Civics Quiz

On November 22, 2008 somebody posted this to a message board:

Fully 71 percent of Americans flunked a 33-question civic-literacy survey conducted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Among 2,508 respondents ISI randomly selected, 1,791 failed this test of U.S. historical, political, and economic basics. The average score was just 49 out of 100 a solid F. While just 2.6 percent scored Bs on this quiz, only 0.8 percent earned As.

http://www.isi.org/quiz.aspx?q=FE5C3B47-9675-41E0-9CF3-072BB31E2692

Average score for this quiz during November: 78.0%

I took the quiz and then wrote:

28/33 84.85% I guess that is a B!

I missed these ones: 4,7,27,30,33.

Three of them economic questions, how embarrassing!

I was tricked by the last question and I'm not fully sure I understand the other two.

People on the internet must know more. The average score dropped to 77.9%. Don't blame me!

Someone else wrote:

I notice they disguised a bunch of unproven pro-free-market propaganda as fact in there.  And some of the wrong answers look a lot like DNC talking points.

I responded with:

I was thinking the same thing. How dare they teach true economic theory!

The next day I wrote:

The average is down to 77.6.

4) If I were familiar with the debates, I might have known the answer. I did pick morality. Now it seems likely, that most would have considered it immoral, but I'm sure southerners used some moral arguments to defend the practice.

7) Perhaps the exact words were in the Gettysburg Address, but don't the introduction to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence have similar notions?

14) Did Puritans oppose all wars?

27) I missed this one and I don't think I fully understand it. Isn't it true that "more tax revenue can be generated from free enterprise"? Apparently the correct answer is "the price system utilizes more local knowledge of means and ends." Now I agree that the government would not do as good at determining prices, but I'm not sure if only local knowledge is important. This answer sounds good also: "property rights and contracts are best enforced by the market system" but perhaps the government is better able to enforce laws, and would boundaries be more fickle under the market?

30) "decreasing taxes and increasing spending" Are we to assume that expenses are higher than revenues? Is government spending effective at bringing an economy out of a recession? Does the question ask, which policy is best or which is a government likely to choose? It seems the government would always choose higher spending, no matter the economic condition.

33) I overlooked that just because this year is equal, doesn't mean all of our past debt is erased. Also I didn't consider the "per person" aspect of the correct answer and just assumed that some people would be paying an unequal about of taxes to spending.

My comment that:

It seems the government would always choose higher spending, no matter the economic condition.

Led to this response:

This brings to mind a ludicrous piece on the BBC today. They interviewed a load of pressure groups about what the UK government should do about the credit crisis, and "amazingly" all of them advocated increased government spending on their own pet projects. This was then used by the BBC to show that the conservatives are wrong when they advocate caution in raising expenditure, which comes from present or future taxation.

What the BBC didn't notice is that those pressure groups invariably advocate increased government expenditure on their pet projects, and therefore their current advocacy of that is in no way indicative of what anybody thinks the best response to the credit crisis is. They were too busy rubbishing the right to realize the empty bankruptcy of their story.

In response to my comment:

I overlooked that just because this year is equal, doesn't mean all of our past debt is erased. Also I didn't consider the "per person" aspect of the correct answer and just assumed that some people would be paying an unequal amount of taxes to spending.

Someone wrote:

As did I.  The "correct" answer was true, because it was simple restating the question with a constant divisor added to each side of the equation. So trivial that most people who missed the question had looked for a deeper meaning, then translated "debt" to "deficit" to make A correct.

In response to this question:

Did Puritans oppose all wars?

Someone wrote:

Considering Oliver Cromwell was a Puritan, no.

Someone else said:

You might be thinking of the Quakers.

The introduction to the quiz says:

Full Civic Literacy Exam (from our 2008 survey)

Are you more knowledgeable than the average citizen? The average score for all 2,508 Americans taking the following test was 49%; college educators scored 55%. Can you do better? Questions were drawn from past ISI surveys, as well as other nationally recognized exams.

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Inc. (or ISI), is a nonprofit educational organization that promotes conservative thought on college campuses.  It lists the following six as its core beliefs: limited government, individual liberty, personal responsibility, the rule of law, free-market economics, and traditional Judeo-Christian values.

I took the quiz again today and scored 29 out of 33 or 87.88%.  I missed questions about the Anti-Federalists, free market securing economic prosperity, Douglas & Lincoln debates, and another on taxes and spending.