online creativity self-assessment test

April 27, 2004 7:46 PM

online creativity self-assessment test
The questionnaire contains only 40 questions
Your personal score will be compared with the global average score
The test takes no longer than 10 minutes of your time
Do you feel ingenuous? Well, do ya, punk??
Macromedia Flash player is required to take the scan.
posted by y2karl (81 comments total)

Well, I Googled it but, upon examination, it's old. And via MiguelCardoso, at that. Hope everybody's forgotten it, if it's a double post.
posted by y2karl at 7:50 PM on April 27, 2004

72.70--with more curiosity, connection, abstraction, and boldness in the shape. (not too bad--although i have no idea how they can instantly score the "name the words this image/brick suggests" part) : >
posted by amberglow at 8:01 PM on April 27, 2004

I got a 62.95 and I only did good on the "complexity" axis. Back to the salt mines with me, I guess, although maybe they'll give me a more complicated pickaxe, now.
posted by jonmc at 8:07 PM on April 27, 2004

67.27.

But I know I'm really creative and no internets is going to tell me otherwise.

Uses for a brick? C'mon now. I thought of plenty. Apparently it's because I lack boldness and connection (?)

Maybe I should'nt be doing this at work...
posted by bdave at 8:15 PM on April 27, 2004

79.11, with emphasis on the boldness, curiousity, and paradox. but if people ever ask me to make connections between armadillos and the word "wet" again, i guess i'm screwed...

i suspect they just count the number of phrases you submit to the "name the words/list the uses" sorts of questions... or, perhaps, compare them against a database of previous answers to see how frequent/infrequent they are.
posted by ubersturm at 8:16 PM on April 27, 2004

I love these things! It says the "Saved By The Bell" character I am is Zack Morris! I'm going to take it again until I get A.C. Slater.

cough 78.16
posted by Stan Chin at 8:17 PM on April 27, 2004

Easy to play...

First time, 69.xx, second, 79.yy

Like any other profiler, the problem is some of the dichotomies aren't.

Besides, who's going to answer "Not me" on "able to see both sides of the picture" or "able to see bigger picture".
posted by Gyan at 8:19 PM on April 27, 2004

77.79, If I go back maybe I can increase my persistence score...
posted by jeblis at 8:20 PM on April 27, 2004

I got 71.83. But I left two of the word connections questions blank, and only found one connection for the others. Hence, my connection score was v low. Maybe I'm a literalist or something. Wet and armadillo? Cushion and table?? What did you guys put?

Also, what can you tell about me by which Miro-esque abstract I picked?
posted by CunningLinguist at 8:22 PM on April 27, 2004

thanks, ubersturm-if i had more complexity i'd probably have figured that out. (and i liked the armadillo/wet one--the radio/knife one was weird tho) : >

and I got Lark whateverhernamewas, Stan
posted by amberglow at 8:22 PM on April 27, 2004

84.89, biased towards the bottom 2/3 of the radar graph.
posted by Ynoxas at 8:22 PM on April 27, 2004

Arrrgh! Online Creativity Test you've foiled me again!

Lark Voorhees
posted by Stan Chin at 8:24 PM on April 27, 2004

Besides, who's going to answer "Not me" on "able to see both sides of the picture" or "able to see bigger picture".

Me. I thought I'd try to be honest.

Still eeked out a 79, though. Really on a roll with the brick.
posted by trharlan at 8:27 PM on April 27, 2004

266.98.

I'm so creative I even made up my own results.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:31 PM on April 27, 2004

thinking of words was really the only creative part of that creativity test, i think.
posted by amberglow at 8:31 PM on April 27, 2004

85.38 with emphasis on boldness, curiousity, paradox, and complexity.
hand my sushi over please.
posted by bokononito at 8:33 PM on April 27, 2004

86.65 first time through
posted by y2karl at 8:35 PM on April 27, 2004

damn you y2karl. it felt so good to be a champion.
must be creative must be crrr
posted by bokononito at 8:39 PM on April 27, 2004

87.74 First time. Read it and weep!

On the graph, I'm weakest in: persistence, perspective, abstraction
I'm very strong in complexity, curiosity, paradox, boldness
posted by crazy finger at 8:44 PM on April 27, 2004

Do you feel ingenuous?

