Test Your News IQ – Pew Research Center — Take the simple Pew Research test. The general public is hitting 50-percent right. I’m guessing a DU reader will do what I did. Nail it at 100-percent.
Via David Sifry on Twitter.
Via David Sifry on Twitter.
I got 12 out of 12. This only proves that 98% of my countrymen are profoundly ignorant if not down right stupid.
Ok Ok I suck 😛
I like the idea that ALL those outside the USA are getting 100%..
is it because you LISTENED to the news??
You know LOSERS —- this is a NEWS QUIZ. Not a reality quiz.
Silly Hoomans.
#26–qb==I’ll take that trick. I would think it was the Germans. They are the most out of shape troops eating schnitzel and drinking beer all the time==the folks at home, but the troops in the field in Afghanistan as well.
When they die, they are most likely the heaviest casualties. The trick I can’t figure out is how “national population” is meant to modify the same question without such language.
#27–trouble==you are sophisticated enough to use the webfalutin terminology of “moran” and yet still don’t see the Humor of Dallas????
No Urban Dictionary entry I guess.
11 out of 12. And I’m Austrian.
10 out of 12 here. Still that scarily put my score above 89 percent of the general public.
In my defense Alan Greenspan “was” chairman once, and 70,000 troops was my first answer. I changed it to 20,000 thinking about the surge. So they already have 70,000 + troops in Afghanistan. Really, and the 70,000 already there cannot manage control of the situation. They are getting 30,000 more, and requested an even larger number than that. So what they are saying is they need well over 100,000 troops to suppress… some goat herders, a handful of terrorists and cave dwellers, and a bunch of poppy farmers…Wow ! I am sorry, what was that about the world’s finest fighting force again ? It’s all sort of surreal if you ask me.
11 out of 12, not bad for an Irishman.
Max Baucus D’OH!
ok only 11 right you 12 for 12s can feel all superior to me about news stuff
unless you googled some questions.
12/12, and fast too. I think I zipped through that in a couple minutes. Helps to watch the PBS newshour every single day, if you do, these Q’s are trivial.
# 13 fellaintga said, “Only 23% got Cap & Trade question right…”
That’s because the correct answer was not offered:
d) to enrich Al Gore
12/12 here. But I spend a lot of time on Google news every morning. More than is healthy, probably. To those of you overseas who did so well, I’m impressed. Imagine knowing who Max Baucus is when you don’t need to!
11 out of 12, not bad for a Norwegian – think a failed on troops in Afganistan.
The “public” results seem to match what the major news covers most often.
Party w/house majority – Dems 75% knew the answer
Newest Justice – 65%
Health care cost vs. EU – 61%
Public option – 56%
Unemployment – 53%
Cap and Trade – 23%, The sheeple shouting “Seal the Deal” have no clue what’s coming.
12/12. The only one I really had to think about was about Iran and Israels borders. But not for long.
So does this mean we are fucked then? The public doesn’t know jack squat about anything. The rich and corrupted run the show. What’s left to do?
12/12 – woo..i bumped the average up for the High School or Less edu group. (oh joy, oh rapture)
(last grade passed was 9th. -although with 12th grade national scores. (i went to private boarding schools grades 5 through 9, -it helped)
More interesting is that I think this also is a reflection of the sad lack public affairs in U.S News in general.
Or put another way, what the media spoon-feeds the public in general. 99% sensationalistic, checkout counter garbage, 1% “country related”. -and perhaps, some negatively spun foreign news.
I think what the MSM dishes out has largely shaped the mentality of the current populous: candy coated, scripted, reactionary and sensationalistic. -hollow.
What was really sad [and kinda scary] was that next to the baucus question, nobody hardly knew the cap&trade bill dealt with energy and the environment.
(those dems are really good at stashing time bombs, eh?)
-which in my opinion, is the most deadliest Bill for this nation’s future to land in congress in decades. -health care bill is a close runner up.
Full report of the demographic breakdown on the quiz is here.
-NOT, that this quiz is really relevant to anything, but it is kinda funny that the repubs and indies knew quite a bit more than the dems on this quiz.
The one thing they did “excel” in (ofc) is a money spending question: US health spending vs Europe per capita. -lol
Goes to show that GovCorp/Media’s use of class warfare to brainwash the tasty, gelatinous and easily manipulated melons of the left, is always money well spent. -rofl.
Heck, i’d say it’s even well reflected here on DU amongst the “less-learned” left.
(take a hint, do the country a favour and abandon both parties and demand a reboot. -with boot part going to the current 535 in congress)
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personally, i think i did well on the test because i’ve sourced about 98% of my news from the net (or a BBS type system) since the mid 90’s. (mostly foreign sourced) the rest is from radio, with maybe 0.5% from tv.
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If you want to know who has a *really* good handle on wtf is happening to this country, give some Russian bloggers a read. They have lived through the hell we have sleepwalked into -and warn us as such quite often.
My current favorite Ruski blogger goes by the name Mat Rodina. He is raw, to the point and gives some excellent insights and historical perspectives that will likely rattle many who have never done any “deep-roots” research to verify what we are told in the media stream. Those with rose-tinted ideologue glasses still stapled to their foreheads from college will be especially shocked. (if that is possible) The perspective of one who did not grow up in a land of Good-n-Plenty is quite sobering.
