You answered 56 out of 60 correctly — 93.33 %
Not ashamed of that at all. All four wrong were econ q’s from the last 10 q’s. And I also though Q 60 was military.
B.A. in PoliSci Hanover College 1984.
Thanks for the link! I’ve been meaning to read this for a while.
I’m one of the 76%ers too. Should have known better on a couple of them, but some were items I’d either never learned or long ago forgotten. Of course, some of my right answers were educated guesses…
That particular test isn’t familiar to me, but it is certainly equivalent to what I remember. And I certainly agree that such tests, just like the one posted by the OP, do not measure intelligence or learning. All such tests are either factoid tests or at best skills testing. As the commentary in your link pointed out, just remembering some fact or rule doesn’t by itself mean much. That isn’t to say such tests are bad, but they are only useful in measuring how much information a student absorbed in a class. If the student was well-taught in class by a teacher that was able to teach the student how to think and reason, then testing the ancillary information that was also presented is a good way to determine how awake the student was. But one should not mistake the ancillary information as the point of the class.
81.67%, or 49 out of 60.
Pretty good for someone who’s government class was literally just a 100 question citizenship test and a test on the Constitution, both open book. (I had to take the class, but it wouldn’t fit in my schedule, so it was an independent study.)
85%, but I’ve been out of college for over 25 years and never studied Locke. Oh well…
76.67%
Not an American, never taken a course in American history, economics, philosophy or politics beyond the general interest level of self education. Most of my missed questions were about the facts and particulars of American history (Question 7, 10 and others of that type).
90% - not bad for a non-American.
Mine was better than I thought it would be in comparison to Harvard seniors. My score was 73.33. The last civics class I had was in 1957-58. And the electric shock therapy removed all traces of what’s-his-name’s economics class.
But I don’t think that I ever knew the answers to the ones that I missed – with the exception of two or three.
But I get pissed at that headline about how we are failing our kids because they score so low. What would happen if we put the blame on them for a while? Do college kids really have to be spoon fed everything?
I’m really impressed with the scores I see here – or, rather, the scores that I believe here. After a while, you get a feel for someone’s intelligence even though they may disagree with you. I’m especially impressed with those show-offs to the north of us. Go Canucks! (Seriously!)
It’s after three a.m. I’m 64, well-medicated, and at the bottom of the night’s liquid refreshment. But I can still do better on a civics test than the average Harvard senior. I can’t tell you how good for the soul that is.
Well, my WAG is that we’re failing them because we deem their lack of knowledge acceptable enough to still hand out diplomas. We’re failing them because we aren’t teaching them well enough (or at all) for the information to be absorbed.
Of course, none of this indicates how productive an employee you’re going to be, but it is sad that so many foreigners have better knowledge of American civics than our college students do. I do wonder how much test fatigue is reflected in those scores though.
52/60 - 86.67% - not bad for a Brit.
You answered 31 out of 33 correctly — 93.94 %
Answers to Your Missed Questions:
Question #10 - C. Religion -
Question #33 - D. tax per person equals government spending per person
Well, I confused the 1st and 3rd amendments, and assumed no gov’t debt to begin with.
Note: this thread is 9 months old.
I got 93%, but my test was only 33 questions. Where’s this 60-question test y’all found?
I got 100% on the 33 question test – but I admit some of them were educated guesses.
32/33. Missed the one about Socrates, Aristotle, et al…
The questions are different from the first time. Weird. I got 100% this time, although I’m not sure I agree with number thirty.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
94%, I thought I’d probably score about average amongst the masses here.
This is not the same quiz people seem to be talking about in the OP, which was posted April '08 and apparently had 60 questions and was hard. It’s an easier 33 question quiz.
96.97%
I missed Question 7 (“government of the people, by the people, and for the people”).
Wow, I thought myself pretty ignorant, but I got a 90.91%.