Good Job, Brain! - 202: This is Only A Test

Episode Date: June 16, 2018

Get your scrap paper ready and those number two pencils sharpened because this week, we are filling up the Scantron sheets with bizarre facts and wacky trivia about tests and exams! Speaking of pencils, why are they yellow, and why do we always have to always use No.2? Why can't we use pens on Scantron sheets? Chris answers these pencil questions as our ~lead~ expert. See how well you know your common test abbreviations and acronyms in Karen's quiz. And boy, buckle up for the most insane job application test ever just for a chance to work under GJB's favorite a-hole, Mister Thomas Alva Edison. Also: What happens when seagulls eat pepperoni Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hey, y'all, Karen here. This is a friendly disclaimer that due to a mic issue, you might hear some static in the second half of this episode. We tried to minimize it the best we can. And special thanks to friends Leland and Winter for helping out. So with that said, let the show begin. Hello, gang of gallant, gallivanting, galloping, galloping, gatteteers, gabbing in gantries. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and Offbeat Trivia podcast.

This is episode 202, and of course, I'm your humble host, Karen, and we are your very vocal volcanoes, vomiting volumes of vocabulary. I'm Colin. I'm Dana. And I'm Chris. I actually want to. to start the show with something we haven't done in a while. This is inspired by... We haven't done a lot

of things in a while, yeah, that's true. We had a kind of like a public Q&A on our fan group, our lobe-trotters, Good Job Braided Lobe Trotter's fan group. And listener, Stephen Shepard said the following, I love the segments where you try weird

foods for the first time. Any plans to have more of this, still can't believe you guys ate that gum. I remember that. Sometimes when I, before I put a gum in my mouth, I'm like, is it going to be that gum again? I hope not. So, astute long-time listeners, though, pretty much early on in good job history, good job brain history, we had a like a 1980s trivia card pack.

Early 80s, like trading card packs. And we opened it for fun and answered some questions. Little did we know that it came with gum. Yeah. It was fun to a point. They did it try it like toddlers or something. Yeah, we're like, well, we have to eat it. And I did not.

You three actually ate the gum. We did eat the gum. It dissolved. It was like a mixture of paste and one of those rubber pencil erasers. All of the things that made it gummy had... Chemical paste. Yeah. Yeah, collapsed.

All the binders. Yeah. And in the spirit of more listener stuff. So here I have a gift from Carmen and David from Patascala, Ohio. I took out the rapper, so no one. knows what it is. And I have a special treat. Oh, I almost just ate that before our show. Oh, really? Yeah, I mean, you put it right next to the snacks. So here I have these little, they look like eggorns. They look like pale, pale little nuggets. Okay. Let me see. Yeah, I agree. That

looks like a pale little nugget. And here, I think we should, we should start the show by trying this. Will you tell us anything about this? It is candy. Okay. So it's not a naturally occurring, like, seed pod or something. It's a slow carb. Can I eat this? It's sugar. It's sugar. But you can lick it.

Okay. All right. Or spit it out. Okay. Here we go. All right. I'm going to take my mouth away from the microphone. Yes.

I'm going to put it in. You mean this small so I can spit. Okay. Spit bowl. Okay. It's sweet. Banana-y. A little vanillay, little almond-y.

I don't know. I think there might be stuff in the middle. I don't know. I don't know. I see little black dots before I put it in my mouth. Well, I don't. Well, I don't know if that's... So far, so good.

It has kind of a musky tape. It tastes like onions to me. Yeah, you know what? A little bit like onion. Oh, a little sweet onion. Okay. Now that you say it, yeah. Yeah, it does.

Oh, yeah, I'm getting a big head of onion now. What a strange reaction. I know what it is, obviously. Oh, oh, oh. Okay. Don't, well, don't spoil it. I think I got it. Okay.

Do you guys have a... There's a spitball if you guys want to spit it back out. Hmm. I'm committed at this point. Woo. I'm going to try it more time. It's a strange mix of sweet and savory. Oh, like when you bite it, it's real musky.

It's like an animal's excretion, like a musk. I think I have a sensation of what. My best guess is, yeah. Oh, I smell it now. Oh, God. It is. Oh, wow. This smells like the real thing, too.

Ooh, it is. Chris, what's your guess? My guess was garlic. Oh, it's smell. Yeah, you know what? It's not onion. It's like garlicky now. Yeah.

Tana. Or garlic something. Colin's going to spit it. Yeah, now it's more garlic cake. My guess was sweet onion. It is durian. Oh, you know what? Oh.

Deerian candy. I was going to say that just for the hell of it. And I, but yeah, I've never actually tasted durian. Right. It smells like it. I've smelled it. This smells like it. It's sulfury.

I think it's where you guys get the garlic and the onion. Yeah. The pungent. That's not. Oh, okay. It's not. It's not a terrible candy. Yeah, this smell.

I've had worse candy. Dana. We've had worse candy. Thanks, Dana. You know, like, extremely salty black. So, derion is a Southeast Asian fruit, and it is, you know what? It's one of those things that people make fun of because it smells really bad. It's very sulfuric, kind of rotty taste, musky, I guess.

The texture of it, the real texture of the fruit actually is kind of like ice cream. It's very smooth and very creamy. Yeah, that's what I've heard. It has like a vanilla banana taste, but then you have to deal with the scent of the onion garlic salt. I mean, it's outright banned in a lot of places. I mean, I remember traveling. Recently it was in the news. They had to evacuate a library.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they thought it was like some chemical. It was rotting durian. Yeah, it wasn't just a durian. It was a rotting durian, right? Well, there you go, Stephen. We just tried something new. and thanks to our listeners from Ohio to who sent us those nuggets.

Thanks, guys. Ohio, Ohio, of course, known for their jury and high quality. Yeah, the durian heartland. Well, I've got a, I've got a extremely good job brain story that I just, I had to at least bring up on the show. You guys probably saw it. It was all over Facebook a few weeks ago. It was just all over the internet. I think it got picked up by every major news story.

If I say the words seagull and pepperoni, are you guys familiar with this story? No, I am actually not. I missed it. Oh, all right. I'm glad at least one of you guys did not hear the story. So hopefully that means somewhere one of our listeners, or maybe you're listening to this show seven years from now, and you will hear this story for the first time. This is a fantastic. This is truly a good job grain story.

