take the quiz--test your 401(k) knowledge

[arcticpineapplecorp.]

Take the quiz--"Prepared to retire, Test your 401(k) knowledge". Yes, it's cnbc...but I thought it wasn't a bad little quiz. How well did you do?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101944408

[jane1]

11/12

Got the target fund asset allocation answer wrong. I used age in bonds.

[montanagirl]

11/12

If I'd had my old BA 35 calculator for the 401k percentage question, I'd have nailed it.

[nisiprius]

Sigh... 11/12 but only because, on question #9, my aging brain read "$50,000" and my fingers typed "$15,000" into the spreadsheet. I was all set to post complaining that the stated answer was wrong.

[Gropes & Ray]

I missed the math question. Also, I don't think Buffet's entire fortune is being invested 90/10. Most of it is going to charity in the form of Brk shares.

[AviN]

12/12

[mwm158]

deleted

[ASUGrad]

12/12

I did use a financial calculator on my phone to double check my educated guess on the question that required math. I was right .

I could see the average person getting more than a few wrong.

[LAlearning]

12/12. Meh test.

[Zabar]

11/12.

[ajcp]

11/12, missed the "in today's dollars" in the 401k calculator question. But I call shenanigans because they didn't define the assumed rate of inflation

[nisiprius]

11/12, missed the "in today's dollars" in the 401k calculator question. But I call shenanigans because they didn't define the assumed rate of inflation

Oh, I agree. That question was terrible. And even these days when nobody thinks of Samuel Gompers on Labor Day, whose salary stays the same number of dollars for 35 years?

I converted "fifty" to a voice in my head, and the awfulness of the question created so much cognitive noise I couldn't hear myself think and mis-heard it as "fifteen!"

[Phineas J. Whoopee]

12/12 but I don't think it means much. The math question assumed a lot, but by taking it literally I and my trusty financial calculator with TVM functions, a change sign key, and a divided by key made short shrift. The larger problem was several questions merely concerned what a former professor of mine termed "nickel knowledge," that is, you put a nickel in the slot and a piece of knowledge comes out. If somebody didn't happen to know that one individual fact they'd have been called wrong; but not knowing some specific, like for example the particular percentages Buffet suggested, doesn't disqualify anybody from taking over the AARP and Social Security Administration, as the punchline at the end suggested I should; and knowing doesn't qualify them.

It's a joke, a foolishness, a fad, a fop, a nothing. It's from CNBC. But I repeat myself.

PJW