Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Civic Literacy Test

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I got a 94%… what about you?

BMG bragging rights in the comments…

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    • 4 and 9 wrong. I honestly can’t believe I didn’t get any of the economic questions at the end wrong. Apparently, I did deserve that A in macroeconomics…

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      p>I think the questioners themselves got 9 wrong, because the constitution certainly does grant the federal government the ability to levy income taxes (the 16th amendment). I honestly flipped the metaphorical coin on that one.

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      p>As for question 4, I didn’t feel so bad getting that wrong, since only 1 in 5 got it right (which pretty much means almost no one knew it, since there was a 1 in 5 chance in getting it right making a pure guess).  

      • I’m still trying to figure out what they meant by it.  It could have been the Federal Government “exclusively” or perhaps “explicitly in the original constitution”.  The 16th amendment certainly grants the power to levy income taxes, so both A and B are correct, even if you exclude implied powers.  A is the only power that is the province of the Federal Government alone.

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        p>I got three wrong 9, 29, and 33.  For 33, I misread the correct answer, so I didn’t agree with any of them and took a wild guess.  I’m still a little confused by the reasoning of 29.

        • I don’t see anything there about taxes.  It says:

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          p>9)   Under Our Constitution, some powers belong to the federal government. What is one power of the federal government?

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          p>A. Make treaties
          B. Make zoning laws
          C. Maintain prisons
          D. Establish standards for doctors and lawyers

  3. I think some of the economic questions speak to a specific philosophy which is not entirely objective.

  4. 7 and 33.
    I’m not surprised at the high scores from those who frequent this and other political blogs.  It’s our hobby.  Can you imagine the scores of the average “person on the street”?

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    p>I believe it was Jay Leno who sent an interviewer out to ask simple questions like “who is the Vice President?” to folks on the street.  Care to guess why the bit was so funny (or sad)?  

  5. Chris is right, this quiz is setup by a conservative organization, where the “right” answers on some of the economic questions are the ones that agree with traditionally conservative economic policy.

    • on the economic questions.  But I still screwed up–got #s 27 and 33 wrong.  Shouldn’t have taken an 8 a.m. economics 101 course.  Of course, I think they were lousy questions.

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      p>But seriously, in talking about their methodology, the test designers said that they took their questions from various predictable sources, but that they added two of their own.  I’ll bet the questions are 33 and 31 (even though I guessed correctly what they wanted there).  I searched the website but they didn’t reveal which questions came from what source.   They shoulda waited to see what’s happening with our economy now before they put in Q #31.

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      p>BTW, I feel like a dummy in this crowd. Got 5 wrong (still an 85.85%)–the above two plus: Lincoln-Douglas debate (it was my second guess; I said morality of slavery, which I think was at least what Douglas was really debating); Gettysburg Address (totally ridiculous since I grew up hearing it recited on the town lawn every Memorial Day, but I said Declaration of Independence); and about the Puritans (“complete religious freedom”–as opposed to religious freedom for themselves–didn’t seem right, but sinfulness of all sounded too Catholic…).

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      p>  

  7. Missed the “public good” question.  Doh!

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    p>I seem to have a different set of answers to Number 9 than did the commenter above.

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    p>Didn’t find the economic questions to be so skewed.  Who is going to argue that free markets don’t deliver prosperity better than “central planning” which is kind of like saying people who breathe air tend to be healthier than people who submerge themselves in water until they drown.  This doesn’t seem to have much at all to do with the traditional left-right discussions in American politics, so hard to call it biased.

    • so I think it’s a fairly centrist quiz, it’s just the left leaning folk here perceive it as right leaning.  

      • 27)   Free markets typically secure more economic prosperity than government’s centralized planning because:
        A. the price system utilizes more local knowledge of means and ends
        B. markets rely upon coercion, whereas government relies upon voluntary compliance with the law
        C. more tax revenue can be generated from free enterprise
        D. property rights and contracts are best enforced by the market system
        E. government planners are too cautious in spending taxpayers’ money

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        p>”Typically” compared to what? And “Free” compared to what? In my opinion, there is no such thing as a free market in the real world, therefore this question reveals a fundamental bias. It is like saying, “Which of the following is the most deadly sin.” A frame of reference is presumed in the question.

        • But didn’t realize that you were fans of Great Leaps Forward and Five Year Plans.

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          p>Freer than central planning.  Says it right there in the question, in English.

          • Perhaps Bob would have liked it better if the government bought his book so he didn’t have to shill it?

            • “Insults, personal  attacks, rudeness, and blanket unsupported statements reduce the level of discourse, interfere with our basic objective, and are not permitted.” [BMG policy page.]

              • But EaBo’s joke was pretty good. Bob did write a book. Under central planning, the government does initiate many of the purchases.

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                p>We do have a certain level of snark and some sharply worded comments on BMG.

          • How would you classify the following economies (free market or central planning):

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            p>Modern-day China
            Singapore
            Taiwan

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            p>All currently embrace market economies, but I’d argue that all to various degrees have, or were, significantly influenced by central planning.  

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            p>I’m not arguing that central planning is good or bad, I’m just noting that there are examples of successful/growing economies with significant central planning components.

          • And have been since the federal government decided to assume Revolutionary War debts in the earliest days of this country, or at least since the Supreme Court buckled and agreed that the commerce clause trumps the contract clause. Haven’t you noticed that Washington, D.C. has a certain impact on the economy.

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            p>Of course we’re not a centrally planned economy like the USSR, but without some “government’s centralized planning” we’d still be hunter-gatherers.

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            p>That’s why I cited the question as an example of fundamental bias.

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            p>Free your mind, CMD.

        • true free markets require externalized costs to be internalized; pay the full cost for pollution, etc.

