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Test your news knowledge on the quiz

Posted at 4:07 PM on May 20, 2011 by Julia Schrenkler (17 Comments)

As you can tell from their expressions, MPR Digital Media Interns Maddie and Kjersten are clearly finished creating this week's News quiz.

The real question is, are you prepared to take it? You have 16 chances to prove you were paying attention this week. Let us know in the comments how you held up against the interns.

Comments (17)

According to the news article provided in the hint, the correct answer to question 6 is Sen. Thompson rather than Gov. Dayton.

Posted by KTFoley | May 20, 2011 4:34 PM

Yikes. This is the first time I've taken a News Cut Quiz I didn't write. It's a lot harder when you don't already know the answers. 7/16.

Posted by Bob Collins | May 20, 2011 4:35 PM

Fixed

Posted by Bob Collins | May 20, 2011 5:26 PM

I don't feel quite so bad knowing that Bob got a score almost as poor as mine. 6/16. The worst I've ever done.

Posted by Cara | May 20, 2011 5:30 PM

I got 6, but it was because I kept nodding off while reading the questions. I need a nap, and they seem loooooong today!

Posted by Heather | May 20, 2011 5:34 PM

I've never scored so low: 5/16. Been busy starting a new job this week, so haven't been here as much.

Three of the early hints were worthless - found no hints in the linked articles. I quit bothering with hints after those.

Posted by Jamie | May 20, 2011 6:23 PM

6 no hints...I am really questioning the wisdom of my spending time reading this blog and listening to MPR day in and day out, I obviously don't absorb anything. Can't possibly have anything to do with memory.

Posted by Bonnie | May 20, 2011 6:40 PM

Right with Bob at 7 out of 16. No hints.

Posted by John | May 20, 2011 8:46 PM

//...I am really questioning the wisdom of my
spending time reading this blog

So you're saying wisdom doesn't matter. I can't say I've ever found any practical use for it. (g)

Posted by Bob Collins | May 21, 2011 7:55 AM

Cinco.

Hardest N.C. quiz ever.

Posted by LK | May 21, 2011 3:33 PM

There is no supporting info one way or another in the hint provided for the question on the DREAM Act, but a few minutes on Google indicates that none of the answer selections are correct.

According to the Senate roll call records, three Republican Senators (Bennett, Lugar, Murkowski) and one Independent (Sanders) voted with the Democrats on the cloture motion whose failure sank the measure.

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=2&vote=00278

Posted by KTFoley | May 21, 2011 4:30 PM

According to the Representative roll call records, eight Republican representatives voted with the Democrats on the motion to concur, whose passage sent the measure to the Senate.

The correct answer is either three Republican Senators if referring to the DECIDING vote, 8 Republicans if referring to only the House of REPRESENTATIVES vote, or 11 if referring to the last major actions in BOTH houses.

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2010/roll625.xml

Posted by KTFoley | May 21, 2011 4:55 PM

While I am waiting for Rapture I thought I would try the News Quiz.

8 out of 16. I didn't read all the articles. Some of the articles that I read I answered wrong. I took two hints, one was too much reading so I skipped the hint and guessed wrong and the other I couldn't find the answer and got it wrong anyway.

So what does it all mean? I read the articles I like and skip the rest, and I am a good guesser.

No sign of rapture yet. What does rapture look like?

Posted by Vivian | May 21, 2011 8:01 PM

6/16 yikes...

Posted by Russ | May 21, 2011 8:21 PM

oh, and by the way, nice job on the quiz ladies. Cute photo : )

Posted by Vivian | May 22, 2011 11:06 AM

Posters who attribute their woeful quiz scores to not reading the site articles shouldn't flog themselves too harshly. This quiz doesn't prove whether we were paying attention this week but rather how well we dig. That's because only four accurate answers to the sixteen questions (five, after Bob's correction) are found in the articles linked by the Hint.

Here's how they stack up:

One question where the Hint links to nothing of relevance:
14 (Bob Dylan)

Four questions where the user must either listen to the Hint's non-searchable audio track or leave the site altogether to look up the correct answer:
2 (Aberdeen)
4 (Robert "Tractor" Taylor)
7 (heart attacks in women)
14 (DREAM Act)

Six questions where the user must follow the links in the Hint to find the accurate answer in a related article:
1 (college)
8 (zombies - "tops the list" vs. "named first in the paragraph")
11 (desktops - "graduate degree" vs. "educated")
12 (Freedom Riders - serious digging here)
13 (cyber bullying)
16 (traceurs)

Five questions where the user can find the answer in the Hint itself:
3 (Endeavor)
5 (shoot first)
6 (state budget)
9 (polar bear habitat)
10 (marriage ban)

Two questions that went live with the wrong answer:
6 (Thompson quote on state budget)
14 (Hint refers to the DREAM Act's successful vote in the House rather than the defeating vote in the Senate)

Posted by KTFoley | May 22, 2011 7:55 PM

Wow Ms. Foley,

You have surfaced a really huge underlying issue here and it has nothing to do with MPR News Quiz but more about you. :-)

Posted by Vivian | May 23, 2011 12:41 PM