[highlander]

This years civil literacy test comes with some disturbing news. The average po;itician is dumbr than the average voter when it comes to civics. Half of them do not know the three branches of government.

Maybe we chould administer a test similar to one new citizens must take before allowing somebody to run for public office.

www.americancivicliteracy.org

[Tanada]

29 of 33 correct for a percentage of 87.88.

You answered 29 out of 33 correctly — 87.88 %

Average score for this quiz during November: 78.0%
Average score: 78.0%

You can take the quiz as often as you like, however, your score will only count once toward the monthly average.

[Sixstrings]

You answered 32 out of 33 correctly — 96.97 %

Average score for this quiz during November: 78.0%
Average score: 78.0%

On, this question, I REALLY wanted to answer c :

3) What are the three branches of government?
A. executive, legislative, judicial
B. executive, legislative, military
C. bureaucratic, military, industry
D. federal, state, local

Here's the one I missed:

33) If taxes equal government spending, then:
A. government debt is zero
B. printing money no longer causes inflation
C. government is not helping anybody
D. tax per person equals government spending per person
E. tax loopholes and special-interest spending are absent

I said A. I hate tests like this, as they are rarely properly specific in their questions. Answer "A" would be correct if government had always followed equal tax to equal spending policy.

The correct answer is "D." That one threw me off, as I had a headache by the end of the test, and my first reaction is the absurdity of figuring out the average of taxes per citizen and spending per citizen. That's a useless statistic, given our progressie tax system.

This is a sneaky test. It's a mix of very specific history knowledge and the ability to reason logically.

[ECM]

30 of 33 myself. Took this a few days ago when it was in the news on Yahoo.

Is it any surprise that politicians are as ignorant as those that elected them?

"Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. F*ck Hope.'"
-George Carlin

[careinke]

You answered 30 out of 33 correctly — 90.91 %

Questions missed all historical questions:

Question #4 - B. Would slavery be allowed to expand to new territories?
Question #7 - D. Gettysburg Address
Question #8 - C. appoint additional Supreme Court justices who shared his views

Can't believe I missed the Gettysburg Address question. I had to memorize that speech when I was in grade school.

Cliff (Start a rEVOLution, grow a garden)

[Roy]

You answered 30 out of 33 correctly — 90.91 %

Average score for this quiz during November: 78.0%
Average score: 78.0%

You can take the quiz as often as you like, however, your score will only count once toward the monthly average.

Questions I missed:

Question #7 - D. Gettysburg Address
Question #8 - C. appoint additional Supreme Court justices who shared his views
Question #33 - D. tax per person equals government spending per person

The above posts prove that we PO'ers, are indeed smarter than the average bear.



Too early and not enough coffee in me...

[highlander]

I scored 30 of 33 right. It is good to see the PO crowd are indeed smarter than average.

The last question got me too. I didn't like any of the answers so I picked A (which would have been correct if the word debt was replaced with deficit)

I also missed the ones about FDR /supreme court and the anti-federalists.

[jamest]

31

[Olaf]

29 out of 33.

[Nickel]

I got 28 out of 33 -- not bad for a non-Yankee, I think.

I missed:

Answers to Your Missed Questions:
Question #7 - D. Gettysburg Address (I picked this first, then convinced myself Lincoln was evoking something earlier)
Question #14 - B. stressed the sinfulness of all humanity (don't know too much about what the Puritans actually believed; I chose "don't want no war!!")
Question #27 - A. the price system utilizes more local knowledge of means and ends (I found this question kind of vague... not surprising, then, that I blew it)
Question #29 - B. a resident can benefit from it without directly paying for it (this seems like a paraphrasing of the answer I actually chose: the government pays for its construction, not citizens, but whatever)
Question #30 - C. decreasing taxes and increasing spending (it makes more sense to me to increase taxes to limit deficit spending, but again, whatever... seems to me this was Bush's "great" idea even during GOOD times -- don't seem that great to me...)

[highlander]

I got 28 out of 33 -- not bad for a non-Yankee, I think.
[/i]

so... are you an ex-pat? you did better than most yanks! I doubt I would make 50% on a similar test with Canadian civic history.

[Lanthanide]

I got 26. About 3 of the questions that I got wrong I had initially chosen the correct answer but changed my mind, and another 2 were a toss up and I chose wrong.

I don't really see the relevance of sputnik though. A better question in the same vein would have been something about the apollo missions.

[Nickel]

I got 28 out of 33 -- not bad for a non-Yankee, I think.
[/i]

so... are you an ex-pat?

No, I just like history.

I doubt I would make 50% on a similar test with Canadian civic history.

Well, that's the way of the world. But it would probably be easier to guess for people from Commonwealth countries who have constitutions where the broad strokes are pretty much identical.

[Nickel]

I don't really see the relevance of sputnik though. A better question in the same vein would have been something about the apollo missions.

Sputnik was an Earth-shaker. It was the first time the West knew without a doubt that the Russians had the power to strike anywhere on Earth -- something that even the US hadn't actually demonstrated at the time. I wasn't around for it, but I can imagine it must have felt like having the the drape pulled back at the beach when you haven't got your swim suit on yet.

Remember that before October, 1957, people in the US couldn't be touched by nukes unless the Russians flew over in bombers. They were big, slow, could be fought and shot down, and were manned and could potentially be recalled/turned back. The missiles were like waking up with the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. After that, they were no safer than anyone in Europe. Nor were the rest of us. So: a big moment in US and world history, psychologically.

[jamest]

I got 26. About 3 of the questions that I got wrong I had initially chosen the correct answer but changed my mind, and another 2 were a toss up and I chose wrong.

I don't really see the relevance of sputnik though. A better question in the same vein would have been something about the apollo missions.

I did live through sputnik, and it was a hugely important cultural event.

If nothing else, it created the underpinning for JFK's fictitious claim about a "missile gap" between the US and the USSR that he blamed on the Eisenhower/Nixon administration. This fed into the paranoia and insecurity of the American people.

JFK almost certainly would not have been elected had it not been for the general acceptance of this claim which had no basis in fact.

[Lanthanide]

You guys just proved my point. The question was essentially "What is sputnik". Anyone can know what sputnik is and not have any clue as to what it actually means in terms of history and US politics, like myself.

I knew it was a wake-up call to the US, but it seems I underestimated just how big a one it was.

[jamest]

You guys just proved my point. The question was essentially "What is sputnik". Anyone can know what sputnik is and not have any clue as to what it actually means in terms of history and US politics, like myself.

I knew it was a wake-up call to the US, but it seems I underestimated just how big a one it was.

You make an interesting point. I suppose this indicates the limitations of a multiple choice test.