97% of High School Students Fail Basic Test

I took that test once in high school in a class it wasn't for points but it as graded just for fun. I passed it.

But I wouldn't surprised if others didn't pass it. American history isn't my strongest area.

 

Oy.

Mind you, it does bring to mind an early time in our history, where Blacks were forced to take an exam to "prove" they were literate. I think the citizenship test is bunk. Ask the people who want to become citizens if Brittney Spears is still popular in American culture, and make the kids in American schools take the difficult citizenship exam.

Maybe *then* we'd have progress.

And they wonder why our kids don't do well in colleges...

 

I covered the answers and got 8/10 (missed the first two because the first one was vauge, the second I said "the ten commandments"... heh... It is truly sad that people could miss this many. At the same time though, I am not surprised in the least about this. I distinctly remember in highschool thinking "sheesh... am I the only person here who actually wants to learn?). Even a lot of the honors/AP kids I had classes with were very apethetic and simply did well to get the A, then promptly forgot everything. No attempt to commit things to long term memory. It saddened me, and I had a few long talks about this with my AP chem teacher (an INTJ), who felt the exact same way.

 

Huh. I might have been the only smart one then.

 

I can only hope and think that the results or reporting are skewed in some way. I would have easily passed that test in high school. I find it so hard to believe that not a single student answered 8 out of 10 right. I'd say the hardest question was the number of supreme court justices...other than that the only (questionably) somewhat difficult question for a student who's taken a civics class would be the term length of a senator. Of course, that's just my opinion.

 

Lol.

I can tell you part of the problem.

Schools need government funding. Governments use certain tests to see how well school districts are performing. The teachers and school administrations know what the tests are.

So what does a "smart" school do?

It cheats.

Schools help their students learn the answers to the achievement tests - nothing more, nothing less. That way their school "looks" stellar (like it's learning) and they get their funding.

Voila, there you have it. Capitalism at its finest.

 

No, you're right - it's not Capitalism's fault (I was being more sarcastic there). It would be *great* if the schools were more private and parents could have a greater say. Homeschooled kids often rate far higher than the average public schooled individual - same with private school kids. But much of the time parents are so busy (or so broken) that they don't even notice what their kids are reading, let alone what tests they're taking. If their child comes home with a paper to sign the parent doesn't even look at it anymore. Or, the opposite becomes true: The parent is OVERLY involved in their child's academic life and they're threatening the instructor to teach "only" those things that are important to the parent.

Parents do need to be active parts of their child's education without inhibiting their son or daughter's learning process. But that's probably the biggest disconnect: Parents think TV and the government will teach their child everything they need to know.

 

Heh. Not to mention hollywood reinforcing all that crap all the time.

I got 8/10 because I didn't know how long senators are there for, nor how many justices are appointed. The rest were a joke.


However, to be fair, try yourself on this test.
http://www.australiancitizenshiptest.net/?p=sample_test

My Results:

Total Questions: 20
Answered: 20
Unanswered: 0
Correct Answers: 12
Wrong Answers: 8
Time Taken: 2 Min & 56 Sec
Score: 60 %
Result: FAILED

 

Heh. The Australian test was interesting, though. But yeah. I wouldn't make a good little Aussie.

Total Questions: 20
Answered: 20
Unanswered: 0
Correct Answers: 6
Wrong Answers: 14
Time Taken: 4 Min & 37 Sec
Score: 30 %
Result: FAILED

To be honest, I shouldn't have gotten that many.

 

that is painful yet not surprising.

 

I think the problem is that kids don't care and it's their responsibility to not be stupid. Schools aren't entirely to blame, it's 'cool' to be an idiot. I blame the parents and culture at large with school being a small part.

 

American History just isn't something people care about from a national stand point.

It isn't that people are stupid, people don't care. We're a society based on working and of course freedom of ideas. But honestly it's mostly just the American dream of living a good life that most Americans have.

History doesn't really add to the getting the American dream, the money, the good house, the good family, the good car. How many jobs depend on the knowledge of history?

How many jobs depend on your actually knowing how to do your job?

I'll tell you this, I know more about greek mythology than I will ever know about American History. History is never really accurate, some of the best you can hope for is to know the events that happened and many the chain of events that led to that, mostly everything else is just filler and fluff to make you think you're living in the best country in the world.

Side Note: Of course no one can deny the power of the U.S. and our 5 nation pact of England, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

 

I knew the answers to 8 questions. Those questions really are easy...

I have been in both pubic and private schools here in the USA. Public schools are a joke.

 

Got 6 out of 10. I am smarter than 97% of America's future

I wouldn't blame it on public education though for it works quite well here in Europe. The same I hear is in Asian countries too. It's probably a matter of motivation - if you get sufficient income from a medium-low level job then why try harder? In my country during the last 20 years as the quality of living rose education levels were on decline (despite the increased funding).