So this happened in Canada. So I figured I'm going to quote liberally here from a CBC article about the story. The headline is how Siegel's pepperoni. got Dartmouth men banned from Posh B.C. Hotel. That's at British Columbia. So the Fairmont Empress Hotel in Victoria had a 17-year-long ban against a man named Nick Burchell. And he posted on Facebook his lengthy, hilarious true story that he wrote a letter to the hotel basically asking for the band to be lifted. He's like, I think I've done my time. Can you please let me back in? So I can stay at the hotel.

So I can stay at the hotel again. Here again, quoting from the CBC article, The Fairmont Empress has lifted its ban against Nick Birchall. 17 years after dozens of seagulls trashed the man's hotel room while feasting on enough pepperoni to fill his suitcase. What? Wait, what? So this is from his letter on Facebook. I told my Navy buddies, I was coming out west, and I was asked to bring Brothers Pepperoni,

Brothers brand pepperoni from Halifax. It is a local delicacy. Because this was the Navy we were talking about, I brought enough for a ship. So in a hurry, I had completely filled a suitcase with pepperoni for my friends. Some of it was wrapped in plastic. Some in brown paper. I took whatever brothers would sell me. This is the bag that my airline misplaced.

So he showed up at the hotel. The bag showed up the next day. Now, he knew the pepperoni would be good. I mean, it's a cured meat, right? But he wanted to make sure that it was like at least kind of, you know, a little more presentable. So just to be safe, I decided I should keep it cool. My room was a nice big front-facing room on the fourth floor. It was well-appointed, but did not have a refrigerator.

It was April. The air was chilly. An easy way to keep all of the food cool would be to keep it next to an open window. So he opened a window, laid the pepperoni out thinking, you know, like a pie, it's going to cool off, you know. I'm on the sill. Yeah, just on the sill, like you do, and you got your pepperoni. Then I went for a walk for about four or five hours. Wow, that's a long walk.

Like a touristy. You got to stretch your legs. When I covered up ground, I returned to the hotel. I remember walking down the hallway, open the door to my room to find an entire flock of seagulls in my room. I didn't have time to count, but there must have been 40 of them. Oh, my God. And they had been in my room eating pepperoni.

for a long time in case you were wondering Brothers T&T pepperoni does nasty things to the Siegel's digestive system At this point the story like This is when it becomes like a Mr. Bean episode

To me, you know what I mean? Like I just picture him, yeah As you would expect, the room was covered in seagull crap What I did not realize until then Was also that Siegel's drool especially when they eat pepperoni. So, I mean, these poor birds, these poor birds, you know. They thought they hit the jackpot.

Yeah, exactly. So I'm sure you have an image in your head going back to Nick's letter here. Now remember that I have just walked into the room and startled all of these birds. Oh, no. They immediately start flying around and crashing into things as they're desperately tried to leave the room through the small opening that they had entered. So, basically, he tars and feathers, the world. Yeah, exactly. A seagull hooped

and then they smash all into it. And he scares the, I mean, he literally scares the crap out of how many times. I'm going to figure at least 50 to 60 percent of those seagulls immediately poop themselves when he walked in the room. Less composed seagulls are attempting to leave through the other closed windows. Oh, my God. This, I think, is the money quote of Nick's letter. The result was a tornado of seagull excrement.

feathers, pepperoni chunks, and fairly large birds whipping around the room. So he opened the other windows to the room, like, you know, smart, yeah. He went in through. That's exactly what his letter said. I waded through the birds. Yeah, a little swim move through the birds. Open the remaining windows. Most of the seagulls left immediately, fantastically.

One tried to re-enter the room to grab another piece of pepperoni. And in my agitated state, I took off one of my shoes and threw it at him. both the gull and the shoe went out the window now but he had gotten it down to one seagull left but he was like chasing it around it was you know didn't want to leave has a big piece of pepperoni in its mouth so he grabs a bath towel

and basically tackles the seagull he wraps it in the towel yeah and he pitches it out the window with the towel with the towel around it as he says I'd forgotten that seagulls cannot fly when they are wrapped in a towel He said the bird is okay

He said the bird was a little dazed But of course he's now thrown A shoe, a towel And a bird out of the hotel window Right So people out in front of course are watching this Like what the hell is happening So let's let's reiterate here

That Nick is in town on a business trip Okay So he's got to get ready to go to an event At this point Okay I was new to my company I was really hoping to make a good impression I decided I would carry on for now and just deal with this whole thing later.

So he only had one shoe. So he went downstairs, got the other shoe, got the towel, came back up. He washed off his shoe. And I like his thinking here. He says, in retrospect, I should have just wet my other dry shoe instead of trying to dry the wet shoe. So he plugs into a little hair dryer in the room, drying the shoe. And then the phone rings. So he goes to the other room and then all of a sudden the power goes.

off. So it turns out that the hair dryer had wiggled free of the shoe and found it to the sink and blew out the power for the room, possibly some for the whole hotel. So at this point, somebody from the hotel comes up, right? And he says, I can still remember the look on the lady's face when she opened the door. I had absolutely no idea what to tell her. So I just said, I'm sorry. And I went to dinner. When I came back, my things had been moved to a much small. room. His company received a letter that he had been banned from the hotel. So this was 18 years ago, almost, you know, when a younger, more naive Nick was doing foolish things with pepperoni. So he decided he was back in town. He wrote the hotel a letter to see if they would, you know, either rescind the ban or considerate time served. And he also gave them a big sack of pepperoni. Yes, yes. They did, they did lift the the band. They considered his 17-year band, you know, enough...

It's not his fault. Well, it's you know, maybe not directly his fault, yeah. So... Seagulls are hungry and aggressive. He opened, he left the window open and a bunch of bait out. Yeah, it was. He was like baiting the birds. I mean... That was foolish.

Hopefully they have refrigerators in the rooms now, so he can keep his pepperoni. I like how he kind of blamed the hotel. It's like, it didn't have a refrigerator. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. So this was just one of those stories.

Oh, my goodness. Nothing. There is no lesson. Just laughs. Yeah. The Oakland Coliseum, where the A's play, it's funny because it's inland compared to say the giant stadium, which is right by the water. But somehow the seagulls flock to the Oakland Coliseum, and they're everywhere. They just know.

