did anybody look at all of the results of all of the questions? i mean, closely? each question produced it's own curious result worth studying (15% of the French knew what El-Nino was. 11% of Americans did not?/could not? correctly identify the US on a map). however, each question had its own "bias" worth study in itself. don't be misled into easy conclusions.

i think the easy mistake is in placing too much emphasis on only comparing countries with each other, countries with extremely dissimilar educational systems. which countries provide an education to all their students? which countries put their kids on tracks or otherwise sort their students? which students took these tests? where did they come from? urban or rural students? how many students were administered the test in all? state to state? region to region? in what setting were the tests administered? how recently had the students studied geography and how many hours were devoted to that discipline?

now find a way to bar graph all that so you can put it in a magazine.

there are numerous other ways you can break down the data, including continent to continent, city to city, state to state, ethnicity, male vs female, mean echelon of student taking the test, % of immigrant and migrant students vs born citizens in the study, but in the end, you're only working with 40 questions. that isn't much for a decent study, just enough to make a few bar graphs out of it, some slanted news, all the while pointing out to americans a known weakness in an area given cursory treatment by the system. the reality is that the american dream is all about striving to become just about anything but a geography nerd. it's quite a miracle that "where in the world is carmen san diego" enjoyed the popularity that it did.

here is how i remember similar tests. teacher said, "ok kids, today we're going to take 20 minutes to take a test for national geographic instead of <insert otherwise dull coursework here>." teacher handed out test. anal retentive kids like myself breezed through it, sitting around afterwards with our smug, bored looks on while other kids struggled to finish. Meanwhile, alot of kids really weren't struggling, they were smart enough to know most of the answers, but they did their best to stretch the test out and make it take as much class time as possible. some would still try their best but flunk anyway. some would flub it just for the hell of it. if it was a test about drugs, all the drug users would check "no, never used _____" (just in case) and write little essays about how "drugs are bad and people die. mkay." while others who had never used drugs in their lives before would invent rather lurid lives for themselves on paper,

and so forth.

different classrooms, different atmospheres, different educational systems, different attitudes towards testing and different priorities make blanket statements...meaningless.

and i seem to have forgotten the term for the debate sleight of hand i've been using this whole time, because obviously {aside from americans blowing hard on this test (yes, we suck)}:

92% of Mexicans knew that Christianity had the largest number of followers. shaman the rest of you. you're all quite likely going to hell for outsmarting yourselves and guessing something like Hinduism considering there are over a billion people in India alone (but now I see not many UK'ers knew that about their former colony, so maybe another explanation is needed).

almost nobody knows where on Earth Switz...err...Sweden is. well, hell, they're the same country aren't they? right next to Swaziland in...err...SW Eur..err..Asia? yeah SW Eurasia. if its not on a Risk board, does it really matter?

have i sucked the life out of this thread yet?