TheAgitator.com
Current Events Quiz
Monday, June 1st, 2009Only six percent of the public answered all 12 questions correctly.
Gives you some indication of why the state of public debate is the way it is.
90 Responses to “Current Events Quiz”
Leave a Reply
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Want to tell us your score, Radley?
>> You correctly answered 12 of the 12 possible questions along with approximately 6% of the public. You did better than 94% of the general public.
I aced it. Do I win a prize?
While proud to say I scored 100% correct, it’s only because I simply pay attention. Sad that only 6% of people in this poll even do that.
Ford has a line of credit – shouldn’t that count as a loan? I can see why so many didn’t score 100 percent.
No Lou, but you do need a life!
Jokingly said.
I scored 11 out of 12, but I guessed on two of them, so my honest score is probably 9. I not be 2 smert I gess.
I got 11/12, because I overestimated the US death toll in Iraq.
Actually, I’m pretty happy to have been wrong about that.
Look at the average score of a college grad. My God.
“Gives you some indication of why the state of public debate is the way it is.”
From Demographic Breakdowns, it looks like Women, the young and High School educated only are to blame. ;)
What’s really sad is that most Americans are unaware that there were bombs in the buildings on 9-11. Watch WTC 7 fall on youtube
Perhaps average political knowledge is low because people have started to notice that politicians don’t give a shit what they think, and therefore, knowing whether stooge A or stooge B decides how quickly to steal savings via inflation isn’t very useful knowledge.
Disclaimer: I scored 8/12. And I knew which stooge it was in my example.
My question is how do you get 12 out of 12 correct, but still end up in the 94 th percentile? What’s the differentiating statistic that puts me at level? Do I lose points based on age, sex, or degree? lol
I got one wrong…the Dow average.
“#6 | B | June 1st, 2009 at 2:06 pm
I got 11/12, because I overestimated the US death toll in Iraq.
Actually, I’m pretty happy to have been wrong about that”
I got the same, and missed the same question. I thought I recalled it topping 5K. Oh well, I don’t mind being wrong on that one.
Tests such as this one are misleading in some ways, because some of the questions assume that a knowledge of some specific numbers has something to do with understanding of the numbers’ significance. For instance, why is it important for a person’s understanding of Iraq to know that the U.S. deaths are about 4,300 instead of 5,300? You can still have a perfect understanding of what’s going on there, but not bother to memorize this sort of trivia. It’s much more enlightening to ask questions that reveal people’s understanding of the principles involved rather than trivial knowledge of numbers.
12 for 12, but was a bit lucky — guessed correctly on the last question.
I missed the dow question. Not bad for a high school drop out!
The results were actually better than I expected. All of the questions were answered correctly by more than half of the people asked. None of the questions was very obscure, but realistically, can you really expect a dude taking orders Chik-fil-a to know what government debt is, let alone which foreign country holds the largest percentage of it, or what the approximate value of the DJIA is? And, really, how can you convince that guy that paying attention to politics is a better use of his time than watching SportsCenter or American Idol? Even he knows that it is unlikely knowing who the Secretary of State is will ever have a meaningful effect on his life. And really, Mark Levin and Lou Dobbs would score 12/12 on that quiz–are their well informed opinions really helping the “public debate”?
Here’s Your Score: You correctly answered 12 of the 12 possible questions along with approximately 6% of the public. You did better than 94% of the general public.
::sings:: I am so smart! I am so smart! S-M-R-T! I mean S-M-A-R-T!
It seems that those who were most likely to Vote for Obama scored the worst.
I got 9 of 12, but only because the test is obviously biased. Against me. Personally.
Bah, more people died Iraq and Obama decided to increase while I wasn’t looking. Guess that speaks for itself but kind of the same thing/reason. I’m sure I’m one of many that is just too tired of reading about it anymore and JUST WANTS OUT.
Kind of weird to see being above in every Demo and still feel dumb for being numb.
Am I being a bigot if I point out the male-female disparity?
“The average man scored better than 52% of the public, while the average woman did better than 35%.”
Just wondering if their are any proposed explanations for this.
Full Disclosure: I got a 10/12, and missed 2 of the 3 “number” questions (# of deaths in the war, current Dow Jones average).
I got 12/12 but semi-guessed on Iraq deaths and whether China or the Saudis owned more of our debt. I think a person who got 7/12 but had general ideas about how governing should happen can still be a good citizen.
I missed two, but one was because I got tired of waiting for the screen to advance and hit the next button twice. Still I doubt I would have known that the national unemployment rate was 8% because I don’t pay attention to the MSM. Ten out of 12 = 69%. As someone said above, some of the facts are trivial. Also, I’m sure the numbers would be waaaAAAAyyyy different if this test was given to shoppers walking in and out of a Wal Mart instead of online linked through this website.
