SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation reports:
Just a third of Americans can pass a multiple choice "U.S. Citizenship Test", fumbling over such simple questions as the cause of the cold war or naming just one thing Benjamin Franklin is famous for.
And of Americans 45 and younger, the passing rate is a tiny 19 percent, according to a survey done for the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.
Worse: The actual test only requires that 60 percent of the answers be correct. In the survey, just 36 percent passed.
Among the embarrassing errors uncovered in the survey of questions taken from the U.S. Citizenship Test and conducted by Lincoln Park Stragtegies:
- 72 percent of respondents either incorrectly identified or were unsure of which states were part of the 13 original states.
- 24 percent could correctly identify one thing Benjamin Franklin was famous for, with 37 percent believing he invented the lightbulb.
- 12 percent incorrectly thought WWII General Dwight Eisenhower led troops in the Civil War.
- 2 percent said the Cold War was caused by climate change.
Also at Sputnik and The Tri-City Herald
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
1-in-3 Pass `US Citizenship Test,' Just 19% for Americans 45 and Younger
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 112 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Remember Darwin; building a better mousetrap merely results in smarter mice.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Friday October 05 2018, @12:28AM (3 children)
A set of commonly known facts is completely unlike some random factoid of zero insignificance. Anyone can study for the former, nobody remotely cares about the latter.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 05 2018, @01:47PM (2 children)
Commonly known facts change. I was taught in school that Columbus discovered the New World. Now we know the first Europeans to discover the New World were the vikings a thousand years earlier. I was taught in school that Indians had crossed the Bering Strait 10,000 years ago following woolly mammoths. Now we have abundant archaeological evidence that humans have been in the Americas for far longer than that, and may even have come in waves by more than one path. I was taught in school that the Founding Fathers crafted the Constitution of the United States from scratch. Now I know they borrowed quite a bit from the Iroquois' Great Law of Peace. I was taught in school that Cro-Magnons exterminated Neanderthals 50,000 years ago. Now we know from DNA evidence they interbred with them, and with another extinct human species called the Denisovans. I was taught in school that the Anasazi of the Southwest vanished without a trace a thousand years ago. Now we know they didn't go anywhere, we just call them Puebloans now.
Those are just a handful off the top of my head. There are scads more from the realms of medicine, chemistry, etc., etc. When we consider all those, we can perhaps forgive ourselves a little for getting quiz questions of this nature wrong.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday October 05 2018, @02:19PM (1 child)
But they change slowly enough that one can always study the current state of human understanding which is a totally different thing than remembering your breakfast from 65 days ago.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 05 2018, @02:45PM
See, I think it's all a palimpsest. It's a stream of information in which the oddest things stick around, and things which you would think everyone remembers are forgotten. Say "zeppelin," and to a man the audience will conjure up the flaming horror of the Hindenburg, and will utter, "Oh the humanity!" in a Pavlovian manner. But they'll never draw the same association with the hundreds of flaming wrecks of 747s with far greater loss of life.
Does that mean we're stupid, or that we're efficient at discarding knowledge we don't consider relevant to our lives in favor of information we do? I know I don't know.
Washington DC delenda est.