They just know. And they're like all over in people's hair. They're not scared. They're not afraid. They're not scared at all. And so the calcium facility was like, we got to address this problem. Oh, we got a great idea. And so they have these kites that are like big falcons.

Oh, so they look like real falcons. And then so they attached two of them to try to scare off the seagulls. And they had a naming competition. It was like internet naming competition. And of course, the internet decided. Hawking McHawk face. Falcon McFalcon face. very good

and you're like oh this is going to this is going to be it no seagulls not scared oh really the fake the fake falcon that just like kind of fly in one area

like the seagulls are just I like how they had a naming competition and then it's like oh it doesn't work all right well thank you Colin for that wonderful story riveting I couldn't resist

without further ado let's jump into our first general trivia segment pop quiz hot shot and i got a surprise in my random uh trivial pursuit card box draw we usually have a random card we keep having kind of the same additions and i kind of really dug down in the corners yeah and i got a trivial pursuit totally 80s card nice something we haven't done i'm excited i'm legitimately excited one of us was a little more conscious in the 80s That's a very kind way of calling the old.

I like it. Buzzers at the ready. Here we go. Blue Wedge for TV. What TV show told the tale of a commando unit that was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit? Everybody. The A team. Next question, Pink Wedge for WC.

World events, maybe. What 96 mile? long structure came crashing down in 1989, scattering large chunks all over the world. Everybody. The Berlin Wall. Wow.

The Berlin Wall. We're all trying to match each other's face. Berlin Wall. All right. Next wedge, yellow. Who did Ronald Reagan ask to lead the team that greeted Iran's former hostages in West Germany? Oh.

That's a good question Call it Nancy Reagan Oh no I don't know But that's not bad Chris Emmanuel Lewis

TV's Webster He was beloved He was Who would you want to see When you're coming home to America Yeah You just want to see Webster I think Mr. T

And then you feel like protected You're like oh yeah Yeah No What is it? It is Jimmy Carter Oh Okay

That makes a lot of sense Because it was right at We thought about it hard. Next one. Purple Wedge for music. What men without hats hit was a musical response to clubs cracking down on mosh pits? Oh, oh, of course. Dana.

First of all, they only had the one hand. Oh, yeah. Safety dance. Yes. I didn't know that was a response. I didn't know that was a response to her. It was a response to them cracking down on what? Mosh pits.

Oh, okay. That. like the song more. Like, I already liked the song, but I'm like, oh, it's about going to a mosh pit if you feel like it. Yeah. Yeah. It makes more, honestly, it makes more sense now. For the first time in my life, I'm like, oh, safety dance. Okay. It's, yeah. That's why it's that. Yeah. Wait, is this the video with the Maypole and the Renaissance thing? Like in a kind of frolicing. Yeah, yeah. And like a, like a, like a, a, like a, a willow type. I guess that's the joke. What's the opposite of a mosh pit? Right. Oh, my God. I understand. I understand.

I'll make so much more. Wow. That was, okay, this is a great card. That's a good card. Yeah, that was valuable.

All right. Lime green wedge, because it's 80s, not green. Lime green for movies. What film stars Woody Allen as a talent agent who represents dead-end acts like piano plinking birds and balloon folders? Colin.

Is that Broadway Danny Rose? Correct. Never heard of them. He's made a lot of them. Yeah. All right. Last question, sports and leisure. Orange Wedge, who was the first runner to hold simultaneous U.S. records for all distances from 800 to 10,000 meters?

Oh, 800 to 10,000. Oh, okay. I'm guessing. Flojo? Incorrect. I mean, it's 80s, but I mean, Carl Lewis? Incorrect. I don't think he ran the long distances.

It is a woman. Okay, all right. Can we narrow it down? I don't know. It's not. And it was too early for Jackie Joyner Cursey, right? Well, you might as well

to say it. Jackie Joyner Cursey? No. Okay. Who is it? Mary Decker Slick. Oh, okay. I know the name.

I definitely know her name. Not in the punch bowl. Yeah, no, I know the name from the 80s. Mary Decker Slaney. Okay. All right. All right. Good job.

Brains. Totally 80s. Yeah. Rad job. That was a good one. That's a good card. Well, Karen, this week, we're going to be talking about testing. Yeah.

You suggested it. I did. I suggested this one. one. So as listeners of at least the last couple episodes know, I have a new baby girl at home. I had the idea for this one when we were in the hospital. And, you know, immediately after babies were born, as I know, you guys know, Chris and Dana, having gone through this as well, they administer a series of tests to the baby, you know, just, they have the reflexes and just basically, you know, yeah, here, just that APGAR scores and things like that. So I was thinking like, oh, it's interesting.

Like, we just, we come into this world being tested, you know, it's like, she's, she's not even 10 minutes old yet. And she's already having her first test. And I was just thinking like, oh, man, we haven't talked about testing in general. This is a broad category. That's a very enlightening and depressing way of seeing, seeing, we're born into a world of testing. And then I was thinking back to on the far other end of the scale, how happy that I was the day I took my final, final college exam. I was just walking around campus. I felt so light that day.

You know what I mean? That is such an important day in memory in my life. Oh, yeah. Because I... When Colin took his last. Yeah, I remember that moment. I was like, I never have to do this ever again in my life. That's right.

And now what do you do? It's just up trivia all the time. He's true. So this week, don't panic. This is only a test. The test begins. Now la la la la la la la la la. Thought I was smart.

I thought I was right. I thought it better not to fight. I thought there was a virtue in always being the dude. But then it came time to fight. All right. I'll kick it off. I have a general subject quiz about tests just to warm you up and get you in the mood. All right.

This is a buzzing question. Buzzers ready. First question. Which staple of standardized testing takes its color from a famous diamond? Whoa. Takes its color. Yeah. Chris.

Is it the pencil? The pencil. The pencil. Oh, okay. Why are they yellow? Yeah. I think we talked about this, right? It's like the Coenor diamond.

The Coenor diamond is a famous yellow diamond. And before this company, LNC Hardmooth company, introduced like some really fancy top of the line pencils. And they wanted to signify that they were like the best pencils. So they made them yellow. And they called them the Coenor pencil. And then people were like, oh, these are, that's a good idea to make pencils yellow. Ours are also fancy. All pencils became like yellow.

