In case you missed it, Lansing political correspondent Tim Skubick’s column, published in The Macomb Daily and syndicated across the state, took a look at the outcome of a political news IQ test.
The Pew Research Center’s online quiz produced some pretty dismal results. For example, 58 percent of those who took the quiz did not know that the Republicans control one house of Congress. Yikes, that’s disturbing.
Take the quiz here and then come back to read Skubick’s take:
“So how did you do? Ashamed? If you are like most, you should be.”
“Everyone knows that women are more intelligent than men, but in this one public affairs quiz it is the other way around. On every question men scored higher than the females. Which is strange, since women tend to be more involved politically and vote in larger numbers than their male counterparts.
“Yeah, some of the stuff was pretty easy. 74 percent of the participants knew the elephant was the GOP symbol, but when you break it down by party, 87 percent of the Republicans got it right but only 69 percent of the Democrats were correct. Know thy enemy.
“… Turns out the easiest question was identifying Brazil on a map, with 77 percent getting it right.
“…The Pew survey also validates a few more stereotypes. Those with a college degree knew more than those with some college or only a high school diploma. The higher educated got more questions correct in every category.
“Older folks, those over 50, also scored higher than other age groups.
“The young voters did better than the seniors on the Cameron, Brazil and Sona Sotomayor questions, but those 18-29 missed 10 of the 13 questions to secure their position as the least informed …
“Eight percent of the respondents had a perfect score, with the average being about 9 correct and four wrong.
“… But if you took the quiz, give yourself three extra points for being interested enough to do it.”
*****
Now my take: Tim was far too kind. I would suggest that anyone who struggles in the least with this test is not paying attention – to much of anything. You don’t follow the news or current events. You’re not familiar with what’s going on in the world.
And, yes I’ll say it – you probably should not go anywhere near a voting booth.
(I’m not bragging or anything, but I got all 13 right and I considered the test’s level of intelligence insulting.)
