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Free Personality Assessments Based on Works of Jung, Myers, Briggs and Keirsey

Digital Citizen 194 Comments

March 2016 Update

I have added a separate, but very detailed introversion / extraversion assessment from Scientific American magazine. This is the most confusing and misunderstood dimension of the four in the personality assessment below so you might want to try this Scientific American assessment to better understand yourself, and/or the concept of introversion / extraversion, itself, and possibly others with that better understanding.

January 2016 update

The personality assessment here is now available as a free iOS app in the iTunes App Store! (my version is an Excel spreadsheet that works like software)

Thank you very much to Shawn Seymour, a student at the University of Minnesota, Morris, who wrote the app for free and made it available for free! Please check out his other work on his site!

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Get a free, complete personality assessment via the personality typing system created by Carl Jung, popularized by personality assessments as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®)* and Keirsey Temperament Sorter® (KTS®). This assessment is neither the MBTI® nor the KTS® (both paid services), though it has the same objective to identify your personality type in Jung’s personality typing system. The questions are just slightly different from the KTS® to extract the most accurate answers from users so you can get the truest results for yourself.

Why is method so important?

All the personality assessments mentioned above rely on how honestly you answer questions about yourself. They are only as good as you can be honest about yourself. Unfortunately, being honest about ourselves is something we are all challenged with to some extent in life. We all have biased self-perception, misconception or ignorance of our nature, or inconsistent understandings of what it means to be something. To overcome that, the questions in the assessment here ask about common real life situations so people can recall how they reacted rather than theorizing how they would react. What people say and do can often be very different! Cultural biases, obscure expressions, words with stigmas or noble connotations, and the like, have also been minimized.

Why do this assessment or do it again?

Ultimately, you’d do this assessment to get an objective view of your personality, what you are generally like in life and how you interact with others of differing personalities. The assessment cover situations at work and play, in various types of relationships and general life, and interactions with all other personality types in Jung’s system.

A side reason, possibly funner and more practical reason, is to see how you compare with anyone else who has taken a version of this, MBTI® or KTS®… or can be persuaded to take one by you. You can even compare yourself to famous people and fictional characters who might have never taken the assessment! Jung’s personality typing system is actually a theory so experts have been able to type people who have never taken the assessments based on their known actions (not words).

If you’ve done MBTI® or KTS® some years before, you might want to try “it” again as people change over time. This is truer if they have lived through life changing events like marriage, children, trauma or otherwise.

Downloads for the personality assessment tool

There are two Excel files for download here, in which you can answer the questions to get your personality type identified and assessed. One file is a modified KTS® assessment with the “best” questions, in my opinion, from KTS® versions I and II. The other is the same assessment with very basic English or “plain language” for people not completely fluent in English. Theoretically, you should get the same result doing either assessment.

Click here to download the Free Personality Assessment (Excel file)

  • Based on the best Jungian personality assessment tool available, in my opinion, developed by David Keirsey in his classic books Please Understand Me and Please Understand Me II.
  • Version here is a “best of” KTS® versions I and II, using questions I thought would elicit most honest answers from most users. KTS-II® is used by the KTS site.
  • Questions ask about real life situations, not abstract concepts like preferred words.
  • Does not ask for absolute answers, but rather preferences.
  • Has been extensively used around the world. Claims to be most popular personality assessment in the world and Web traffic seems to indicate that, but MBTI® is probably most well-known from its longer history (close to 50 years).
  • Has flaws of challenging language, cultural bias, references and expressions which may be challenging to those not fluent in English or have low literacy.

Click here to download the Free Plain Language Personality Assessment (Excel file)

  • Mostly uses questions from the “best of” Modified KTS® version above, for the reasons that make it excellent.
  • Language is simplified so those for whom English is a foreign language, or those with low grade reading levels, can do the assessment and do it accurately. This is actually an excellent ESL or EFL class exercise!
  • Idioms or expressions are minimized.
  • Terms with cultural bias, like noble or stigmatized words, are eliminated.

Doing the Personality Assessment (Fig 1)

Please refer to Figure 1 above.

  • There are 74 multiple choice questions to the test.
  • Just put A or B in the boxes beside each question.
  • You can’t select any cells besides those so no worries about messing up the file.
  • If you put anything besides A or B, the file will tell you to do otherwise.

