2423 Free Rice

Thursday, June 4, 2009

I have rediscovered the free rice site, at http://www.freerice.com/. You take a vocabulary or math or grammar or geography or artist/painting or whatever test, and every correct answer puts 10 grains of rice in a bowl, to be donated to somewhere in the world. You can read the details at the site. It's a challenge, and they tell you what the correct answer is, and then if you got it wrong they retest you on it later, so you really can learn a lot about whatever topic you choose. (I finally know where several tiny central European countries are.)

Ten grains of rice doesn't sound like much, but ten times a hundred thousand adds up.

I first discovered this site about a year and a half ago. I told some Mensans about it back then, and, naturally, some of them had to go home and count and weigh rice, and then grouse about how piddling small a dent in world hunger it was making, so they didn't go to the site. Stupid. Illogical. One bowl of rice is one meal for a child, which is a lot more than none.

Eighteen months ago the only test was vocabulary. I made it to level 55 of 60 in vocabulary this evening, and donated 1450 grains.

Now there are several categories (click on "Change subjects" on the right of the question block).

In grammar, the only ones I got wrong involved semi-colons, and I donated about 3,000 grains. Pre-algebra math was very easy. Lots of quick free rice. Identifying countries was harder, but I enjoyed it because I learned a lot, and donated about 800 grains. On the artists/paintings, I thought I was doing very well because even if I don't recognize the painting, I do recognize the style of the better-known artists, so I can guess well ... and then noticed I never made it out of level 1. Not much rice there, I'm afraid, but again, I learned a lot.

It's a way to play a bit, learn a bit, and do some good, and you don't even have to register or give them any info.
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