Showing posts with label civic literacy quiz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label civic literacy quiz. Show all posts

Monday, July 4, 2011

Civic Literacy Quiz

My friend Mike Marnell asked me to take the civic literacy quiz on the Intercollegiate Studies Institute website at http://www.isi.org/quiz.aspx?q=FE5C3B47-9675-41E0-9CF3-072BB31E2692&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1. I got 100%; give it a try. According to ISI:

  • ISI has surveyed over 28,000 undergraduates from over 80 separate colleges, and the average score on our basic 60-question civic literacy exam was about a 54%, an “F.”
  • At elite schools like Yale, Cornell, Princeton, Duke, Georgetown, and Johns Hopkins, their freshmen did better than their seniors on the same test, what ISI dubs “negative learning.”
  • Among adults, those with a college degree also failed on average ISI's civic literacy test, scoring little higher than their peers with a high school diploma.
  • College-educated adults were particularly ignorant of the Founding and Civil War eras, constitutional themes, and the essential features of a market economy.