Sporcle quizzes

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Mr. Chase

I mentioned Sporcle the other day in a post, and I just assume everyone’s already addicted to Sporcle quizzes. But if not, I guess here’s your news-flash. These timed quizzes, most of which are user-generated, are quite fun and very unique. I urge you to try the thousands of quizzes available on their website and see how you stack up against the competition (currently there are over 200,000 quizzes). There is also a Sporcle app for the iPhone and Android. I actually invested in the pay-for version of it, since it continually updates with new quizzes.

Some of the quizzes on their website include straight-forward tasks like naming all 50 states in 10 minutes or naming all of Queen’s albums. But they have more unique ones like naming all the words of the 23rd Psalm in the King James version (in any order) or words that end in “gue”, as well.

In particular, here are a few math quizzes:

If you want to test your knowledge of advanced mathematics, try this one: Can you name the Advanced Math Definitions? – I only got 8/20. It’s not easy. I was ashamed I forgot some of them and was kicking myself, others I had never really heard of. I need to study more math!
If you’re into fast math facts, try this one: Can you name the answers for math questions of increasing difficulty level? Definitely appropriate for high-school students!
How about math symbols? Again, you might need some exposure to advanced mathematics to do well here, but give it a try: Can you name the meanings of these common mathematical symbols?
Here’s a little test of your high school math and science: Can you name the Science Terms from High School Chemistry, Biology, Physics, and Math?
How about a random slice of math terminology–mostly high school math, but a little college math too: Can you name the one-word mathematical terms that begin with the letter ‘A’?
Or, like the one above, there are quizzes for almost every letter: Can you name the one-word mathematical terms that begin with the letter ‘F’?

And here are 352 more math quizzes on Sporcle. Enjoy!

Running out of letters?

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Mr. Chase

Actually, I have this feeling all the time when I’m doing my grad work. If you’ve dabbled in higher-level math at all, you probably have had this feeling too. That’s why we like Greek letters, capital letters, italic letters, script letters, and even a few Hebrew and Danish letters (can you think of which Danish character I’m thinking of?). I know all my Greek letters, not because I know any Greek, but because I’ve been exposed to every single one of them through mathematics. Do you think you could name them all too? If you think you’ve got what it takes, go ahead and try this sporcle quiz :-).

On a more serious note, I do always take the time to introduce new Greek letters, just like any other new notation students haven’t seen before. We practice drawing the symbol, I discuss the difference between the lowercase and capital version of that letter, and we appropriately name the symbol. I go to great lengths to do this because I’ve been in a lot of grad classes where the teacher assumed you knew what his/her squiggles meant on the board. I think it’s the nice thing to do to stop and explain your notation.

[Hat tip: Gene Chase]