Did worse on economic questions... Mostly because the answer I thought should be there wasn't one of the choices...

I think it was a fairly hard quiz.

But on one question I should have read it more carefully.

What's interesting about the DU scores is that they are vastly better than the average (49%) and college educators (55%).

Do I win a prize?

Also, I thought I detected a smidge of right-wing bias in two of those questions.

the two I got wrong were convoluted questions.

Yeah. caught that.

nt

making a nation more productive. Technically, I agree with that in theory, but in practice it never seems to work out as planned.

There was another that began like "Free markets typically secure greater economic prosperity because ...". Again this is something that I basically agree with, but with caveats. There is a subtle bias in the way the question is worded. It assumes a little too much.

Those two questions made me suspicious of other questions as well. Were they going out of their way to remind me that separation of church and state is language not taken directly from the Constitution? Were they making a point that Dr. King's famous speech wasn't all about advocating for affirmative action?

"Sounds fishy, dawg!" That's what I told myself.

what, exactly?

And more than a smidge.

Several questions are flat-out indoctrination in the capitalist cult of "economics," of the particularly extreme "Austrian" variety. The institute responsible for this test is an attempted reeducation camp for all the "leftists" supposedly being produced at the universities.

I guess I am well informed since I got a 93.94%.

I could argue with.

The other one I was dumbass wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercollegiate_Studies_Institute

Seemed to be a bit agenda-driven though.

My knowledge of finance is less than zero.

Ideology, not history there...

Not arguing that it has a right wing bias, but I really did not put those pieces together when I posted the quiz. Just seemed interesting. Sorry if I offended some.

kind of fun . .

Glad you posted.

but isn't it sad how insidious the "free market" and the-deficit-is-the-problem ideas are?

Last edited Sun Dec 1, 2013, 08:05 PM - Edit history (1)

Of course I live in Florida in a rural county with only one high school and it has a "D" rating.

The history and civics classes I took in high school were just review for what I had already learned.

I got everything right, but only by lying to give answers I knew the test prefers because they fit the dominant economic and political ideology, even though they are false.

It expects answer b, of course. This is nonsense. In real capitalism, "individual citizens" don't control jackshit (not even their own lawn) unless they happen to be very rich or organized into large aggregates.

"Free enterprise" and capitalism are two different things. "Free enterprise" is a fiction, a fairy tale unrelated to any empirical reality, an ideology. It is deployed to justify the real economic system of capitalism, which in its present form is described as a whole by none of the above answers, although answer e (bolded) truthfully describes an aspect of it better than the rest.

There's more of that, including this:



As good Ricardans they expect answer a, obviously.

As this issue is debated even within the establishment "economics" cult, the writers of the question know it is explicitly and consciously ideological. So no excuses for them.

How's this for transporting your assumptions (and tipping your hand)?



Might as well do it like this: "Miley Cyrus is a more wonderful performer than Justin Timberlake (the only other option of a performer in the world) because..."

Did you bother to click on the homepage of this institute? Libertarian intellectual commandos of the Austrian kind, of course.
http://home.isi.org/

Only because the widget metaphor has been pounded into my head for years.

Defiantly biased.

Question: If taxes equal government spending, then:
Your Answer: government debt is zero
Correct Answer: tax per person equals government spending per person on average

As was stated above, I had to fudge on a couple of the economic questions because I could detect the supply side lean of them, but I knew what they wanted to me to select.

I was always pretty good at multiple choice tests, especially when I knew what the instructor wanted me to say.

You confused debt with deficit.

The lack of a deficit says nothing about debt, which is the total accumulated historically.

not a big deal, just so everyone knows they're checking their scores against a quiz designed by an economically conservative think tank.

I'm at 10 out of 33 right now... still working.

OK done.... 32 of 33:

You answered 32 out of 33 correctly — 96.97 %

If you have any comments or questions about the quiz, please email americancivicliteracy@isi.org.

You can consult the following table to see how citizens and elected officials scored on each question.

Incorrect Answers
Question: What was the source of the following phrase: “Government of the people, by the people, for the people”?
Your Answer: U.S. Constitution
Correct Answer: Gettysburg Address

My first instinct was Gettysburg address. Doh!

We are in good company.

....I was able to get 31 out of 33 correct by adopting the "proper" outlook.

Very sneaky.

.....there are no lies there that I could see.
More an exercise in bill-boarding favorite conservative gripes that they probably hope you take away with you.

Most were pretty easy, guessed on a couple

which is why I think I missed some of the economics questions. I was answering what makes sense to me, not what actually happens.

76.7something %. Much worse than I thought I'd do. I missed plato and the puritans, some tax and constitution stuff. In highschool I did do well in government and passed an America Legion test well into the top percentile. I've forgotten a lot.

(I did get 100% on the CSM 50 question science quiz a while back) So I'll brag about that.


And I only missed 2 on the religion test. Good for an avowed atheist, I'd say.

Good test.

I liked this quiz better than most … not entirely softball.
I also note the bias on economic questions.
I'm not surprised to see a lot of 33/33 scores here on DU … I learn something from this community every time i log on.
Thanks, DU!

Question: If taxes equal government spending, then:
Your Answer: government debt is zero
Correct Answer: tax per person equals government spending per person on average

Question: What was the source of the following phrase: “Government of the people, by the people, for the people”?
Your Answer: Declaration of Independence
Correct Answer: Gettysburg Address

Question: What was the main issue in the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in 1858?
Your Answer: Do Southern states have the constitutional right to leave the union?
Correct Answer: Would slavery be allowed to expand to new territories?

answers on those questions. If history is any indication, the test score will stand but I'll get some extra credit at the end of the semester.

Interesting quiz, I'm amazed that 71% of people got a failing grade.

All the questions I missed were economics questions which isn't surprising since money stuff bores me.

I've been out of school for over 50 years. That should be a B or even a B+.

You answered 33 out of 33 correctly — 100.00 %

If you have any comments or questions about the quiz, please email americancivicliteracy@isi.org.

You can consult the following table to see how citizens and elected officials scored on each question.

I had to bite my tongue to give them the answers they were looking for in a few questions.

That debt versus deficit correct answer was so convoluted I couldn't believe I got it right.

The last question was poorly written. In a quiz such as this, the person taking the test should not have to assume anything.

The question should have been written "If tax RECEIPTS equal government spending..."

Edit: I am not at all surprised that the people on this forum did much better than the average American, educated or not.

I credit my score to being a long time lurker on DU. I've learned a lot here.

Some of the economic questions were neoliberal BS, but I got those right because it was fairly easy to see the answer they were looking for.

I got the Puritan question wrong, and I couldn't remember whether religion or due process was in the 1st Amendment.