Civics Test the College Kids all Failed

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

Good point. In fact I would guess that intelligent people do better on the test because they are better equiped to figure out that "Puritan" has a root of pure which really left only one answer that would fit with that question. Whether they knew the answer or not thinkers probably got that one right and a good amount of similar questions.

Yeah, I was able to deduce my way to a score of 70, which would put me on par with the Harvard average. Some questions I flat out knew, others I could just reason through.

But if I wanted to test someone's ability to deduce and logically think through questions, I'd administer an IQ test. This is, first and foremost, a test of factual knowledge, most of which is completely useless in today's world.

It's just irritating to hear people come down on college kids from Ivy League schools, who are clearly extremely bright, for not scoring high on this test. Hell, if I went to Harvard and someone came up to me and said "I got a 95 on that civics quiz, what'd you get?" I'd say, 65. What'd you get on your SATs? Oh, 1050? Well I got a 1520, motherfucker. By the way, how was community college?"

This was not to put down a score of 1050 on the SATs, or community college. This was just to illustrate that it's absolutely ridiculous to equate this quiz with intelligence, let alone relevance in today's world.