[Thomas Edison's] Employment Intelligence Test.

[philth]

Lets see how many of us can put that "masters degree" we all got from that other test to good use..

here's a little bit of info before the 146 questions...

The Chicago Tribune sent reporters down to the University of Chicago to see how students would fare. They asked them each 20 questions and nobody did well. Male students averaged a score of just 35 percent. Female students? Just 28 percent. The newspaper warned that this was a sign that kids these days were getting dumber

Reporters even quizzed Albert Einstein, who was said to have "failed" Edison's quiz for not knowing the speed of sound off the top of his head. Edison's youngest son Theodore, a student at MIT, did poorly as well when questioned by a visiting reporter. But according to the Edison biography by Randall Stross, the elder Edison assured his son he had guaranteed employment anyway. Ironically, Edison was said to have created the test because he was frustrated with college-educated applicants looking for work who didn't have the proper knowledge

This was back in 1921.

Spoiler

Questions

1. What countries bound France?

2. What city and country produce the finest china?

3. Where is the River Volga?

4. What is the finest cotton grown?

5. What country consumed the most tea before the war?

6. What city in the United States leads in making laundry machines?

7. What city is the fur centre of the United States?

8. What country is the greatest textile producer?

9. Is Australia greater than Greenland in area?

10. Where is Copenhagen?

11. Where is Spitzbergen?

12. In what country other than Australia are kangaroos found?

13. What telescope is the largest in the world?

14. Who was Bessemer and what did he do?

15. How many states in the Union?

16. Where do we get prunes from?

17. Who was Paul Revere?

18. Who was John Hancock?

19. Who was Plutarch?

20. Who was Hannibal?

21. Who was Danton?7

22. Who was Solon?

23. Who was Francis Marion?

24. Who was Leonidas?

25. Where did we get Louisiana from?

26. Who was Pizarro?

27. Who was Bolivar?

28. What war material did Chile export to the Allies during the war?

29. Where does most of the coffee come from?

30. Where is Korea?

31. Where is Manchuria?

32. Where was Napoleon born?

33. What is the highest rise of tide on the North American Coast?

34. Who invented logarithms?

35. Who was the Emperor of Mexico when Cortez landed?

36. Where is the Imperial Valley and what is it noted for?

37. What and where is the Sargasso Sea?

38. What is the greatest known depth of the ocean?

39. What is the name of a large inland body of water that has no outlet?

40. What is the capital of Pennsylvania?

41. What state is the largest? Next?

42. Rhode Island is the smallest state. What is the next and the next?

43. How far is it from New York to Buffalo?

44. How far is it from New York to San Francisco?

45. How far is it from New York to Liverpool?

46. Of what state is Helena the capital?

47. Of what state is Tallahassee the capital?

48. What state has the largest copper mines?

49. What state has the largest amethyst mines?

50. What is the name of a famous violin maker?

51. Who invented the modern paper-making machine?

52. Who invented the typesetting machine?

53. Who invented printing?

54. How is leather tanned?

55. What is artificial silk made from?

56. What is a caisson?

57. What is shellac?

58. What is celluloid made from?

59. What causes the tides?

60. To what is the change of the seasons due?

61. What is coke?

62. From what part of the North Atlantic do we get codfish?

63. Who reached the South Pole?

64. What is a monsoon?

65. Where is the Magdalena Bay?

66. From where do we import figs?

67. From where do we get dates?

68. Where do we get our domestic sardines?

69. What is the longest railroad in the world?

70. Where is Kenosha?

71. What is the speed of sound?

72. What is the speed of light?

73. Who was Cleopatra and how did she die?

74. Where are condors found?

75, Who discovered the law of gravitation?

