The Glade 4.0

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.
http://www.isi.org/quiz.aspx?q=FE5C3B47 ... eSupport=1

Made me think.




How citizens and politicians scored:
http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/20 ... nding.html

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

75.76%

Results

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You answered 32 out of 33 correctly — 96.97 %

If you have any comments or questions about the quiz, please email americancivicliteracy@isi.org.

You can consult the following table to see how citizens and elected officials scored on each question.

Incorrect Answers

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88%. Missed these:

I missed the philosophers and puritans questions too...

100% ...

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That gets a big fat 'DUH...' from me...

32/33

90.91 %

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I misclicked on the FDR/Supreme Court one. Other than that, 100%.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

90.91%

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

93.94 %

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

32/33. I missed the Greek philosophers one, that was really out of left field for an American Civic Literacy test. The Puritans question I didn't really know either, but that was an easy process of elimination.

88%...but I've got no reason to know any of the more USA-centric of those questions.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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You answered 30 out of 33 correctly — 90.91 %

Puritans, gettysburg and the anti-federalists.

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Holy shitsnacks!

100%

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

The hint was Aquinas.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

100% but I needed scratch paper.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

I am embarrassed by my score so I am not posting it. It was above 60, but below 100.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

Don't worry Dark, I'm clearly the civic idiot here.

72.73%

It's been a long time since I was in school, and some of that stuff I was never exposed to.

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

Besides the slanted questions, a few of these I've never heard of until I started looking into civics on my own.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

32/33 (96.97%)

Missed the one about how FDR responded to the SCOTUS ruling re: the New Deal. I thought he threatened impeachment (not that the president can initiate it) rather than appointment of agreeable judges. The latter doesn't seem like much of a threat since the opposing justices would first have to retire of their own volition...


I'm surprised that so many of you are surprised by this question. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas have a lot to do with American civics. What was surprising to me is that John Locke didn't make an appearance in the quiz. Well, not exactly. The "life, liberty, and property" choice on the first question was from Locke, which was obviously a strong influence on Jefferson's thinking when drafting the DoI.

I'm also kind of surprised at how many people didn't know the Puritan question. Did no one around here read The Scarlet Letter? I thought that being obsessed with sin and guilt was pretty much the only thing Puritans were known for these days.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

It's not so much that we were surprised, as the wording of the question or answer was not as obvious. I wasn't surprised by the correct answer, just chose a different one. For example, I chose that puritans were opposed to war, rather than stressed the sinfullness of humanity. I thought both, and chose one.