I took the How Rational Are You, Really? quiz on clearerthinking.org and it turns out I’m not very rational. This will explain why I recently bought a pair of shoes for looks rather than comfort. Although to be fair, I later returned the uncomfortable, impractical shoes and got a pair of comfortable, outrageous shoes instead.
Apparently I’m a meditator which means I have a relaxed, big-picture worldview and a strong propensity to question my own judgements. I’m not sure how accurate the test is because it also decided that I’m carefree and tend to live in the moment, never wasting time fretting about the future. Am I the sort of person who spends time worrying about earthquakes? Or brain tumours? Or volcanoes? Or countless other things? Of course I am. They clearly got that wrong about me.
I scored poorly on quantitative reasoning (50%) because I got the donut question wrong. In my defence I was multitasking when I was doing the quiz. I pitched the same question to the family and while Ben was thinking it through, Daniel gave the correct answer in less than 10 seconds. Maybe only children can understand that question? For future-based reasoning I scored 75% which is nice. Does this mean the decisions I make today are bad while decisions I make in the future are good? The conclusion seems to be that I should choose purchase my next pair of shoes now but choose them in a few months. Or should it be the other way around?
rachel.blog 
That test was brilliant! I had to think about the doughnut question for ages and write it all out – but that is what I encourage my maths group to do – never assume anything with numbers, always make sure. So my quantitative was good, but my future planning was shot. I am often missing deadlines and things take longer than I expect. I am a detective, so sceptical, quantitative, reflective and carefree. I think that is quite accurate. I am also only 70% rational, which is not much higher than the median.
70% sounds very high to me.
I enjoyed taking the test and refused to provide my email address. My results: 79% rational Free Spirit (21% of tested population are like me). Intuitive, Subjective, Carefree & Open. Not into poring over or analyzing seem pretty accurate to me. My personality type is INFJ. (Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging). I more focused on human values than on analyzing information and technology.
I had to go back to see how they described me and I got Reflective, Subjective, Carefree, and Open. I think most of those are somewhat accurate except for the carefree. I would never describe myself as carefree.
That was fun. Apparently I’m a Skeptic.
69.44% on my rationality score.
“Your quantitative reasoning score: 56.25%
Your future-based reasoning score: 75%
Your evidence evaluation score: 81.25%
Your cognitive awareness score: 68.75%”
According to this, I like to focus on people’s stories, and I’m good at detecting BS. My kids had better watch out 😉
Those look like great scores!
Ha.
I am going to write you a longer email about this and other matters. I enjoy the way you guys always question.
I love these kinds of tests! I got “executive” which is a bit surprising to me. I don’t think of myself as being that rational haha. I will say the results do reflect my approach to work at this point in my life.
Yes, you’re definitely an executive 🙂
I dont you see as a donut eater somehow, so perhaps that question might not be relevant to you!?😝
Yes, exactly! Good point 🙂
Apparently I’m a Free Spirit and my scores were not especially high for evaluating evidence. So why the hell am I working as a scientist?????? 🙂
It’s clearly biased. And irrational. 🙂
Call me skeptical about the merits of this quiz. (Although it did list me as skeptical.) For example, in my PhD work I separated thousands of mineral grains by hand under a binocular microscope and analyzed them after modifying instrumental routines in order to come up with precise quantitative data to derive a bigger-picture conclusion. It’s hard to get more nitty-gritty than that.
You are Subjective: People and stories interest you more than facts and figures do; you focus on the essence of ideas over the details. Your mind is more qualitative than quantitative. This trait lets you focus on the big picture over the nitty-gritty.
You are Carefree: You tend to live in the moment. You don’t waste a lot of emotional energy fretting about the future. Instead, you focus on getting the most out of life right now
Everyone who takes the quiz is carefree, it seems. I think it’s biased 🙂
I got Skeptic.
Your quantitative reasoning score: 56.25%
Your future-based reasoning score: 68.75%
Your evidence evaluation score: 56.25%
Your cognitive awareness score: 81.25%
Strong at the “You are not especially susceptible to the Sunk Cost Fallacy”, but weak at the “It seems that you may frequently over- or under-value your time.”. Oh well!
There were a lot of silly questions about travel, I thought. Like how much I’d pay for a faster train but there wasn’t enough information to decide that. I wasn’t sure how much the ticket cost to begin with and I have no idea how much trains cost in the US or what is reasonable or what my budget was.
I agree with that. I felt many of the questions were not based on decisions connected to thought, but were situational. I would prefer more money in the future, and don’t mind waiting, but in the past when we were starting out and struggling to pay basic bills, I would have preferred the smaller amount of money earlier in the game.
I’m a free spirit. I sit on the fence about everything, and could have happily argued for and against most answers to the questions 🙂
Yeah, I sometimes feel the same way.
My scores:
Your quantitative reasoning score: 75%
Your future-based reasoning score: 81.25%
Your evidence evaluation score: 62.5%
Your cognitive awareness score: 81.25%
I also got not susceptible to the sunk cost fallacy and frequently over or under value my time.
A bit of fun but not sure it tells me much!
You did well!
Thank you, but I think it is supposed to be a test of what one is rather than how one performs. We are what we are!