Right Sex??? (thespark.com)

Member Name: tonybone

Product:	thespark.com
Date:	08/01/02 (267 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great Fun

Disadvantages: Not Found any

Were you born the right sex? - I’ll cover that part later! I don’t really know how to describe thespark.com. It’s not a joke website, but more of a fun one. I first discovered the site through an email linking to a personality test on there. Tests are the main part of the site, but there are also some other sections worth looking at as well. I’ll cover some of the better sections and then move on to the tests.

~~ Web toys

This section contains their latest “toys” available for download. This includes a cheat programme for school exams. You simply choose the topic that you’ve got to write an essay on and it generates one for you. I’m not at school but I decided to test it out anyway! Although a good idea, it really would not fool any teachers. The essays only loosely cover the topic and include far too much irrelevant information. This section also includes a pick-up line generator which can either sit on your desktop or be downloaded to a PDA for “on the pull” use!! Similar to this, there is also an insult generator.

~~ Cupid

Ever fancied someone, but not been sure whether they feel the same? Too embarrassed to ask them personally? Why not send them an anonymous email from thespark?? The person you fancy gets sent an email telling them that they have a secret admirer and if they click on the link they are asked various questions. I believe that they have to enter email addresses of people they fancy, and if their admirer’s address is one of them, then they are revealed to each other!

~~ Spark Cards

I love sending Internet greeting cards. They are cheaper and easier than real cards and can be sent instantly, as well as being personalised. There are plenty of sites on the Internet that offer this service and thespark is another one of them. They don’t have an amazing selection such as 123greetings.com or Yahoo, but there are enough to cov
er most occasions. The main sections are friends, romance, holidays, and birthdays. They also have a “deliver the dis” section, which contains joke and insult cards – my favourite!

~~ Spark Match

Another section dedicated to dating! Spark Match is designed to find you your ideal partner, and claims to have over 500,000 people on its database. You enter some basic information about yourself – personal and geographical. You must then answer a series of personal questions, which are designed to see what kind of partner you make. The questions are of a situational nature, and you get the feeling that they are trying to find out how selfish you are, how outgoing you are, etc. Once answered you are given your match type – for example, I came out as “Boy Scout”, whatever that means! You then have the opportunity to upload a picture of yourself, and then log in. You can set up information about yourself for others to see. You can do local or global searches for your ideal partner……the results come back showing the person who you are supposedly best matched with first. Each person has a % compatibility with you, next to them. This is worked out based on both sets of answers to the match questionnaire. You have the ability to send messages to people you want to chat to, and they can do the same to you.

~~ Spark Notes

This section is again designed with students in mind, although probably a little more successful than the essay paper generator! It contains study notes for students on subjects such as Maths, History and English Literature. I should imagine that it is of more use to American students than British, although I took a look at the English Literature section, and saw some books that I studied at GCSE.

~~ Test and Answer section

This is definitely my favourite section of thespark, as I love doing tests to try to find out about my personality. There are a n
umber of different tests which all have figures next to them to indicate how many times they’ve been taken worldwide. At the end of all the tests, they reveal facts about everyone else who has taken the tests, and they usually show you how XXXX you are and whether you are more or less XXXX than the rest of the people who have taken that test. They say that their most popular test of all time is the personality test and it is the one that I first linked to in the site. It isn’t too long and at the end you are given a personality type – I was an Accountant (unfortunately!). You then have the opportunity to enter your friends’ email addresses for them to complete the same test. As and when they do, you can compare your results with all of theirs. There is a percentage placed next to each friend, which is apparently the probability of a drunken snog!! There are various other tests, such as The Slut Test, The Bastard Test, The Greed Test, The Wealth Test, and the Sex Test. These are all self explanatory, but I’d just like to go into more detail about my two favourite tests:

~~ The Gender Test

This is probably my favourite test on thespark and I’m still impressed, even after taking it a few times. Thespark claim that they have been analysing the way in which men and women answer questions, and that by asking 50 non-direct questions (i.e. they cannot ask anything that gives away what sex you are) they can guess what gender you are! At first you think to yourself that it is a bit stupid, but continue answering their seemingly pointless questions anyway! As you approach the last page, there is absolutely no indication as you how you are doing. The only question that I think is a bit too direct is “Do you usually carry stuff in your pockets?” This is a bit of a giveaway, as men tend to do this more than women. However, apart from this, the questions are very neutral.

After the last page, I was certa
inly apprehensive as to clicking the “Guess my gender” button – I didn’t want to come out as a woman!! Luckily for me the page flashed up “You are definitely a man!” It then tells me what percentage certain they are, and plots you on a massive scatter graph of ALL results for the test. Blue dots are men and pink are women. As a rule most of the pink dots are on the right and blue dots on the left. However there are the cross overs where peoples sex has been guessed wrongly! The test is surprisingly accurate, and I only know one person whose sex has been guessed wrongly (you know who you are!!!) You are also shown some facts about how men and women tend to answer different questions – I won’t tell you about those in case you want to take the test for yourself!

As I said before, the questions aren’t really that leading, but to give you an idea of the things that are asked, here are a few sample questions:

Which colour makes a better t-shirt? Green or Orange?
Would you rather be rich or famous?
Would you rather fall to your death? Or drown?
Would you rather live in a blue bedroom or a white bedroom?
Do you sleep on your stomach or your back?
Were you born in an even or odd year?

As you can see, the questions don’t really give much away, yet they do seem to be able to guess your gender from them……….. Go on; give it a try – if you’re brave enough!

~~ The Purity Test

OK this isn’t my favourite, but it’s quite an interesting one. After some basic information such as your age and sex, you are presented with 10 pages of 10 questions. As the pages go on, the questions become more and more risqué, until the last page contains questions that I’d hope most decent people would answer “no” to!!! I’ll give you some idea of the questions below, but I daren’t put some of them into
the opinion for fear of deletion!! You’ll have to take the test yourself!

The first section is the easy stuff – I’m sure most people answer “yes” to most questions, such as “Have you ever held hands?” “Have you ever been on a date” “Have you ever been to a bar?” On pages to come, the questions move on to a sexual nature, and then such things as “Have you ever been arrested” “Have you ever taken drugs” etc. I won’t ruin it for you, but they all lead to your Purity!! When I took the test, I came out as 50% pure! – not too bad I suppose!

~~ Conclusion

As you can see, thespark.com is a website to provide some light relief whilst surfing. You can download various programmes, send cards, match make, find a partner, or simply discover more about yourself. Next time you’ve got a spare five minutes, take a look and find out what sex you are, or whether you’re less pure than me!!!

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