Very Few People Can Pass These Tests
We’ve all done some sort of test in our lives, whether it was a short quiz or a 3-hour exam. While some tests can be fun, most people will agree that taking a test is not something that you look forward to, unless it’s a fun quiz about your favorite book or a test to see if you can spot the difference between two images. However, even when taking fun tests, many people are not able to come up with the correct answer. Why is that? That’s the question that we are going to answer in this article.
Click ‘Next’ to find out why these tests are so difficult to pass...
Spelling Tests
English language spelling is not phonetic, meaning it doesn’t always spell things out the way they sound. Plus, there are several ways to spell some sounds, and usually only one will be correct for a particular word. Take the words “which” and “witch” – they sound the same but mean very different things. Then, consider “sandwich” – the same sound again! Many people don’t pay attention to the spelling of words, only the sound. When asked to choose the correct spelling for a particular sentence, most fail.
U.S. State Capitals Tests
According to a survey reported in Forbes, 11% of Americans have never left the state where they were born, and only 46% have traveled to more than ten states. Thus, it is not surprising that they fail state capital quizzes that use less well-known states as test questions or choose states with capitals that are not the center of activity. For example, most people think New York City is the capital of New York State, but it is actually Albany.
Spot the Difference
“Spot the difference” or “find the odd one out,” tests rely on participants identifying distinguishing characteristics between similar-looking images. Some people are definitely quicker than others. A Japanese research study reported in the Journal of Clinical Gerontology and Geriatrics in March of 2015 found that the study’s "spot the difference" task was effective in the early identification of cognitive impairment in older adults. This implies people failing this type of quiz are not as cognitively developed as those who succeed.
A Text Layout Trick That Looks Like a Math Problem
We are conditioned to have certain information presented in a certain way. We know that in a math equation, numbers are separated by operators. If we can remember the order of operations (PEMDAS,) we would know that we must multiply before adding, but we would also never normally split a digit across multiple lines. In this test, the digit 11 is split midway at the end of the first and second lines. The majority of people will get caught on one, if not both, of these challenges.
Complete the Phrase
Idiomatic phrases are cultural expressions that may seem completely unrelated to the matter being discussed. Idioms don’t “translate” from other languages, so foreign students learning English have to learn them by heart. Therefore, children raised as first-language English speakers in immigrant communities might not be exposed to idioms. Idiomatic expressions are part of casual language and tend not to be used in school and work environments where the language is more formal. For native speakers, idioms can be so unconsciously acquired that even they will question themselves on tests like these.
Fan Tests
We all have a favorite TV show, book, movie, or video game. When we find something that we become obsessed with, we take time out of our days to learn everything we can about that thing. For example, if you are a fan of Harry Potter, you’ll want to know as much about the Harry Potter Universe as possible. Then how is it possible that you still answer incorrectly in a Harry Potter quiz? The answer is simple - there’s just too much in the universe to know.
General Knowledge
General knowledge is information that has been accumulated over time via a number of methods and media. Most people believe that they have a good sense of general knowledge, but many tend to fail some of the most basic general knowledge tests out there. This is because our mind is often preoccupied with things that are immediately important to us, like information for school or work. Thus, we don’t commit many pieces of trivia to our long-term memory.
U.S. History
If you found U.S. history boring in school, then you’re not alone. The majority of K-12 learners either have indifferent feelings toward U.S. history or have negative feelings. This is largely because history tends to be one of the least interactive classes in school. Most of the time, your teacher lectures you for the duration of the lesson and then assigns homework. There’s hardly ever any engagement, which leads many people to flunk history.
World History
The same goes for world history, though this time, the topics include… well, the whole world. There are a lot of things to cover in world history since there has been a lot of history in the world. In fact, there are often so many things to remember and learn in this class that most students will feel a sense of burnout or frustration when trying to remember all of it. Information overload means that nothing is being memorized, ultimately leading to failure.
Math
While many other subjects are easy to pick up because they can involve real-life analogs, math is not one of those subjects. It is based on the structure of logic rather than the world around us, so it can be difficult to find relationships and draw parallels. Humans are much better at learning by analogy rather than by logic and abstract, which is why it can be so difficult for some to be good at math. If you’re bad at math, it’s not your fault!
Literature Tests
The books that we read in school are meant to be both entertaining and educational, but most people don’t find reading Shakespeare fun. Literature is an excellent medium for teaching plenty of concepts, and it can also help us learn to identify symbolism and the underlying meanings behind different themes in books. However, with the ever-growing popularity of social media, our attention spans are shrinking, and more and more people find it harder to concentrate while reading. This is a leading cause of poor performance on literature tests.