I can’t believe how easy some of those were. Anyone else wish they’d asked respondents if they vote?
I got 11/12 correct. I underestimated the death toll in the Iraq war.
11 of 12, also missed the the death count in Iraq. I picked 5300.
Also, please I was wrong on that.
I agree with N4. The results were actually pretty decent, considering that most people aren’t news junkies (unlike the readers of this blog). The one that people seemed to have the most trouble with was the number of soldiers killed in Iraq, the only one I had to semi-guess at.
The male-female breakdowns are interesting, especially the question about the Dow. 52% of men got that question right as opposed to 29% of women. That seems right to me. I’m sure my missus could expound on all manner of government policy, but I doubt she has much idea what the Dow is at now.
“I got 11/12, because I overestimated the US death toll in Iraq.
Actually, I’m pretty happy to have been wrong about that.”
Exact same results here.
The death toll in Iraq with four choices all in the 2000-6000 range?
I don’t think the correct answer rate to that question was particularly enlightening.
Unlike the other numeric questions (unemployment rate; DJIA approximation), all of the possible death toll answers are in a reasonably tight range and no particular answer, if correct, would say anything more or anything less about the U.S.’s Iraq policy.
The others might say something about how much one knows about current issues, but not that one. Unless the questions are meant as trivia, in which case – fair game.
Things I don’t know: I have no idea what the Dow is right now, I’ve never really followed it since I don’t have any investments.
12/12 … do I get a cookie?
Got 11/12; missed the question on national debt (thought Japan held more than China). I blame Jon Stewart for not being on last week – he’s my source for current news.
But at least I know the names of assassinated US Presidents, unlike these guys…
I got 12/12, but I agree that knowing all these details is not that important. They’re indicators of interest, not of knowledge. If you’re following economic stories, you’ve probably come across Geithner’s name enough times to remember it, but does it matter? You can have intelligent opinions about the economy without knowing who’s in charge at Treasury.
#11, Dante, the reason 12 out of 12 is considered the 94th percentile is that 6% of people who took the quiz also got 12 out of 12, thus indicating that 94% of people who took the quiz scored less than you.
Many good points have been made, such as the narrowness of the range of answers to the question about the deaths in Iraq.
I find it a bit scary that the results are this bad in a population that presumably was self-selected to take the test. This isn’t “a dude taking orders at Chik-Fil-A”; these are people who found the site, and had enough interest in the news to try the quiz.
I got 10 out of 12, but I completely guessed 3 or 4 of them (i.e. didn’t look up the answers and didn’t even know for sure).
So I -probably- knew 7 without looking anything up.
Sigh. Only 8 of 12. Got both the death toll in Iraq and the unemployment figure wrong (high). Missed the Timothy Geithner question and the which automaker hasn’t gotten any gov’t bailout one too.
The last one bugs me most out of the ones I missed as within the last week I’d known that little factoid but it had apparently dropped from my fading memory banks. In just a week. Damn.
I got 11 of 12. I picked 3300 for the number of soldiers kill in Iraq. That’s really embarrassing considering I’ve become totally against any war that doesn’t involve actually defending the U.S. from direct attack. Anti-war fanatics like me should know this stuff.
I’ll probably be better at remembering that number after it stabilizes on a final value and they’re all listed on a monument in Washington DC like the 58,000 for Vietnam.
I wish we’d stop fighting wars. Every war we fight to “defend freedom” results in less freedom.
I got 10 of 12 missed the unemployment rate and DJIA. I admit I don’t follow either of those stats.
Did anyone else notice how passively the questions were phrased? Many of them began “Do you happen to know…?” Of course an answer of “no, I don’t happen to know that.” would be perfectly correct if I in fact don’t know. But that of course was not what they were asking. I am not an expert on poll design, but I do have some background in testing and evaluation and that seems sloppy to me or designed to elicit certain responses over others. PEW always seemed to me to be tighter on their question phrasing than most.
Anyway smarter than me on polls know what’s up with that? Why not just ask “What is Giethner’s position?”
Few problems with the quiz …
1) Demographics can’t be relied upon because there is no way to begin to verify the choices people made.
2) For the questions that are numbers (how many deaths in Iraq, unemployment rate, etc.), the only thing accomplished is you chose the answer that matches the government/media lie.
If you look at the break-out results, it appears that young, under-educated girls are responsible for the poor overall results.
