Civics Literary Test

[madd0ct0r]

27 out of 33 - seems ah don't know mah constitution!

[xthetenth]

32 of 33. I should have gone to sleep.

It was the Gettysburg Address question of course. I don't doubt that they managed to assemble a group of college educators which managed correct answers 55%. I do have to wonder how many teachers in subjects like history, civics and the like were in it. It could be the equivalent of saying that you've got a bunch of scientists who oppose evolution and neglecting to mention that they're all in the computer science department.

[Ahriman238]

30 out of 33

Two of the questions on historic economic practices and I misattributed "Wall of Seperation" to Washington.

Some of those seemed like odd questions for a civics test.

[PeZook]

Of course they were! Don't you know that only people who adhere to certain economic and political ideology can be considered literate about their nation?

[Spoonist]

28/33 and Im yuro.
Didnt really know more than half but could deduce the correct ones from the very leading answers.

Is this something normal in tests over there?

[Ahriman238]

Of course they were! Don't you know that only people who adhere to certain economic and political ideology can be considered literate about their nation?

A couple were odd even for neocons. The question on the Big Three and Aquinas, for instance.

28/33 and Im yuro.
Didnt really know more than half but could deduce the correct ones from the very leading answers.

Is this something normal in tests over there?

It is for MCAS, at least.

[Imperial528]

I got 31/33. The trade one and the Gettysburg one were the ones I got incorrect. Quite a few of the questions just seem off to me. And frankly, this was so absurdly easy that I'd expect a seventh grader to pass it, you can derive the answers just by reading the question carefully with a lot of these.

Oh, and MCAS *shudders* glad that part of my life ended two years ago. Easiest standardized test in the history of histories but hell, it was boring.

[Enigma]

81.82% or 27/33.

Not bad for a Canuckistani. Then again with all the news\information\etc.. from the U.S. broadcasted into Canada through various means, I'm not surprised that Canadians here would do well on this test. Try the other way and the results would be hilarious.

[Flagg]

Wow, 100%

[Edi]

Got 32/33 and the fuckup was on the Gettysburg address question. The latter half was so conservative biased for free market propaganda stuff that it wasn't funny, but seriously, that was not hard.

[Flagg]

The only one that tripped me up was the one with the dam, and I just guessed correctly between 2 choices o that one.

[Ahriman238]

I get all of you not native to the US getting tripped up by "Four Score and Seven Years Ago" I don't really see why products of an American schooling aren't getting it immediately. That damn speech (or at least highlights thereof) got pounded into our heads on a nearly annual basis.

Imperial528: Try being a teacher and sitting there watching kids quietly fill out their little bubbles. For a small eternity. And you can't do any productive work, read a book or otherwise get distracted from watching the students and making sure they don't cheat.

[phred]

81.82 % I R SMRT

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas would concur that:

how is this related to the rest of the survey?

Some of those questions were all kinds of vague and required guessing the test-writer's intent, rather than deducing the correct answer.

That was my problem with a few of the questions. The actual history ones I got right.

[Panzersharkcat]

100%. It helps that I am, by board standards, right wing and have read some Chodorov.

[Akhlut]

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas would concur that:

how is this related to the rest of the survey?

Because natural law is the basis of the American constitution, and is therefore God-given. :v

I got 31/33.

Question: International trade and specialization most often lead to which of the following?
Your Answer: a decrease in a nation’s economic growth in the long term
Correct Answer: an increase in a nation’s productivity

I was thinking in terms of resource-rich nations in the Global South specializing in resource-extraction and getting into international trade through resource-extraction. In the long-term, that does lead to a decrease in economic growth because resource-extraction is a finite, limited way of growing an economy.

Question: What impact did the Anti-Federalists have on the United States Constitution?
Your Answer: their influence ensured that the federal government would maintain a standing army
Correct Answer: their arguments helped lead to the adoption of the Bill of Rights

Meh. Whatever, I suppose.

[Dominus Atheos]

It's a pain because the modern American definition of Federalist is someone who supports the states over the federal government.

[Rogue 11]

I'm a Norwegian who on top of that got issues suffering from medical issues that make it very hard for me to concentrate at all.

So I'm pretty proud of my result


Results

You answered 31 out of 33 correctly — 93.94 %

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

Question: In 1935 and 1936 the Supreme Court declared that important parts of the New Deal were unconstitutional. President Roosevelt responded by threatening to:
Your Answer: eliminate the Supreme Court
Correct Answer: appoint additional Supreme Court justices who shared his views

Question: Name one right or freedom guaranteed by the first amendment.
Your Answer: Due process
Correct Answer: Religion

[Twoyboy]

You answered 26 out of 33 correctly — 78.79 %

And I'm in Australia, have never visited the US or studied US government or history formally.

Having said that, some of those questions had nothing to do with either of those.

[Surlethe]

Can someone explain this one to me?

Question: If taxes equal government spending, then:
Your Answer: government debt is zero
Correct Answer: tax per person equals government spending per person on average

Aren't both true?

No, if the budget is balanced it may have been unbalanced in the past. The correct answer is from dividing both sides by population: Let T = tax revenue, G = expenditures, N = population; if T = G, then T/N = G/N.

Anyway, I got 100% - this was pretty easy, although I was not completely certain on some of them (especially, e.g., Roosevelt and SCOTUS). Most of the questions on economics are straightforward Econ 100, so that wasn't too bad. As a college educator, I'd be super-surprised if the average score were actually as low as 55%.

[Simon_Jester]

Am I the only one who still feels weird that the thread title has been misspelled all this time? It's a literacy test, not a
literary test...

Question: What impact did the Anti-Federalists have on the United States Constitution?
Your Answer: their influence ensured that the federal government would maintain a standing army
Correct Answer: their arguments helped lead to the adoption of the Bill of Rights

Meh. Whatever, I suppose.

I'm pretty sure the anti-Federalists were actively opposed to having a standing army... they considered it unreasonable government intrusion on states' rights and individual liberty, and a route to excessive taxation and tyranny.

[UnderAGreySky]

"You answered 27 out of 33 correctly — 81.82 %"

In my defence, I plead being born in India and currently living in the UK. If I was American, I'd have tried to match the average

Someone tell me, though, what IS the correct answer to "Which of the following fiscal policy combinations has the federal government most often followed to stimulate economic activity when the economy is in a severe recession?"? And I don't mean from *their* point of view, but what has historically happened.

[ryacko]

Historically, raise spending and lower taxes.

I think Roosevelt only raised spending though, and this is all recent history.