Another Edublogger IQ Challenge: Geography Time

Here’s a fun Traveler’s IQ test for you. Timing counts! Report back here with a comment. Let’s get Diane Cordell and Steven Downes in the ring again – time to “flip another goat-sucker”!

My score, first time:

My traveler IQ results

 

And see “related links” below for a few other challenges you can take!

Photo Credit: Stuart R Brown

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20 Responses to “Another Edublogger IQ Challenge: Geography Time”

  1. diane writes:

    I am APPALLING at this! I could find places I’ve been to, like England, Greece, Canada, but the rest of the world is a bit hazy.

    I think I was reading poetry and daydreaming during Geography class.

    Had my husband try it also. He is a whiz at this sort of thing, but has an unfortunate hate/hate relationship with technology (he kept complaining that my mouse wouldn’t go exactly where he was trying to point it. Sigh. Navy vet, you know the type.)

    This little reindeer game was beyond me. I concede.

    How about trivial pursuit?

    diane

    Reply

  2. Clay Burell writes:

    Hm. Online Scrabble, anyone? (Is there such a thing?)

    Funny, Diane, I was thinking a minute ago about the fact that I didn’t learn geography in school (don’t even remember if I ever had map tests back then). I learned it instead via two forms of real-world project-based learning:

    1. World travel – living and traveling in Europe for 4 years and Asia for 8 taught me these continents.

    2. Teaching history – teaching IS project-based learning in the most real-world of ways, isn’t it? Our “project” is to keep our job. I never studied maps until I had to test students’ knowledge of them.

    (I played Trivial Pursuit in New Zealand a few years ago. It was an Australian version. Amazing how culture-specific “knowledge” is, I learned. Most of the political questions concerned the Antipodes. I was clueless.)

    Reply

  3. diane writes:

    Husband also hates Trivial Pursuit: he will answer geography and history questions without pausing for breath, but had a meltdown re. “what two flavors combine in mocha” and denied all knowledge of Jane Austen, fabrics, and poetry.

    Keeps our marriage interesting.

    Reply

  4. Ann O writes:

    I was playing this a few nights ago. It became absolutely obsessive – very hard to walk away from.

    Reply

  5. Mark (rhymeswithpeace) writes:

    My score for the travel quiz ends up being 124 (I did give it 2 goes though).

    Trivial pursuit online would be good fun … scrabble is available online and is a great game (appears in facebook as scrabulous app.) The website would be http://www.scrabulous.com

    Reply

  6. Roswellsgirl writes:

    Woot! I beat round 12. This game is right up my ally. I love geography. Teaching on 4 different continents probably helped. Was very addicting. Couldn’t get anyone else to play. :)

    Reply

  7. diane writes:

    Roswellsgirl,

    Good for you! Obviously, I need to get out and about more.

    Applied for a passport renewal today, so maybe I can start to remedy the situation.

    Clay,

    Your Quotiki quote for today is sad and sobering:
    “Beware how you take away hope from another human being.” -Oliver Wendell Holmes

    There are soul-suckers everywhere.

    “Of all the forces that make for a better world, none is so indispensable, none so powerful, as hope. Without hope men are only half alive. With hope they dream and think and work.” –Charles Sawyer

    Reply

  8. Arthus Erea writes:

    Heck, I only made it to level 6. (With 178,263 points)

    I guess my Traveler’s IQ of 92 is well below my general IQ. Of course, I’ll leave the geography facts to Google. I’ll do the thinking.

    Reply

  9. Clay Burell writes:

    Ah, Arthus Grasshopper (allusion to ’70s show you might be still too wet behind the ears to know),

    I don’t buy your “geographic facts are unimportant compared to real thinking” implication.

    Geopolitics, regional wars, and a million other things start with knowing where places are, what places surround them, the history of relations, the resources, etc etc.

    That fact-base takes time to stew and congeal into a worldview and theoretical base.

    The “thinking” not rooted in knowledge of the facts too often leads to the types of geopolitical “genius” of the Bush administration – which probably DID use Google to find out what Iraq’s neighbors were ;)

    Reply

  10. Scott Meech writes:

    @Artuhs and @cburrell Hey… George Bush wasn’t good with geography and naming the leaders of foreign countries… Look where that got us!

    Ouch… had to push the political button on this Holiday …

    Reply

  11. Clay Burell writes:

    Scott – my point exactly. Foundational knowledge of facts is a prerequisite for nuanced thinking – Bush and Co had no such knowledge, and the world is broken as a result. Shortcuts don’t work.

    Reply

  12. Arthus Erea writes:

    Ah… but I have the sense to Google something before I pretend to know about it.

    (Honestly, how bad is 92 for geography of a Freshman – especially since I don’t care much about geography)

    Reply

  13. Clay Burell writes:

    @Arthus, shame on you for playing the freshman card ;) You’re a genius, too, so I hold you to higher standards.

    @Rosswellsgirl: you’re the queen so far! Give us a link to your blog? (And note that you, like me, attribute your geography IQ to travel and teaching, more than being taught to memorize?)

    Reply

  14. Arthus Erea writes:

    @Clay ah, but I am a woefully untraveled genius. (Which goes with the freshmen card)

    Reply

  15. Sue Waters writes:

    Well it is well known before I did the Traveler IQ challenge that I really suck with geography. Source of great amusement to my hubby (even struggle with Australian capital cities!)

    In my defense I am a scientist and many scientists struggle with areas like geography, language and history. So how about a science IQ challenge? Score = embarrassing – never get me to give you directions. Level = 3 IQ=80 want to play Trivial Pursuit?

    Reply

  16. Stephen Downes writes:

    507255
    Level 11
    126 IQ

    It was more of a mouse challenge for me than a knowledge challenge; I made 3 actual errors in 11 levels. I had a lot of trouble with the mouse and couldn’t see the map well enough to get much better than within 126 km of cities I knew very well.

    Reply

  17. Clay Burell writes:

    I had the same problems, Stephen, and possibly worse, since I used the trackpad on my MacBook instead of a mouse.

    I probably could have whooped you on a level playing field, but as things stand, you take the crown again ;)

    Yours in sour grapes,

    Clay

    Reply

  18. Sue Waters writes:

    Just thought I would let you know we played it tonight after our Christmas dinner with our friends. We all were incredibly bad at it but had lots of fun. Think they could hear us in the next neighborhood.

    Reply

  19. Journeys: Old Knowledge writes:

    [...] series, “Kung Fu” There was an interesting exchange recently between technology guru and visionary Clay Burell and a young, articulate up-and-comer, Arthus regarding the value of content knowledge.After [...]

  20. Danielle writes:

    I am considered a disaster and that’s official.

    Reply

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