How’s this for an absolutely killer of a concept. It’s called Free Rice and no, it’s got nothing to do with the Rice Boy Page :). It’s a really simple concept where they pledge to donate 10 grains of rice for every correct answer that you click on in their word game.

For example, does endure mean:

1. stun
2. enliven
3. last
4. unmask

If you guessed picked last, FreeRice.com would have added 10 grains of rice to its donation pool. Neat! A game you can play, improve your own voculary, and save the world!

How does playing the vocabulary game at FreeRice help me?

Learning new vocabulary has tremendous benefits. It can help you:

* Formulate your ideas better
* Write better papers, emails and business letters
* Speak more precisely and persuasively
* Comprehend more of what you read
* Read faster because you comprehend better
* Get better grades in high school, college and graduate school
* Score higher on tests like the SAT, GRE, LSAT and GMAT
* Perform better at job interviews and conferences
* Sell yourself, your services, and your products better
* Be more effective and successful at your job

After you have done FreeRice for a couple of days, you may notice an odd phenomenon. Words that you have never consciously used before will begin to pop into your head while you are speaking or writing. You will feel yourself using and knowing more words.

How does the FreeRice vocabulary program work?

FreeRice has a custom database containing thousands of words at varying degrees of difficulty. There are words appropriate for people just learning English and words that will challenge the most scholarly professors. In between are thousands of words for students, business people, homemakers, doctors, truck drivers, retired people… everyone!

FreeRice automatically adjusts to your level of vocabulary. It starts by giving you words at different levels of difficulty and then, based on how you do, assigns you an approximate starting level. You then determine a more exact level for yourself as you play. When you get a word wrong, you go to an easier level. When you get three words in a row right, you go to a harder level. This one-to-three ratio is best for keeping you at the “outer fringe” of your vocabulary, where learning can take place.

There are 50 levels in all, but it is rare for people to get above level 48.

How is the difficulty level for each word determined?

The program keeps track of how many people get each word right or wrong, and then adjusts each word’s difficulty level accordingly. So the words at the easiest levels are the ones that people most often get right. The words at the hardest levels are the ones that people most often get wrong. As more and more people have played the game, these levels have become increasingly more accurate.

Free Rice is able to pay for the rice by the sponsored ads that randomly appear at the bottom of the page. The ads are so obscure that I doubt there’s much ROI for the companies. However, most of the sponsors are massive conglomerates (like Time, Fujitsu, Applet) so they get more out of it as a feel good thing that helps improve their public image rather than actual money in the bank.

The site is absolutely gone viral and from their meagre 830 grains on opening day (7 oct 2007), they’ve grown exponentially to 184,681,920 yesterday!

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