Test the Nation: One Smart Mayor

If you watched the special CBC show "Test the Nation" on Sunday night, you know that Torontonians have a reason to be proud.

Although our nation's mayors didn't fare all that well overall as a collective team, a little more than half way through the test our very own mayor David Miller was pointed out as the highest scorer (94%) of the 36 mayors on his team. Way to go, Mayor Miller! Whether of not he was able to hold his lead right to the end (and whether or not he'll tell us) is still unknown.

More on the first show:

The show pitted various groups against each other in a live studio audience, with each participant answering IQ questions individually using an electronic scorekeeper. Questions fell into the following categories: language, memory, visual memory, math, logic, and perception.

Canadians all across the country also took part on paper, and online.

It was fun way to wind down the weekend, but two hours felt a little bit long and it would have been good to know in advance how many questions were coming in each section (I'll print out the score card from the web site if I play again next time).

How did the groups fare in the end?

The average team scores from those in the studio were as follows:

Surgeons 119
Millionaires 118
Fitness Instructors 112
Mayors 110
Radio DJs 108
Tattoo Artists 101
Celebrities 96

What do these scores mean? Clearly, surgeons are total nerds, and celebrities are pretty on the outside but lack brains ;)

90-109 is average
110-129 is above average
130+ is superior

Other early stats:
- the highest individual scorer of the 224 people in the studio was 137
- men scored 1 point higher on average than women

More complete stats based on internet participation are expected to be published to the web site soon, and a second show is in development. If you a high school English teacher, romance novelist, ad writer, or member of a fraternities or sororities consider joining a team.

We really should campaign for a blogger team!

(photo: City of Toronto)