Test your vocab

[Reincarnate]

Re: Test your vocab

That reminds me, and I don't think I've asked you this before: Have you ever taken any Latin courses? Surely it would satisfy your inner logophile. I would often sit in the lecture and flip through the textbook with an expression of astonishment on my face as I associated Latin words with their English equivalents and think "hot damn this is just awesome stuff."

Albeit a really simple example, the first time I was amazed by roots was when I learned that "cis," to cut, is why the word "scissors" is the way it is.

It's a pretty short test; it's used more on kids but is nice and quick for adults.

The list is: (The test ends if the participant does poorly enough in a particular section. Most people get to 3 or 4. Some to 5, and most bomb it).

syringe, transparent, ladle, replenishing, abrasive, parallelogram, cascade, lever, detonation, pillar, cultivating, aquatic / End section 1.

Indigent, oasis, disappointed, perpendicular, poultry, confiding, periodical, filtration, primate, spherical, talon, octagon / End section 2

Incandescent, pilfering, trajectory, mercantile, derrick, ascending, monetary, entomologist, gaff, quintet, nautical, incarcerating / End section 3

Coniferous, wildebeest, caster, reposing, convex, gourmand, dromedary, diverging, incertitude, quiescent, honing, cupola / End section 4

Embossed, perambulating, arable, importunity, cenotaph, tonsorial, nidification, terpsichorean, cairn, osculation, vitreous, lugubrious / End section 5

Thaumaturgical, glaucous, abyssopelagic, nomological, autoschediastical, homeoteleuton, tergiversatory, pelasgian, tintinnabulation, anagogical, sacerdotalism, piscatorialism / End Reach's bonus section of doom


edit: I've used ne plus ultra online. Here, in critical thinking.

Never in real life though.

I actually did pretty well on this. 100% up until section 5, where I get 10/12 (didn't know tonsorial or cairn), and for the bonus section I get 8/12 (haven't ever seen/known homeoteleuton, pelasgian, sacerdotalism, or piscatorialism)

[euphoriakisses]

Re: Test your vocab

Your total vocabulary size is estimated to be:
30,200
words

[ninjaKIWI]

Re: Test your vocab

I got 29,300! I was worried I'd score far lower.

[LJRoX]

Re: Test your vocab

I only got 30k because I knew what all the words were in the first page but I didn't know a lot of the 5th (or was it 6th column) words in the 2nd one lol

[Breakdown16]

Re: Test your vocab

22400.

This is considered average for my age rank, which really depresses me. I actually would have scored much higher in eighth grade, when I read most voraciously. Maybe even seventh grade. I even read plenty of classics. However, my reading frequency dropped off a lot since then, so my vocabulary probably has decreased a lot since then for that reason.

[Hakulyte]

Re: Test your vocab

8,860 words. Makes sense to me as I am constantly using the same limited range of words. I got 40,000 by checking everything that sounded remotely familiar with prefix/suffixe/root/french/latin knowledge etc. , but with definition, not even close.

[Reach]

Re: Test your vocab

Reach, I'm surprised that you didn't know some of these! I knew prig (see: managers at McDonald's), sobriquet (I find it obscurely funny), svelte (because it used to bother me all the time when I'd see it in a novel and think that it was some sort of European nationality), bibulous (Latin: bibere), cenacle (Latin: cenaculum), and pule (don't know how).

That reminds me, and I don't think I've asked you this before: Have you ever taken any Latin courses? Surely it would satisfy your inner logophile. I would often sit in the lecture and flip through the textbook with an expression of astonishment on my face as I associated Latin words with their English equivalents and think "hot damn this is just awesome stuff."

I wouldn't mind learning some Greek as well -- I'm all about the etymological side of things.



lol FFR

Anyway, disappointed that I didn't see words like bowdlerization or eleemosynary or quomodocunquize (this is a mouthful) in that test.

I'm particularly bad with obscure short words. There's nothing distinguishing about them, and when combined with the fact I never get to use them, I forget them.

