Comments | mbarker: Commonly Confused Words Test

mbarker

Commonly Confused Words Test

Jul 08, 2008 11:27

Kind of fun (that means I scored well, doesn't it?). Anyway, you can try it at http://www.helloquizzy.com/tests/the-commonly-confused-words-test
( My results )

english, confused words, meme

Comments 8

saruby July 8 2008, 14:20:08 UTC

Ooh! Beat me on advanced (87%), but not on expert (93%). I haven't figured out how I can do better as an expert than advanced, but I'm sure there's a secret code or something.

mbarker July 8 2008, 23:59:26 UTC

The answer key shows that each question was in a different section. So in theory, someone could get a low beginner grade and high advanced or expert.

jasini July 8 2008, 20:50:58 UTC

I got the same results as you. I think, though, that what I got wrong was the "awhile" "a while" question.

mbarker July 9 2008, 00:17:51 UTC

In the Baen's Bar Sarah's Diner newsgroup (which is where I saw this), that's one of the discussion points. Several people seem to have tripped over that one, and they are saying it's an English versus American thing?

I can see that pakwa26 July 15 2008, 23:11:43 UTC

I'm going to turn into one of those really annoying kids from primary school whose mother is a teacher & who whines (sorry, I did it again) "my mother says...". Bill Bryson says, again in his wonderful book 'Troublesome Words', "To write 'for awhile' is wrong because the idea of 'for' is implicit in awhile. Write either 'I will stay here for a while' (two words) or "I will stay here awhile' (one word)." No mention of the divide across the pond or anything. He's a Yank who spent quite some time living with the Poms, so I'd say he'd know.

Re: I can see that mbarker July 16 2008, 00:18:49 UTC

I think they are just hunting for excuses, myself. Not really thinking about the basis for the test, either, which might help explain differences. Personally, I find it a lot easier on myself to consider identified differences in such tests as opportunities to learn something -- and I may or may not end up agreeing with the identified point.

I don't get it... pakwa26 July 15 2008, 23:06:49 UTC

Oops, I used that "get" word. Sorry. Let me start again. I don't understand how this can be - I did the HelloQuizzy test & I don't see how can you score 93% in Beginner & 100% in both Intermediate and Advanced? Weird. I didn't even cheat. Was fun though, I actually had to think for some of them. As for 'farther/further', I whipped out Bill Bryson's "Troublesome Words" (ISBN 9780141001357) and he murmurs (sorry, couldn't help myself) "Insofar as the two are distinguished, farther usually appears in contexts involving literal distance ('New York is farther from Sydney than from London') and further in contexts involving figurative distance ('I can take this no further'). But there is, as the OED notes, a large intermediate class of instances in which the choice between the two forms is arbitrary."
Hope this improves your day :-)

Re: I don't get it... mbarker July 16 2008, 00:14:27 UTC

Thanks. The answer key explains that each question is assigned to one category, so missing one question in Beginner knocks something off there, even if you do perfectly at "higher" categories. Probably shouldn't have used an ordered set of categories, but . . .

I do think that these fine points of word usage tend to be more grey and less black-and-white than people pretend in such tests and guidance. Fun to play, but not all that serious.

Thanks!