Are Americans really this uneducated?

[WillowIX]

Yes the Caribbean islands. Which is which and where is it? But the African nations aren´t that easy as well. I know the ones in northern Africa; but the rest?

Originally posted by Barry the Sprout: quote: Originally posted by MagiK: Had another thought about this while I was getting ready for work. This is what a $100 BILLION dollar school system buys you. Money certainly doesn't solve problems.

MagiK, 100 Billion dollars is probably not all that much more than we spend over here, and we have a comparatively small population. When thinking about government budgets its best to not think along the lines of "Big number = more than I can ever dream of, Small number = a dollar". The figures involved are staggeringly huge for most govt departments. 100 billion means absolutely nothing unless you compare it to something, what you spend on defence for example... [/QUOTE]I must expect more of a return on investment than you do . Seriously though, 100 BILLION dollars is a LOT even out of the defense department budget, which I won't go into as thats a seperate thread. The 100B is only the official federal and state budgets (and may be understated too), that doesn't count the hundreds of millions in other funds that also go into the education system. For 100B I expect more.

[Grojlach]

Originally posted by WillowIX: Yes the Caribbean islands. Which is which and where is it? But the African nations aren´t that easy as well. I know the ones in northern Africa; but the rest?

If I had to point all of the African countries on a map right now, I'd probably make some mistakes as well... But that's more of a memorizing problem than an educational one, as I learned most of their locations when I was 11 years old or something.
Used to have some sort of desk sheet with a complete worldmap on it as well when I was young. No idea what happened to it, but I used to be fascinated with maps and geography when I was young. Just imagine an 8 year old, incredibly happy when he gets maps of Yugoslavia (before it fell apart! ) and Norway for Christmas. God, I was weird in those days.

[ 11-21-2002, 10:40 AM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

[Ace of Spades]

I'm a dumb American. I pointed to Iran.

[Kaltia]

I mean, as soon as I reached 14 I dropped geography *shudders* GCSE geography! YUCK! [img]tongue.gif[/img]
I do know where most countries on the map are-my parents are both mature students (Yes, I am working class and this rubs off in my mannerisms. I am in a grammar school however so nyuh [img]tongue.gif[/img] )-and to celebrate their getting into university to study Mechanical engineering the botanical science they plastered the dining room with posters from maps of the world to the periodic table and basic mathematics and physics equations. i nearly went nuts so filled upstairs up with fantasy pictures.
I'm going off on a tangent again, aren't I...
But anyway, there was this case where a kid thought the Eiffel Tower was an apartment in France which is a district of London (!) He sounded pretty thick from the manuscript of the American Weakest Link-he also answered the question What is a South American beast of burden-an orang-utang (!!)

I do however know my history...GCSE predicted A grade and hoping to carry both ClassCiv and History onto A level [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 11-21-2002, 03:13 PM: Message edited by: Kaltia ]

If you tell me the name of the country I can usually find the correct continent [img]smile.gif[/img] , and usually the right part of the continent, but whent here are a lot of itty-bitty lil places all lumped together I may not know which is which without reading the map [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Rokenn]

For those of you questioning the methodology of the survey here is a link:
http://geosurvey.nationalgeographic.com/geosurvey/
To the actual study. Along with a sample of the questions that were on the test so you can see how well you would have done...

Just for the record I scored 18/20. I missed the first two :

[Ronn_Bman]

I got 19 of 20.

I choose Islam as the largest religion over Christianity. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

The non-map questions weren't really hard at all, and the map questions weren't too hard.

I'm going to make my wife and 14 year old son take this test.

[Grojlach]

20 out of 20... Wasn't too difficult, no. Only my answer to the first question was more a guess based on logic than real knowledge (was the one about the number of US citizens IIRC).

[Lord of Alcohol]

Originally posted by Ronn_Bman: I got 19 of 20. I choose Islam as the largest religion over Christianity. [img]tongue.gif[/img] The non-map questions weren't really hard at all, and the map questions weren't too hard. I'm going to make my wife and 14 year old son take this test.

I got the same score, picked Islam too lol dont feel alone.