Fun quiz! I got them all right, but guessed on a couple. I also had to stop myself from overthinking the definition of "good swimmer" and "THE Spanish word for hat." Very enjoyable, and a welcome five points! ;)
For the 14% of people who thought Madonna was born in England, were you taken in by that ridiculous accent she inexplicably adopted in the 00s when married to Guy "Mockney" Ritchie?
I don't understand Q17 If you roll a pair of dice, every possible outcome from 2 to 12 is equally likely. If the "outcome" means a sum of values, how can be the correct answer "false"?
I feel this is just more specific in saying the outcomes are not equal not why they are not equal. There's only one way to get 2, roll snake eyes. There's only one way to get 12, roll box cars. There's six ways to get 7: rolling 3 and 4, 5 and 2, or 6 and 1 (and their inverses).
Fun fact, the late 1800s and early 1900s were awash with scummy scammers who pretended to have psychical energies and talk with ghosts and such. One of the common tricks was to allow people to inspect the hands and mouth and such, and then produce psychical ectoplasm. It looked suspiciously like cheese cloth that someone snorted all the way to their sinuses, and then sucked out into the back of a fake psychic’s throat, but apparently people fell for this scam. Rest assured, as stupid as you think people are today, they were definitely more stupid 100 years ago!
can the question about mandarin/cantonese be phrased a bit more clearly? i surely can’t be the only one who misunderstood what mutually intelligible means (i thought it meant you could tell the difference between them, and so got the opposite of the correct answer). i know what you have is correct, but perhaps it could be in layman’s terms - a speaker of one can understand the other and vice versa.
Mutually intelligible means both can understand the other. It's a common misconception, because the different languages of China are sometimes referred to as "Chinese", when they are completely different languages (not dialects). Contrarily, American English, British English, and Australian English may use different words, phrases, and spellings, but the speakers can all understand each other.
I remember meeting a bloke from Alabama in a pub in Seoul and not understanding a single word he said. It was like he'd just abandoned consonants altogether.
A Cantonese speaker can, as a rule, understand Standard Chinese written by a Mandarin speaker. In that sense the two languages are mutually intelligible. (Of course it's not that simple in practice--things rarely are.)
While this doesn't mean the statement is wrong--the two languages are not mutually intelligible when spoken or heard by monolingual speakers--the ambiguity is reason enough to either rephrase or replace this item.
As a cook and baker, I definitely take issue with the "caramel" question. Yes, sugar is part of it, and yes, it involves heat, but more goes into making caramel than just sugar and heat. Simply heating sugar is not going to create caramel - you need some sort of liquid to dissolve the sugar in and to add body to it so that it reaches the stage of "caramel". You can use water and sugar, butter and sugar, or milk/cream and sugar.
Apparently you can make rocket fuel by melting sugar. And adding an oxidizer (potassium) + catalyst (iron oxide). Plenty of youtube videos about it. I thought it was interesting to see the dry ingredients all melt together in a hot pan. Just .02 for anyone curious
There are definitely enough similarities for speakers to get through a basic conversation with some level of understanding. Think of it like the difference between speaking Portuguese in Portugal vs speaking it in Brazil. A lot of it just comes down to accent and cadence.
Does mutual intelligibility pertain to spoken language only?
I know that Mandarin and Cantonese when spoken sound very different, but don't they largely use the same characters? Would a Mandarin and Cantonese speaker not be able to read the same simplified (or traditional?) Chinese?
2 = 1/36 = 2.777%
3 = 2/36 (or 1/18) = 5.555%
4 = 3/36 (or 1/12) = 8.333%
5 = 4/36 (or 1/9) = 11.111%
6 = 5/36 = 13.888%
7 = 6/36 (or 1/6) = 16.666%
8 = 5/36 = 13.888%
9 = 4/36 (or 1/9) = 11.111%
10 = 3/36 (or 1/12) = 8.333%
11 = 2/36 (or 1/18) = 5.555%
12 = 1/36 = 2.777%
Ectoplasm is a thing. Update the quiz or ELSE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ectoplasm_(cell_biology)
:)
Debatable.
While this doesn't mean the statement is wrong--the two languages are not mutually intelligible when spoken or heard by monolingual speakers--the ambiguity is reason enough to either rephrase or replace this item.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caramel
"Caramel (/ˈkærəmɛl/ or /ˈkɑːrməl/[1][2]) is a medium to dark-orange confectionery product made by heating a variety of sugars."
"The process of caramelization consists of heating sugar slowly to around 170 °C (340 °F)."
I know that Mandarin and Cantonese when spoken sound very different, but don't they largely use the same characters? Would a Mandarin and Cantonese speaker not be able to read the same simplified (or traditional?) Chinese?