I have spent a lot of time in the past weeks listening to a podcast called The Skeptics Guide to the Universe. One of the topics that came up was scientific literacy. They said literacy in the US was only at 25% which sounds ludicrously low, especially when they implied that the tests carried out were about basic science facts.
I found an article though that talks about how literacy is about concepts not facts, which makes a lot more sense. Try taking this test and seeing how literate you are.
I'm ashamed to say I failed! Only 8 wrong but still a fail. I intend to read the whole thing though (it explains all the answers) so it doesn't happen again.
Once you take the test, leave me a comment with your score so I can gauge how clever you all are.
4 comments:
Doing a little bit worse then you with 9 incorrect answers i found myself grasping at what might be the "trick" questions! Turns out sometimes it better to not look for the difficult answer to the easy question. Fairly common sense once you read through the answers!
Hey Kim. I didn't know you had this blog! I got 5 wrong, which makes me a science genius compared to you morons (no offence)
The problem with this test is the directions to choose the answer that is typically correct. Most standardly educated people are taught how to take tests. This education tells us that if any part of a statement is false, then mark it false. The wording is almost entirely absolute. I think only two questions actually had words like 'usually' and 'partly' in them. I think the conclusion that the average street person knows more isn't accurate, though it might prove that the average educated person isn't very good at following those specific directions. I got 5 wrong, but I had to go back and reread most of the questions to remind myself that it wasn't a "real" true and false test.
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