. for example: are you ever fatigued?
yes. i am. daily. at about midnight. sometimes after a big lunch.
i hope i don't have too much "agity".
footnote 1: to have nothing to do with my continued disdain for tom cruise and related parties.
"I settled down to the 'personality test'. This consisted of 200 questions of the type much favoured by women's magazines (Are you considered warm-hearted by your friends? Do you enjoy activities of your own choosing? Are you likely to be jealous? Do you bite your fingernails?).
Eventually, a young man took my answers away for "processing". When he returned, he was waving an impressive-looking piece of graph paper, around which were printed figures, symbols, and various bits of McLuhanistic jargon. Across the paper was drawn a line that looked something like the Boat Race course. This, the young man told me, was my personality curve.
The young man airily drew a ring round the area of Putney, and said that this represented "other people". A similar ring in the region of Barnes Bridge indicated "myself", while another drawn round Mortlake Brewery apparently represented "life". On the basis of all this, the young man gave me a 20-minute personality analysis, which mainly consisted of portentous-sounding pseudo-scientific neologisms ("You've got quite a bit of agity and you are moderately dispersed, but we can help you to standard tech.") He seemed a bit vague about what these words actually meant.
At the end, he said to me impressively, "So you see, it's all very scientific - thanks to the fact that our founder is a man of science himself".
"Oh yes, very scientific indeed," I said.
I hadn't the heart to tell him that his super-scientific system had failed to detect the fact that I had marked the "don't know" column against all 200 questions in the test."
.....
In the course of the session the following information was elicited from the Scientology staff member:
(i) The test was devised by "Oxford students, or the Oxford Dictionary people", he did not know which;
(ii) He did not understand the word 'percentile' - although it was he who brought the word into the discussion. He looked it up in the Concise Oxford Dictionary without success and decided it meant 'percentage'. He thereafter interpreted '90th percentile' as 90 per cent.
-The Fallacy of the Oxford Capacity Analysis (OCA)
Chris Owen
this is all very much in line with the ten question rot they quiz you with to determine if you need scientology. for example: are you ever fatigued?
yes. i am. daily. at about midnight. sometimes after a big lunch.
i hope i don't have too much "agity".