Getting your Results Summary (Fig 2)

After you have entered an acceptable answer for all 74 questions, click on the RESULTS tab near the bottom left of the window to get your results.

The file tabulates your scores so there are no mistakes, and gives you a summary as shown above.

Click Print and it will print out all on one page automatically, if you want a print out.

Your Results Summary and Full Assessment (Fig 3)

Your results summary is just a brief part of your full assessment. There are multiple PDF files available with tens of pages of content for you to consider if you so wish.

Please click here to download files specific for your personality type results.

* MBTI and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator are trademarks or registered trademarks of the MBTI Trust, Inc., in the United States and other countries.

Sharkwater, Dispelling Myths About the Shark (full documentary)

Digital Citizen 2 Comments

What do you think of when you think of the shark? A fearsome monster? A man eater from the ocean? Something that should be killed if seen from land?

If you’re like most people of the world, that’s generally what you would think of when you think of a shark. However, sharks are nothing like that. It’s all man-made myth!

Sharks are rather shy, intelligent and have incredible senses. They avoid people if they can, actually being afraid of people, and often know better than to eat people despite how people resemble the seals they actually eat. They eat the only way they know how, and most are not like the way they are portrayed in movies like Jaws. Furthermore, they have a huge environmental impact by being at the top of the food chain, controlling populations of other species below them so all the phytoplankton in the oceans which generate oxygen for us to breathe are allowed to do just that. We are destroying our future just by letting a bunch of fishermen slaughter all these sharks because some people in China believes eating their fins bestow good health and miracle cures, and are willing to pay a ton of money for them.

Sharks are absolutely remarkable creatures which have survived hundreds of millions of years, virtually unchanged, while the world around it has or has become extinct. They were here 150 million years before the dinosaurs! Come see how amazing they truly are, and how they are being hunted to extinction by greedy people who only take their fins and throw the rest of the animal away. Sharkwater will show you all of this, with remarkable cinematography in a captivating adventure that has won 31 major international film awards.

More of the world needs to see this film. I hope you will watch it if you have not, and/or tell other people about it!

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This full-length online version is of good quality, though not the same as a DVD version, obviously. But if you can’t get access to the DVD, this will do. This also has English and Chinese (not sure which form) subtitles. If it gets stuck loading when you play it, please pause it for a few minutes while it loads and come back. You should be fine, then.

Synopsis

For filmmaker Rob Stewart, exploring sharks began as an underwater adventure. What it turned into was a beautiful and dangerous life journey into the balance of life on earth. Driven by passion fed from a lifelong fascination with sharks, Stewart debunks historical stereotypes and media depictions of sharks as bloodthirsty, man-eating monsters and reveals the reality of sharks as pillars in the evolution of the seas. Filmed in visually stunning, high definition video, Sharkwater takes you into the most shark rich waters of the world, exposing the exploitation and corruption surrounding the world’s shark populations in the marine reserves of Cocos Island, Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.

In an effort to protect sharks, Stewart teams up with renegade conservationist Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Their unbelievable adventure together starts with a battle between the Sea Shepherd and shark poachers in Guatemala, resulting in pirate boat rammings, gunboat chases, mafia espionage, corrupt court systems and attempted murder charges, forcing them to flee for their lives. Through it all, Stewart discovers these magnificent creatures have gone from predator to prey, and how despite surviving the earth’s history of mass extinctions, they could easily be wiped out within a few years due to human greed. Stewart’s remarkable journey of courage and determination changes from a mission to save the world’s sharks, into a fight for his life, and that of humankind.

Please click here for the Sharkwater website.

The Cove, Japan’s Dirty Dolphin Killing Secret (entire documentary)

Digital Citizen 15 Comments

Each September to February, a nasty dolphin hunt takes place off the coast of Japan in a little village called Taiji (tai-jee), where most of the 20,000 dolphins and porpoises killed off Japan are done annually. The Cove, winner of multiple international film festival awards including Oscar for Best Documentary in 2009, exposes what goes on in Taiji and how Japan manipulates little bankrupt countries to support its whaling cause and empire through the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Courageous to film undercover, inspiring and shocking to watch, this film is having some effect on public awareness of the issues, from brutal senseless killings to mercury poisoning in the food and fraud by selling worthless dolphin meat as expensive whale meat. You might also learn a thing about being coy and manipulative in empire building, as well as dedication and heart in pursuit of a cause through Ric O’Barry and others’ efforts to expose this annual massacre.

