Fun new-to-me website: Free Rice. From their About page:
FreeRice is a sister site of the world poverty site, Poverty.com.
FreeRice has two goals:
- Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.
- Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.
This is made possible by the sponsors who advertise on this site.
Whether you are CEO of a large corporation or a street child in a poor country, improving your vocabulary can improve your life. It is a great investment in yourself.
Perhaps even greater is the investment your donated rice makes in hungry human beings, enabling them to function and be productive. Somewhere in the world, a person is eating rice that you helped provide. Thank you.
What you do:
- go to Free Rice
- start answering the vocabulary questions
- each correct answer = 20 grains of rice donated
- the rice is paid for by advertisers
- you learn:someone else eats = win:win
Rice donated so far:
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Looks like they've doubled their rice donations in the first five days of 2008. I saw this via Eszters's post at Crooked Timber. Maybe they got a big bump in visitors from that link.
About the vocabulary quiz:
How does the FreeRice vocabulary program work?
FreeRice has a custom database containing thousands of words at varying degrees of difficulty. There are words appropriate for people just learning English and words that will challenge the most scholarly professors. In between are thousands of words for students, business people, homemakers, doctors, truck drivers, retired people… everyone!
FreeRice automatically adjusts to your level of vocabulary. It starts by giving you words at different levels of difficulty and then, based on how you do, assigns you an approximate starting level. You then determine a more exact level for yourself as you play. When you get a word wrong, you go to an easier level. When you get three words in a row right, you go to a harder level. This one-to-three ratio is best for keeping you at the “outer fringe” of your vocabulary, where learning can take place.
There are 50 levels in all, but it is rare for people to get above level 48.
How is the difficulty level for each word determined?
The program keeps track of how many people get each word right or wrong, and then adjusts each word’s difficulty level accordingly. So the words at the easiest levels are the ones that people most often get right. The words at the hardest levels are the ones that people most often get wrong. As more and more people have played the game, these levels have become increasingly more accurate.
Is FreeRice adding more words?
Yes. A team of professional lexicographers from the firm of Lexiteria is working to add words and additional levels to the FreeRice database. In particular, the hunt is on to find the hairiest and most difficult words in the English language. But we are also looking to add easy words, medium words and all the other words you might ever want to know. The new entries should begin to appear in January 2008. In short, we do not want you to run out of vocabulary to learn anytime soon...
I've been able to get up to level 48 for brief periods of time. Then I crash and burn, sometimes down to the upper 30's. I do hope they add new words soon bc I'm seeing repeats already. Words are the best.
(Picture via.)
Hello!
…Wanna play another game? ;)
I take the opportunity of this article to present answer4earth .
Along the same lines of Freerice, it’s about general knowledge… and it's great!
Posted by: Tom | Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 05:42 AM