Monday, November 24, 2008

Are You Smarter Than an Elected Official?

Try this test. See if you can score better than US elected officials. They scored abysmally on a test measuring their civic knowledge, with an average grade of just 44 percent

The conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute gave 2,500 people a civics exam. In a bit of a twist, it asked respondents to self-identify whether or not they were public officials. The results:

Ordinary citizens did not fare much better, scoring just 49 percent correct on the 33 exam questions compiled by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI).

“It is disturbing enough that the general public failed ISI’s civic literacy test, but when you consider the even more dismal scores of elected officials, you have to be concerned,” said Josiah Bunting, chairman of the National Civic Literacy Board at ISI.

“How can political leaders make informed decisions if they don’t understand the American experience?” he added.

This doesn't surprise me considering a previous post of the dumb ass who wanted to vote for Bush again.

You can take the exam here. It was actually a bit more difficult than I thought it would be. A few of the questions are a little ambiguous. Even so, 44 percent on this test is pretty awful. I got 33 of 33.