But no, I've never taken any Latin. Any Latin I do know is self taught, so it's spotty at best. I could definitely improve my vocabulary beyond where it is now by learning it, but...I don't really have time. I instinctively assumed (incorrectly) that bibulous was relating to books. Now I know better, but lol.


Also, quomodocunquize? I've never seen that one before. Thanks ;D

homeoteleuton, pelasgian, sacerdotalism, or piscatorialism

Yeah, those ones are there just to prevent people from getting them all

I'm not surprised you would do that well though, given your TRI52 score and the power of g. I've never tested anyone that has only gotten 2 wrong, but then again I've probably never tested someone at the 99.999th percentile either. Personally, when I took the test formally I missed: caster (god damn), importunity, tonsorial (Figured it was related to the tonsils, haha) and vitreous (I defined vitriol, though, this is insanely common D: ).



The others words from my bonus section would be words that logophiles would be likely to pick up from word lists or obscure reading materials, other than nomological. Anagogical is just hard to define, glaucous is easy to confuse.

Well, and abyssopelagic isn't that hard to define vaguely.

[Reincarnate]

Re: Test your vocab

vitreous I never use but I know of it from "vitreous humor" (a part of the eye) where I had looked the word up before.

And yeah I too thought "tonsorial" had to do with tonsils but when you get into words like these, intuition tends to fail haha

[Reincarnate]

Re: Test your vocab

Poor kid's clearly autistic

[who_cares973]

Re: Test your vocab

15,400 words. i should probably increase my vocab some

i also call bs on some of the scores in this thread

[xXAll-ProXx]

Re: Test your vocab

13,600 is extremely high for a non-native speaker.

http://testyourvocab.com/blog/2011-0...chartNonnative

I'm a non-native speaker and I started learning English about 3 years ago.

Does this mean knowing 14,200 is pretty high for me? cause I saw everyone else's scores and felt embarrassed to post mine lol O.o

[Reach]

Re: Test your vocab

Do I seem like the type to lie about that? The vocabulary comes from being a lifelong and very prolific reader. I read 72 novels last year, 33,451 pages. So far this year I'm at 36 novels and about 20,000 pages. Add in a degree in history and philosophy, and I have some pretty esoteric vocabulary.

edit: Incertitude is the first word in your entire list that it even occurs to me that "most" people wouldn't know and it's in category 4

Double edit: Had my girlfriend do the same thing. 12/12, 11/12, 11/12, 9/12, 3/12

No, you don't. I wasn't necessarily questioning you, just pointing out the fact that it is of course the onus of the test taker to be honest.

My girlfriend reads way more than me, but has a smaller vocabulary. I suppose reading a lot only helps if you actually look up the words you don't know. You'd be surprised how many people don't.


You seem to have an inflated view of other peoples vocabulary though, lol.

The first word most people don't know is indigent. Most people get this wrong. More than 50%. Parallelogram and ladle are also commonly missed from section one ('It's a shape' is not a sufficient answer.)

Mercantile, gaff, derrick, and entomologist are usually missed from section 3.

Most people completely botch from here out. The problem being, simply recognizing the word doesn't cut it. You don't get any points for calling an entomologist a scientist, or derrick a name, or a gaff a social blunder. Those are really common mistakes though. This test can be administered with associated pictures to choose from, and for example, the entomologist question would have a picture of 4 scientists doing different things.

[devonin]

Re: Test your vocab

Haha, Derrick is a name? Derek is certainly. Also, it's gaffe for a blunder yes?

[Reincarnate]

Re: Test your vocab

I used to confuse "indigent" with "indignant" for some reason

EDIT: Yeah Dev. I had defined "gaff" as that long pole/hook thing and "derrick" in the same way you'd define, say, an oil derrick (station you'd put over a well to drill and shit, like in Armageddon)

[devonin]

Re: Test your vocab

I'd think more people would make an Indigent/Indigenous connection than confuse it for indignant.