20/20
Did anyone else start off the survey with a cautious approach as if there were trick questions?
Could you say that impersonating Dr. Evil, please? 
More people know that India and Pakistan have a long standing conflict over the region of Kashmir than can find Sweden on a map?!?!? That blows my mind.
Certainly you know some very basic facts, though. For instance, you probably know which continent most major countries are located on, right? For instance, when asked to locate Israel, you must certainly be aware that Israel is in the Middle East. Two of the choices were at the south tip of Africa and South America, respectively. Clearly, they aren’t Israel. The two choices you’re left with are both in the Middle East, but even of you don’t recognize one of those countries as Saudi Arabia, it should be fairly common knowledge that Israel is a pretty small country, which makes it easy to pick it out from the two remaining choices.
Most of the geography questions can be answered with just the most basic of geographical knowledge and the process of elimination.
So?
Do people not learn outside of school anymore?
If the only education I ever got was from whatever I learned physically sitting in school K-12, I’d be a complete dumbass.
20/20.
How the hell can someone get those geography questions wrong, the way they were set up? I mean, you just ask me to point to Israel or Sweden on a map and I’d have to think about it a bit, but these were so obvious! There’d be one number in the general area and then the other 3 off on some other continent! I think the one for Isreal listed choices in South America, Africa, and a number that wasn’t even on the map!
And I cannot believe #11. Only 89% of Americans can find the United States on a map!!? I think this calls for a :dubious: :rolleyes: :wally.
20/20 I had no problem with Afghanistan. I looked it up on the CIA website right after 9/11.
I almost missed Argentina, for some reason, I’ve always mixed it up with Chile. I actually thought I was choosing it wrong, but I got it right… how mixed up is that!
In case anyone doesn’t have and wants the CIA factbook site
In the survey, yes. In Trivial Pursuit or day to day living, not so easy.
I got Afghanistan wrong (I thought it was much further west than that) but got Israel right (I’m pretty good with the biblical countries). I got Sweden wrong (thinking that only Finland and Norway were in that part of Scandinavia) and a couple of others I just guessed but got right.
The concentration of countries in Europe and the Middle East and Eastern Europe often confuse me. I wouldn’t know Turkey from the Czech Republic, or for that matter Paraguay from Nicaragua. Or the Ivory Coast from Cameroon.
I’m easily confused by a lot of places.
I can see some Christian hackles raising because some people don’t think it’s the biggest religion in the world…
My reasoning was that there are a whole lot of people in China and maybe their government doesn’t report numbers on religion adequately, being Communist and all.
I’m ashamed at how badly Great Britain did in locating the various countries, some really poor scores cropping up there, especially bad when you consider how easy most of them were to get just by knowing the general area, and there being no other similar numbers nearby. All in all, a :smack: for my runaway self-esteem on British general knowledge.
20/20
I’m shocked at how many dopers got Sweden wrong. I’ve been there and I have very good friends in neighboring countries so I got it without looking at the other choices, but I’ve inferred from this thread that the other choices weren’t Norway or Finland :smack:.
I can understand some of the countries in the survey needing to worry about oh, you know, basic infrastructure and running water before needing to care which world religion has the most adherents, but I’m embarassed of America’s answers. We have no excuse.
20 out of 20 here. I had to guess which was Sweden, but I knew it was one of three that make the floppy dick on the Euro. 
One thing I noticed that if a question affected a nation, that nation had more people who knew the answer.
My main beef was why Italy was number 1?
19/20 (the el-nino question was badly worded).
42% of Americans didn’t know that Al-Qeda and the Taliban weren’t Afghanistan based?? 
It might be the case that some Dopers think this community is a microcosm of the world at large, hence the surprise.
That makes no sense at all. It’s not as if there are more Muslims than Christians here.
Nor do any but the most naive (read: ignorant) atheists believe we outnumber Christians, which seems to be your implication.
Maybe there are a lotta Led Zeppelin fans taking the survey.
A double negative. On purpose?
I find both fairly claims fairly suspect. When exactly are we talking about?
Taliban has strong roots in Pakistan. After being rooted from Afghanistan the Taliban is arguably a stronger movement in Pakistan than in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda is, as far as it can be said to exist at all, a highly decentralized organization. At some point it used Afghanistan. But base? Its ideological wellspring is more Saudi Arabia. None of the 9/11 terrorists, or any of the terrorists involved in the embassy & Cole bombings that preceded it, were Afghans.
China is the joker. They don’t seem to be represented in that pie-chart at all. What religion is the majority of those billion+ Chinese classified under? Buddhist or Atheist?
Incidentally, here’s Kevin Kelly from Wired with a prediction:
“China will be considered a Christian nation, with at least 33% of its residents identifying themselves as Christians, by the year 2085.” : http://www.longbets.org/119