Thursday, September 20, 2007

96.67%, Baby!

That's what I scored on this Civic Literacy Quiz. College students, well, they didn't do so great.

5 comments:

Foxfier said...

81.67, myself.

Since I'm the same age as those college seniors, but went into the Navy instead, I think that's rather good. Pathetic by objective standards, but rather good relatively.

(I'm also a bit of a geek who actually is trying to learn a bit of philosophy solo, which helped more than I expected.)

Matt said...

I only got a 93.33%
Misread #58
I thought the last question was a trick question because the correct answer was too obvious.

The other two I got wrong I was just wrong. Founding of Jamestown I had in the 16th century instead of the 17th. The question about Toquiville I got wrong, too.

Anonymous said...

Missed 3 questions for 95%. Darn you, Matteo! I'll be interested to see if Gagdad Bob takes this quiz....

Matteo said...

I blew the one about Jamestown, since I thought it was founded around 1580, but it was 1607. Also, there was a question about national defense as a public good. I think the right answer is that it is a public good because you get it without necessarily having paid for it. Well, someone does, anyway. Not me, though.

Matt said...

Actually, the answer about national defense was worded in a clunky way. It is a public good, as are all public goods, because as soon as the government spends one penny on it the entire society receives the benefit. That is, it is impossible for there to be a navy, or an infantry platoon, or strategic missile program that only protects my neighborhood but not yours. Therefore, it is a public good. This is very different from health care, which is a private good. (Though an argument can be made that vaccination programs make health care a semi-public good.)