Where'd they put Iraq?

Survey Reveals Geographic Illiteracy

That makes sense. I mean, if you're going to travel somewhere, you might be interested in where that is. For here, I suspect in part, the problem is that the nation is so huge. Why go to another country when you can take days just to get across this one? Not that most people even do that, though.

When I was a kid, my folks drove us to Florida a few times and across the US twice (once through the heartland, the other time through the North and then we returned through Southern Canada). Plus I used to be a business traveler. I have been in, let's see, every state except for Alaska, Arkansas, Mississippi and North Dakota, and I'm not sure about North Dakota because we may have passed through it during the Northern trip across the US.

My husband, on the other hand, has been to NH, MA, NY, NJ, PA, DE, RI, MD, NC, SC, VA, GA, FL and CT - and that's only because his folks also drove he and his sister to Florida. If they hadn't, Mr. Jespah wouldn't have been to the Carolinas or Georgia. My husband is still pretty high on the scale of Americans who have been outside their states. Most have been to neighboring states, if any.

I recall when I was in NY and looking for work in MA (this was back about 11 years ago), people were astonished that we wanted to move at all. I find that incredible in this day and age that anyone would think moving around to be 'odd', but there you have it.

Anyway, to circle back to the point at hand, I bet it's at least partly provincialism which keeps people from knowing more about the rest of the world. And that brings me to an interesting quiz of my own design for the Africa forum. Hang on.

Does CNN know?
Does the CNN itself know where Iraq is?

I've heart that the UK is the 51th US-American state. Might well be that I'm living in a Iraquian province!? :wink:

Ok, I took the sample test, 20 questions, very easy, should be downloading the pdf-test... I loved geography in school!






My result?
20 for 20!

Good on ya, bigdice!

Jes, isn't it amazing about the moving thing? I've lived in 4 states plus London (though I've moved between two those states a couple of times) and when I moved to L.A., my students actually thought I was part of this cult -- why else would I move so far? (Most of them had never been out of L.A., or had been born elsewhere, moved to L.A., then hadn't traveled since.)

I've read someplace that only a mere 10% of the american citizens have a passport, could this be a reason? I mean, if you don't travel outside of your own country, what desire do you have to know anything about the rest of the world?

Ah, sozobe, thanks!

19 outa 20! I missed the population of the USA.... doh!

Surely yours was more correct than the old one in the test, littlek!

Language abilities and travel certainly help, but i would also add that this is one of so many things that one should learn in the home. As a child, learning geography, as with learning anything, was a wide-eyed adventure for me. I didn't download the quizz, because i have enough problems with aol to being with. But i'd warrant that little Setanta at 10 years of age could have scored a perfect score on any such quizz. Such questions always take me back to childhood, wherein all of the foundations of my learning were laid in the home.

My father would have liked you, Sentanta - I think, I was about 12 or 13, before I knew all that!

My grandfather taught me to read before my fourth birthday, Boss, and he kept up his interest, passing along to me books of history, geography, natural science . . . he did it because he enjoyed those subjects as well, and his quiet enthusiasm was catching. Of course, i'm not an especially quiet type, myself . . .

Walter - thanks for the vote of confidence, but I was just plain wrong. And I should have known better.

Setanta - I was always a slow learner, until I was mayeb 20 years old. Since then I just have more and more of a hunger to learn.

I couldn't have scored so well on that test at 24 years. Though, I could have labeled every country in africa then, which I couldn't do now.

The survey was easier than I could have expected. 20 out of 20, and I wonder that there can be people that cannot give correct answer on the questions appearing in the survey. As far as I understand, young Germans were the best in answering, their average was the highest; Mexicans were the worst.