Take That, Liberal Elitists!

[Boz]

Pew Research indicates that Republicans are more knowledgeable on issues than Democrats...

pewresearch.org/pubs/1378/political-news-iq-quiz?src=prc-latest&proj=forum

;D

Note: If you click the link above, at the very top, you can click to take the quiz yourself before you scroll down to read the answers and view results by demographic groups.


And a second, more disturbing note: I took this quiz, got the answers right, and was informed on my results page that I was among only 2% of people who had done so. I say this not to brag (these are not difficult questions). I say this in order to exclaim "YIKES!" and to let everyone know that China is going to beat us, I just hope you know that.

[jerseyhoya34]

Scoring 12/12 on that is kind of like winning a Nobel Prize.

[TC]

I felt like I was doing Jay-walking.

[atlasfrysmith]

Ugh ok I'll bite, but only because I'm bored.

Being aware of the general topic a term refers to is a pretty poor proxy for actual knowledge, I'd say. That's not to say it's not concerning that so few people are getting these right.

But I'd take my chances betting on the intelligence of someone who doesn't know who Glenn Beck is over someone who's quite familiar with his work.

Nevertheless, I'm sure we can all agree that the results mean we're a nation of morons. I'm especially bothered by 6% not getting any right. The chances of missing 12 of 12 4-choice questions if guessing randomly is only about 3%. So for 6% of people to get them all wrong, it's something worse than ignorance--it's misinformation. These people would do better on a nuclear physics quiz becasue at least they wouldn't "know" anything wrong.

[EasyEd]

PC watch: Men answered better than women. Older answered better than young.
Question: Which party did better with women and with young?

[theexorcist]

Oct 28, 2009 13:43:15 GMT -5 atlasfrysmith said:

Ugh ok I'll bite, but only because I'm bored.

Being aware of the general topic a term refers to is a pretty poor proxy for actual knowledge, I'd say. That's not to say it's not concerning that so few people are getting these right.

But I'd take my chances betting on the intelligence of someone who doesn't know who Glenn Beck is over someone who's quite familiar with his work.

Nevertheless, I'm sure we can all agree that the results mean we're a nation of morons. I'm especially bothered by 6% not getting any right. The chances of missing 12 of 12 4-choice questions if guessing randomly is only about 3%. So for 6% of people to get them all wrong, it's something worse than ignorance--it's misinformation. These people would do better on a nuclear physics quiz becasue at least they wouldn't "know" anything wrong.

Yes, it's just trivia, and it really matters that you know how Sonia Sotomayor addresses proposed cases and her judicial philosophy and her wisdom.

But it's kind of depressing when people don't know she's the most recent justice. If you know the issues surrounding her, you know that. It's basic.

[badgerhoya]

Oct 28, 2009 13:52:53 GMT -5 EasyEd said:

PC watch: Men answered better than women. Older answered better than young.
Question: Which party did better with women and with young?

PC Answer: College graduates answered better than any other socioeconomic group by a significant margin.
Question: Which party did better with college graduates?

[Boz]

I'm not sure why the Glen Beck question was in there. Seems kind of out of place.

When Pew did this the last time around in March (Republicans also did better in that one BTW ), there weren't any questions about "personalities" in it.

March results

Honestly, snarky comments about us losing to the Chinese aside, I know a lot of people who are pretty smart, but couldn't give a whit about politics and don't really take time to stay informed on the subject. So I can imagine some fairly smart people not knowing a few of these answers (in either quiz).

I would be shocked and dismayed if there were any regular B&G posters who didn't find the questions almost insultingly easy, just because we're all political junkies to some degree.

[Cambridge]

No liberals are smarter. No conservatives are smarter. Who knows, who cares. One thing is certain: both are lame.

[strummer8526]

I tried google searching for some kind of funny slogan about how Independents Do It Better or something like that...you know, one of those "Ithaca is Gorges" kind of things. And for some reason, I get this: www.montana-sucks.com/images/montana_sucks_t-shirt.jpg

I think it's something on which we can all agree.

[atlasfrysmith]