Despite all the public praise and awareness this film has been getting, the issues raised could always use a little more attention because they’re still killing dolphins in Taiji as I write in October. Well, this little site of mine gets some decent attention, so here is the movie in case you haven’t seen it. Thanks to whoever uploaded the entire thing on Tudou in high quality, and even added English and Japanese subtitles, where it needs to be known!

Synopsis
Academy Award® Winner for Best Documentary of 2009, THE COVE follows an elite team of activists, filmmakers and freedivers as they embark on a covert mission to penetrate a remote and hidden cove in Taiji, Japan, shining a light on a dark and deadly secret. Utilizing state-of-the-art techniques, including hidden microphones and cameras in fake rocks, the team uncovers how this small seaside village serves as a horrifying microcosm of massive ecological crimes happening worldwide. The result is a provocative mix of investigative journalism, eco-adventure and arresting imagery, adding up to an unforgettable story that has inspired audiences worldwide to action. THE COVE is directed by Louie Psihoyos and produced by Paula DuPré Pesmen and Fisher Stevens. The film is written by Mark Monroe. The executive producer is Jim Clark and the co-producer is Olivia Ahnemann.

Please come back later if you’re not catching news of this at a time when you have 90 minutes to spare and watch. You can spend 90 minutes doing a lot of worse things in life.

The Cove’s website for more information on the film and cause.

Take part in helping save the dolphins as promoted by The Cove.

Guitar and Ukulele Tabs for Four Strong Winds (Ian Tyson)

Digital Citizen 3 Comments

Happy Canada Day! On the day I am writing, that is. You know, for a small population nation, we can compete with anybody when it comes to rock ‘n’ roll and other popular music!

Four Strong Winds is a timeless Canadian song that was written by Ian Tyson in 1960. It was voted the most essential songs in English language Canadian pop music history in a 10 week poll by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in 2005 (top 50 list). I doubt it will ever leave that chart, whether or not it would hold on to top spot as time goes by.

The song is based on the life of transient farm workers, forced to move where work can be found, but its theme is the sometimes temporary nature of human relationships. That’s about as nice a summary as I could find. You listen to the song and read the lyrics in the great fan video below and see/hear for yourself. The song even has subtle horse hoof running sounds! Love it!!!

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Four Strong Winds, Ian Tyson Guitar Tabs Letter Sized PDF

Four Strong Winds, Ian Tyson Guitar Tabs Tabloid Sized PDF

Four Strong Winds, Ian Tyson Ukulele Tabs Letter Sized PDF

Four Strong Winds, Ian Tyson Ukulele Tabs Tabloid Sized PDF

These tabs all fit on one page to avoid the inconvenience of page turns. However, the letter size tabs (8.5″ x 11″) may be too small for your eyes. If so, you can either enlarge to tabloid size (11″ x 17″) using an automatic enlarge feature on many photocopiers, or download the tabloid sized versions for printing. The tabloid size tabs can be inserted into a typical letter sized binder on the 11″ size, and folded almost in half to fit. You just open each tab to use it.

This song is very singable, in most people voice ranges without requiring a huge range. There are only a handful of chords, and easy ones at that. Nothing complicated about the strumming, either.

The arrangement I have chosen for the tabs include the tune as Neil Young sang it in the video above, without the guitar break. Note the fine differences between the last notes of the third and sixth lines of both verse and chorus. It’s a very fine difference, but that’s why I have included the notes in my tabs. You can pic out the notes to know what I had in mind to go with the chords listed rather than guess, as you often have to do with most online tabs. In some of those cases, there are actual errors people make in singing out of tune, then putting a wrong chord to it, but I’m not going to go further down that road.

However, I have left the verses and chorus in the order Ian Tyson originally wrote them. It starts out with the chorus, then verse, chorus, verse and ending with that beautiful chorus again. Ian and his wife Sylvia sing the song below. It’s a nice version, just a tad harder to tab and sing than Neil’s version with all the country style nuances.

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Between the two videos and tune notes left on the tabs, I hope you’ll be able to figure it all out.

