Inspired by Shrinking Violet in this thread, I went to maps.com and played the game where you locate countries on a map (click on the globe to choose) to see how well I did.
My scores were, as follows:
Canadian and American Provinces and States: 57/62 (Damn Maritimes) Central and South America: 19/25 (Countries north and south of Brazil got me) Europe: 23/30 (Baltic states. What else?) The Former USSR: 6/15 (Central Asia and Eastern Europe combined. Ow.) Southeast Asia: 20/20 (I surprised myself a little at that) Middle East and North Africa: 19/22 (Yemen, Syria, and the UAE) Sub Saharan Africa: 9/42 (Not a surprise at all)
All together, I got 153/216 at an average of 71% and I’m only a stupid American. How did the rest of you do?
USA & Canada - 52/62
Latin America - 20/25
Europe - 27/30
Russia & Near Abroad - 9/15. Ouch. All the -stan countries got me pretty mixed up.
Monsoon Asia - 13/20 . No excuse.
Middle East and N. Africa - 18/22
Sub-Saharan Africa - 30/42
So…169/216. Better in some areas than I expected, worse in others.
North America: 60/62, and I blame one of those on my mouse. I know the difference between Michigan and Wisconsin, dammit!
Latin America: 23/25. So that’s where Honduras is!
Europe: 30/30. Had to stop and think about a few of them (is Slovakia the east one or the west one?)
Russia and the 'stans: 14/15. Got lucky.
Asia: 20/20
North Africa & ME: 22/22. Thank you BBC and CNN.
Sub-Saharan Africa: 25/42. Ouch. Sorry about that.
I mixed up Benin and Togo ( full-on error, I actually thought Benin was the skinniest ), Sierra Leone and Liberia ( less forgivable, I know Siera Leone is based on the one big mountain and the country kind of looks it ), Lesotho and Swaziland ( I simply forgot and guessed on those ). Otherwise, I was perfect.
I’ll also admit that if they included more small Pacific island nations like Kiribati, Vanuatu and Nauru, I probably wouldn’t fare as well on those.
USA/Canada - Perfect. Northwest Territories almost got me.
Latin America - Perfect. Purely luck I got the Guyanas right.
Europe - Perfect. I better get that. European History was my major.
Former USSR - 12/15. Those ones between Russian and Afghanistan are just a bunch of names to me. I need a mnemonic for them.
Monsoon Asia - Perfect. Nothing too hard there.
Middle East - Perfect. Just not enough countries to be hard. Like the one above.
Sub-Saharan Africa - 23/42. The bigs ones are pretty easy and a few of those in the news like Liberia and Ivocry Coast I got but all those little ones and those countries above South Africa are just names to me.
North America: 62/62
Latin America: 25/25
Europe: 29/30 goddam Balkans.
Russia: 15/15
Monsoon Asia (is that really a term?): 20/20
Middle East & N. Africa: 22/22
Africa: 19/42 Ouch.
North America 57/62 (I’m not good with the midwest, I’m a Canuck)
Latin America 23/25
Europe 28/30
Russia, etc. 14/15
Asia 19/20
Middle east & North Africa 21/22
Africa 30/42 (I was lucky to get that, made a few lucky guesses)
192/216
I think if we go to answers I actually knew my score would drop to about 175-180 or so.
North America: 62/62
Latin America: 24/25 - mixed up Colombia & Bolivia, dammit. :smack:
Europe: 29/30 - Slovenia? Slovakia? whatever
Russia: 10/15 - I really thought I knew my -stan’s better
Monsoon Asia: 20/20
Middle East & N. Africa: 22/22
Africa: 40/42 - When did Zaire change it’s name back to Congo?!?
I’m feeling VERY stupid. I’m not even going to post my scores.
AND I’m a foreign policy major too. I could have named the capitals, currency, major religions, form of government, and usually head of state for most of those countries, but apparently I can’t tell them apart on a map…
:rolleyes: So, tell me, why oh why do we get 62 questions (30%) on the little bits of the USA and Canada? Do I expect you to now the individual states of any other collections of united states or Federations? Mexico or Australia? India? No, just the *&(&ing USA. It is such cultural arrogance that drives us crazy…
It hasn’t - it changed it’s name back to the Democratic Republic of the Congo - the Congo is different and to the north-west of the DRG. But if it wasn’t for you I could at least have claimed the best African score so far, rats! As I come in pretty pathetic:
North America 24/62
Latin America 18/25 (sure wish I’d studied Latin at school now )
Europe 30/30
Russia etc 13/15
South East Asia 20/20 (but, sorry, Kashmir is **not ** a separate country)
Middle-East 22/22
Africa 35/42
162/216 - 75% overall - but 89% if USA and Canada counted as just two countries rather than 102…
Of course they would. One of this company’s major customers are American school districts. These games are almost certainly meant for the use of those kids not us bored adults. Well either them or who’s ever in charge of purchases for that district.
My maps in junior high had Lahaina and Kaunakakai on them. We studied hualalai and kilauea. We learned our 8 major islands. Most people in the other 49 states have never learned any of that. Instead they learned about whatever it was that made up their states. That’s the nature of school geography.
So, your from Hawaii right? Let me get this right, you learn your own state’s geography at school?!? Weird. Surely that is just absorbed through general knowledge…
There must be a cultural thing going on here. When I was at school in the UK we learnt all about Nigerian physical and human geography for a year - I do not recall ever learning, say, the geographical features of the UK in class. We learnt **world ** geography.
This test may be for US schools but all I was suggesting was that if it was run by an Icelandic schools project it would take a more, how shall we say, ***worldly ** * viewpoint rather than ask folk to name all the fjords or whatever. No?
I’m not sure this is too unusual. I lived in Ohio and Florida when I was going to school. I remember learning both Ohio and Florida geography, both politcal and physical. I also remember learning the Hawaiian islands, Alaskan geography, and Canadian geography.
As I come in pretty pathetic: