What’s Your Global Literacy?
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 06.26.07 | 8:35 AM ET
Photo: NASANewsweek has put together a wide-ranging, 130-question Global IQ quiz, probing its American readers on everything from politics to technology to literature. “We are hoping to start a conversation about what we are calling Global Literacy—facts and insights about the world (some objective, some subjective) that we think are worth knowing,” Jon Meacham writes in the introduction. “We are not saying this is all you need to know; just that what you are about to read amounts to a good start.” It is a good start, but for many travelers it’s also a conversation that’s already in progress.
Travelers are generally curious, engaged people who take pride in having at least a basic global literacy. I’d wager most Americans who’ve traveled out of the country will score much higher on the quiz than those who haven’t. If you take the quiz—book yourself at least 15 minutes—come back and let me know if you think your travels helped. I think mine did.
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Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.
Eva Holland 06.26.07 | 2:10 PM ET
48%... I haven’t had that low a score on a test since grade eleven math.
As far as the role of travel, though, I don’t think it helped me much - the ‘hand of god’ question and the one about the number of Muslims in Asia are the only two that I think would have a direct link. To be honest, a lot of that didn’t seem very ‘global’- and I think I got every single question about US presidential campaigns wrong.
So Mike and Jim, are you going to tell us your scores? :P
Michael Yessis 06.26.07 | 3:26 PM ET
There’s a bunch of U.S.-specific questions, true. But overall I think traveling and how it caused me to be curious about the world helped. My score: 68.
Our raw numbers both don’t sound too impressive, Eva, but if you checked the graph at the end we both stacked up pretty well versus the rest of the test takers. And so we’ve got two scores to support my general point: Travelers will likely do better on this quiz than non-travelers.
jv 06.26.07 | 6:19 PM ET
A nice idea with some good questions, but I must admit I started to tire after the umpteenth question about U.S. presidential candidates.
Who is the only candidate without children?
Who has been on the most TV sitcoms?
Guess I’m a global illerate!
TambourineMan 06.27.07 | 12:56 PM ET
Another global illiterate here. I grew tired of this test around question 50. My score at the time was 23%.
I’m with you, jv.
Which candidate has appeared on the most TV shows?
Um, who cares?
(By the way, I’m embarrassed to say I got that one right.)
Things I learned:
Romney speaks French? That won’t go over well with the freedom fries crowd.
Chevy still makes a Nova?
gear man 06.28.07 | 1:04 AM ET
I gave up 1/3 of the way through. Too many inane questions about U.S. presidential candidates. The election is the end of 2008, so this seems about as relevant as the latest phone accessory in Japan. Many of these questions are just fleeting trivia instead of useful knowledge.