What Brand Is This?
There are literally hundreds of thousands of brands out there, and we are exposed to hundreds of them every single day, whether we’re browsing the internet at home, driving around town, or walking through a grocery store. Each brand generally has a signature logo to distinguish them from others. You may think you know a lot of brands, but when you look at an image like this one, you find that you can barely identify a few. This is because of the sheer volume of brands we are exposed to every day.
Music Tests
Music tests are a similar story to the brand tests. We are almost constantly listening to music. Whether you’re watching a movie, driving around in your car with the radio on, or walking in a store, you’re hearing music. There are millions of songs out there, and new music is released and played every day. You may think you know a lot about music, but when you take a quiz, you find that you confuse artists and song titles.
Gaming Tests
If you are a dedicated gamer, then you probably spend quite a lot of time in front of your PC or console playing video games. Most video games have a story to follow while the gameplay takes place, like The Witcher, for example. Many gaming tests will ask questions about this story, and we often become so wrapped up in the gameplay or one specific story element that we fail to take note of other important moments. Games are both distracting and a distraction.
Geography
A report from the Government Accountability Office revealed that over half of social studies teachers spend 10% or less of their teaching time on geography. Moreover, many states do not require geography courses in high school or middle school. This results in a general lack of geographical knowledge, to the point where many U.S. citizens are unable to pinpoint the locations of specific states or towns in the United States. While geography may not be the most important subject, it’s still worth knowing.
Television Quizzes
The average adult watches over 4 hours of television a day. That is a lot of programming. Most of the time, we are flicking through the channels or browsing Netflix for something to watch. Most people tend to binge-watch several episodes of a show at a time when they find something that piques their interest, sometimes even watching an entire season of a show at once. That’s a lot of information to take in at once, and many people fail to notice certain details when binging a show.
Film Quizzes
Like literature, film can also be a medium to convey deeper messages and feelings to the viewer. Hundreds of movies are released every year, but most of them don’t convey deep meaning or evoke certain emotional responses. Marvel movies are an example of this - they are purely action films. You watch the superheroes fight a battle, and then the movie is over. Many people fail to notice certain details because mainstream movies have conditioned them not to.
Celebrity Look-Alike Tests
We are constantly looking at people’s faces wherever we go. Hundreds, if not thousands, of faces, pass us by each day, and we don’t take note of any of them. There are so many celebrities these days that, when two of them look similar, it can become extremely difficult to distinguish between them. We recognize the features of one celebrity in the face of another and immediately make an assumption about who that celebrity is. This is why celebrity look-alike tests can be so challenging.
Things That Look Like Other Things
Humans instinctively recognize patterns in the things we see, and sometimes, we see patterns where there simply aren’t any. Sometimes, we can look at an image of one object and mistake it for another object. In the picture seen above, we can notice a pattern found in one object, and we compare it to a similar pattern found in another object. Sometimes, the patterns can be so similar that distinguishing between the two objects becomes a challenge.
Sports Tests
If you are not a dedicated sports fan, then you probably don’t know the first thing about football or soccer. However, even the most avid baseball fans sometimes have trouble identifying all of the players on one team, or determining what number is on each player’s shirt, or how many home runs they have hit. Once again, it comes down to information overload and how our brains have trouble discerning different pieces of information when there’s a lot of it.
Quizzes About Religion
Most followers of a certain religion tend to avoid doing any kind of research about other religions because there are often conflicts between them that make them uncomfortable. Atheists (people who are not religious) generally take no interest in religion at all and don’t do any research about any religions. If you are interested in learning about different religions, it can be difficult to find reliable information. These factors cause a general lack of knowledge about different faiths and belief systems.
Politics
Unfortunately, politics have become extremely convoluted and sensational. Many news outlets are partial to a certain political party or ideology, choosing to spread good news about that party and bad news about all others. This leads to an extreme level of misinformation and ‘fake news’. This means that there are very few reliable sources of political information out there, leading to poor political general knowledge overall.
Food Quizzes
Most people are not culinary professionals and know very little about different foods and what food combinations taste good. This also comes down to information overload, since, as you probably already know, there are a lot of different foods out there. The group of foods that most people struggle with is fruits and vegetables. Many vegetables look similar, and there are so many different fruits that remembering all of their names can be quite tricky.
Language
There are anywhere between 470 million and 2 billion English speakers in the world. That means that there are somewhere between 6.5 billion and 5 billion people in the world who are not able to speak English. That’s a lot of people. English is one of the most commonly spoken languages in the world, and many English speakers feel that there is no need to learn another language, contributing to a lack of linguistic knowledge.