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          p>No government has ever come close to doing this… and so while I would expect that free markets would secure more economic prosperity because resources would be more frequently allocated to maximize the aggregate sum of producer and consumer surplus, it’s not obvious that it would happen, nor is it obvious that a system with few big winners is better than one with many small winners.

      • Answers to Your Missed Questions:

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        p>Question #30 – C. decreasing taxes and increasing spending

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        p>And I contend THAT is a matter of opinion – I said decrease both taxes AND spending….

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        p>That said – BMG is a civics-rich envoirnment, based on the comments!

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        p>

    • That the ‘church and state’ language originated with Jefferson and not in any state document is a standard talking point for religious conservatives.  

      • Specifically, it was in a letter from President Jefferson to the Danbury (CT) Baptist Association.  He clearly lables it his own interpretation of the first amendment and I’m not sure how else you could interpret “no law respecting an establishment of religion”.

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        p>Of course conservatives like to cite Jefferson’s views on limited government so this is always a good line to through back at them.

            • I’m still surprised he didn’t know, not because it’s an argument I’d expect him to get involved in, but because separation of church and state is an argument his compatriots often get involved in depending on the news of the day.

  9. Whooo!

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    p>Thing is, I’m just a skilled test taker.  I knew they had a conservative bent, and I knew they’d use words like “typically” to push their agenda.

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    p>I got lucky on a few guesses to be sure.

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    p>It “felt” to me that this wasn’t really as much civics as it was US political history.  They’re related to be sure, but I expected more answers like 435, 538, 6 years, lifetime appointment, lame duck, and so forth.  There were some of those questions, but plenty that weren’t like that.

  10. Like ShillelaghLaw, I missed only 33.

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    p>Looking at the question again, I think the answer would have been clearer to say “average tax per person,” but that is splitting hairs. I’ll take my 96.97% and be happy to be tied in second place.

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    p>Way to go stomv!

    • It’s actually just a math question, not even an economics question.  It’s the equivalent of saying “if A = B, then A/C = B/C.”

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      p>They might be trying to confuse people into thinking debt = deficit, in answer A.

  11. Missed #25 – after reading about the conservative bent of the quiz, I went for the “conservative” answer instead of my gut. I said E) “government implements policies that favor businesses over consumers” instead of B) “individual citizens create, exchange, and control goods and resources”.

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    p>And #29 – I said something was a “public good” because E) “government pays for its construction, not citizens” (and, since we technically control the government, government constructions are publicly-owned goods). Right answer was B) “a resident can benefit from it without directly paying for it”. Still not sure that that’s 100% correct…

    • Just a quick thought on #29. If you work in an open shop – where union membership is not mandatory – and you choose to not be a member but still take advantage of some of the benefits that the union has worked for, are those benefits “public goods”? You do, after all, benefit from it without directly paying for it…

      • She was a MA public school teacher who refused to join the union because she felt they over-protected incompetence.  I seem to remember she was still on the hook for certain fees related to the union even though she didn’t belong.

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        p>Of course, she eventually joined the union after getting screwed by the school’s administration, confirming my contention that unions are a response to bad management, but that’s another story.

    • In economics, a public good is a good that is non-rivaled and non-excludable. This means, respectively, that consumption of the good by one individual does not reduce availability of the good for consumption by others; and that no one can be effectively excluded from using the good.

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      p>I chose B because it was closest to my understanding of a public good, though I agree the quiz wording was not great.

    • That’s what I would’ve picked if I said I thought instead of what I thought the tester wanted.  (Maybe I’m misreading it?)

    • That’s what I would’ve picked if I was being asked my opinion, but I figured I should answer the tester’s opinion, (B), and got it “right.”

  13. You answered 32 out of 33 correctly – 96.97 % I missed #10.

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    p>I agree some of the wording was a little off.

  14. But that’s only because I knew, based on the source, what answers it was generally looking for- otherwise I would have answered some (of the speculative ones) differently…

  15. Got 32 of 33, but missed #8 because I thought FDR was more of a badass.  How do you “threaten” to appoint judges that agree with you?  What were they doing before that?

    • Since FDR wasn’t getting his way, he wanted to appoint additional justices to the Supreme Court (whose size is not specified in the constitution).   Historically this is referred to as his attempt to “pack the court”.

      • I had just recently joked to someone that Obama should consider this option if he gets messed with by the current Supremes and doesn’t have an opportunity to otherwise appoint some of his own choices.

  16. The commentary on the test website said that, of their initial testers, only those with doctorates had an average score that was passing:  72%.  For those with master’s, 64%.  The average score for every other education group was an F.  And baby-boomers did best by age group (though still flunking with an average score of 61%).

  17. I’ll admit my lack of knowledge — I got four wrong.  Took it a few days ago (“levy taxes” was still on there, IIRC, though I picked treaties as the “more correct” answer since states and towns can as well), so I had to go back and try to remember which ones I was wrong on.

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    p>The first, I have to admit, was misremembering the “for the people”.  As soon as I saw the answers come up, I smacked myself, because I knew that one.  Really.

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    p>FDR vs. SCOTUS was the second — we never discussed that in history class that I could recall, and I just had no idea.  My gut reaction was actually right, but I picked something else because I was second-guessing the test writers.  

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    p>The others were some of the economics ones — 29 and 33.  I just don’t know the jargon well enough and I wasn’t sure what was being asked.

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    p>Amusingly enough, I got the “wall of separation” correct because I learned about it (and lots about Thomas Jefferson in general) in Sunday School.  Because that’s what UU’s do in Sunday School.   Talk about how awesome Thomas Jefferson was, since it’s apparently all we can agree on.  

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