Sharpen Color Awareness with Fun Vision Test

Erica Gamet

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I don’t know anyone who actually enjoys taking tests. Heck, even the eye doctor’s exam gives me sweaty palms. I recently stumbled upon a little color vision test that adds a little gaming excitement while testing your ocular acuity—and you won’t end up being told you need bifocals. It’s dubbed simply “Vision Test,” from a site called iGame.

To start, you’re presented with four large squares—one of them a slightly different shade than the others—and a timer with 15 seconds on it. Your goal is to click on the square with the distinct shading. It seems easy at first, but the next sets employ a 3 x 3 grid, followed by a grid of 16 squares. As more squares are added, the odd-man-out square becomes less and less obvious than before. If you choose a wrong square, the game knocks three seconds off the timer.

After you’ve exhausted the clock, your vision is compared to an animal of similar visual ability, from a bat (which is not too accurate, but I’ll leave that argument for my article on why bats are my favorite animal) to a hawk. My first go, I earned Tiger status, and worked my way up to hawk. However, it appears that the squares are not randomly assigned, but rather the same each time. I’ve now pretty much memorized that pattern, which takes away most of the fun. Here’s a secret: I also memorize the last 3 lines of the eye chart while waiting for the doctor. I’ve got to do something to stave off the dreaded “B-word.”