The ISI Civics Quiz or How I am Smarter than Elected Officials!

So the Intercollegiate Studies Institute has this civics quiz to test knowledge of American citizenship. Well, in this article, they report that the average citizen in this 2,500 person survey scored 49% (the quiz is 33 questions). Elected officials, on the other hand, they scored just 44%. Ouch!

So, I took the quiz at this website. My score? Almost 91%, 30 out of 33 questions. Yeah, I got 3 questions wrong. I did not remember the Puritans accurately and I thought the Roe v. Wade answer was too obvious. (Yeah, I have a problem over thinking things. I still swear my answer was correct, though it could have been because of the word "many" in the question.) The third question? Yeah, I umm...misread the answers. No excuse though, I truly got it wrong, even though I should have known it.

So what does this mean? Well, I am smart, but I knew that. And while the article does give the answer to a couple questions, I already knew the opponents in World War II (I actually can name the third!) and because of the Iraq War, I know who has the power to declare war. Of course I know the electoral college and I am probably one of the few who can name the one time in American history that a Presidential election came down to one vote (and why it happened the way it did). And yeah, of course I knew why free markets work better than government planning; that was essentially a freebie for a market anarchist like me!

It is just sad that elected officials don't know these questions. Sure, some are rather esoteric (yep, I had to look that word up), but there are a few that all politicians MUST know.

At least I can safely say I know American civics and history, which shouldn't be any surprise as I enjoy reading books on American history. This is purely a moment to gloat. I just wish I could find out how some of the people who have argued with me in the past would score. That would be interesting, hehe.