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Do you like roller coasters, or do you prefer the merry-go-round? If you won a junket to Las Vegas, would you prefer watching a show to rolling the dice? Do you like rock climbing? Or would you rather just bask on a rock while everyone else is sweating it out on the side of the cliff? With investing, as with sports and entertainment, it’s important to know how much risk you can tolerate. Particularly when the market is making just about everyone queasy these days.

First of all, you should know that with investing, as with sports, the same old saying holds true: no pain, no gain. No risk, no reward. The market is always going to have its ups and downs, so if you have zero risk tolerance, you should rethink your plans to get into the market. (As long as you realize the biggest risk of all is outliving your savings and not keeping up with inflation.) You should also know, however, that the market has always recovered from what seemed at the time the worst of blows. Folks who got out of the market after the terrible tragedy of September 11th, 2001, locked in losses and failed to benefit from one of the best buying opportunities of the recent past.

The science of neuronomics has been giving us some interesting insights into the way our brains and emotions work when it comes to investing. We hate losing, for example, even more than we like winning! So if you take on more risk than you can deal with, you won’t sleep well at night, and you might do the kind of things people do when they panic. You might bail out of the market when it’s at a low, when your portfolio is down. And that means you’ll lock in your losses in stocks, bonds or mutual funds that probably would have recovered if you’d just had the patience (and fortitude) to give them time. If you have index funds, which follow various segments of the market, they would definitely recover, as the market comes back up. But not if you panicked and sold at the bottom.

Here’s a little quiz to test your risk tolerance:

1. If the market dropped fifteen percent tomorrow, you would:

a. Sell everything and put your money in cash.
b. Wait and see what happens before taking action.
c. Put more money in, taking advantage of the bargain prices.

2. If you were an animal, you would be:

a. Turtle, slow and steady.
b. Coyote, watching for opportunities.
c. Cheetah, letting it rip.

3. What do you think the future holds?

a. The outlook is scary, and I’m hunkering down for the worst.
b. I’m not sure, but I can cope.
c. I’m a cock-eyed optimist.

4. What is your primary goal in investing?

a. Protecting what I have.
b. Trying to beat inflation.
c. Trying to maximize my gains.

5. If you had to choose between investing in Microsoft, Apple and a CD with a three percent return, you’d choose:

a. the safe CD
b. Microsoft, the steady blue chip
c. Apple, the upstart with the cool stuff

Okay, for each a., give yourself one point. For each b., give yourself two points. For each c., give yourself three points.

If your score is between 5 and 6, your risk tolerance is low to nonexistent, and you should probably stick with Treasury bonds and CDs. If it’s between 7 and 11, you’re ready to take some moderate risks, and you’re ready for index funds. If it’s between 12 and 15, you’re considered an aggressive investor, and you’ll probably want to be investing in individual stocks.