That's why they're yellow. Oh, my God. It's because of a diamond. Yeah. Marketing. Two. Yeah. Actually, can I interrupt with a cool related story?

Yes. So, yesterday I went to, Chris is your old neighborhood, Dynamo donuts. It's a famous donut shop in San Francisco and I'm eating donuts. Of course, what am I doing? I'm reading about donuts on Wikipedia. Sure. The pastry pink boxes is kind of, you know, everybody uses them.

So there's a reason why they're pink. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so this is mostly due to Cambodia, which is very, yeah, it's very interesting. So, refugees of the Cambodian genocide moved to Southern California and they started bakeries and the donut industry, you know, having like coffee, like very simple diners. They're so good that at one point, like almost all the donut shops are owned by by Cambodians. Nice. And so what they wanted was they wanted boxes for donuts to be. a red color, because that's the auspicious good luck color, they realize that the leftover pink stock of cardboard boxes is the cheapest. And so they're like, this will do it. Close enough. Yeah. And because they're in L.A. and it became a thing.

It's like in movies and in TV that people adopted the pink boxes. And it's like, you latch on to the market leader. And now it's like now all pencils of that type is yellow. Yeah, exactly. Next question. Which PBS show is tied with Cook's Illustrated? and cooks country magazines. Which PBS show is like affiliated with those?

Karen. Is this America's test kitchen? Yes, it is. I think it's the nerdiest cooking show on TV. It's super nerdy. It's so good. Because it's everything is, okay, how do you make macaroni and cheese? Well, we made 25 different macaroni and cheese recipes and then this is the best one.

This is the best one. Yeah. This is the best one pulled through, you know, from all of the different. Whoa. And you need to heat it at this temperature for this long. And then when you put your thermometer, it should be this number. And they pull it out and it's exactly that number. And then they're like, and then you do this and you stir it six times.

And then you're like, it's like, oh my God, you know the answer to the data. It's not art. It's a science. It's so good. Okay, next question. Which test was invented in 1921 by a Swiss psychiatrist? Karen. The.

Worshack test. Yes. I didn't know if it was called the inkblot test. That's the other name for it. But it was omitted by a Swiss. Mr. Rorschach. That's Dr. Rorschach to you.

Ambiguous design tests. And those have been around for a long time. Like Da Vinci and Botticelli did some of those where they're like, what do you think when you see this ambiguous picture. But he used it for to get insights into people's psychology. He published a book about it. It came out. He was 36 when he published a book.

The next year, when he was 37, he died. Oh, my God. I didn't know that. He, like, made a huge splash, a huge way of a thing that we still talk about today. Huge plot. And then the next year, he died. I didn't know that. Oh, it was sad.

It was sad. It was crazy. All right. Which widely recognized personality test was created by a mother-daughter duo? Karen. That is the Myers. Brigg We're big

Briggs Myers Briggs Type Indicator Yes Yeah I was really into that for a while Yeah

It's like the one where you can Be separated Into like 16 Personality Your four letters That was another one Of the tests We took in the testing

metrics Do you guys know your own? Oh I don't remember Yeah No I figured I had it I did it once in college

But I don't remember What's yours I am I TP introversion, intuition, thinking, and perception. I believe it's called the logician.

I might be, that, that sounds very similar. That might be all of us. Whatever, whatever the best one is, I was the best one. Instead of P, I'm a J. Judging? Yeah. Oh, okay. Like I'd make a decision based on that information.

Chris would be extrovert. He's like, no. Although, you know what they say that? They said about a lot of introverts. Yeah, right, exactly. It's true. it's true so this was really interesting it was created by katherine cook briggs and isabel briggs myers that was her daughter neither of them were formally educated in psychology they just got really into

judging people by their personality like they were Catherine cook briggs was like my son-in-law has a real interesting personality and she's like oh i guess people have different kind of ways of being and then she got into typography and she did all this apprenticeship she did a lot of like her own research, and especially when Young, Jung, Jung, I'm sorry, Jung came out, she was really into it and like, read it and came up with this typography, and her daughter was into it.

Her daughter wrote a mystery novel based on the typography, and it won Best Mystery Novel of the Year, that year. I thought that was cool, and then they thought the personality tests could be used to help women entering the workforce during World War II figure out who they are as people, what kind of job they should see. Yeah. I had no idea it was a mother-daughter. I did not know that. I personally like the Teenage Mutin Ninja Turtle personality type.

Uh-huh. Like, that's how I'm just the four. No, I'm actually a big proponent. I think like a good team would have each of their personality. Which one are you? Oh, I'm Mikey. Yeah. That's funny. I'm Michelangelo. I've thought about us. Oh, okay. She's like, I'm not joking, Daniel. Oh, yeah, yeah. All right. So who are we? I have a guess of who I am. Chris is Raphael. Yeah. I feel like you're Donatello, Dina. That was my guess. And then Colin is Leonardo. Okay.

All right. Or, I mean, maybe me and Chris can swap, too, and he's Michelangelo. I'm Raphael. I can see that. Am I cool but rude or am I a party dude? But importantly, you would not assemble a team of people who did not all like pizza. Yeah, that's true. Ninja, chill.

Use deadly weaponry. Yep. Yep. And did not have genetic mutations. Pizza, slank, and disrespect for authority. I think we could apply the sex-in-the-city character lens. Oh, yeah, oh, true. Yeah.

Except we're all like Charlottes and Miranda's. We need a like a combined personality score that combines like, yeah, your sex in the city with your teenage media ninja turtle. With your Hogwarts house? With your Hogwarts house. Jedi or Sith. All right. What does the president's challenge test? Oh, oh, Colin.

I did this. That is physical fitness, yes? Physical fitness. It's for kids. I remember, I don't fondly remember, but I remember the flexed arm hang. That was my least favorite arm presidential. I'm like, when in my life, like, am I going to need to flexed arm hang? But yeah, I remember that one. I would actually like to take this time to quite frankly just apologize to President Clinton for failing this challenge.

