Life

Does Your Vocabulary Suck? Take This Test

by Pamela J. Hobart
Handout/Getty Images News/Getty Images

If you grew up speaking English, you'd think you'd know quite a few words by now, right? Well think again, because we've found a fast-paced little quiz that sure will take your vocabulary confidence down a notch. With more than 200,000 words in the English language, you probably don't know more of them than you realized.

Just click here to begin — the quiz, hosted by Ghent University, requests some basic demographic information and then you're off to the races. As words appear on the screen, you'l be asked to click a button for "yes" or "no," to indicate whether each word is an "existing English word" or not.

For reference, I scored in the 95th percentile on the verbal section of the GRE (non-humble brag), but only a 79 percent on the test. In other words, the test estimates (based on my responses) that I know 79 percent of the words in the English language.

Although this is allegedly "a high level for a native speaker," I'm not thrilled. Here are some words that are real, but I thought were fake. Oops.

Think you can beat my 79 percent? Give it a go right now and tweet at me to gloat. In the meantime, I'll be practicing for my vocab vengeance.