All in all, he is a really fun read for “uneducated” free spirits like myself.
-s
(psst, turn off your tv.)
I missed the one about the head of the Senate finance committee. Max Baucus doesn’t get much press exposure (wonder why?). So I never heard of him. Otherwise, I got 11 questions right. Whoopie! But it’s only a “News IQ test”. So that just means I’ve been paying attention to the news, and not watching Simpsons and Family Guy reruns. But my actual IQ did self-test at around 130, some years ago. But it was only partly completed, because I got bored with it.
I believe all any IQ test really measures, is one’s threshold of boredom. And are largely culturally biased. I’m sure they’re are some really smart people, who don’t care a wit about politics to keep track of who’s doing what. And certainly there are a lot of stupid people in politics, who don’t give a wit about what smarter people think of them and their work. To them, geniuses are likely considered to be potentially dangerous.
I’ve known a few bosses, who distrusted all their smarter employees. As if we knew some kind of Voodoo that they didn’t. If Bernie Madoff, and the execs of Eron, are any example of what big business considers to be “smart guys”. Then it’s little wonder the world is in the fix it’s in.
Perhaps we should do something about reducing the threat of man-made Global Stupidity, that’s been put in charge of running things. Before we worry about the temperature rising a couple degrees, in a century’s time. I can’t help but wonder if AGW isn’t a smoke screen, just to keep all the low IQ people in charge? Like Hitler blaming the Jews for all of Germany’s economic problems. When it was really the major industrialists’ fault, who backed him. Germany’s version of the Military Industrial Complex.
BTW, check out historian Howard Zinn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Zinn
12 for 12.
How simple-minded.
This “test” compares well to dumbed-down SAT tests.
It tests hearing or reading popular news.
So what?
The Rance Test:
1) What are the names of the bimbos Tiger was porking while making the big One $Bill?
2) Is Glenn Beck back on the bottle or just schizoid?
3) Is Obama the smartest guy ever, or what? Be specific – and don’t forget, he was a community organizer only 6 years ago.
4) Is it true that the part-time mayor of SF has found the “limitless” pot o’ gold in the ObamaBucks scheme?
5) Who is stupidest: Pelosi, Boxer or Larry the Cable Guy? You can only vote for 2.
6) Is Montana a state in the US or Afgana?
7) How long will it take to win in AfPak?
In decades, no fractions.
8) What are the odds of paying less than double for current equivalent healthcare in 2015?
9) If the Earth warms or cools in the next 10 years, will I still pay 2-3x more for energy?
10) Is the current political system responsive at all to other than highest bidders, from anywhere, or ethnic/interest lobbies?
11) Is it a good idea to allow 1.5M annual legal and 2-3 million illegal immigrants ever, but especially when 15+ million Americans need jobs?
Ok, let’s see how well you guys do who aced the Pyew test.
Answers tomorrow.
OK,
can we give a test to those ELECTED officials, RUNNING THIS COUNTRY??
1. have you played or beaten any of these games?? give score.
Sim Earth, sim city, Civilization 4?
2. What is retirement age? and when do you retire?
3. what is the price of Wonder bread? Milk?
4. how much did you pay in Utilities last month? 6 months ago?(if they come with in $1-10, I will give it to them)
5. what is the Fundamental rule in 90% of the religions/beliefs?
Any more we can add??
# 49 Glenn E. said,”Max Baucus doesn’t get much press exposure (wonder why?). So I never heard of him.”
Sorry Glenn. If you’ve not heard of Baucus, you haven’t been paying attention. He’s been all over the news for the last week or so. Something about a girlfriend. Could be with Tiger Woods dominating the girlfriend scene, you just Baucus was a typo for Woods. A month ago, if someone had asked me the question, I’m not sure I would have gotten the answer.
#54 Randall Stephenson?
10 out of 12.
5 and 6 wrong… but a am Mexican.
#51, Rance,
1) Bimbo #1 and Bimbo #2.
2) Schizoid with a touch of lost reality.
3) What. (President Bartlett on the West Wing was the smartest)
4) He found sumptin.
5) Larry and that Cable guy. The other two got good, well paying jobs.
6) A singer on Disney Channel.
7) Who thinks they will EVER win?
8) Not good.
9) It depends if you are buying or selling.
10) I thought this was a quiz not a comedy routine.
11) Only if they will do those jobs the 15 million don’t want. You know, the engineering, manufacturing, help lines, cleaning Rush Limbaugh’s house, rubbing JLo’s butt, … .
I only got 11 right, that sucks.
I’m a Canadian and I got 11 out of 12, along with 5% of the US population.
12 for 12. Thanks to the internets for keeping me informed.
Only 39% of college graduates know what cap and trade is? Appalling.
11 of 12 for a high school drop out, religious nut and hippie.
#28 BTW, it was a knowledge test, not a “can I find the answers with Google test.
Moran…
First, It’s moron, you moron. Also, I admit I knew only 11 out of 12 and searched for the last one on google.