How well informed are you about American history and political concepts?

http://www.isi.org/quiz.aspx?q=FE5C3B47 ... 2BB31E2692

Here is a not-so-encouraging study of the average scores of various demographics, including Harvard graduates:

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/20 ... ml#table21

I scored a 95%.

75.76% or 25/33.

I'm a born and bred Canadian citizen. Mind you, we get quite a fair injection of American history (or, at least, its overlap with Canadian history) in the elementary and secondary school curriculums.

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Real power cannot be given, it must be taken.

Probably due to a familial/genetic tendency of "Yeah, Lincoln? Fuck that guy."

Seriously, though, this "Intercollegiate Studies Institute" claims only 55% of "college educators" ( that phrase can include T.A.'s, for fuck's sake ) pass?

Let's see, who is this ICS?
Ah, it was founded by Frank Chodorov and William F. Buckley. A paleocon stink-tank/reeducation camp.
Readers may draw their own conclusions.

Shit, man. All I know about Canadian history is that you freed yourselves in glorious revolt from the evil Brewmeister Smith, led by the Heroes, gay-married brothers Bob and Doug McKenzie, in the Hockey Wars. You are now lead by their adopted son, Glorious Leader Stephen Harper, who also starred in Easy Rider.

That's a ... strange selection of questions. Also, the conservative bias is extremely evident in the later questions.

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"Spare me your space age technobabble, Atilla the Hun." -Zap Brannagan

"It means they could've done some freaky human/demon hybrid thing." -Nightstalker, on Nazis

Yeah. As I covered in my earlier post, this is a conservative "think(heh!)"-tank pushing out quizzes and "factoids" to advance a conservative agenda.

24/33. Though I am Canadian, and did not study U.S in school that much.

100%, but some of those questions were all kinds of vague and required guessing the test-writer's intent, rather than deducing the correct answer. And yes, I noticed a conservative bias in a few of the wordings and answer selections.

Should the average American be embarrassed that I got 91%, despite the fact that I couldn't care about what a bunch of yanks do, or their constitution? Two of the three questions I got wrong were basically "What did some old guy I don't care about argue about with some other old guy I don't care about, before I was even born?"

"College educators scored 55%" Oh crap Forget embarrassed, try absolutely humiliated.

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“I am the King of Rome, and above grammar”
Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor

I got a 90.91 percent. So score one for Americans.

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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed,or numbered. I am a free man. My life is my own" Number 6
The Prisoner

100%!

Good on me. Thankfully I did a semester of American History last semester.

78.79% 26/33 correct. No surprise to me, the questions I got wrong were mainly the business related ones, the other was where "Government of the people, by the people, for the people" came from.

All in all, nobody here has any reason to fail this thing if they even pretended to pay attention in school. Or they're pant-on-head retarded. I think the vast majority of Americans ignored the former, and actively embrace the latter out of patriotism.

Its been awhile since I've read the Gettysburg Address. Other than that, I really don't see HOW the average score could be so low. The questions are not hard.

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If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything.

100%.

Some of the questions are odd, though. Particularly the question about Aquinas and Socrates.

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"You can't hammer tin into iron, no matter how hard you beat it, but that doesn't mean that tin is worthless."
-Jon Snow, A Game of Thrones

"I prefer my history dead. The dead sort is written in ink, the living in blood."
-Rodrik Greyjoy, A Song of Ice and Fire

Do they teach "stupid memes about economics that were never true" in that class or how did you manage a perfect score on the later questions?

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http://www.politicalcompass.org/test
Economic Left/Right: -7.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.74

This is pre-WWII. You can sort of tell from the sketch style, from thee way it refers to Japan (Japan in the 1950s was still rebuilding from WWII), the spelling of Tokyo, lots of details. Nothing obvious... except that the upper right hand corner of the page reads "November 1931." --- Simon_Jester

I found that one straightforward. Anyone who has read those four philosophers should know the answer immediately, and even someone who is only loosely familiar with who they were should be able to derive it by elimination.

http://www.isi.org/quiz.aspx?q=FE5C3B47 ... eSupport=1


You answered 29 out of 33 correctly — 87.88 %

Missed on the definition of the Puritans, and how the Electoral college works.

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Photography
Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

78.79 %

Which is more a comment on how lucky I am guessing since as a brit my american history consisted of some stuff on the slave trade and civil war.

90, missed on bill of rights, abortion and why communism is bad

Can someone explain this one to me?

Question: If taxes equal government spending, then:
Your Answer: government debt is zero
Correct Answer: tax per person equals government spending per person on average

Aren't both true?

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Anonymous facebooker on the "Snowmageddon" February 2010 DC snowstorm:

The government still has debt even if revenue and expenditures are equal for a given year.

If the Federal government balanced its budget tomorrow, we'd still have a fairly large debt to pay off.

87.88%

I have a feeling the average tests results they show are just made up, because really, come on, some random Pole scored so high yet college educators get 55%? No fucking way.

EDIT:

Also, - knowledge about the space program and thinking capitalism is awesomesauce = civics literacy

100%.

And I'm a College student so that is depressing if they have the 55% as true.

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SDNW5: Republic of Arcadia...Sweden in SPAAACE

32 out of 33.

I really doubt that 55% of college educator were wrong on that.

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Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
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"You know, you insist government is depraved for not legislating against what we can see on newsstands, or what we can see in an art exhibit, or what we can burn in protest, or which sex we can have sex with, or a woman's right to choose, but don't you dare try to regulate this deadly weapon I have concealed on me, for that would encroach against my freedom!"
- Sam Seaborn
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Et si omnes ego non