How much civic knowledge do YOU have? (A test)

30 out of 33 myself (90.91%) not too shabby. The Socrates, of the people for the people, and the puritans are the questions I answered wrong.

I'll settle for that. It is sad that the national average and the college educator average is so low. I now know its my job to teach my children civics. I can't count on the schools to do it. I guess that's a big reason our country is in the mess its in.

reply to post by gimme_some_truth


It means you are better than the average college professor tested. And that is a sad commentary on our educators.

Although I am still most shocked at how poorly the politicians did. And when you look at which questions they bombed a lot of things about how our government runs makes a lot of sense.

Damn, 96.9%. got 1 wrong about international trade. the toughest part was answering the way I would have on a high school history exam as opposed to answering based on what I've learned about how things really work over the years,

reply to post by leemachino


Absolutely. And not just your children, we should try when we can to educate our fellow adults too. Even though "the people" did better on average than the politicians and the professors, we still need to really step it up as voters and make sure we know what we are doing in those polls if we want our government to run better.

reply to post by peter vlar


Lol, I had that problem on one of the economic questions too, I had to choose the answer I knew they were putting forward as correct, from my economics classes, instead of what I really felt the answer was. Good job though, you have the highest score so far.

Should I find it shocking that the elected officials averages were better in only 4 of 33 categories?

Probably not considering the categories they averaged better in have very little relevance to today.

reply to post by leemachino


Lol. Thats the part I DID find shocking, the questions you would really really WANT them to know they did the worst on.

" college proffessors " what does that really mean ?

yes it is a trick question - before you snap out a smart assed answer

how does knowing / not knowing the answer to any of the questions in the survey affect a persons competance / ability to teach such modules as :

inorganic chemistry , thermodynamics and kinetics , environmental microbiology ??

now see how " college proffessors " is a useless tag - we need to know what these people actually teach - and what the average score is for each department

if proffessors of american history , law , or political science got any wrong - it would be worrying but does your physics tutor need to know any of the answers to be a good physics tutor ?

30/33

Yayahhh!

Gratci

reply to post by ignorant_ape


College professors hold advanced degrees. Most of what's on that civics test should have been learned before graduating high school. I personally expect any educator to have a basic knowledge of how our goverment works. I mean how it is supposed to work.

Nice thread OP. S&F

reply to post by ignorant_ape


It doesnt mean that they are not competent to teach in their field of expertise, but it is pretty surprising that they would on average do so poorly. I dont think the point the researchers were making is that they should all be fired and not allowed to teach, but more that they really dont know much more than the average American on topics outside their field, and perhaps people should not be too bedazzled by the word "professor" or "PhD" after someones name.

Which is something we should all be cognizant of, anyway.

reply to post by leemachino


I do too, btw. Im personally shocked because you DO have to take a lot of subjects outside your chosen major, and you are right, people with 4 or more years of college SHOULD do much better than 55% on average. One would hope.

Originally posted by Illusionsaregrander
reply to post by leemachino

 

I do too, btw. Im personally shocked because you DO have to take a lot of subjects outside your chosen major, and you are right, people with 4 or more years of college SHOULD do much better than 55% on average. One would hope.

Maybe its time for a required civics course for all degrees. You have to take so many other general courses. What's one more to the mix? For the betterment of society.

I say again good post. OP

Id be really curious to see what the scores are for people who self describe as liberal, conservative, etc and what the breakdown of each demographic is.

reply to post by peter vlar


They do break it down here;

www.americancivicliteracy.org...

not only by party, but income, etc. Interesting data.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander

Outstanding! Thanks for pointing that out for me. It's refreshing and sad at the same time to see that Americans seem uniformly ignorant regardless of gender income or political leaning.

I got 21 correct out of 33. Wow. I enjoyed the test! Certainly hard!

Mine must have been broken. It said I didn't miss any (100). I'll try again in a couple of days.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


I took the test and guessed on quite a few of the questions.
My score:69.70%, I got 23 right and 10 wrong.I didn't think
that was too bad considering I graduated from high school
back in 1973.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/bcdecacf89c3.png[/atsimg]

I did better than I thought.

The only one I got incorrect was:

Question: Which of the following fiscal policy combinations has the federal government most often followed to stimulate economic activity when the economy is in a severe recession?
Your Answer: increasing both taxes and spending
Correct Answer: decreasing taxes and increasing spending

The correct answer would have been my second choice but too late for that now.

For those who cannot see the small print in the picture it says 96.97% correct.

reply to post by peter vlar


I am 18, college student, white-male, and an Old Right Conservative.