There’s a 20 question test that site visitors can take, and I sighed with relief that I got 19 of them right. However, I’ll admit that I guessed on 3 of them, and 2 were correct guesses. The 2 guesses I got right were chosen by a process of elimination (can’t be that country, or that, or that, must be this, and was right), and I’m shocked that I had to guess, because geography was one of my favorite subjects. The one question I got wrong was “Which of the following religions has the largest number of followers worldwide?” but I still think it was a trick question. :dubious:
It’s been a long long time since I’ve been in school, and when I went, geography was a separate subject. Is it not anymore? Would children still in school have a better chance than some young adults who’ve forgotten everything they ever learned about geography?
<yawn>Surveys have been reporting the same results for decades (literally – IIRC, a survey prior to WWI gave similar results), yet the US manages to muddle through. It’s really not that big an issue.
People have been complaining about the lowered quality of eduction in the US for decades. Somehow we manage.
Some of the results are embarrassing, from right round the world but particularly the States. You can excuse it all you want or say it doesn’t matter but I’d be ashamed.
And how is the religion question iffy or a trick? It’s a fact, plain and simple.
For me, managing isn’t enough. How can it be okay for us to settle for “just barely good enough”? Maybe I set my standards too high, but I’d like for the country to offer the finest education possible, not just the one that gets people to the point of muddling through.
19/20, and I got hung up on the religion question.
All of my geography knowledge has been self-taught. I never, ever had a class in geography in school. I am 32, so I was in school during the 80s in Texas, and to my knowledge, geography wasn’t even offered as an elective in my school. (And not to sound snotty, but I was on the honors track, where they try to pour as much college prep into you as they can.)
Geography was supposedly taught in social studies, but that was in middle school only (none in high school) and the teaching consisted of having us color a map every week or so. I have no idea if they’re teaching it these days or not.
So, yes, I had an absolute and complete lack of geographical knowledge that was embarrassing, so I bought a textbook and learned it on my own. The only reason I did so well on that quiz is because it really was pretty easy (side note: why do these tests always ask us to identify Italy? It’s the easiest one!). Any more difficulty and I would have done much worse.
Chuck, it’s true you guys have muddled along for years. You’ll probably continue to muddle on for years more too. The problem is that an ignorant electorate in a democracy will tend to choose a pretty horrible government. Ignorance isn’t the only thing that allows bad government, it’s not even prerequisite, but it is a big help.
Possibly, you believe knowledge of backward shitholes like the Mid-East or Africa are of little use or relevance to Americans but I think some Americans are starting to realise the people should have kept a closer eye on what your government was doing in places like that through the last couple of decades.
Anyway, I got 20/20 too but I’d like to see a similar test limited to US geography. I suspect the results would be similar to those of the international version.
20 of 20 no sweat. And these are bare-basics of physical and human geography.
If the complaint about the religion question is based on that this is not expected of a “geography” class, well, it is. Human a.k.a. Cultural geography relies on anthropological data as much as physical geography does on topographical mapping – the kind of thing that explains the movements of populations and why certain activities take place in certain places, and why some countries are founded where they are and some borders are not natural, e.g. the very existence of a Pakistan. Otherwise i do not know what would be dodgy about the question.
The survey shows that you’re not alone, it was one of the hardest-to-find ones. Seems like the land of the SAAB, Ikea and ABBA has to launch an invasion of somewhere soon, to get back in the headlines.
I always get the blond-people countries up there mixed up too, but the numbers given in the multiple choice were for countries all over the place.
Christianity always throws people. Gotta remember to count all them Orthodox and Lutherans and stuff, I guess. Islam is coming up but we had a 600-year headstart.
I didn’t thought it was pretty easy, but then I probably couldn’t name the state captials of the USA…but hey, how many Americans could name the counties of Ireland?
Sympathetic Dad here. My 16-year-old has the Family Guy first season. Mrs. Bob and I have watched most of it, and loved it. It’s irreverent, profane, absurd – all the good stuff.
That said, we won’t let the 13-year-old watch it. There’ll be plenty of time for her to wallow in it, *after * she’s been properly exposed to all that stuff on the street, where kids are supposed to be exposed to it.
We console her by letting her watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail, so long as someone is there to cover her ears during three seconds of the Castle Anthrax scene.