Freerice results

Results from recent Freerice experiment, where I "donated" 1000 grains of rice a day for ten days to see whether my vocabulary improved. Here are the best levels I obtained in the sequence:

Thursday 21st 51
Friday 52
Saturday not tested
Sunday 50
Monday 51
Tuesday 52
Wednesday 53
Thursday 51
Friday 51
Saturday 51
Sunday 52

No obvious trend. Have I consciously learned any new words? The only two that spring to mind after a fallow period are:

i)Cenote (a sinkhole)

ii)Ceruse (skin whitener containing lead)

It is tricky to improve your level, even if you know most of the words - every time you get one wrong, you drop down a level. To go UP a level, you have to get three right in a row. So if reaching level fifty you get three right, you go to level 51. Two more correct and you're still on 51. One wrong and you're back to 50. So, in essence, you need to get more than 5 right for every 1 wrong. Quite tricky.

My next challenge will be to donate one day's worth of rice (20,000 grains). That will be 2,000 correct answers (I usually do 100). Not sure when this will happen but it will, soon.

Freerice

Freerice was established a few years ago as a way of getting advertisers to feed people. It tests your vocabulary with a simple game - for every synonym you identify correctly the advertiser donates 10 grains of rice to the World Food Program. Not only does it exercise your brain, it also feeds the hungry! What could be better?

Whenever I go to the site I have always tried to donate 1,000 grains (i.e. get 100 answers correct), reasoning that 1,000 grains would make a meal for someone. However, I now read on Wikipedia that it takes 20,000 grains to feed one person for one day. So I'm donating a snack at best.

Anyway, what about the vocabulary-building element of Freerice? Is it better than a free lunch - is it a free lunch that also makes you smarter?

I'm going to test myself every day and see whether my best level goes up, as a test of this. Of course, it may be simply that I am able to memorise some of the words I have recently seen (i.e. if the Freerice program keeps repeating the same words). However, I'm going to give it a go.

Today's effort (best level for 1,000 grains total donated): 51/60.