Recently, our University invited its top scholars from various high schools around the NW to campus for a two day competition. This is a big deal because at the end of the weekend two full ride scholarships are awarded. Part of this competition includes a 185 question test on a variety of fun topics. Today we began grading these tests and I found myself both horrified and amused by some of the answers I read.
I was horrified to learn that only 10 out of 100 students are aware of the fact that in 1994 over 800,000 people were murdered over a 90 day stretch in the country of Rwanda. I was also upset to note that only 3 students know that (as of February 5, 2008) roughly 4,000 US soldiers have died in the war in Iraq. But what's worse is that on top of getting this question wrong, all the guesses (on a multiple choice question) were at least 1,300 less than the reality. So now students are not only uninformed about war casualties but under the false impression that the damage being done is far less than it really is.
Fortunately for me and my blood pressure there were also a fair amount of amusing answers that helped to keep me sane.
For example, I bet you didn't know...
Virgil not Homer is the author of the epic poem The Odyssey
Stalin is the current President of Russia
Red, white and blue are the colors of the German flag
Spiders, cows and elephants are some of the animals most commonly found in the Chinese calendar
The Mona Lisa is missing her teeth
Al Gore is still running for President
And November 22, 1963 is the date marking the famous US historical event of Thanksgiving; not to be confused with the JFK assassination.
I'm concerned for America's future.
5 comments:
Oh my gosh, these are hilarious! I didn't know Thanksgiving started in 1963...... ;)
omg.
honestly though, sometimes I'm not sure we alums would perform much better!
Mona Lisa *might* not have teeth... I know the feeling though:
"Guatemala is like a city in Texas, right?"
"Wait, why did you study in Spain if you studied Spanish? They only speak Spanish in Mexico."
"She's Mexican." --no, she's honduran. "what's that?"
Well, there are always gems like this in vet school:
"why do we have lectures on diseases of the ox?"
(me: it's because we work on cattle as vets)
"OMG, cows are OX???"
This was 7 months *after* school started. Yeah.
Hahaha. Please keep the gems coming!
In all fairness though. Bianca is right. I took the same test we gave the kids and barely squeaked out a 74%. But in my defense I also didn't have their SAT scores nor did I get even close the the same sums of money they will be recieving so I feel a little justified in holding them to a higher standard. Not perfection mind you but a higher standard nonetheless.
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