Quiz: Can You Tell What Makes a Good Tweet? (Corrected)

John Herrman
The Awl
Published in
3 min readJul 2, 2014

The New York Times did a “how well do you know Twitter” quiz, pitting readers against a social media algorithm, and it’s a lot of fun. I’ve tried three times and I can’t break 19! But there’s one problem:

What are these garbage tweets? This isn’t the Twitter I know! This isn’t the Twitter anybody knows. Here is a new version of the quiz, corrected and adjusted for the realities of ᴛʜᴇ sᴏᴄɪᴀʟ ᴡᴇʙ. Record your answers and check them at the end!

1. Which Tweet Was Retweeted More?

2. Which Tweet Was Retweeted More?

3. Which Tweet Was Retweeted More?

4. Which Tweet Was Retweeted More?

5. Which Tweet Was Retweeted More?

Screen Shot 2014-07-02 at 1.30.49 PM

6. Which Tweet Was Retweeted More?

7. Which Tweet Was Retweeted More?

8. Which Tweet Was Retweeted More?

9. Which Tweet Was Retweeted More?

Answer key:

1. Tie
2. Tie
3. First
4. Second
5. Second
6. Tie
7. Second
8. Tie
9. First

Congratulations! You beat the algorithm if you got this far at all.

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