US Officials Flunk Test On Civic Knowledge

Posted by samzenpus on Friday November 21, 2008 @08:06AM from the you-are-what-you-elect dept.

A test on civic knowledge given to elected officials proved that they are slightly less knowledgeable than the uninformed people who voted them into office. Elected officials scored a 44 percent while ordinary citizens managed an amazing 49 percent on the 33 questions compiled by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. "It is disturbing enough that the general public failed ISI's civic literacy test, but when you consider the even more dismal scores of elected officials, you have to be concerned," said Josiah Bunting, chairman of the National Civic Literacy Board at ISI. The three branches of government aren't the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria?

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Re:I'd care more by tylerni7 · 2008-11-21 09:10 · Score: 5, Interesting

I apologize for writing in all caps, here, but let me just say WHAT THE FUCK.

Each question has between 4 and 5 options, some questions, like 19, show elected officials at about 10%.
That means if they picked a random answer, they would be correct twice as often.
I'll conceed that it wasn't the easiest question there, and I can understand low scores, but.... seriously?