I think the questions are of varying levels of importance:
1. Party with House majority--Essential civic knowledge. Even if you don't follow any issues at all, I think you have a basic civic duty to know where and from whom your laws are coming.
2. New SCOTUS justice--Essential civic knowledge. If you don't think it matters who sits on the Supreme Court go talk to Brown, Gideon, etc.
3. Public option--Important not so much from a responsibility perspective ( I respect one's right to be completely tuned out to policy, even if I think that's awful), but as an nidicator of basic engagement with society. If you only got one piece of news a day, chances are you'd still be able to get this one right. Unless you're reading from that god-awful new cnn.com format with the sensastionalist section front and center and the real news intentionally put to the side.
4. Health Spending--Important if you want to have an opinion on the merits of various systems and policies. If you want to check out and let the world happen without you, you don't need to know this.
5. Unemployment rate--I'm not sure I would begrudge someone for getting this wrong. I think it's more important to know that it's higher than it used to be. The specific value is not the issue.
6. DJI--Again, I think knowing that the market has rebounded is more important that knowing what the value is. Both are less important than their unemployment counterparts, above.
7. Israel/Iran border--Another one of those things you absolutely have to know IF you want to have any opinion on related matters. But if not, not as big a deal. (It pains me as an SFS grad to say that, but itis what it is. Besides, general ignorance boosts the relative value of my knowledge.)
8. Cap and Trade--Not nearly as important as most of the others. The difference between this and health care is the degree of individualized impact. You might take issue with this--I could see an argument. But I just think it's more a niche issue.
9. Chair of Finance Committee--A very forgivable detail. Not even important to having an opinion on policy, only on politics.
10. Chairman of Federal Reserve--I think a bit more important than 9. But again, knowing Ben Bernanke doesn't tell me anything about monetary policy, nor does knowing monetary policy imply I must know of Bernanke is.
11. Glenn Beck--Not of any particular importance. Purely an indicator of general awareness.
12. Troop levels in Afghanistan--This one I'm less sure about, and I'll admit it might be because it was the only one I struggled with for a bit. I'm leaning towards saying not important, but only because I think understanding things like the difference between the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, the role of Pakistan today and historically, alternative strategies for fighting the war, etc are more important than statistics. If the choices were 1,000, 75,000, 1,000,000, 10,000,000 I might feel differently.

Anyway, that's my take. I would still hope everyone could get them all right, esp. given that it's multiple choice.

[Boz]

10 MILLION TROOPS!!!!

Now, THAT'S what I call a counterinsurgency!

;D

If you pay attention to national news, you should know most of these off the bat. Three or four (specific DJI or troop numbers, maybe Glen Beck) might be a little elusive granted but, basically, this is a test to see if you've been watching the news over the last few months. Max Baucus may not be that important in the grand scheme of things, but I can't think of too many days over the last two months where his name hasn't been mentioned on a national news broadcast or a major newspaper front page story.

[Coast2CoastHoya]

Unlike Boz, I'll brag. I nailed it. 12/12. I rock. Me. Yup. Me and 2% of the population.

Extrapolating that out that's .... 6 million people. Ok, so me and 5,999,999 of my chums. But still, anytime you get 100% on a test, it feels good, even if I could have answered all of those questions' equivalents in the 9th grade.

So, it looks like over 50% of the testers got between 3 and 7 right, and the overall average was only 5.3. That sucks. Seriously. What DO people know about? And is the House of Reps too small or too big to represent all 300,000,000 of us adequately, or is size not the issue?

Anyway, I don't think doing well on this test really means a person is more knowledgable on the issues, only that that person is better informed as to these minutiae, paradigmatic as some of them are (like knowing who's on SCOTUS or who's in charge of the House).

[jgalt]

Oct 28, 2009 17:50:29 GMT -5 Coast2CoastHoya said:

But still, anytime you get 100% on a test, it feels good,

Not if it's a gonorrhea test

[Coast2CoastHoya]

Oct 28, 2009 18:04:51 GMT -5 jgalt said:

Oct 28, 2009 17:50:29 GMT -5 Coast2CoastHoya said:

But still, anytime you get 100% on a test, it feels good,

Not if it's a gonorrhea test

Not if your score = 100% negative!

[thebin]

Pew ought to word the questions properly. The only correct answer to the several questions starting with "do you happen to know..." is either "yes" or "no."

[Bando]

Also 12 for 12.

[TC]

I gotta be honest - their sucky interface for the test probably contributes to lower scores. I doubleclicked on one of the buttons and it forwarded me completely past a question, and I had no way of going back and putting in an answer.

[jerseyhoya34]

Oct 29, 2009 11:00:11 GMT -5 TC said:

I gotta be honest - their sucky interface for the test probably contributes to lower scores. I doubleclicked on one of the buttons and it forwarded me completely past a question, and I had no way of going back and putting in an answer.

11/12

[tgo]

Oct 29, 2009 11:00:11 GMT -5 TC said:

I gotta be honest - their sucky interface for the test probably contributes to lower scores. I doubleclicked on one of the buttons and it forwarded me completely past a question, and I had no way of going back and putting in an answer.

the scores you see are based on their phone poll not the unscientific internet poll. the percentages of who got what correct is not changing so it has nothing to do with any glitches in the site.

i got the who pays more for their health care question wrong. is their answer reflective of what i pay directly out of pocket or what i pay when you factor in the increased taxes and the cost of regulation etc you have in the public healthcare systems in europe? I will probably now waste half an hour of my employer's time looking for answers to that question.

i also got the troop numbers question wrong, just like the unemployment and DJIA questions that i did get right, i think these are trivia and show no knowledge of anything. as someone else said above they should have asked if DJIA had rebounded, if unemployment had gone up, and given broad ranges for troops since that is the knowledge that is important and still shows you understand what is going on in the world

as for the rest, it is important to know who the players are that run the world and it is very sad that most people have no idea who they are. thankfully many of these people dont vote, unfortunately millions of them still do.