76. What is the distance between the earth and sun?

77. Who invented photography?

78. What country produces the most wool?

79. What is felt?

80. What cereal is used in all parts of the world?

81. What states produce phosphates?

82. Why is cast iron called pig iron?

83. Name three principal acids?

84. Name three powerful poisons.

85. Who discovered radium?

86. Who discovered the X-ray?

87. Name three principal alkalis.

88. What part of Germany do toys come from?

89. What States bound West Virginia?

90. Where do we get peanuts from?

91. What is the capital of Alabama?

92. Who composed "Il Trovatore"?

93. What is the weight of air in a room 20 by 30 by 10?

94. Where is platinum found?

95. With what metal is platinum associated when found?

96. How is sulphuric acid made?

97. Where do we get sulphur from?

98. Who discovered how to vulcanize rubber?

99. Where do we import rubber from?

100. What is vulcanite and how is it made?

101. Who invented the cotton gin?

102. What is the price of 12 grains of gold?

103. What is the difference between anthracite and bituminous coal?

104. Where do we get benzol from?

105. Of what is glass made?

106. How is window glass made?

107. What is porcelain?

108. What country makes the best optical lenses and what city?

109. What kind of a machine is used to cut the facets of diamonds?

110. What is a foot pound?

111. Where do we get borax from?

112. Where is the Assuan Dam?

113. What star is it that has been recently measured and found to be of enormous size?

114. What large river in the United States flows from south to north?

115. What are the Straits of Messina?

116. What is the highest mountain in the world?

117. Where do we import cork from?

118. Where is the St. Gothard tunnel?

119. What is the Taj Mahal?

120. Where is Labrador?

121. Who wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner"?

122. Who wrote "Home, Sweet Home"?

123. Who was Martin Luther?

124. What is the chief acid in vinegar?

125. Who wrote "Don Quixote"?

126. Who wrote "Les Miserables"?

127. What place is the greatest distance below sea level?

128. What are axe handles made of?

129. Who made "The Thinker"?

130. Why is a Fahrenheit thermometer called Fahrenheit?

131. Who owned and ran the New York Herald for a long time?

132. What is copra?

133. What insect carries malaria?

134. Who discovered the Pacific Ocean?

135. What country has the largest output of nickel in the world?

136. What ingredients are in the best white paint?

137. What is glucose and how made?

138. In what part of the world does it never rain?

139. What was the approximate population of England, France, Germany and Russia before the war?

140. Where is the city of Mecca?

141. Where do we get quicksilver from?

142. Of what are violin strings made?

143. What city on the Atlantic seaboard is the greatest pottery centre?

144. Who is called the "father of railroads" in the United States?

145. What is the heaviest kind of wood?

146. What is the lightest wood?

Answers Here:
http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/take-the-intelligence-test-that-thomas-edison-gave-to-j-1689489019

I failed horribly.

 

[BEER]

A lot of these are fairly simple.

Some of them are "WTF Trebek" levels of trivia.

 

[Malas]

A lot of these are factoids with no bearing on anything relevant that I can imagine. I don't know how this is considered 146 questions when number 41 is obviously two questions.

 

[Shayo]

Tldr lol

 

[faustian]

So it was basically the original Trivial Pursuit game

 

[Iroh]

20 is the GOAT question.

Spoiler

Pretty easy questions for the most part, TBH.

 

[Bonos]

It looks kinda easy. I was expecting math and complex science.

 

[Fedorgasm]

Pretty easy questions for the most part, TBH.

Here come all the bullshitters that are going to claim they knew all these answers without googling them

 

[mushishi]

So how does rote knowledge make one a better employee?

 

[AGGAMEMNON66]

I could answer some but not enough to pass.


Then again, let me put together a 146 question test of shit that I want to ask because its stuff I know and see if Tom can pass.


I know I know, he dead, but still.

 

[Iroh]

Here come all the bullshitters that are going to claim they knew all these answers without googling them

Lol, here come all the skeptics pretending there are no people with sufficient general knowledge to score well on this test.

 

[AGGAMEMNON66]

20 is the GOAT question.

Spoiler

Pretty easy questions for the most part, TBH.

Scipio Africanus has the best answer possible to this question: never heard of him.

 

[AGGAMEMNON66]

Lol, here come all the skeptics pretending there are no people with sufficient general knowledge to score well on this test.

Nah, I'd bet there are people out there that could do well on this without the aide of the web, I couldn't tho.

 

[Halge]

I know where Copenhagen is.

Spoiler

In Legoland.

 

[Mainez]

He wanted asperger's employees apparently

 

[Fedorgasm]

I just took it and got 59 right. I'm sure others can do better, but I call bullshit on anyone that does so well they call this test easy.

 

[Fedorgasm]

What's a passing score? 70 percent? So you'd need 103 correct to barely pass.

You'd need 132 correct to get a 90 percent

 

[Iroh]

Nah, I'd bet there are people out there that could do well on this without the aide of the web, I couldn't tho.

I don't know them all, but I'm pretty sure I'd do well beyond the 35% from the OP. I couldn't tell you the distances asked from NY to Buffalo, San Fran, Liverpool, for instance. I imagine this kind of knowledge was also more prevalent in the time of Edison though.

I know where Copenhagen is.

Spoiler

In Legoland.

:icon_lol:

 

[Nonsense]

I refuse to do the test because of its piss poor grammar.

 

[dirtypablo]

Doesnt look like a single one of those questions requires thinking, just memorization.