I got 12/13. I got the Dow question wrong. And I got absolutely slaughtered on this week’s Slate news quiz, I usually do pretty well on those.
I got #1 wrong and all the rest right (I waffled, I should have gotten it).
I think the key to my success is that I’m good at taking tests, not that I follow the news closely. Cuz I don’t.
Exactly. I have no clue what Nigeria’s population looks like, but the graph shows a steadily decreasing distribution of population from 0 years old to 100 years old, which to me indicates the population distribution I would expect in a poor country, with more kids dying off in infanthood and young age. Note that America’s largest age group is 50-54. The country in question’s is 0-4. All signs point to a country where it’s more and more difficult to live into middle age and beyond.
Even if you don’t know that, looking at the answers using a bit of game theory should kind of give you a “one of these things is not like the other” feeling, which would lead you to Nigeria.
They usually have a mix of serious news and more fluff pieces. Ken Jennings wants you to be well-rounded! I like the quiz because it matches you up against regular people and someone from Slate’s staff. The main editors and ones in charge of political news usually score pretty well. The specialized editors like the lifestyles blog usually not so well. Here’s a link to some of the past ones, they’re a lot of fun
12/13 - Got the first one wrong: I was torn between minimum wage and gay marriage, and picked the first because I didn’t remember Iowa having gay marriages.
I got 12/13 but I made a slightly educated guess on the women in congress one, and a near shot-in-the-dark guess on the Yahoo CEO, although I think there was some inkling in the back of my mind on who she was, so maybe I really did know it and it wasn’t just a lucky guess.
I am shocked that anyone could miss the Dow Jones one honestly, 4 didn’t look right at all to me. I don’t follow the stock market closely at all, have no investments, etc, but to me that was definitely a “gimme.”
The one I missed was women vs men getting college degrees, and I waffled on this one for a very long time before choosing incorrectly. I couldn’t remember if women had surpassed men or were getting close or what, but I do remember the news about it, just not well enough to get the question right.
The Nigeria one was bogus and I only got it because it was definitely a “one of these things is not like the other.” If they had listed 3 “poor” countries I would have had no idea. But I could eliminate Japan right away because I know they have an “aging” population. I know Europe in general has this problem as well to a lesser extent, and figured Israel would probably have plenty of older folks. (I think Israel was the other choice?) But yeah, I haven’t heard any news at all about Nigeria’s population demographics so I don’t think that one had anything to do with your News IQ.
All the others were a cinch for me.
I got the Dow one right because I knew the market had gone down in 2008, but hadn’t stayed mostly down for nearly 3 years per choice #4. Hence #1 was the only option.
I was shocked to get 13/13. I sorta guessed on the women in Congress one (although I figured the percentage would be low), and like drewtwo99, just reasoned out the Nigeria one.
They say that the comparison data is from a telephone survey. Bwuh? Several of the questions are visual.
13/13 - But I’m a news junkie.
And I usually do well at trivia, because I’m trivial.
8/13 - not bad for a Brit.
I can’t do faces. I always miss matching names and faces.
10/13
Missed 3, 5, & 6
12/13 here, with (of course) the Dow question being the one I missed. The only one I had to guess at was the “common core” question; I’ve honestly never heard that term before.
13/13. The only mild guess involved was Nigeria, but I’d seen graphs like that in Hans Rosling’s TED talks and figured it had to be somewhere in Africa.
You might recognize these charts from the Nigeria question - and get a little bit of a giggle from them too if you have the same juvenile sense of humor I do.