What’s Your Science IQ?

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Discussion Overview

The thread revolves around a science quiz consisting of ten questions covering various scientific topics. Participants share their scores and experiences with the quiz, discussing specific questions and their reasoning behind their answers.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • Participants report their scores, with some expressing disappointment or surprise at their results.
  • Several participants mention specific questions they found challenging or ambiguous, particularly regarding the distance from the Earth to the moon.
  • One participant discusses the significance of phosphorus in biological processes and its environmental implications, linking it to broader scientific issues.
  • There are comments on the nature of the quiz questions, including a light-hearted critique of using miles as a unit in a science quiz.
  • Some participants note that their correct answers were based on educated guesses or elimination of options.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally share their scores and experiences, but there is disagreement regarding the clarity of certain questions, particularly the moon distance question. The discussion remains unresolved on the interpretation of some quiz items.

Contextual Notes

Some participants express confusion over the phrasing of questions and the expected answers, indicating potential ambiguity in the quiz design.

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Time to test your science knowledge with a fun 10 question quiz with random questions across all sciences. Difficulty is easy to medium. As always, post your score in the comment thread. Enjoy!1. What element is missing?
periodic_table1.png

 Iron
 Chromium
 Silver
 Osmium
2. Who’s missing in this 1927 Solvay Conference photo
solvay_conference.png

 James Clerk Maxwell
 Ernest Rutherford
 J. Robert Oppenheimer
 Marie Curie
3. Where is the Discovery space shuttle?
 Kennedy Space Center Visitor
 Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum
 California Science Center
 NASA’s Johnson Space Center
4. What is the distance from the Earth to the moon?
 208,400 mi
 222,100 mi
 234,800 mi
 238,900 mi
5. Who invented the number zero?
 Brahmagupta
 Mohammed ibn-Musa al-Khowarizmi
 Fibonacci
 Rene Descartes
6. What is this zoomed in object...

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Very interesting @Greg Bernhardt :smile:. I managed to get 5 correct, but a couple were lucky guesses.
 
I got 4.
I was disappointed with that.
 
I got 6
I really messed up the one about the moon.
 
6, five I was certain of plus one guess.

I liked number 2 - the answer can be deduced with high confidence with a little study.
 
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8/10. Pay attention to context and subtle clues.
 
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8, 9, & 10 got me. Enjoyed it. Really wish "Bill Barr" was an option for question #1.

:)
 
  • #10
8/10 though I got lucky on a number of guesses. Only was sure on 1), 2) & 3) As always the ability to eliminate options really helps. For 10) I was even able to eliminate 3 answers leaving only one possible option.

The two I got wrong were 6) where I avoided the correct answer thinking it was too obvious and had to be a red herring and the fruit related question where I could have sworn two of those answers were not berries. Tricky...
 
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  • #11
8/10. I didn't correctly guess the microscope picture of the flower, and I got the moon distance wrong but I think the question was ambiguous. The answer given as correct (about 238,900 miles) is the mean distance from the Earth's center to the moon's center. I thought the question was looking for the distance between them, that is between the Earth's surface and the moon's surface, which is about 5,000 miles less, so I went for the option nearest 234,000.
 
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  • #12
5 and I guessed one.
I did not get phosphorus! All that ADP and ATP! Annoyed.
Edit, of the 4 biology questions I got one right and that was a half guess!
 
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  • #13
pinball1970 said:
5 and I guessed one.
I did not get phosphorus! All that ADP and ATP! Annoyed.
Edit, of the 4 biology questions I got one right and that was a half guess!
yeah phosphorus was tricky since it breaks the trend of elemental abundances being relatively uncommon in the universe it is also being depeleted by humans so quickly that it is creating a looming crisis as the Earth's phosphorus is becoming washed out to sea or concentrated in cemeteries and landfills. Without the molecules built from it we can't take in energy from food or replicate genetic information. I wouldn't be surprised if gross missuse and waste of resources could play a role in the Fermi paradox...
 
  • #14
Dragrath said:
yeah phosphorus was tricky since it breaks the trend of elemental abundances being relatively uncommon in the universe it is also being depeleted by humans so quickly that it is creating a looming crisis as the Earth's phosphorus is becoming washed out to sea or concentrated in cemeteries and landfills. Without the molecules built from it we can't take in energy from food or replicate genetic information. I wouldn't be surprised if gross missuse and waste of resources could play a role in the Fermi paradox...
That's as depressing as my mediocre score.
 
  • #15
5/10 BUT I changed 3 first correct answers.

Moon distance 234,000 miles, learned as a child. Not expecting center-to-center.
Take a daily potassium supplement, so chose it over phosphorus.
I knew where Discovery was but when I went back to score answers, hit the NASA button instead.
Guessed flower first due to Fibonacci spirals but changed to 'iris of eye' due to 'hole' bottom left.

Got old Marie correct as she wore different clothing and, in another context, knew she was at Solvay conference. Chose Fleming correctly due to lab coat and the objects in his hands.
 
  • #16
Miles in a science quiz, seriously?
 
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  • #17
mfb said:
Miles in a science quiz, seriously?
It's a quiz @mfb a bit of fun. Also 93 million miles has a ring to it.
 
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  • #18
For fun I would have expected furlongs.