Oh, I have a follow-up question on this. Which U.S. president renamed the President's Council on Physical Fitness, the people who administer the president's challenge. They renamed it from the Council on Physical Fitness and Sports to the President's Council on Fitness Sports and Nutrition. Colin. Barack Obama. The nutrition part, yeah.

Michelle Obama's cause was nutrition and trying to eliminate childhood obesity. And then the last question, which I feel like is such a pub quiz question. And I wanted to make sure we all agree. know the answer to this one. Oh, okay. It is. Where was the first atomic bomb tested? Ooh.

Doesn't I feel like a thing? Oh, you should just know this. The first one. Yeah. Colin. What state? New Mexico? New Mexico.

The Alamogordo. I was going to say Alamogordo. What was the obvious answer? I mean, it could have been bikini atoll because Spongebob. Because of SpongeBob. And also Nevada. They did it in Nevada. Yeah, that I was going to guess Nevada.

Part of the Manhattan Project. It was called. The code name for it was Trinity. What were the three things? There were no three things. It was like Project Trinthier. Yeah, Oppenheimer was like, Project Trinity. That sounds pretty badass.

You have to admit. I think it was Gizmo was the original or something like that. It was like a cute name. And I was like, oh, what a cute name. And then he's like, it's Trinity. Yeah. Anyway, good job, you guys. You pass the test.

No frills, delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills. with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at no-frails.ca. So, Dana, you mentioned, you know, using pencils on standardized tests, but of course you understand that you cannot simply use any pencil on a standardized test. Oh, no.

You have to use a number two pencil on that standardized test at severe penalty. Oh, yeah. You're going to fail. Who knows? You're going to get scored at zero. You use a number one pencil or a number three pencil. You're not going to end in the college. Your hand is falling.

This was always a question. In fact, I mean, I actually, we had acquired some pencils at a garage sale or something like this. We had this big box of pencils when I was a kid. And they were 2.5. Oh, my Honda Roganils. Absolutely. And I really. They were garbage.

I think useless. And I wondered what the difference was. Now, I'm doing, so I think that probably at least Karen and Colin are going to do a really good job of pretending to not know about the pencil rating system here because, I mean, they're literally both graphic designers that got architecture background. Just pretend you guys don't know. What is a number two pencil? What makes a number two pencil so special? What happens if you use a number three pencil? How many numbers are there?

Yeah, exactly. Where are all the numbers? What is the number two pencil? First of all, we call it the inside of the pencil, a thing you actually write with. We call it lead. It's not really lead. Right. What is it?

Graphite, which is a type of coal, basically. The lead and the pencil is generally a mix of graphite and clay. So they powder the graphite and then they put it with clay. Now, it used to just be just straight up just graphite. Depending on how much clay you put in there, a couple of things will happen. More graphite, less clay. The lead's going to be softer, which means that you're going to be able to get more graphite down onto the page more easily, and you're going to be able to put a lot more blackness

on the page. As the lead gets harder, more clay in there and less graphite, it doesn't go on to the page as easily, which means that you're going to be, you're going to be able to use that to do things that are less black, more gray. So, none of this answers the question while we're sort of getting towards the answer. Number two is a nice middle ground, basically. It's not, it's not super soft because it might be nice to use a soft pencil because then you know you don't really have to write as much to you get a nice black line on the on the page right but when the light is really soft it's going to break a lot and it's going to smudge a lot like if you get your hand in there you're going to just smudge it everywhere whereas number three pencil harder lead great

but it's a lot harder to make a black mark on the paper now there is no like industry wide standard for what a number two is. In other countries, they rated on a scale of Bs and H's and things like that, like hardness or blackness. Sometimes you have, you know, a 2B or 2H. You know, I mean, it's, but a number two pencil is, it's not super soft. It will smudge, but it will smudge that much. And the one is softer. Yes, the one is softer and the three is harder. I have so many burning questions. I think have answers. Okay. So, first, First of all, is the Scantron scanning all these pencil marks in the test? Would it pick up anything but number two?

So we have to go back to the earliest Scantron machines. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the earliest Scantron machines, and that's the machine that once you fill in all the little bubbles on the test and it reads little bubbles, the way that they worked was like this. they would shine a bright light against the back of the paper. And then the optical device could see where, basically it was seeing where light wasn't getting shown into it. The number one pencil would have filled it in. Right, that would have worked. Smudging would have been bad.

Yeah. The number three pencil, on the other hand, with the earliest Scantron machines, the mark that it would make when you're filling it in would be too light. And the light would shine through it. A black pen, the light would shine through it. The black pen was not opaque enough when you put down on the ink, so you can't use a pen. Because it's translucent. Right. Got it.

But the number two pencil by depositing, because it's deposited, little bits of graphite, that reflects the light. It's a physical process. It physically blocks the light. Exactly. So it's not shining through the ink. There's so many little bits that it just scatters all the light and it doesn't let it through. That's why the number two pencil I knew that like a one

would work. Like technically. But you smudging across. But I didn't quite know why. Yeah. Yep. You'd really have to sit there coloring really hard

with the three to get it down. Well, now the pen thing makes so much sense. Yeah, I never thought about the pen. Yeah. And if you have the number three, you fill it in, it's like it creates like a little bowl. You know what I mean? It's like you just, it doesn't, yeah.

Today's machines, by the way, are much higher tech. Yeah, yeah. They do not shine light through the thing anymore. In fact, if you're using a double-sided sheet, you know what I mean, that where you're filling in bubbles on both sides, you're no longer using that technology. So, I mean, we're all done with tests, but, you know, except for these self-imposed ones that we do on the show.

I know a lot of our listeners, you know, probably have a lot of tests ahead of them. You know, when the SAT comes around or a standardized test like that, especially if it's your first time ever in that environment of, like, you know, taking the SAT, do a practice test. And do that practice test filling in the little bubbles with a wooden number two pencil because that's what you're going to be doing in the real test. You're going to freak out a little bit more if you've never practiced it before. So don't just take a practice test and do some questions and look at it. Like literally like, you know, sit in a quiet room, have somebody tie new, have the same kind of pencil and practice it as close to a real test as you can so that you learn a little bit more about how the test works. Also, you're, you're just a lot less freaked out.

I have a piece of trivia about the SATs. It is no longer the number one college entrance exam. Oh, really? The ACTT is more. Yeah. Is what? People take it more? Yeah, a lot more.

