Americans Got Only 8 Out of 12 Answers Right on This Very Basic Science Quiz
I am sure that Reason readers will do much better
The New York Times reported yesterday that "Americans Don't Flunk, but Don't Ace Survey's Science Quiz." From the Times:
When put to the test, Americans rate a solid if unspectacular C in science, a survey shows.
In a basic quiz of a dozen random science questions, Americans got eight correct, according to an online survey of more than 3,200 adults by the Pew Research Center released Thursday. The questions ranged from what kind of waves are used in cell phones to interpreting a scatterplot graph. …
Men in general got one more right answer than did women, while people with college degrees got two more correct answers than did those with a high school education or less. Whites did better than blacks and Hispanics. People between 30 and 49 scored the most correct answers. Those over 65 scored the lowest.
Westerners scored the highest on average, while those in the South did the worst. Republicans scored half a correct answer more than Democrats, but [the researcher] said that may be more a racial and ethnic issue, because white Democrats and Republicans had nearly identical scores.
Frankly, I have my doubts that any of our presidential candidates would do as well as the average American on this survey.
Take the quiz here.
For what it's worth, I got 100 percent. Just saying.
Note: Element 115 is actually Ununpentium.