Oh, for the ukulele tabs, I left out the D7 transition chord compared to the guitar version. The ukulele D7 didn’t sound right without much of a bass set of notes.

Please click here for guitar and ukulele tabs and chords to other songs on this blog.

Other notes about Four Strong Winds:

Ian and Sylvia Tyson

This folk classic has been recorded by many artists including Neil Young on his 1978 album Comes a Time (Young also performed the song with The Band at the famous The Last Waltz concert, and in his 2005 documentary Neil Young: Heart of Gold), Sarah McLachlan, Hank Snow, The Seekers, Judy Collins, Bob Dylan, Marianne Faithfull, The Searchers, Teenage Fanclub, John Denver, Bobby Bare, The Brothers Four (in an album by the same name), The Kingston Trio, Trini Lopez, Waylon Jennings, Chad and Jeremy, Ulf Lundell, The Tragically Hip, Joan Baez, and most recently, Johnny Cash. It was a hit by Bobby Bare in 1964. It was also a big hit in Norway in 1966 in a Norwegian version: “Mot ukjent sted” by The Vanguards and a big hit in Sweden in 1967 in a Swedish version: “Mot okänt land” recorded by The Hep Stars.

The mentioning of Alberta in the lyrics led it to be considered in a contest to choose a provincial song, which it did not win. Additionally, the song is sung on the last night of the Edmonton Folk Music Festival each year.

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Flesch-Kincaid Grade Reading Level: 7.4

Hello Viet Nam — the Best Song About Viet Nam Ever

Digital Citizen 9 Comments

Happy Asian New Year, everyone!

At the Vietnamese Association of Nova Scotia celebrations, one of their leaders and a friend, Lien, told me about this amazing song called Hello Viet Nam. It is sung by Pham Quynh Anh, with Pham being her last name and Quynh Anh being her first. The Vietnamese who had names outside the ordinal naming system tended to have duo names that were poetic in nature. Marc Lavoine wrote the original song in French called Bonjour Viet Nam. It was later adapted into English by Guy Balbaert, and is known by the Vietnamese title of Xin Chao Viet Nam, though there is not a Vietnamese version of which I am aware. The full story of Pham Quynh Anh and the song’s development is at the end of this post. And yes, Viet Nam is really two words the way the people of the Motherland spells it.

Hey, if your Mother spelled your name in a certain way, wouldn’t you want others to spell it the same way?

Now, I didn’t doubt Lien’s musical tastes or ability to judge music. I had just heard enough songs about Viet Nam over the years and none had really stood out to me. However, just a few seconds into this one, it hit home, I was hooked and knew I had found the best song about Viet Nam I’ve ever heard!

It only took me about 30 years. 🙂

As a relatively new songwriter originally born in Viet Nam, I haven’t even come close to writing a song about Viet Nam. However, I can definitely tell you this one goes in my books as one I wish I had written. Any time you ever meet a songwriter, by the way, ask them for their list of songs they wish they had written. It’s a neat exercise! You can do the same, even if you weren’t one! But here’s Hello Viet Nam.

Tell me all about this name, that is difficult to say.
It was given me the day I was born.
Want to know about the stories of the empire of old.
My eyes say more of me than what you dare to say.

All I know of you is all the sights of war.
A film by Coppola, the helicopter’s roar.
One day I’ll touch your soil.
One day I’ll finally know your soul.
One day I’ll come to you.
To say hello… Viet Nam.

Tell me all about my colour, my hair and my little feet
That have carried me every mile of the way.
Want to see your house, your streets, show me all I do not know.
Wooden sampans, floating markets, light of gold.

All I know of you is all the sights of war.
A film by Coppola, the helicopter’s roar.
One day I’ll walk your soil.
One day I’ll finally know your soul.
One day I’ll come to you.
To say hello… Viet Nam.

And Buddha’s made of stone watch over me
My dreams they lead me through the fields of rice
In prayer, in the light…I see my kin
I touch my tree, my roots, my begin

One day I’ll walk your soil.
One day I’ll finally know my soul.
One day I’ll come to you.
To say hello… Vietnam.

