Forums / Fun! / Just For Fun

If you are interested, there's a five minute test here: http://testyourvocab.com/
No downloads or e-mails or other crud.
When you get to the results page, you can either click the link on that page or just use this url: http://testyourvocab.com/blog/2013-05-08-Native-speakers-in-greater-detail#newMainchartNative
to find out what percentile you are for your age for people who took the test (who are mostly geeks).

My score was 26,000 words, which puts me roughly in the 55th percentile for my age. I'm okay with that. (Sorry if this is stupid.)

18,200

Meh.

26,100 words
they still need more 15 y/o participants to give me a percentage rating

34,100

I can't even pronounce some of these third column options.

21,400 which is right around the 40th percentile for 20 year olds.

I have a feeling that the percentiles are somewhat skewed though, considering how easy it would be for people to say "Oh yeah, I totally know what that word means" when in reality they may have only seen the word before and not actually know what it means.

16,500

22,600

Almost perfectly average for my age.

But the way this test is structured, there's one skill I have that can't benefit me- I'm quite good at deducing the meaning of a word, at least to some degree, based on the context in which it's presented. That includes the roots of the word itself, which often provide fantastic hints as to the general definition. I think this is why I scored much better on that portion of the SAT then the number above would seem to indicate.

Despite having a Master's in English, I got 25,800. That is horrifying for a number of reasons.

I got a 27,600.

Edit: Though, a message to those who have a low score. Remember that you don't need to know a lot of words to be smart. Knowing a lot of words will only make you look smart, that's all. Intelligence comes from far more than memorizing a bunch of nonsense.

After all, you don't need to know 1,000 ways to call someone an idiot to tell them they're an idiot. (Though synonyms are fun)

Don't freak out if you didn't get a "good score"!

I guess I should have quoted this from the second website from the get-go:
"Now, remember that these percentiles are not for the population as a whole, but rather just those who have taken the test online. Comparing with self-reported SAT scores from previous analysis, overall participation is in roughly the 98th percentile of the American population as a whole -- it is apparently a very "elite" group of people who spend their time taking vocabulary tests on the Internet! "

So yeah, these percentiles are skewed in the "lots of words" direction, since the participants are voluntary. 26th percentile doesn't mean 76% of Americans your age know more words than you, it means 76% of Americans your age who spend their free time taking tests to see how large their vocabulary is know more words than you.

20100

34,900. Did I win?

26,400 for me.

16,100

I think it's pretty good for someone who has only been speaking English for eight years.

22,700
Kinda expected something like this.

I got only a few hundred word's less than the 50th percentile for my age.

14,200
I've become so lazy to read a book or manga lately.

11,700
above the average for non-native English speakers and almost "at the very top" in academic performance chart.In reality my grades in English were indeed good in high school

19,500 words, same situation as Minty where they need more 15 year old participants to get a percentage.

31,400
Pretty decent, I think.

26,800, which surprised the hell out of me, to be honest. Considering other, more formal tests have me in the top 2% for vocabulary, I really thought I'd be higher. Meh. I still have command enough over the written word, so it doesn't bother me any.

23,700 estimated words, which puts me near the 50 percentile for 20 year olds. It's actually more words than I expected to know. I am content.

Don't worry, you probably still are. According to the website, most people who bother to find and take tests like this tend to average around the 2nd percentile, so it's probably better to think of your score in terms of in the top X% of the roughly top 2%.