Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Thursday October 04 2018, @09:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the 19-percent dept.

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


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 05 2018, @02:12AM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 05 2018, @02:12AM (#744460)

    Problem is that those very folks are the opinionated ones. Look at some of the late night talkshow hosts when they go asking in the street about issues. Oh yes, South Burundi is a credible threat to USA security, we should really bomb them... oh, where on the map ... here? No, that's Canada. And enough of these morons scream and someone else's country is f*cked thanks to USAian policy. And you wonder why some chant what they chant and burn the flag. There should be an IQ test to vote (all countries).

  • (Score: 1) by r_a_trip on Friday October 05 2018, @09:00AM (6 children)

    by r_a_trip (5276) on Friday October 05 2018, @09:00AM (#744557)

    There should be an IQ test to vote (all countries).

    That kills democracy instantly. You'd have a fairly small elite installing a "council" of their most admired brethren. Ideals aside, I'm not convinced it would be worse than what we have now.

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Friday October 05 2018, @11:53AM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Friday October 05 2018, @11:53AM (#744582)

      You've just described what we have now, pre-Trump?

    • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday October 05 2018, @01:01PM (2 children)

      by deimtee (3272) on Friday October 05 2018, @01:01PM (#744593) Journal

      I like Heinlein's idea. Anyone can vote. You walk into a booth, solve a simple quadratic equation, it gives you a ballot paper, and you make your choices.
      If you fail to solve the equation, a trapdoor in the floor opens and you are never heard from again.

      --
      If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 05 2018, @05:52PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 05 2018, @05:52PM (#744725)

        Can you open the trapdoor yourself, if the choices on the ballot drive you to despair?

    • (Score: 1) by ChrisMaple on Saturday October 06 2018, @02:22AM (1 child)

      by ChrisMaple (6964) on Saturday October 06 2018, @02:22AM (#744925)

      Although an IQ test to be eligible to vote is a bad idea, the claim "That kills democracy instantly" is false. The IQ test to vote idea does little damage; it causes a problem only if the cutoff is too high. The goal is to keep the truly stupid from voting, this can be achieved with a cutoff of 70 or thereabouts.

      More than lack of intelligence, ignorance and belief in the patently false causes bad results at the ballot box. Trying to remove that via a test immediately gets into the territory of political opinion, and having the government test for political opinion is an open invitation to tyranny. There's no easy solution.

      • (Score: 1) by r_a_trip on Monday October 08 2018, @02:50PM

        by r_a_trip (5276) on Monday October 08 2018, @02:50PM (#745970)

        You think the problem lies with the group that has an IQ of 70 or lower? Most problems are cause by the average range of 85 to 115, simply because 68% of the population falls in this category. This is the group large enough to determine election outcome. When you say that ignorance is the killer, it is clear that an IQ between 85 and 115 isn't high enough to make informing oneself before making non-trivial decisions a default thing.