I so wanted to write an April Fool’s Day column.
But I know my wife would scowl at me for teaching people how to pull mean pranks, so writing how putting clear tape over the infrared laser on a mouse drives the user crazy — or loading the motion fart app onto a smartphone to make unsettling noises each time it’s moved — are things I can’t put in this column.
Instead, I’ll let you know about online quizzes and tests that can be entertaining, revealing, and valuable. I always gravitate to the free ones, but I’ll use my trash email account if I am required to register.
JUST FOR FUN
A bevy of challenging and feisty topics include Quotes from Famous Books, This Cupcake Test Will Be Able to Tell If You’re Good with Details or Not, and A 30-Question U.S. Geography Quiz.
This popular online quiz platform collected some of its best food quizzes to test your skills. How Much Do You Really Know About Mexican Food? And Can You Guess the Cheesecake Factory Calories? Are two of my favorite.
Challenges range from matching 60s TV show theme songs to revealing what percentage of you is a real mountain man.
This site boasts it has the most quizzes on the internet. While its design is dated, its lists run deep, varied, and random, ranging from knowledge of cooking terms to trivia on the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Rating the quizzes as easier, tough, average, or difficult is a nice feature.
One will find fun features like the Shopaholic Test and the Driving Personality Test, but your curiosity will get the best of you when you take tests like the H.A.S.E. (Hockey Athlete Success Evaluation) test.
DIGITAL DIAGNOSTICS
Have you always wanted to take an inkblot test? This site allows you to do just that and more than 20 others that measure the dominance of your brain hemispheres or your connection to nature. You do have to take a small survey at the end to get your results.
This is an online Myers-Briggs personality test that assesses personalities across four traits and helps an individual understand personal strengths and weaknesses.
An alphabetical directory of online health quizzes, calculators, and checkups, ranging from pet allergies to kidney health assessment.
Psychology Today Lifestyle Test
Mayo Clinic Heart Disease Risk Calculator
Check your risk of heart disease with this calculator from the esteemed Mayo Clinic.
JUST HOW HARD CAN IT BE?
Take the Air Force Officer Qualifying Test (AFOQT) and two others to see if you are fit to fly.
See if you’re made of the right stuff and take a series of questions based on official NASA astronaut requirements and real-life psychological tests.
The plumbing practice test has questions that appear on actual plumbing licensing exams. The site has more than 100 other professional, career, and academic practice tests.
Give it the old college try on sample SAT and AP tests. Or see if you could pass the U.S. Citizenship exam. Or take professional certification and assessment tests for firefighters, educators, and medical personnel.
Just to assess my medical savvy I took the Surgery Board Review practice exam and the Grey’s Anatomy trivia quiz. And I am tickled to say that I scored a 90% — on one of them.
