Take the Civics Test

[barondave]

A serious set of 33 questions developed by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute America Civics Literacy Program.

Civics Test

I got 29/33. A couple of my wrong answers were acceptable, I think. Though 88% isn't as high as I'd want, the average American scores 49%. Which is sad.

You?

Comments

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

31/33--I missed one economics and one FDR question, which is what I predicted as I took the test. Neither economics nor FDR is my strong point. I thought the wording of a couple questions was odd, and it seemed a bit overweighted toward, yes, economics and FDR (I mean, considering the entire range of civic knowledge).

[jbru.livejournal.com]

I got 30/33 for 90.91%. I knew it was Washington's farewell address or Jefferson's letters that brought us separation of church and state, but guessed wrongly it was Washington. I don't think I ever knew how FDR handled recalcitrant Supreme Court Justices during the New Deal. And I mis-read something in the last question that got me to the wrong answer.

[poly-scott.livejournal.com]

Wow. I suck. You answered 27 out of 33 correctly — 81.82 % :(

[ann-totusek.livejournal.com]

Same as you. Misinterpreted two questions- Bay of Pigs actually occurred in 1961, so I picked East Berlin, also question of equal taxing and spending- I picked government debt being zero. I suppose would have more correctly stated that deficit was zero.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the second one is also one that vexed me, and I picked the wrong simplistic answer.

[pgdudda.livejournal.com]

31/33 for me. My main complaint is that the last third of the test took a left turn at Civics and wandered into Economics. Knowledge of Capitalist Theory is not the same as knowledge of Civics!

[ebongreen.livejournal.com]

I also got 29/33 because I got sloppy near the end. :-)

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

31 of 33.

B

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Yes, that was a sloppy question. I guessed right about what they meant, as this wasn't supposed to be a math test.

B

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I thought that odd, too.

B

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Still better than most.

[saracura.livejournal.com]

Guess I'm a bit dumber than the others here. I got 60%. I'm glad they had the answers. I see that I second guessed myself a few times. At least I learned something...

[calimac.livejournal.com]

I took this test once before. Got them all right. The only tough ones were the economic questions at the end, which I answered correctly by thinking, "What would a capitalist cant theorist want me to say?"

The way to deal with a multiple-choice question, when you couldn't already have given the answer offhand, is to start by crossing off the obviously wrong answers. Too many of these were obviously wrong, but not enough of them entertainingly so. (Questions 3 and 14 had the funniest wrong answers.)

[davidschroth.livejournal.com]

Given the distinct bias in the test, it's not totally clear what you might have learned...or that you're dumber than anyone else taking the test.

[hunnythistle.livejournal.com]

While I agree with you in theory, I don't find it at all odd. When I was grading standardized tests, the Social Studies sections always included economic questions. The correct answers, unfortunately, always determined according to the aforementioned Capitalist Theory. My take home message was that many of our states' education decision makers considered capitalist market precepts to be as important as the Constitution and other governing principles of the country.
I only got 29/33.

[enegim.livejournal.com]

31 out of 33. Insufficently indoctrinated on the economics.

Biased test in favor of free trade

[madtruk.livejournal.com]

You answered 31 out of 33 correctly — 93.94 %

Average score for this quiz during November: 78.1%
Average score: 78.1%

You can take the quiz as often as you like, however, your score will only count once toward the monthly average.