# Poll revealing ignorance of Americans

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-revealing-ignorance-of-americans/83574>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [September 24, 2001, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-revealing-ignorance-of-americans/83574 "2001-09-24T22:53:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Danimal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@Danimal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danimal)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2001, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-revealing-ignorance-of-americans/83574/21 "2001-09-25T17:14:08Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by John Corrado \*  
> Did you remember Alaska and Hawaii?
> 
> If not, if you just circled the continental United States, then congratulations! You don’t know where the U.S. is on a map. Because that’s the criteria used for the test. 96% of students could find the continental U.S.; but about half of those students forgot to also circle Hawaii and Alaska. Ergo, half of our students don’t know where the U.S. is on a map. \*\*

Aha! I understand now.

But the standard seems arbitrary. American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico are all United States territory, aren’t they? Why shouldn’t we be required to circle them too? And if only the 50 States of the Union count, then you’d have to leave out the District of Columbia, which I assume is included in most people’s circle.

Danimal (who’s not quite sure where American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands are).

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**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2001, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-revealing-ignorance-of-americans/83574/22 "2001-09-25T18:52:33Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by nineiron \*  
> **how many people will, just to mess with the pollster’s head (or to be funny, I suppose) respond to this rather obvious question with, “Uh, duh, I don’t know”?**

I think your point is valid, but I will say that well-designed polls can correct for this stuff, for instance by asking really bizarre questions. If they get equally bizarre answers to the control questions, they know the participant is either psychotic or playing with them.

–Cliffy

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**Author:** ![gellfex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9a140/32.png) [@gellfex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gellfex)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2001, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-revealing-ignorance-of-americans/83574/23 "2001-09-25T19:14:17Z")

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While I am at least as dubious of some polls and their methods as the next guy, from the wording of the original article above and the NSF report in the link, it sounds like it was a multiple choice. they tend to be less manipulable to trick questions such as the map thing and yields more meaningful statistics.

As for the Jaywalking, of course we know most people get these questions right. What’s troubling is that ANY adult citizen can not know, for example of one I saw, that the US and Japan once fought a war. But I guess that would involve watching black & white movies, which are well known to our youth to suck.(again, I kid not!)

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