The Acid Test

The “acid test” is the definitive, absolute or sure test which establishes the value or worth of something. It originally comes from the use of nitric acid to test gold.

1. What is the acid test to determine who the “best” soccer player in the world is? Is it recognition by fans around the world, the number of goals scored, world cup titles under their belt or by some other means?

2. How do you know if someone is really a true friend? Is there an acid test? Is it those people who leave comments or poke you on Facebook?

3. The Cambridge CPE exam is by far the most difficult English proficiency test. If you pass it, your English is almost as good as a Native Speaker’s. In other words it is the acid test for your level of English. Out in the real world, the acid test is whether or not you can get a job where you need to speak English all day.

4. When I want to research about movies to watch, in general, the acid test for me is the rating a movie gets on imdb.com (the internet movie data base). If a movie gets at least a 7 then I consider it worth watching.



5. Cher, in her song, “It’s in his kiss” says that the acid test to know whether someone loves you is in their kiss: “Does he love me? I wanna know! How can I tell if he loves me so? (Is it in his eyes?) Oh no! You need to see! (Is it in his eyes?) Oh no! You make believe! If you wanna know if he loves you so it’s in his kiss!” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwGGZTZ-3pM

6. The acid test to know whether a pineapple is ripe, is to pull one of the leaves at the top, and if it comes out easily then you have a ripe pineapple. How do you know when your favorite fruit is ripe?

7. Some people think that the acid test to tell if gold is real is to bite it, and if there are any indentations, then it must be real… but the problem is that lead is softer than gold, and you could be biting gold-plated lead!

8. Do you know the famous acid test to know whether spaghetti is ready or not?