test your smarts @ FreeRice.com

[avad]

"Question: What does your vocabulary skill have to do with third world hunger? Until now, not much. But thanks to the good folks at FreeRice.com, now you can help alleviate malnutrition in developing nations by simply testing your vocab skills.

Sounds crazy, but it's working. In the couple weeks since it's launch, almost 200 million grains of rice have been donated. (The rice will be distributed by the United Nations World Food Programme.)

What does "initiate" mean?
A. Strew
B. Nap
C. Begin
D. Engage

If you got that right, you just donated 10 grains of rice to a hungry person in the developing world. It's that easy. For each question you get right, 10 more grains of rice gets donated (thanks to the advertisers on the site). Like the GMAT, as you get more answers right, your questions get harder (but don't fear, they get easier as you answer questions incorrectly).

It's really addictive -- I played till I had donated 1000 grains of rice, then had to stop myself and get back to work. It also appeals to the competitors among us, as your vocabulary skill gets ranked by level (levels range from 1 - 50, with few people topping 48 -- current score to beat is 40).

This is the kind of innovative, creative solution we love to support, so check it out. (And let us know if you top our level 40 rating!)"
-by Rebecca Carpenter from the Razoo GoodHappens Blog

avaD's secret competitive personality #603 resurfaces...ok,so far My level is 41, go beat me you ninnies. poke.poke.go on I dare ya..and nO cheating.;)

see you on the spellingbee courts.ninnies.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Ava,

Thanks for spreading the word -- this is a really interesting concept!

Cheers,
rebecca
rebecca@razoo.com
http://blog.razoo.com

[jenfer47.livejournal.com]

Um... 10 grains of rice don't amount to much even in the Third World; you'd have to play the game all day to get half a cup! But a single click at http://www.TheHungerSite.com generates over a cup.

You can also generate donations to your favourite charity by doing your Internet searches via http://www.goodsearch.com. Unfortunately, they use the Yahoo! search engine, which isn't as good as Google.

[avad.livejournal.com]

hey jenfer:)
Yes, I do wish they gave in larger increments, that's for sure...but I'm happy to see any new developments/experiments in this arena (of getting the masses involved easily and enjoyably). And you have to admit, vocabulary practice for helping others(in whatever small way) is a much better pasttime/ breaktime exercise than most of the mindless 'games' I see people addicted to on the internet (how far can you throw the monkey??;). Since I am really pro educational games, this appeals to me as something I wish more people would 'play' for their own benefit as well. I'm hoping for even more effective developments but this seemed a nice new step in the right direction...

I click daily on The HungerSite as well (and those related...and I have been using Goodsearch from time to time for 3 years. it's true...since Goodsearch is not as good as Google I only use it when I remember...and more for the 'good' attempt than for real searches. Subsequently I've hardly raised anything for my cause on there...despite searching on it 219 times (!)...looks like I've raised a grand total of $2.51 (over 3 years). there has to be a better way, you know?
so....I wish their increments were higher as well.... have you gotten to any decent amount? I wonder if I used it 1/2 as much as I use Google if my numbers would be that different...but I can't imagine.

Here is a page with a ton of click-to-help links:http://www.thenonprofits.com/ (http://www.thenonprofits.com/)
I have all this stuff on my favorites and try to click through these about weekly....while I'm waiting for something to load or on the phone, etc