Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Geekery. For real.

Okay, so I haven't posted in forever, and this really isn't what I meant to post next, BUT I couldn't bear to deprive all six readers of the totally awesome thing I found: Free Rice. I'm not sure how much it really helps the developing world, but it's a vocabulary game where they give you a word, you pick the synonym/definition, and if you're right, you get a harder word; wrong, you get an easier one. (Apparently, since the [really very tiny] ads refresh each time you submit a choice, the sponsors are using the ad revenue to donate rice to the UN. I have my doubts about the efficacy of this, but: vocabulary game!)

There are 50 levels, and each word you get wrong drops you down a level; each three or so words right bumps you up. It's completely addicting (I may have spent an hour on this site last night), and the thing is, it's hard, and I'm usually not too shabby in the vocab department. So far, I've topped out at level 48, but hopefully I'll get to level 50 soon - I'm very curious as to what will be there, because I've already run into a lot of words I've never even heard of. Anyway, go play! It's fun, I swear.

(I totally warned you this was geeky.)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure it was a favor that you shared Free Rice with us. I already have spent too much time there. You must be quite good - I topped out at 47. Oddly, the level 46 words seemed easier than the level 45 words - must have been the etiology of what they consider hard word matched some subject I studied once.

KJ said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
KJ said...

I managed 47 as well. I liked all the medical words in there: exsanguinate, patella, postprandial. Nice.

Oh, and I deleted the previous comment because of a grammar error. How embarrassing.