Was that a typo, karl, or are you being super clever?
posted by trharlan at 8:44 PM on April 27, 2004

87.85 on second pass

I am coming up with more uses for a brick, that's for certain
posted by y2karl at 8:48 PM on April 27, 2004

I hate tests like this where you can't explain your reasoning behind analogies.

77.51
I think I hurt its feelings with my thoughts on the second "what do you see" picture.
posted by Sangre Azul at 8:52 PM on April 27, 2004

as an architect legislator from Vanuatu, let it be noted...

Was that a typo, karl, or are you being super clever?

Call me Schrodinger: Here kitty, kitty....
posted by y2karl at 8:52 PM on April 27, 2004

87.71 on my first try, which is probably good since I'm trying to be a writer.
posted by thecaddy at 8:54 PM on April 27, 2004

I am the inverse of 40.42. I got to the last page of the sliders and realized that I was moving them in the wrong direction.

Apparently "I am not a person who follows directions."
posted by m@ at 8:55 PM on April 27, 2004

Wow, m@, you and me are the least creative people here. Wanna perform some drudgery?
posted by jonmc at 9:00 PM on April 27, 2004

wow ever notice the further down the comments the higher, the score!?!? Hmmmmm
posted by Elim at 9:05 PM on April 27, 2004

that was before m@'s post though
posted by Elim at 9:06 PM on April 27, 2004

72.07
posted by trbrts at 9:08 PM on April 27, 2004

woot 64.07 because i'm too lazy to write about all the damn things that i see in pictures...

and if you just hit a bunch of commas in a role, would that increase your score?
posted by Stynxno at 9:10 PM on April 27, 2004

i bet not, Stynx, but that's a very creative solution. : >
posted by amberglow at 9:15 PM on April 27, 2004

69.99
Does this mean I should get a job?
posted by orbit at 9:18 PM on April 27, 2004

58.01.

but im an art student! *sigh*
posted by atom128 at 9:20 PM on April 27, 2004

Please note that my score above was incorrect I was sliding the sliders the wrong way. I have retaken the test (which may not be accurate on retake) and scored a whopping 55.36 so I'm still the slug of the group.

Jonmc, i think it's the company we keep that makes us such dullards.
posted by m@ at 9:21 PM on April 27, 2004

'sokay atom128. my trade is graphic design and i made a 58.15. i choose to blame my soulcrushingly awful work environment.
posted by sklero at 9:30 PM on April 27, 2004

52.51

I think it is no surprise that being generally depressive and having terrible self-esteem tends to skew towards uncreative.
posted by jann at 9:30 PM on April 27, 2004

i'm curious: what do the folks who scored really high do for a living?
posted by sklero at 9:31 PM on April 27, 2004

and by "really high" i mean...above average.
posted by sklero at 9:32 PM on April 27, 2004

87.47 first time

brick:

"doorstop, weapon, building thingy, iron, souurce of minerals, ongoing joke, friend, dolly, tablet, binary communication medium, impression surface, sculpture, antique, art object, dust manufactory, protein source, method of food storage, archaeologicla proof, distinctive industrial signature, advertising medium, habitatiuon for small mammals, bookshlef support, furnishing, writing implememt, censorship device, sexual imprecation, sex toy, knife, food tenderizer, bookend, pressing device, shoe sole, many many more"

and they keep coming.

Conection only weak axis.

I thought my results sucked until I looked at the comments. Given that connection probably means 'self-comparison, relationships,' um, yep.
posted by mwhybark at 9:39 PM on April 27, 2004

sklero:

I haven't had a job in years.
posted by mwhybark at 9:40 PM on April 27, 2004

91.95.

But alas, I've never really accomplished anything in my life. I'm just potential, brimming.

