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Q. My students have asked me for a popular quiz. Can you recommend one?

A. The answer to that question depends upon what your students mean when they say “popular”.

Do they mean a quiz that can tell them if they are “popular”, or do they mean a quiz that is popular because everyone likes taking it?

Hmm, maybe I can craft one answer that covers both options. You see, a popular quiz, also know as a popularity quiz, it very popular in itself. Starting at about third grade the concept of being “popular” takes root and children begin to seek the “status” that being popular seems to offer to them. It isn’t until much, much later in life that they learn there are more important things than being popular. Chief among the more desirable traits are being noble, honest, truth worthy, and caring. However, for now, let’s focus on popular.

A popular quiz purports to measure personality traits that make someone popular. It measures such earth-shaking issues as:

How many parties have you been invited to? How many times a day does someone compliment your clothes? Home many boys (girls) want to be your crush? Do people imitate the “cute” things that you say? Are you always picked first to be on a team?

Supposedly these questions measure your popularity. The sad thing is that many kids believe that these issues are important and either walk away devastated because they are not popular, or have an inflated opinion of themselves because they “passed” the popular quiz.

Let me go on record and state that a popular quiz should be clearly labeled: “For entertainment purposes only”. There should be a sub label that says: “If taking this test makes you think that being popular is important then your lights are on but nobody’s home”.

If your students want a popular quiz, and their intent is to measure their popularity, I would tell them that they have better things to measure in their life. Recommend an honesty quiz, or a help your neighbor quiz, or a what’s wrong with drugs quiz. While these may not qualify as a popular quiz, you’ll be doing your students a much bigger favor by holding up the mirror of reality to their face than you will by having anything to do with administering a popular quiz.

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Q. I took a friend quiz in a magazine and it says that I don’t make a very good friend. Can that really be true?

A. First, let me say congratulations! If the quiz said that you don’t make a very good friend then you must have answered the quiz honestly, at least from the friend quiz author’s point of view.

Now let’s delve into the content of the quiz. The bad thing about a friend quiz is that it is automatically biased by the author’s opinion of what makes a good friend.

For example: There might be a question that asks:

Your friend wants you to cover for her by telling her mother that she is sleeping at your house when she is really going to an all night party with her boyfriend. Do you say:

A. “No problem.” B. “I’ll do it but I’d rather not.” C. “No way, you’re on your own girlfriend.”

What’s the right answer? Well, the morally right answer is obviously “C”. Would that make you a better friend that either “A” or “B”? Yes, actually, it would. There is a very good chance that something bad is going to come out of the all night party. Your friend could get drunk and become a victim of date rape, get injured or killed in a car accident, or get arrested if the police raid the party. As a good friend, you should care more about your friend’s safety and security than her having a good time doing something that she has to lie about.

However, if the friend quiz rates you a snitch because you answered “C”, then, according to the author, you’re not a good friend.

Look. You don’t need a friend quiz to know if you’re a good friend, or if someone else if a good friend to you. Take the quiz for the fun of it, but don’t take it seriously. Your heart knows if you are a good friend and what it means to have a good friend. Trust your instincts and not some stranger’s value system. A person’s friendship is far to valuable a gift to trust the results to a friend quiz.

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