A report released last year showed that when more than 14,000 seniors and freshmen at 50 American colleges and universities were tested on the basics of American history and civics, the average score was 52. (The highest results came from Harvard, with a 70.)
In February 2008, it was reported that only 43% of teenagers in another survey knew the Civil War was fought between 1850 and 1900. (While I was on my thrift store junket this weekend, a teenager helping her mother sort through war-time love letters asked what war we were fighting in the 1940s...)
Test your own history acumen here.
Ouch. I got a 64.
Posted by: Nicole Bradshaw | April 20, 2008 at 08:11 PM