(self-promotion) Critique my journal and see what purported creative genius is all about!
posted by Mach3avelli at 9:41 PM on April 27, 2004

Mach3: we should posse up.
posted by mwhybark at 9:47 PM on April 27, 2004

second time: 90.25

bricks, there's a big future. I came up with a way to overcome the big TCP/IP weakness with 'em, but it's gone now.
posted by mwhybark at 9:50 PM on April 27, 2004

Seriously! Let's have all us high scorers get together and come up with creative ways to bash those below us. We'll call ourselves WOMENSA so feminists won't have anything against us. Then we'll innovatively brainstorm in a groupthink-like fashion and form our own thinktank for the sole purpose of butting heads. The goal is to accomplish nothing, but in a way that exemplifies genius.

I'm (hopefully) headed into a direction of marketing/advertising if internships fall through this summer.

mwhybark, what sorts of jobs have you had?
posted by Mach3avelli at 9:55 PM on April 27, 2004

55.92. But, hey, at least I'm not the worst!
The glass is half-full, the glass is half-full, the glass is half-full, the glass is ....
posted by dg at 10:06 PM on April 27, 2004

Hm.

dishdog, fast food cook, barista, coffee roaster, typesetter, copywriter, layout artist, performance artist, musician, video artist, musician, freelance writer, consulting art historian, technical writer, quality assurance technician, graphic designer, art director, production artist, associate producer, producer, program director, webmaster, technical consultant, freelance writer.

Some of these jobs entailed business cards and paid very well. some did not.
posted by mwhybark at 10:13 PM on April 27, 2004

wasn't there a thread about self-celebrating over-creative types that included a warning about being a bum recently?
posted by mwhybark at 10:15 PM on April 27, 2004

gak, it doesn't like either linux/mozilla/firefox. Obviously my creativity in working with a non-conformist operating system has made me inelligible to be pegged within certain predefined limits of creativity... *8^)
posted by nasim at 10:18 PM on April 27, 2004

No joy for Firefox on Linux here either. I'm running v6.0 of the Linux Flash plugin. Creativity only runs on Windows? Pthbtbtbt!
posted by Voivod at 10:51 PM on April 27, 2004

89.55. And that's with maximum Boldness, solid Curiosity, and decent Paradox.

Apparently, my weakness is in Perspective, but who the fuck cares?
posted by one.louder.ash! at 11:16 PM on April 27, 2004

89.92 max boldness, max curiosity. like a stupid cat.

good paradox, sort of weak perspective.

what i'd like to know is why they bother to give you the entertainment category when choosing which industry you work in, but then don't include anything related to being a performer in the "what role" section. i never know what to choose so i choose something different every time i take one of these tests. today i equated being an actor/singer with being in farm/ranch/agricultural services heh.
posted by t r a c y at 11:39 PM on April 27, 2004

94.75 on the first pass. I'm one stupendously juicy mofo.

What? Do I have a job? Err. No. :
Does anyone want to buy ideas for gadgets and shiny things I wish someone would make? I've got sketchbooks full of 'em. Hey, maybe we can sue the pants off someone with my prior art! I do industrial design and user interface stuff, too. Think tanks? Wild and wacky garage inventors with budgets? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

*sigh*
posted by loquacious at 11:40 PM on April 27, 2004

Maybe we can make some money off these, er, I think they call 'em, "bricks."

*mops sweat. flops back on to couch, exhausted.*
posted by mwhybark at 11:50 PM on April 27, 2004

Hey! This is part of the test battery I've been seeing from agencies that never call back!

