Unlike most internet quizes, here’s one that seems designed not to be ridiculous.
http://pewresearch.org/newsiq/
The quiz, put together by the Pew Research Institute tests your basic knowledge of recent news. I aced it, but I’m wonky like dat.
So how did you do?
mikethemadbiologist
I missed the one about the Dow Jones.
12 of 12, 94th percentile. But not satisfying.
This tests only what mainstream media cover heavily. You’ll notice nothing about the US dollar in the toilet, the recession we’re in, Darfur … and on and on and on.
85 – missed the one about the number of soldiers killed.
The answer about the Dow Jones might need to be changed soon if this keeps up.
12/12 but I guessed on the one about the number of soldier’s killed (I knew that the lower two numbers were too low but wasn’t completely sure about which of the upper two it was). The Dow Jones one I was also unsure of but thought about how it had been close to 13,000 and then had a drop of a few hundred points, leaving it still closer to 13,000 than 8,000. 6EQUj5 makes a valid point that these aren’t necessarily very good questions other than are you paying attention to the major media. However, paying attention to the major news stories is a good first step in becoming an informed adult. One needs to at least pay attention to those.
8/12 – not bad for a foreigner, I hope.
I had more fun with the impossible quiz: http://www.impossible-quiz.com/
8/12, my lack of knowledge about some of the more arcane details of your government/government wannabes let me down. I do live in the UK though. 🙂
10/12 – although again, I’m in the UK. It’s quite appalling really…
I must be a news junkie, got 12 out of 12 and the questions seemed too easy.
I would’ve done better, but I missed the “what is your age?” question on the last page. You can’t sneak anything past the folks at Pew.
Actually, 85th percentile; missed the Dow question, because I’m allergic to finance. I’m pretty sure I got 12/12 on last year’s quiz.
The remarkable thing is that not only have I not read newspapers or watch television news for years, but I no longer read online newspapers regularly either. There’s maybe a half-dozen news/politics blogs I’ll visit in the course of a week, plus whatever news gets blogged at Sb, and I’m better informed than 85% of the population.
IMO, consumption of journalism correlates negatively with knowledge of current events. The more news you consume, the less informed you are.
100%, but 12 softball questions for folks with internet access doesn’t make a good data set/broad picture of the public at large. Still, I was disappointed to find out less than half knew who Robert Gates is. How flippin disengaged do you have to be to NOT know?
Sometimes I feel (in an abstractical revoked poetic license sense) like half the nation is ‘Interested’, half ‘Disinterested’ (in knowing anything whatsoever). Of the half that’s Interested they seem split as well – the whole means to tipping things anywhich way past the inertia literally hangs by two or three votes each time.
12/12, for a Canadian living in Taiwan- though I confess to being an absolute US politics junkie.
And the correct answer to which party has a majority in the House is “Republicans plus spineless Karl-Rove-ass-whipped Bush-fearing cowardly worthless Blue Dog Democrats.”
Sometimes I feel (in an abstractical revoked poetic license sense) like half the nation is ‘Interested’, half ‘Disinterested’ (in knowing anything whatsoever). Of the half that’s Interested they seem split as well – the whole means to tipping things anywhich way past the inertia literally hangs by two or three votes each time