I just took the Civic Literacy Report’s Civics Quiz:
Average score for this quiz during September: 75.3%
Average score since September 18, 2007: 75.3%
The test asks a broad range of question on basic U.S. history, political philosophy and economics. I probably had a bit of an advantage as an economics major who enjoys philosophy but every American should know the answer to all of these questions. If you take the test, let me know what your score is (no cheating looking up the answers on wikipedia etc. in another tab or window).
This test was used to evaluate the civics knowledge of college students. The Civics Literacy Study summarizes their findings:
The average college senior knows astoundingly little about America’s history, government, international relations and market economy, earning an “F” on the American civic literacy exam with a score of 54.2%. Harvard seniors did best, but their overall average was 69.6%, a disappointing D+.
Read the whole report.
You may have noticed that the average scores reported on the online quiz are much higher than those attained by students given the actual test. I suspect this is partially due to self selection of more knowledgeable test takers (only people with an interest in civics are going to take an online test like this for fun) and partially due to people using reference materials while taking the test to boost their score and thus skewing the average.
Anyhow, take the test and report back, it’ll probably take you 20-30 minutes or so depending on your reading and decision speed.
My brother, the brain rules again! =)
85 myself. congrats to you.