(kidding)
posted by mwhybark at 11:52 PM on April 27, 2004

266.98. I'm so creative I even made up my own results.

(I'm so uncreative, I had to copy crash's results.)
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:54 PM on April 27, 2004

86.17

Not bad, but I'm always suspicious of the theory that drives a test such as this. It seems that is order to test "creativity" one needs a definition of what creativity is. I also wonder if the results were somehow effected by the five manhattans I've consumed this evening as I found that my creative output is somewhat related to me alcohol input. And lastly, to the the poster who wondered what kind of jobs the high scoring people do: I'm a highly paid menial worker who reached my position through lying though my teeth and keep my job by staying high on the learning curve.
posted by elwoodwiles at 12:16 AM on April 28, 2004

I also failed to get it working in Linux. Obviously my v6 Flash player is not advanced enought for the v6 Flash player that is required..
posted by salmacis at 12:57 AM on April 28, 2004

89.76

I am rubbish at connecting things, apparently.
posted by ed\26h at 1:31 AM on April 28, 2004

huh. 69.43, by which measure i assume this test is biased in some way and not an accurate reflection of me.

armadillos actually quite like to get wet. they swim very well. and for some reason the first thing i wanted to click on that matchup (but didn't) was "laptop" - seemed to make sense for the armadillo bit but eventually decided no as laptops really dislike being wet.

i think a better test of creativity would be to dump someone in a room full of random parts with absolutely zero directions and see what they do with them. (of course even that is probably an unfair test as it partly measures mechanical ability i suppose...)
posted by caution live frogs at 8:24 AM on April 28, 2004

69.01 - I agree with caution live frogs, putting people into a room full of crap, and seeing what will happen would be a better way to judge creativity. Hell, that was my childhood - taking crap apart until my mother would yell at me. I also think this is skewed toward those who have a predilection to sight-strength learning, versus how I learn by [what I have found through the years] empirical testing.
posted by plemeljr at 8:41 AM on April 28, 2004

Haw. I laugh derisively at my score. It was 63-something. I'm so creative I didn't keep track of it. But as with all these things, whatever my score was, I would be frustrated at the end, because the self-assessment part is always inherently skewed (since you know you're taking a "creativity" test, it's obvious which answers are going to pump your score and hard to resist leaning that way) and the other part is opaque - I wanted to peek behind the scenes and get answers to the word-association part, and to find out if the armadillo/wet one was just there to catch people who were clicking all the buttons. That sort of thing.

I know this is impossible to say without sounding defensive, but hey: I've won awards for creativity. Bite me, CREAX.
posted by soyjoy at 8:59 AM on April 28, 2004

Answering honestly: 74.something.
Gaming the test: 104.11

To get high "boldness", peg the sliders all the way to "not like me" or "totally like me".

For the word lists, random characters separated by commas work. more == better

For the connections, check all the answers.
posted by Capn at 9:00 AM on April 28, 2004

I thought I showed the most creativity when picking the industry and job-type (since they had nothing even remotely close to my real work). Alas, I don't think that was reflected in the results.
posted by adamrice at 9:03 AM on April 28, 2004

Do I want to know how you'd use a brick as a sex toy? Probably not.
posted by Ufez Jones at 9:07 AM on April 28, 2004

almost exactly average. maybe cos i'm too busy with actually making soething. hmm.
posted by andrew cooke at 10:03 AM on April 28, 2004

76.39 - computer science background(Bachelors + some Masters), doing computer work, just quit my job to go back to art skool, but got another job to fund it at the college where I am going... doing Web stuff in the Chemistry department.
posted by pissfactory at 10:26 AM on April 28, 2004

10 - and I'm not kidding. How is that even possible?
posted by topherbecker at 12:15 PM on April 28, 2004

Okay, something's fishy because I just took it again, answered the same (as best as I could remember) and scored an 84.84.
posted by topherbecker at 12:26 PM on April 28, 2004

Yeah, it seemed too obvious how they were scoring. On the connectivity part, the problem is that everything is ultimately connected to everything else, but not as immediately, so sure, you can click all the boxes and not be lying, but you're conflating many degrees of things into yes/no. In most of the connectivity ones, there was one answer that seemed a better fit than the others, to me. It didn't seem fair to click anything you could come up with a connection between because then you weaken the meaning of connectivity.

Or that's how it seemed to me. I didn't understand the miro one, and the candlestick pic and the brick question seemed too easily manipulated by just putting more stuff down, not necessarily better or more interesting or more insightful stuff. Which then only says you're productive, not actually creative (everything you do might be painfully derivative - or just bad :)).
posted by mdn at 2:48 PM on April 28, 2004

600
posted by Satapher at 3:58 PM on April 28, 2004

oh dearie dearie me.