Yeah, on the incline since 2012, something like that. Oh, interesting. Yeah. I was going to do a, I was going to do a, oh, I'm going to look at a verbal SAT and I'll pull out some of the questions. But I looked at a sample verbal SAT. And now there are no free-floating questions anymore. It is all everything in the verbal essay, people, there's the essay section, obviously.

But then also there is literally, they give you a passage. It's like an edit test. It's literally what my job is because they give you a passage and then they go, they underline certain sections of that passage. And like it'll say, this sentence should, A, stay where it is, B, moved up into paragraph one, C should be moved into paragraph two, and then it's also like, this sentence should be deleted or not deleted. Yes, because it doesn't explain the rest of the, it doesn't fit with the paragraph. No, because it's an important transition between this idea and that idea. And then other

things are like, it just underlines like a phrase and it's like maybe it'll be a possessive or a plural and it'll say, oh, this should have an apostrophe or not have an apostrophe. And then one of them is don't change it. It is all applied work. That's actually helpful. I got so into it. I was like, SAT is cool. I hate that SAT, man. Piggybacking on your, on your pencil segment, you guys know and listeners know that I attended the American Crossword Puzzle tournament. Yes. Oh, man. The New York Times Crossword Puzzle tournament held in Connecticut. It is super hardcore and intense. We went with our friend, Tyler Hinman, who's the past champion, a five-time champion before. People were so nice. People are so jazz just to me and to talk to, you know, they're just so nice.

I met Will Shorts, you know, the puzzle master. And I just, everybody's super warm. I feel like you're leaving out a real important piece of your story. So before the tournament, I had to practice because I do the New York Times crossword on the app on my phone. Okay. So I am, you know, so I am by speed faster than someone who would write it or play in, not play, but like, you know, fill it in in the newspaper because I'm using my thumbs. Everything's kind of automated. I can go to the next clue and I can see the clue right below the puzzle. And it is so different to do it the original paper manual way because you have all your clues on one side and you have to like keep track where you're looking and then you have to write. And I completely forgot how long it takes to write.

Because I don't really write that much. You know, I don't, you know, every type. Yeah. Yeah. And so I was just like, my handwriting is bad. And I have to think about. Then I had to get, then I got strategy. I forgot how to make an L.

I couldn't. It looks like a C. And I had to, not me, but like the group suggested that you better practice and find out what pencil you like. That's a good idea. And I was like, I didn't even think about that. Even just things like, like your hand cramping or, you know, a comfortable grip. I'm like, oh, I'm going to go for, you know, hardcore, intense, like high, high-tech mechanical pencil.

Oh, but what lead is 0.5 or 0.7? And, you know, I'm trying it out. And then, you know what? At the end of the day, number two. Oh, yeah. Classic. We're just used to it. Yeah.

It felt good in my hand. It was weighty. It's a reason it's a classic. But, no, you're still living out, like, one of the most important parts of this story. One most important thing is, I came in almost last place out of everybody. That is not what I mean. But though I didn't do, I'm pretty good crosswords. These are, these people are geniuses, right?

And I'm at the bottom, like, 50 of the people. But I did win on style because I, uh, I showed up dressed as a big number two pencil. Yeah. With the yellow and then the pink eraser on top. A lot of people wore like crazy crossword dresses and suits and stuff. And I was like, oh, maybe more people will like dress up. Nope, just me. Just showed up.

And then, um, I got on to the. New York Times. There's a picture of like the silent room of just all these competitors in a row with their little paper gates. And you just see my big eraser head like pop up. There's Karen. Good old standard number two. Did you have to take a test to get into it?

No, you don't. Oh, you're just going to be. It's not going to be. Turns out, they don't need to have a weed out. They don't. Life is its own weed out. They are. They really don't.

I really want to go. It is. It is difficult. I described it as I'm on the JV high school swimming team and I'm competing at the Olympics. Like against Michael Phelps? Yeah, yeah. That's what it feels like, I'm good. And you're better than the general population.

Yeah, yeah, but I'm not at. Sometimes the underdog pops out though. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they do. When planning for life's most important moments, sometimes the hardest part is simply knowing where to start. That's why we're here to help. When you pre-plan and prepay a celebration of life with us, every detail will be handled with simplicity and professionalism, giving you the peace of mind that you've done all you can today to remove any burden from your loved ones tomorrow. We are your local Dignity Memorial provider. Find us at DignityMemorial.C.A.

The Dignity Memorial brand name is used to identify a network of licensed funeral cremation and cemetery providers owned and operated by affiliates of Service Corporation International. All right. Speaking of tests, I have a quick quiz. We talked about the SETs. We talked about Myers-Briggs. which were in my quiz. And so I don't have to ask those questions anymore. You know, we're born, as you said, Colin, being tested. And so here I have tests that are commonly known by their abbreviations or acronyms, shorthands. And I'm going to ask you what the full name stance were.

Okay. For example, you know, these have come up for for sure. This has come up to. And I remember once at So Much. street food when we had trivia, we met two Canadian doctors who joined our, who are listeners, and they're in town, and then they're on our team. And then there was the question of, what does the MCAT stand for? And I think ironically, we got it wrong. No, I think we got it right. Okay, all right. It's a better story. Yeah. And for this quiz, buzz in with your answer. Maybe you want

to test how healthy your heart is, and you might get an EKG. What is an EKG? What does it stand for? Chris Electrocardiogram Electrocardiogram or graphie Yeah EKG or ECG But the K is intentional It's not like they forgot how to spell

Electrocardiogram Yeah they were just too embarrassed to say anything So no one tell them It's actually a C If you are lady This is very important And you might have to get a pap smear Or a pap test

What is PAP short Oh, data. Oh, no, no, no, nope, nope, nope. This is a kind of a tricky question. Yeah, I thought it, I thought you meant like it was an abbreviate. I mean, I thought it was going to be an acronym, but. Pacaloma? That's what a lot of people think.

It is named after the Greek doctor, Georgios Papinicola. Whoa. So the official name of the Papsmear test is, Papa Nicolao test, abbreviated as a PAP test. I did not know that. Because people might think, like, oh, human papillomavirus, something, is nothing to do with that. I thought it was maybe pulvic. Oh, sure.

