What is your Mechanical Aptitude?

which direction

Go here and take this test.

My advice: read the questions very carefully. Literally observe the illustrations. Take your time.
The terminology with regards to directions is relative to position, so LITERAL observation of the illustrations is required. Don’t overthink them as that is how I screwed up. 😉

Let me know how you do in the comments.

5 thoughts on “What is your Mechanical Aptitude?”

  1. 72%. Considering I never had any HS physics, and was just guessing based on experience…I could have done worse. So I got all of the ones that required knowing a formula wrong, but almost all of the practical observation types right.

    How did you do, anyway?

  2. I got a 90%.

    http://chuck.goolsbee.org/images/apt.png

    I missed (in no particular order):

    The two-tubes one (I wasn’t paying attention to Mr. Bernoulli and brain-farted)

    The air pressure one because I haven’t a clue how that stuff works, but when I went back and looked the math was patently obvious if I had just LOOKED at the numbers and the answers with my brain engaged for a good guess!

    The first pulley one as I completely brain-farted.

    The second volt-meter one (because I’m an idiot)

    The fans one… which REALLY pissed me off.
    The question is very poorly written, and I even went to the effort of testing it with two fans. The fans spin in the opposite direction in relation to their axles, in otherwords, one spins clockwise, while the other spins counter-clockwise… BUT, as drawn, and from that position of observation they are indeed both moving the “same direction.” In my case with the actual fans both were rotating towards you at their tops from the position of observation. I totally over-thought the question. =\

  3. I missed three, includng the venturi one, which really pissed me off, because I am a licensed pilot, and should remember how a wing works 🙁 I also missed the fans one, probably for the same reason as you, Chuck. I wish the test would have allowed you to review your answers upon completion. I stumbled upon the table-of-contents trick to see what you missed.

  4. I did much poorer than I expected, as I am actually a pretty competent shade tree mechanic. I still passed, but just barely. Of course, it doesn’t help that I got a “D” in high school physics and never took any college level math, so my pulley knowledge was probably suspect…

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