61 ....its just awful.

I cant be that stupid can i ?

not after making a sundial out of a brick surely ?
posted by sgt.serenity at 4:50 PM on April 28, 2004

What a completely uncreative test.
posted by rudyfink at 5:22 PM on April 28, 2004

Sundial!

Good one!

Ufez re: Sex toy: I beleive I was considering how bricks are used in Coconino County.
posted by mwhybark at 5:28 PM on April 28, 2004

Is anyone going to explain to me how cushion and table can be connected to any of those words? I'm still stumped.
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:37 PM on April 28, 2004

what were the options again, Cunning?
posted by amberglow at 7:39 PM on April 28, 2004

brick:

"doorstop, weapon, building thingy, iron, souurce of minerals, ongoing joke, friend, dolly, tablet, binary communication medium, impression surface, sculpture, antique, art object, dust manufactory, protein source, method of food storage, archaeologicla proof, distinctive industrial signature, advertising medium, habitatiuon for small mammals, bookshlef support, furnishing, writing implememt, censorship device, sexual imprecation, sex toy, knife, food tenderizer, bookend, pressing device, shoe sole, many many more"

but more than half of those are covered by my first five:
has mass, occupies space, can be combined, can be broken apart, can be perceived..?

as for words...any of their words can be connected to any of their other words because, unless I'm mistaken, they were all in english.

nevermind me, just being bitchy about my low score.
posted by juv3nal at 7:51 PM on April 28, 2004

92.something

huge marks in boldness and curiosity
posted by firestorm at 11:47 PM on April 28, 2004

everything else above average (^_^)
posted by firestorm at 11:51 PM on April 28, 2004

copy my sundial idea and i'll sue yer asses lol
posted by sgt.serenity at 4:39 PM on April 29, 2004

Is anyone going to explain to me how cushion and table can be connected to any of those words? I'm still stumped.

do you remember the words?
Remember that cushion and table are both nouns and verbs (of course if you want to be expansive about it, you could use just the part of speech to connect them to words in the list...), so those additonal meanings might allow connections.
table is 5 letters and cushion is 7, so any 6 letter word could win. Or any 3 or 9 letter word.
table is hard, cushion is soft - anything moderately plastic could be considered between...

And then there are the word association ways
cushion - impact - ring [boxing]
table - proposal - ring
or
cushion - needle - blood
table - water - blood
etc.
posted by mdn at 9:08 PM on April 29, 2004

I've forgotten how to quote

"i think a better test of creativity would be to dump someone in a room full of random parts with absolutely zero directions and see what they do with them. (of course even that is probably an unfair test as it partly measures mechanical ability i suppose...)
posted by caution live frogs at 10:24 AM CST on April 28


I ... think this is skewed toward those who have a predilection to sight-strength learning, versus how I learn by [what I have found through the years] empirical testing.
posted by plemeljr at 10:41 AM CST on April 28"

Anyways elaborate on these thoughts please

IMO mechanical ability is related to visual creativity and "general" creativity but not necessarily linked. yeah XD

I am highly biased towards sight strength learning as a mark of creativity, I must admit

"Answering honestly: 74.something.
Gaming the test: 104.11

To get high "boldness", peg the sliders all the way to "not like me" or "totally like me".

For the word lists, random characters separated by commas work. more == better

For the connections, check all the answers.
posted by Capn at 11:00 AM CST on April 28"

This does not necessarily expose flaws in the test. For instance, it is conceivable that they foresaw that people who were bolder would not be afraid to totally peg themselves to something whereas less bold people might hesitate and ponder more and work on a more nuanced value.

Perhaps perceiving how to game the test is more a mathematical thinking ability although I can conceive that it has visual components to it as well. Most likely a good sound theory of mind is required too

I'm going by feel here
posted by firestorm at 9:38 PM on April 29, 2004