Our Fading Heritage: Americans Flunk the Test

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US elected officials scored abysmally on a test measuring their civic knowledge, with an average grade of just 44 percent, the group that organized the exam said Thursday.

Ordinary citizens did not fare much better, scoring just 49 percent correct on the 33 exam questions compiled by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) .

"It is disturbing enough that the general public failed ISI's civic literacy test, but when you consider the even more dismal scores of elected officials, you have to be concerned," said Josiah Bunting, chairman of the National Civic Literacy Board at ISI.

"How can political leaders make informed decisions if they don't understand the American experience?" he added.

The exam questions covered American history, the workings of the US government and economics.

College educators scored only 55%.

Take the quiz here.

Comments

[scp]

I missed #8 and #30 on my first (and only) try. The results page said: "You answered 31 out of 33 correctly — 93.94 %. Average score for this quiz during November: 77.9%. Average score: 77.9%."

[scp]

The questions might not appear in the same order each time the quiz is taken.

[Yaeli]

Mazal tov to scp. S/He did better than I did, and I thought I was so smart! Yael.