One day I’ll walk your soil
One day I’ll finally know my soul
One day I’ll come to you
To say hello…Vietnam
To say hello…Vietnam
To say xin chào… Vietnam

The song is about a Vietnamese immigrant who has never had a chance to know his/her home. S/he may have been born in the land to which his/her Parents immigrated, or may have been too young to remember when s/he left the country in search of a better life, most likely as one of the Boat People during the mass exodus from the late 1970s to early 1990s. The song captures a curiosity about one’s roots that all immigrants could relate to, though the song is specific to Viet Nam, of course.

Anyway, Hello Viet Nam is the best song about Viet Nam I have ever heard. That much is clear to me. The video I chose is not the official video. Please click here for the official video. I chose it because it shows some footage of Viet Nam about which Quynh Anh is curious to know, although some footage was from the movies. It was also the video with the best audio, and since most of my readers speak English, I chose the English version of the song first. The French version is below. The lyrics below look similar enough to the English that I think the English was a reasonably faithful translation, but I’m no French expert.

Of course, Viet Nam was once a French colony before the Americans came there so it is quite appropriate to have an English/French bilingual version. I’m just surprised the Vietnamese haven’t jumped on it to create a Vietnamese version. They have Vietnamese versions of far more English songs than you know, albeit often with rather adulterous translations (ie. not faithful).

Raconte-moi ce nom étrange et difficile à prononcer
Que je porte depuis que je suis née
Raconte-moi le vieil empire et le trait de mes yeux bridés
Qui disent mieux que moi ce que tu n’oses dire
Je ne sais de toi que des images de la guerre
Un film de Coppola, des hélicoptères en colère

Un jour, j’irai là-bas
Un jour, dire bonjour à ton âme
Un jour, j’irai là-bas
Te dire bonjour, Vietnam

Raconte-moi ma couleur, mes cheveux et mes petits pieds
Qui me portent depuis que je suis née
Raconte-moi ta maison, ta rue, raconte-moi cet inconnu
Les marchés flottants et les sampans de bois
Je ne connais de mon pays que des photos de la guerre
Un film de Coppola, des hélicoptères en colère

Un jour, j’irai là-bas
Un jour, dire bonjour à mon âme
Un jour, j’irai là-bas
Te dire bonjour, Vietnam

Les temples et les Bouddhas de pierre pour mes pères
Les femmes courbées dans les rizières pour mes mères
Dans la prière, dans la lumière, revoir mes frères
Toucher mon arbre, mes racines, ma terre

Un jour, j’irai là-bas
Un jour, dire bonjour à mon âme
Un jour, j’irai là-bas
Te dire bonjour, Vietnam
Te dire bonjour, Vietnam

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The Story of Pham Quynh Anh and Bonjour Viet Nam

Pham Quynh Anh (born 1987) is a Belgium, ethnic-Vietnamese singer. Her parents were born in Vietnam and immigrated to Belgium, where they met, married and gave birth to Quynh Anh.
When Quynh Anh was 13 years old, her father persuaded her to compete in the TV singing competition “For Glory,” held by Belgium’s RTBF Television. Upon winning the competition, she met her manager, who introduced Quynh Anh to her producer. The producer made possible Quynh Anh’s duet “J’espère” with French-hit singer Marc Lavoine. With “J’espère,” Quynh Anh followed Lavoine on tour to France, Switzerland and Belgium. In 2002 she signed a contract with Rapas Centre, a French-branch of Universal.

Quynh Anh reached international popularity in 2006 with her French song “Bonjour Vietnam,” composed by Lavoine and co-written by Lavoine and Yvan Coriat, when it accidentally appeared on the Internet. It is stated that the people of Vietnam were especially moved by the lyrics and by the ethnic- and cultural-yearning of foreign-born Vietnamese.
Due to its popularity, “Bonjour Vietnam” was translated into English by Guy Balbaert and is called “Hello Vietnam.” The English version is also accompanied with a draft-music video In May 2008, Quynh Anh sang the English version of the song in Paris by Night 92, an on-going Vietnamese language musical variety show. It is claimed that a Vietnamese version of the song will be released.

Quynh Anh will release her first solo project with her first single as the English version “Hello Vietnam.” In an interview with “Oh My News,” Domenech, manager of Rapas Centre, said that Quynh Anh will release her album “Bonjour Vietnam” that will be composed of 15 songs. The album is stated to be released in the near future.

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