I think there were originally 33 from some unknown asker, but my archive of an archive of an archive only lists 14.
1. Were the American Indians really environmentalists?
2. Is the U.S. government too stingy with foreign aid – or not stingy enough?
3. Was the U.S. Constitution meant to be a “living, breathing” document that changes with the times?
4. What really happened in the Whiskey Rebellion, and why will neither your textbook nor George Washington tell you?
5. What made American wages rise? (Hint: it wasn’t unions or the government.)
6. Did the Iroquois Indians influence the United States Constitution?
7. Did school desegregation narrow the black-white achievement gap?
8. Did the Founding Fathers support immigration? If so, what forms of immigration did they support?
9. What was “the biggest unknown scandal of the Clinton years”?
10. The three constitutional clauses that have caused the most mischief – what are they, and what did the Founders and Framers say they were supposed to mean?
11. Did capitalism cause the Great Depression? If not, what did?
12. Does the Constitution really contain an “elastic clause”?
13. Did the Founding Fathers believe in jury nullification – that juries could refuse to enforce unjust laws?
14. Was George Washington Carver (who supposedly developed 300 products out of the peanut) really one of America’s greatest scientific geniuses, as Henry Ford claimed?
Anyone with the grasp of American history and civics my eighth grade American History teacher expected of us would be able to discuss all but two of these, supporting all discussion with clear and unequivocal historical facts, and the two that we would not have been expected to be able to discuss meaningfully at the time depend on history that’s occurred since that time.
Once again, may I commend to your attention the ISI’s Civics Literacy Quiz? The link’s to one of the “Findings” pages on the site, but the quiz itself, as well as a wealth of other information, is available from there. The quiz doesn’t require as muc or as detailed an American History knowledge base as the 14 questions above, but is, IMO, a fairly decent gauge of someone’s basic civics literacy.
I have a note from my Canadian Government saying I can be excused from this class (which isn’t to say I couldn’t answer a good many of them).
*heh*
Tatty, you’d likely do much better than most US citizens. (I’m happy to report, though, that most naturalized citizens would do just fine on something like this.)
I wonder if ISI’s stats have gotten any better in the last couple of years?
Perri, you can check all the years from 2006-2010 via the tabs at the top of the site. Essentially, nothing’s changed, except for the fact that ISI broadened the scope of the survey to include folks who’ve been out in the “real world” a bit longer.
Who’s Paula Abdul, and what does she have to do with civic literacy?
“Who’s Paula Abdul, and what does she have to do with civic literacy?”
Exactly. But more people knew about her than knew anything even remotely substantive about Lincoln.
15. Why do the attitudes of some people in the patch of the planet situated between Canada and Mexico seem to remain stuck in the attitudes of 1787?
The “British” parliament was formed in 1706, and is still evolving to suit modern society, as is the Australian “Constitution” – a very fluid, non specific, updatable, document written in 1901.
And why do some people situated in that large, mostly unpopulated, island situated between SE Asia and the Antarctic seem to have no sense of history and no understanding of the benefits of a Constitution designed for stability with mechanisms built in to allow growth (no matter how much it is currently ignored)?
But of course! “In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history are in the majority and dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance.”-third world county’s corollary to Santayana’s Axiom
Indeed, or word .. history is irrelevant if one wants to market snake oil.
One would think, Davo, that history of snake oil sales techniques–successes and failures–would be particularly relevant if one were to be marketing the stuff.
BTW, I think there’s absolutely nothing wrong with selling snake oil, as long as the snake oil salesman can be required to prove that the “snake oil” being sold is genuine snake oil and has been squeezed from actual snakes (an idea that seems foreign to the U.S.’s FDA, which, for example, allows “ice cream” that has no cream in it to be transported across State lines and sold to ignorant sheeple as the real thing, and yet, for political/ideological reasons, forbids the sale of drugs known to be effective).
mmm, snake oil (as distinct from the stuff that gets spread around by BP, DHP ENron and Haliburton) .. there are interesting efforts in PNG (Papua New Guinea) relating to antivenenes.
Hmmm, are the anti-venom products you refer to derived from snake oils? I thought most snake venoms were various -ases (enzymes, proteins, etc.), although I know some folks store collected venom samples using such things as olive oil as one of the storage media.
Truth in labeling would be my goal. Let the consumer know what’s there, and then, if the consumer is an idiot and buys something harmful or useless, then it’s the idiot consumer’s fault.
BTW, that’d be my personal Gold Standard for politics and “news”. And I’d very much like to have consequences for UNtruth in those areas include something on the order of “counseling sessions” with Dr. Tarr and Mr. Fether… But then, that would depopulate most political bodies overnight, and blow-dried liars in the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind would be fleeing any jurisdiction that called for such things.
A Better World…
I scored 81.82 %. Not too shabby for an uncollegefied person such as myself.
Actually, Woody, given the fact that some surveys have college grads losing ground in civics knowledge and none that I’m aware of have them gaining any statistically significant amount of civics knowledge, NOT being “collegified” might be an advantage.
One of those instances where the “correct” answer wasn’t all that difficult to discern, but I didn’t agree with it so it was a fight to the finish. Score higher or stick to my guns. Problem is, I’m getting so forgetful I can’t remember which direction I took.
Examples:
The government has no money so of course the citizen is paying for government spending in some way shape or form. Best ways out of a recession? Deregulate, open a certain percentage of the oil reserve, trim the benefit packages of ALL government workers, cut taxes, yadda yadda.
Beg pardon, but my point was I wanted to click “none of the above” a lot.
I think I understand, Fits. Any semi-literate person should be able to decode the broad hints in more than a few of the questions here, as stated. The question that would occur to me to ask folks who answered such as, “7. Did school desegregation narrow the black-white achievement gap?” would be, “OK, why?” or perhaps, “What did happen during this time frame and how did those events and circumstances affect the ‘achievment gap’?” Most of the questions with first-level yes/no answers would require discussion of those answers, were I an eighth-grade American History teacher in one of America’s “Prisons for Kids” (A.K.A., “public schools”). Of course, almost no one would even think of asking such questions of eighth grade students today. *sigh* Such questions and discussions would have been (actually, were) normal fare back in the Stone Age school I attended when in eighth grade.
If your comment was directed at the ISI survey, much the same would apply. My score on the web version of that survey would probably have bested my eighth grade American History teacher’s, but only because of th economics questions, since he was a devout Keynesian/Democrat in economic outlook and a lifelong public employee.