Keyetary, I don't know, assessment. Yeah. Procedure. Yeah. Papanikolo. Pappanikolo. Yeah, like Pup. Why do you think they abbreviated it? Pupinicolo.

All right. And so maybe you can get some x-rays taken to see a detect. to how healthy your body is, you might get a CT scan. What does CT stand for? A CT, not a C-A-T. It's the same thing. I think it's, I think it might be the same thing. Yeah.

Well, I know a C-T, it's a, C-A-T is computerized axial tomography, yes? Tomography's, so maybe this is the same C&T? Yes, you're correct. Oh, okay, all right. It is a computed tomography. Yeah, it's not topography. Not topography as a lot of people mistaken. Tomography is a cross-section and topography is, you know, kind of elevation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that is the difference in its x-ray. Not to be confused with another test called the MRI. Yeah. Also to image parts of your body. What does MRI stand for? Dana. Magnetic resonance imaging.

Correct. You are correct. What does the IQ test stand for? What is IQ? you stand for. Call it. That is intelligence quotient. Correct.

It is a developed by a German psychologist. And at first, it's actually one word, intelligentsia quotient. Oh, in German. Yeah, in German. They love smash. They're very efficient. They just call it the I test there.

It's confusing. Let's talk about some academic tests. What does GRE test stand for? This is the test that you take for, your high school diploma. That is the graduate record exam. Correct. Graduate record exam.

That was readiness exam. That would have been, I guess. Graduate ready, if you're ready for it. If you are a foreigner, you might have to take the Tofol. Like I did. What does Tofell stand for? Chris. Test of English as a foreign language.

Correct. Correct. What does the G-MAT stand for? So we got to take the G-MATs. Now, this is for medical school, right? I guess you're not going to tell it. No, no, no, G-MAT is, no, that's the N-Pet. Yeah, what school?

Oh, the GMAT is for business school, right? Is it, man, it's general something aptitude test. Well, sure. General managerial aptitude test. So almost close for a lot of those words. It is for the NBA, of course. Graduate management, admission. test

I got one out of four you got the test vibrate the feeling so relatedly you have the Lsatz

which is the law school admission test MCAT medical college admission test P-Cat pharmacy college

V-Cat veterinary college okay so all of them is like blank admission test okay all right

all right and lastly we talked about before the SATs. What does SATs stand for now? Oh. Now. Chris. Well, it used to be scholastic aptitude test. Did they change it?

What are you guys? What are you guys guessing? I would have guessed yeah, scholastic aptitude test. But yeah, when you said now, I could see that maybe re-branded. Standardized admissions test. Currently, the SATs are called the SATs. Oh, yeah. There doesn't stand for any kind. They just call it. The SAT test.

It's like KFC now. Yeah, it's like KFC. It's like, you know, it's not Kentucky for it. It's just called KFC. So. That is still called Kentucky. Originally, it was scholastic aptitude test. Okay.

Yeah. And then, you know, they're kind of like, this doesn't really determine every, aptitude of everything. So then they changed to scholastic assessment test. Okay. Then they called it SAT reasoning test. When then they kind of got rid of the actual what essay and T's standards. stand for. Now it is the SATs stands for nothing.

And we got one last test segment, Colin, home stretch. Yeah, I'll take us home here with one of our old, one of our old favorites here that we've talked about on the show, Thomas Edison. Good old Thomas Edison. Yeah. I mean, we've talked about him a lot. And I think the most charitable, I mean, aside from legitimately, you know, inventing a lot of stuff. We can debate stuff. We can debate. We can debate. We can debate. what he may have copied or been inspired by other people. We can all agree one thing is that he was a prickly, prickly man, and just by all accounts, kind of hard to work with. So we're talking about testing. This is something that I came across a couple years ago, just in my travels on the internet.

And I was like, oh, man, I love, I just, I love this story. It just seemed really appropriate. So I went and kind of dug it up again. So back in the early 1900s, you know, Edison, I mean, he was huge. I mean, he was like a national figure, like, you know, an Elon Musk or somebody like that, where it's just, you know, synonymous with just high-flying business and, you know, maybe a little crazy at the time. His company, he got to a point where he was really dissatisfied with the caliber people he was hiring, okay? And so, you know, the same way, I know it's not as much now as it was maybe 10 years ago,

but, like, remember how it was like, oh, I heard, you know, the Google interview questions or, you know, the Facebook interview questions. Like logic puzzles. Yeah. We've talked about these on the show before as they become almost legendary. in terms of, like, how, not tricky maybe, but how sharp and pointed they can be in terms of getting into how job applicants think. So Edison had kind of a similar program that he came up with in the, as I say, yeah, as I say, yeah, so in the early 1900s in the teens, he decided he was going to put together, all right, this is my hiring exam. Whoa.

And it was insane, absolutely insane. I mean, he's, I mean, he's just such a control freak and just such a, you know, for a for a, for a. man who himself had limited formal education. I mean, obviously a smart guy. This was, the test he put together is, is bananas. He put together a quiz of 146 questions. Wow. That he was to administer himself, you know, to, yeah, himself. I mean, I feel like that's the key piece of information about this. It's like a micromanagement demonstration or what, yeah. He does not sound like the kind of guy who would delegate this out and trust other people's. Yeah. To just give somebody a piece of paper to take a test. Right. To come into Edison factories and start contributing. What's hilarious to me about this is that even contemporaneously, when word got out that Mr. Edison has put together this

insane list of interview questions, it became a story unto itself, okay? And people would start, you know, leaking the questions and talking about it. And he would be, he became, I rate when the questions, because you'd have to reformulate. He's out of control now. Exactly. It's a control-free issue. So at one point, actually, the New York Times, the great lady herself, this is an article from 1921, and the New York Times in 1921 published an article about basically insanity of Thomas Edison's quiz here.

So the headline is Edison questions stir up a storm, and the subhead is victims, in quotes. Victims of tests say only a walking encyclopedia could answer the questionnaire. Official list a secret. But man who, this is back in the days when the New York Times would have six headlines before he gets an actual story, of course. But man who remembers 141 questions tells what they were and calls them silly. Well, I guess if he can remember 141, he probably, he should get hired. I think that's a really fair point, Dana. Exactly. Anybody who can take this test realizes that they would never want to work there.

