Smarter than a Harvard Senior?

[matgb]

Um, I don't know how to react to this. paulatpingu asks So how much do you know about American civic history?

On this quiz I scored 66%, which would place me in one of the top three American Universities when the same quiz was carried out there. Basically, even though I know very little about the specifics of US history, my general knowledge on the subject is better than most American college students.

The quiz itself is here at American Civic Literacy, my result?

You answered 47 out of 60 correctly — 78.33 %

Now, admittedly, some of the questions are about political theorists (Plato and Locke, for example), which both of us studied as undergrads. But, um, it's mostly about United States history and governance. From the breakdown of results by US college (they tested students in the Senior year):

1. Harvard University 69.56%

I, a Brit, score better in a test of US history, than the average senior at Harvard, the premier US university? And despite temptation, no googling, no look ups, just general knowledge and educated guesses.

I know there are smart, capable, switched on USians out there--a chunk of them are on my friends list. But seriously, if even the most educated know so little about their own history and system of government...

My brain hurts. Take the test, can you beat a Harvard senior?

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Catching up, thanks for all the supportive comments during my travels yesterday, brain is now slowly waking back up

Comments

[matgb]

Oh? I don't know much about the internal politics of US university choice--I know I rejected the idea of OxBridge, but I'm not aware of an anti-Harvard thing.

[ms-ntropy.livejournal.com]

I'm a graduate of Boston University. We like to have all sorts of rivalries with other schools that are in a higher academic bracket than we are.

The student store used to sell t-shirts with the "Friends don't let friends..." slogan on them.

Harvard has the same reputation in Boston that it does pretty much everywhere else. Golden children, the whole lot of them.

Thing of note about that quiz though? I think the scores would be a bit more accurate if they only encompassed the Kennedy School of Government. Which isn't to say that I think everyone shouldn't be aware of portions of that exam, expecting everyone to be as well versed in political theory as they would be say...Art History is a bit much.

[susanne-est-moi.livejournal.com]

Ouch!