I took the Pew News Quiz (thanks, Ollie, for calling it to my attention!) and got 11/12 correct. About what I expected, since I'm reasonably well-informed, all things considered. However, what was scary to me was the average scores of most Americans. Women averaged only a little better than 5/12 correct. Yikes! You don't have to be a political junkie to have a basic knowledge of what's going on, and it frightens me that such ill-informed people are going to be deciding on the next president. Hmmm, I guess that's how we got into our current mess.
Anyway, take the quiz, and let me know what you think.
5 comments:
9/12. I'm pretty embarrassed, but I guess it's not so surprising since I no longer live in the US and would have to make more of an effort to find out about US politics.
Considering I've watched the news once in the last 3 months, my score (8/12) isn't too surprising. Still, it puts me above average (69%).
I got 12/12. However, I think even well-informed people will have differences of opinion on who should run the country.
Elizabeth, of course you are right. I know that my dad is well-informed (I'd expect he would get 12/12 on the quiz) but I suspect that he and I do not share the same opinion on who should run the country. However, I think it would be a better election if everyone was more informed. We might have different candidates to vote for, in fact! Ah well.
well, speaking as a former sociology major, being well informed doesn't necessarily increase participation or quality of outcome of an election. Only actual participation in the election will do that, meaning, votes can be as informed as want to be, but unless they cast their vote, nothing happens. The meager participation rate during US elections may have more to do with the outcome than the actual information IQ of the voters....My dad would always comment that "it doesn't matter much what you know if you don't do something about it" and he was certainly right, at least to a certain point, about that.
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