I can't imagine that the percentiles are reflective of the general population...I got 27,000 which it claims is the median score, and from practical experience my vocabulary is quite a bit larger than most people's. If this is measuring, say, the HN crowd, then perhaps it's accurate.
I found the same thing. I suspect a combination of the early respondents being quite a bit above average and the possibility that some people are checking words they don't actually know, or simple believe they know a correct definition for.
I think it would be a good idea to weight the survey with some test questions that ask if you know a definition to some of the less common words and then ask you to pick a correct definition from a list of 5 with 4 incorrect answers. At least this way they can approximate how much someone may exaggerate their knowledge.
However as someone who answered as honestly as I could (without spending the time to verify my definition of each word) it is cool to know what my personal vocabulary is.
I only got ~22k and I managed to score in the top 15% on the GRE verbal portion not too long ago. So either people who take the GRE are on average below median or the results aren't quite accurate.
Likewise. I answered honestly and got a little over 22k. I've always tested extremely well on verbal portions of standardized tests and feel that my vocabulary is well above normal but this would put me at about the 20th percentile.
