Monday, July 14, 2008

Freerice.com

What is it and where can I get some? No silly it's not for you. This was the dialogue when mom told me about this website. I admit that I am not a fan of rice, but I do like to eat and I was hungry.

Freerice.com is a website in which you play a vocabulary game and for every right answer you get, 20 grains of rice is donated to the United Nations World Food Program. Sounds simple, right? It is simple, fun, and for a good cause.

FreeRice has two goals:

Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.
Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.
This is made possible by the generosity of the sponsors who advertise on their site.

Here's how you play:

When you go to the website, a word with four meanings is shown. Click on the answer that best defines the word. If you get it right, you get a harder word. If wrong, you get an easier word. Not only do your right answers donate much needed food to people in need, but you grow your vocabulary.

According to the website, 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.

So far over 38 billion grains of rice have been donated. But there is one warning: this game is addictive. This is a good thing because the more you play, the more rice is donated. This is a win-win for everyone involved.

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