Are you smarter than a fifth grader? Or a US elected official?

[thewayne]

On civic knowledge?

"A test on civic knowledge given to elected officials proved that they are slightly less knowledgeable than the uninformed people who voted them into office. Elected officials scored a 44 percent while ordinary citizens managed an amazing 49 percent on the 33 questions compiled by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. "It is disturbing enough that the general public failed ISI's civic literacy test, but when you consider the even more dismal scores of elected officials, you have to be concerned," said Josiah Bunting, chairman of the National Civic Literacy Board at ISI. The three branches of government aren't the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria?"

I overthought a couple of questions, I scored: You answered 25 out of 33 correctly — 75.76 %

Average score for this quiz during December: 75.0%
Average score: 75.0%

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/21/1458214

It would be amusing to require anyone running for office to take this test and post their scores.

Comments

[deborak]

that was fun. I got: You answered 31 out of 33 correctly — 93.94 %

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

It was certainly an intersting quiz.

[wuglet.livejournal.com]

Ok, as a German I score higher than the average US citizen, then... I scored 66.67%.
And that without me knowing anything about some Someone vs. Someone else laws, or knowing too much about economy matters...

[thedragonweaver.livejournal.com]

"You answered 32 out of 33 correctly — 96.97 %"

I missed the last one because I didn't read through all the answers before selecting. I think I can see where most people screw up— the quotations and cases are easily confused by those who don't look at them too closely. I come from a tradition where precision and accuracy are key, so if I got those wrong I would feel very foolish.

[silveradept]

31 of 33, but some of those questions had a serious ideological slant to them, like the assumption that free market systems are superior to central market planning, and other such things that probably are not properly called "civics".

[fastlearner.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[thedragonweaver.livejournal.com]

Yeah... the process to overturn a veto would be a better question than 'what to do in a recession'.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Veto process definitely would be interesting, especially with the Dems unable to attain a supermajority. Of course, that assumes no defections from either party.

I never was a civic minded kinda person. :)

[gnarlock.livejournal.com]

You answered 24 out of 33 correctly — 72.73 %

Average score for this quiz during December: 74.9%
Average score: 74.9%