How can you help end world hunger by playing a word game?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the online word game FreeRice, which claims to donate rice to help end world hunger based on players' correct answers. Participants share their experiences with the game, express skepticism about its effectiveness, and discuss its potential benefits for vocabulary building, particularly for standardized tests like the GRE.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants express enthusiasm for FreeRice, noting it as a fun way to test vocabulary and contribute to a charitable cause.
  • Others are skeptical about the legitimacy of the rice donations, questioning how the grains are counted and whether the game genuinely benefits anyone.
  • Several participants report their scores and experiences, with some claiming to be good guessers and others discussing their strategies for improving their scores.
  • One participant mentions that the game could be beneficial for those preparing for the GRE, citing the presence of challenging vocabulary words.
  • A few participants highlight the presence of obscure or nautical terms in the game, attributing their knowledge to personal experiences or backgrounds.
  • Some participants share humorous takes on their performance, joking about the consequences of incorrect answers.
  • Information from the game's FAQs is shared, explaining that the rice is funded by advertisers, which raises further questions about the game's impact.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally do not reach a consensus on the effectiveness of FreeRice in combating hunger, with some expressing belief in its benefits while others remain doubtful about its impact.

Contextual Notes

Participants express varying levels of skepticism regarding the actual donation process and the counting of rice grains, indicating a lack of clarity on how the game operates in practice.

Who May Find This Useful

Individuals interested in vocabulary building, those preparing for standardized tests, and anyone curious about the intersection of gaming and charitable contributions may find this discussion relevant.

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I found this website on another forum called freerice.com. It is basically a word game where for every word you get right, Free Rice donates 10 grains of rice through the United Nations to help end world hunger. Yesterday(10/29/07) they donated 42153550 grains of rice. Let's make that number rise. I know a lot of you are really smart people and should know a lot of these words. So if you have 5 or 10 minutes to spare, why not feed a hungry mouth?

If you do play, post how much rice you donated.

Thanks
 
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I've seen that site too...fun for testing your vocabulary (Evo will love it). I'm skeptical about whether it's legitimately helping send food to anyone...who's going to count all those grains of rice? :biggrin: But feel free to entertain yourself with it regardless.
 
I got to 320 but my internet connection here was slow so I stopped.
I seem to be good at guessing because I thought there was something wrong, I kept getting correct answers even though I had never seen or heard the word, but I did finally get some wrong.
 
The same happened with me when I played it...I found out I'm a very good guesser. :biggrin: For some words, that makes sense...I could guess something about them from their root parts.

It looks like good practice for someone studying for the SAT or GRE, or similar type tests, where you need to know a lot of esoteric vocabulary words that you'd really never use in everyday speech.
 
I got them all wrong and as a result an entire village starves.
 
jimmysnyder said:
I got them all wrong and as a result an entire village starves.

:smile: And the schoolkids who wonder why they need to learn all those words finally have an answer. :biggrin:
 
This is fun! I'm averaging around a level of 44 but I've never broken past 46 (and I must have touched it a half-dozen times).
 
wait...do you know just how many grains of rice are in a bag of rice??
I think it's a game only..not really there to benefit anyone at all :frown:
 
I think it's a great benefit to folks studying for the GRE - I recall seeing many of these words in my Barron's word-list!

I estimate that a 20-lb bag of rice has about half a million grains. So yesterday's total was about 100 bags of rice.

PS: Finally broke past the 46 barrier! Current high is 49.
 
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  • #10
From their FAQs:
Who pays for the donated rice?

The rice is paid for by the advertisers whose names you see on the bottom of your vocabulary screen. This is regular advertising for these companies, but it is also something more. Through their advertising at FreeRice, these companies support both learning (free vocabulary for everyone) and reducing hunger (free rice for the hungry). We commend these companies for their participation at FreeRice.

If you have the rice to give, why not give it all away right now?

We are not sitting on a pile of rice―you are earning it 10 grains at a time. Here is how it works. When you play the game, advertisements appear on the bottom of your screen. The money generated by these advertisements is then used to buy the rice. So by playing, you generate the money that pays for the rice donated to hungry people.

Ah...maybe I shouldn't play with the adblocker on. :biggrin:
 
  • #11
jimmysnyder said:
I got them all wrong and as a result an entire village starves.

:smile:

Careful... you might just earn yourself a one-way ticket to the volcano.
 
  • #12
Gokul43201 said:
I think it's a great benefit to folks studying for the GRE - I recall seeing many of these words in my Barron's word-list!

Yeah, that's true!
 
  • #13
Web game provides rice for hungry

An internet word game has generated enough rice to feed 50,000 people for one day, the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) has said. The game, FreeRice, tests the vocabulary of participants. For each click on a correct answer, the website donates money to buy 10 grains of rice. Companies advertising on the website provide the money to the WFP to buy and distribute the rice.

FreeRice went online in early October and has now raised 1bn grains of rice. That is enough rice to feed 50,000 people for one day, the WFP said on Friday.
...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7088447.stm
 
  • #14
This really is a lot of fun. I'm still hovering between 46-47, but I'm getting there. Even if I'm not sure, I usually have the definition down to 2 answers and one of them is always correct, I just need to select the correct one more often.
 
  • #15
I too hung about the 46-47 range most of the time I played. Never made it past 49 though...it would have been nice to hit 50. And I helped send out about 6500 grains.

I must try again when I find more time. Got to get that elusive 50.
 
  • #16
Wow, we need a Dutch version. Incredible how many useless words there are. One I knew for sure due to my profession: Empenage. Although it's never used.
 
  • #17
Wow, I thought I was good when I saw I was in the low 40's! You guys must have bigger dictionaries than I do!:biggrin:
 
  • #18
There are a lot of nautical terms in the list (you'd think they shanghaid a hatchful of stevedores and bosuns to write it up), and I have the advantage of having a sailor dad. Let's give it another go now...
 
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  • #19
G01 said:
Wow, I thought I was good when I saw I was in the low 40's! You guys must have bigger dictionaries than I do!:biggrin:
I used to read the dictionary for fun and I was a prolific reader when I was growing up, so I have a very large vocabulary, or as one person put it "I'm a wealth of useless information". Gokul is just plain amazing though.
 
  • #20
funny--- I read a small dictionary one time--I think it was only about 600pp----then I decided to read two small set encyclopedias. I took two years of Latin for pre-med, and the number of word derivatives of some Latin words is amazing--manus, for one.
 
  • #21
I finally took the quiz. I was able to hover between 44 and 47. I got some by knowing, some by latin or greek roots, and some by guessing. I was curious to find out how hard the words get when you hit 50, so I started looking up the meanings. After 49 there wasn't a single word that I could even guess at. I did get it up to 50 though. I drew 1150 grains of rice.
 
  • #22
jimmysnyder said:
After 49 there wasn't a single word that I could even guess at.
Only if you're being impatient. I'm positive I can show that many of the words in the 49 range are guessable (and I haven't had a single lesson of Greek or Latin). I'll demonstrate if I get back up there. Right now, I'm stuck at 45/46/47; I think I need lunch.
 

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