US officials flunk test of Amerian history, economics ...

[WBU ALUM]

US officials flunk test of Amerian history, economics, civics

I am not surprised in the least.

LINK TO TEST

[BobHelm]

Ah you are going to have to continue educating me on USA & its legislature WBU, only scored 64%...

The difference table, between citizens & politicans, makes for interesting reading as well WBU...

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/20 ... nding.html

[WBU ALUM]

I missed 3 ... 90.something % ...

Bob, you know I'm here to help.

[stattointhailand]

US officials flunk test of ............AMERICAN HISTORY ?????

WHAT HISTORY ?

[aznyron]

WBU I got 67.77% missed 10

[jackspratt]

75%

25 from 33.

Answers to Your Missed Questions:
Question #4 - B. Would slavery be allowed to expand to new territories?
Question #7 - D. Gettysburg Address
Question #10 - C. Religion
Question #11 - A. their arguments helped lead to the adoption of the Bill of Rights
Question #13 - E. certain permanent moral and political truths are accessible to human reason
Question #15 - E. Thomas Jefferson’s letters
Question #27 - A. the price system utilizes more local knowledge of means and ends
Question #33 - D. tax per person equals government spending per person

[kdvsn]

I just tried the test, scored 85% but thought that it was a pretty hard test and that a couple of the questions had debateable answers.

The score summary on the web page that hosts the test says that they average score of everyone who took the test in November has been 77%. I wonder if the higher score of visitors to the site versus those of the government officials and the members of the general public previously tested is just because the former group was voluntarily taking the test or whether it was because the latter group was escpecially daft.

[TJ]

Missed two, #7 and #29, answering 94% correctly. There were a few multiple answers that I narrowed down to two and was not positive of my choice between the two.

[laphanphon]

questions had debateable answers.

thought that also, but i'm qualified for politics, a mere 67

[kdvsn]

questions had debateable answers.

thought that also, but i'm qualified for politics, a mere 67

Usually when you see sensationalist stories about the ignorance of Americans they cite wrong answers to quiz questions such as "in which half-century did the civil war occur" or to people misidentifying the quote "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" as being from the Declaration of Independence. This quiz though had some fairly tough ones, such as "what did FDR threaten to do when the Supreme Court struck down key provisions of the New Deal in 1935 & 1936" and a question about the Lincoln-Douglas debates that requried knowledge not only that they debated slavery but of what aspect of slavery they debated. While I admit that I would have wished that the average politician would have been able to score well up into the passing range on a test like this, I can understand why the proverbial man on the steet would score poorly.

[BobHelm]

[ While I admit that I would have wished that the average politician would have been able to score well up into the passing range on a test like this, I can understand why the proverbial man on the steet would score poorly.

I think the amazing thing was that the man in the street only did worse than the "professionals" on 4 out of 33 of the questions (see my link above). On 29 of the questions they actually did better, on some questions significantly better.
Agree that some were (to a non American) pretty dam tricky but good fun...

[Pakawala]

Enjoyed the quiz WBU and congratulations to you and TJ for some fine scores. I passed... barely, 78.79%.