ISI Quiz of Civics, Economics, and U.S. History: Are You Smarter Than A Politician?

Posted by Alan Childress

…And if you are, is it anything to brag about?  Yahoo!News reports that elected officials taking a civics exam averaged less than half right, a score five points lower than the performance of the average citizen.  How do you rate?  Here is the test, which scores automatically for you and easy to take online.  I got a 32 of 33.  But be sure (as I did) to take the exam before you read the !News story because it discusses some of the answers politicians and citizens tend to miss.  The exam is sponsored by the National Civic Literacy Board at ISI, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.  Have fun.

If you need any other boost to your civic ego, or to recover from the quiz, look at some of the challenged ballots in the U.S. Senate race recount going on right now in Minnesota.  The one shown at above right may make you feel better about yourself, but what about the one at left?  Sometimes it looks like the voter is on a particularly debilitating brand of crystal meth: the election is so close that it may come down to whether we’ll count that voter who marked Al Franken but also wrote in a reference to Lizard People.  And wrote that in for all the other offices, along with a clear mark for a named candidate.