Yeah, yeah. Exactly. That's true. That's smart enough to not work there. So they, the New York Times, reproduced. They published. Good. All of these questions. This guy's recollections of them. Yes. Yeah. That one Mr. Hanson, that he said anyway that he could recall. and it is something to behold.

I mean, it's just, it's such a weird mix of geography and science and history. This sounds fun. Math. Oh, it is really fun. You know, like, we can post a link to it maybe on our Facebook group or something and people want to actually take all these questions. I mean, even putting myself in the mindset of a 1921 college graduate, they seem just insanely random and hard.

And at the same time, some of them from today's standard. like, you know, a grade school kid would know them. So there's some things that have become... Yeah, they had become just in the time since then common knowledge. Yeah. I thought it would be fun to maybe pull out some of these questions for you guys and just give a sample of sort of the easy extremes and the crazy hard extremes here. I'll give you an example of what I mean of some of the easy ones.

What is the highest mountain? These are how these are phrasing. What is the highest mountain? And it's Mount Everest? Yeah. Okay. What country are earthquakes most frequent? And it's maybe not surprisingly.

It's Japan. Yeah, yeah. I'm not trying to trick you here. Oh, okay. I'm putting myself in the 1920s mindset. Okay, okay. Which U.S. President started a speech with the words four score and seven years ago.

Abraham Lincoln. Yeah, Abraham. Exactly. Where is Copenhagen? Denmark. Yeah, exactly. So some of these are like, okay, you know, average high school student. would hope, would maybe know some of these.

And then, you know, some of these, like, I don't know why Rhode Island is the smallest state. What is the next smallest? Delaware. It is, in fact, Delaware. Very good. I cannot for the life of me imagine why Thomas Edison thought this was important that all of his incoming hires. Yeah, yeah, I know this information. It's just crazy.

I know about the world. I'm sure you guys all know, you know, you know, what state has the largest amethyst minds, right? I mean, you just, you have that information. I mean, he's a frustrate. He's a business guy. He's going to tell you about amethyst minds at some point over breakfasts. It is actually Virginia, at least as of in 1921. Yeah, in 1921, Virginia had the largest amethyst mind.

You know, some of the questions actually, we've talked about a good job brain. He asked, what is shellac? Oh, it's fun. It's the, it's right, the resin from the lack beetle, right? But then some of these, I mean, come on. name three powerful poisons okay that one was on the test if you were going to murder

what did you learn in college fringe I bet honestly you guys might even be able to name three of the power yeah so again arsenic is one like to death yes cyanide a cyanide is one specifically cyanide of potassium I think he would have accepted cyanide so we got arsenic cyanide. The third one is a very kind of old-timey poison. The one he

likes to you. It was preferred. Sorry, I've gone too, too old. He was looking for strychnine. Oh, okay. This definitely is. This is a biography. 140 things that I know.

But you know what I know. Who discovered how to vulcanize rubber? I bet we know this one. We've talked about this. Michelin? Firestone. You're thinking the right. It's, uh, Charles Goodyear.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, you're close. You were close. You were in the right ballpark. What are axe handles made of? Wood. Oh, no, that's not good enough for Thomas Edison, my friend. If you were smart, if you were a smart ass enough to say, would, you would get yourself booted out of time. He is looking for, well, Ash is generally used in the east.

and hickory in the West. This is somebody's grandpa telling you a real cool story on a long train ride. What a half? Oh, my God. On the East Coast. Wow, actually, he has some trick questions in here, too,

which, I mean, I guess I can't be surprised, you know, that he would throw, you know, so what cereal is used in all parts of the world? Lucky Charms. Right. You're like, I would guess right. That would be my answer, too, for sure. No cereal is used in all parts of the world.

Wheat is used extensively with rice and corn next. They don't use any cereal. It's an article. I like, how old is he? This is like a 90-year-old. Oh, my God, that is so good. Yeah. Wrong.

No cereal. It was a trick question. What do you think of that? It's all damn you, Edison. Well, it's like you can't tell what level of detail he wants. You could argue almost any would. Yeah. Could be an axe handle.

No, you have it. You hit it on the, it's like it's from super precise to kind of just vague. Yeah. Who invented printing? Oh, Gutenberg? Nobody knows. Somebody in China, Japan, or Korea, probably first invented in Europe by Koster. Wait a minute.

So the guy who recalled the 140, he also got the answer key? This is a combination of the New York Times' answers. Yeah, good question. I'm glad you asked that. Of what the guy recalled and the New York Times basically assembling their crack team of answers for all. Also, I mean, if Edison is administering this time. in person, he might get him the answer. Like, actually no

serious... I see you wrote here. Well, that's the second part of it is for Edison to tell you how wrong you are. Yes, that's right. He just wanted to slap some college kids. He's like, I didn't go to college. Who's smarter? Oh, my God.

Yeah. So, I mean, so the New York Times, they contacted him. You know, they said an effort was made to get from Mr. Edison or hers, senators, both a reply to the critics in an authentic list of the questions. And he basically blew them off. And his assistant said that, you know, we don't want to make these public because then people can cram, you know, for my application exam. I mean, I would just suppose is true. So the Times and other papers, they would make a big show of administering the test to just, you know, they took it to college campuses and see how many people, they gave the test

to Einstein. And I guess, you know, Einstein would have failed as well. He's like a physicist. He's like, he doesn't need to know amethyst minds. Oh, my God. God. I feel like, you know, at some point, you're half a through the question. You're like, tell me again the benefits of this job, Mr. Addison. It is basically just an ego stroking trivia test. It's not a synthesis of knowledge or like a demonstration of expertise. It's just do you know he would be that type and we know that type of pup trivia goers who like has a team of other people like them, but they're not really friends. They just show up to try to win trivetia. It's like a business. Very mercenary. And if it shows that they're not.

not going to win first place they leave yeah they don't eat any of the food or they don't drink you know they're very huffy puffy that's the type all right woo that was our test episode thank you guys for being here thank you guys listeners for listening hope you learned a lot of stuff about Edison being a pill about the pencil about standardized tests and more and you can find our show on iTunes Stitcher SoundCloud Spotify and on our website, goodjobbrain.com. And we'll see you guys next week. Bye.

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