No, really, look at the results page again. Men did better than women and older did better than younger. There was also a category for college grad or not, but within the overall population, girls win, with more degrees awarded.
Obviously, giving women the right to vote was a bad idea.
Obviously, giving women the right to vote was a bad idea.
Finally, someone speaking some sense around here. Our country was so much better off when it was one giant sausage party.
9/12 and missed the three number questions (guessed 4% unemployment, Dow closer to 11000 than 8000. 3300 dead in Iraq. All wrong but not horribly so.) Not sure if there’s any meaning there for my opinions on public policy.
I got 12/12, but 2 were educated guesses. It doesnt matter, however, because my score will be declared invalid by the 2nd Circuit.
11 of 12, also thrown off by Ford. I agree w/ #4′s assertion.
You correctly answered 11 out of the 12 possible questions, which means you did better on the quiz than 82% of the general public.
Got the iraq one wrong. But I underestimated … haven’t really been keeping track of the wars since I am now unemployed. Which means the DOW and unemployment numbers I knew by heart.
11/12 – Didn’t know Ben Bernanke. But, hey, no guessing otherwise.
11 of 12 not too shabby since I have been working 90 hour weeks for the past three months.
Only a 10 out of 12.
I thought the Japanese still held the bulk of our debt, whoops.
I’ve already filed the number dead from the wars under “too many” so I haven’t been keeping up with the running total.
I said 5,600. I might be wrong today, but I won’t be wrong later.
N4,
While I agree that the results weren’t that bad (11/12 myself, missed the Iraq deaths one) Some questions were not answered correctly by a majority (Fed chair, DJIA and Iraq deaths).
I am calculating this by using men%+women%/2 on the breakdown by group.
12/12
What this proves is that democracy is a really bad idea. Most people barely make adequate decisions for themselves: why should they have the power to make decisions for me?
Just because you get to pick the dude who is currently screwing you over, doesn’t make you less screwed over.
11/12
screwed up the Ford question.
I am proud to say I did my part to increase the average for the high school only educated segment by scoring 100%.
Peter is right about the results, my mistake. Bill #36 is wrong though–it was a telephone survey. “Find out how your score compares with other Americans who took the test in our national telephone survey.” I should also apologize for my disparagement of Chik-fil-a. As fast food staff go, theirs is probably ahead of the curve in terms of current federal- and international-level political and economic awareness.
I got 10 out of 12. Missed the death toll in Iraq and missed the Dow Jones question.
I picked 3300 for Iraq and since I don’t dabble in the stock market I could give a shit what the number might be.
Bah, 9 of 12.
Went over on the Iraq death count, was surprised Barry is increasing troop numbers in Astan, and Hillary Clinton is apparently *not* the Ever-Thirsting-For-Blood, Flesh-Rending Beast From The 13th Hell Dimension.
12/12 for me too (but then I voted for McCain – not that I wanted him as President but he was clearly the lesser of 2 evils).
Oh, and Dave G -
“What’s really sad is that most Americans are unaware that there were bombs in the buildings on 9-11. Watch WTC 7 fall on youtube”
9/11 wasn’t an “inside job”. 19 murderous Muslims high-jacked 4 airplanes and incinerated 3000 people. Its that simple.
11/12, I blew the easiest one:
What job does Hillary Clinton currently hold?
I chose ‘Senator from NY.’
/facepalm
9/12.
Over on the death count, thought the unemployment was 12%, and while I was aware that Ford hadn’t been bailed out the way GM and Chrysler had, I thought they had gotten some assistance.
Googling it just now I find some snarky article at WSJ, where the writer complains that Ford is now ironically at a competitive disadvantage to the other two manufacturers. The writer boo-hoos, likening Ford to a home buyer who bought within his means and therefore isn’t eligible for any assistance.
I’m thinking that Ford’s shareholders still own their company, while GM’s and Chrysler’s were largely wiped out. Their “competitive advantage” is doing their former shareholders a fat lot of good. All sob stories considered, I’d still rather be a guy who bought Ford shares a year ago than a guy who bought GM or Chrysler.
11/12 (& not an american):
I agree that the numerical questions should’ve been orders of magnitude, (ie 43, 430, 4300 or 43000 killed).
Also I was a little annoyed by the too-clever trick questions, like putting someone’s previous job as a choice for their current job.
So not great, but not awful, and I agree with a lot of readers that I’d like to see this or a similar score attached to polls: “87% of people who believe in policy X, scored 40% or lower”
I missed the war casualties one, picked too high, otherwise they were all really easy questions.
12/12! Take that, current events, I showed you!
The one about “is the government trying to get banks to lend more/less money?” made me laugh, since there wasn’t an option for “hell if I know!”
That isn’t the percentage right, but your rank relative to others, you are in the top 6% who answered all 12 questions correctly.
You’re good with news…but numbers, not so much. :p
9 of 12
Ford didn’t receive any emergency funds? I call Bullshit.
Somebody got paid somewhere, somehow.
U.S. military deaths in Iraq? Well, I stopped counting long ago. Where was the option for “One too many” ????
Chairman of the US federal reserve? Okay, my bad. But I thought the question should’ve been, “Which of Obama’s cabinet didn’t cheat on his taxes?”… Yeah, Okay, I still would’ve gotten that one wrong.
Cheers.
9/12
didn’t know the DOW nor the deaths in Iraq, which, despite being German, I think I maybe should have known. Plus, I was unsure about Ford, but guessed that they did get a loan and I just missed it. I guessed wrong, apparently.
I did 11/12 as well. I missed this one:
6. As far as you know, which foreign country holds the most U.S. government debt?
I chose Japan cuz i figured they were trying to be tricky and china would have been way too obvious. I guess thats one over on me.
I got 12/12, and I’m Norwegian! ;) I was surprised at how easy these questions were, except for the industrial average where I had no idea and took a lucky shot.
I got 11/12. I’m not american, but I should be.
11/12 here. Missed the Ford answer as well.
Not that internet polls tell you anything worthwhile. A kid with a script could change what it reads within 15 minutes.
Still kinda fun.
Who cares? There’s no great virtue in “keeping informed” about a variety of things you have absolutely no power to change. I am unsurprised that the vast majority of Americans are too busy living their own lives, spending time with their own families, and doing things that make them happy, rather than spend a lot of time watching or reading the news. It’s a tedious spectator sport for most people.
11/12. Damn! Missed the automakers/”emergency loan” question. I guessed all.
JJH2 may have nailed it. If you are really smart, you’ve moved past paying attention to the circus show.
In other news, Czech youth are throwing eggs at their politicians. First, no one in America has the guts to do that. Second, US politicians are almost never within access of the population. Third, just think about the cops reaction (taze and beat) and then the terrorist charges.
I’m calling this one: Czech 1, America 0
Thanks, N4 (#55) for the clarification!
I scored 11/12 (82nd percentile). And I cheated on the Dow Jones (thanks, google!). I’m poor, I have no stocks, and the exact number is really not relevant to my life.
There is no reward for knowing how the world works. In most jobs, being delusional would help. People don’t like to have their delusions shattered. I scored 12/12.
Got 12/12. A educated guess on the Iraq war dead. My friends and family would get about 50% right unfortunately
Missed the one about unemployment percentage. I picked 12%, but I must have been thinking more about my local rate than nationwide.
11/12.
I didn’t know the unemployment rate.
Not bad for someone who was asked to leave high school their junior year.
(ok I got my GED and went to college but I was a high school dropout)
12 of 12. I’m proud to be doing my part to make the “some college” folks look good.
I’m a woman with only a high school education and I got all 12 correct.
A big round of applause for the lady on stage two…. WINDY!!!
I much prefer the questions Jay Leno used to ask in the “man on the street” Q&A. It was much more depressing (although i expect the results were edited or the respondents were at least :))
I got 11/12 because i have given up following the Dow…I’ve lost 50% of my 401k. I really don’t care to wallow in that depressing news every day.
I will say that the lack of knowledge of general information revealed in most all polls just reflects my opinion of people in general. We are slowing being enstupidifed. I really wonder where the movie “idiotacracy” is a fortelling of our future as a society.
I got 12/12 by pretending to agree with published unemployment statistics. I’m fairly persuaded that the true unemployment rate would make 16% the real right answer in the quiz.
Those were some darned easy questions.
I weep for my nation.
10 of 12, I made two guesses and got them both wrong (didn’t know the treasury secretary and I thought 5k were killed in Iraq not 4k).
12/12… aced it. :O) Considering I avoid the news for the most part, I am pretty proud of myself.
#63, M. Moore: same here. I must say if the government were trying to make banks lend less then the bailout terms would certainly be a good way to do that.
10/12. Never even been to the US, and the main source of US-related news (representing over 90%) comes from Fark and here. Not really sure about the death toll for Iraq.
Is that a good thing?
I got 2 wrong. However, yesterday the dow jones was over 10,000, and has been for a few weeks, does this not place it closer to 12,000 rather than 8,000?
The unemployment rate is 10.2%, I answered that is was closer to 12% instead of 8%, the quiz said 10.2 is closer to 8%.
According to what I was taught in second grade, the quiz is incorrect