Scare tactics, or: Mallard Fillmore phones it in

People with post-graduate degrees telling the population of the United States that they are, collectively, "about as sharp as a sack of wet mice" is as American as mom, baseball and Foghorn Leghorn. One of my favorite ways they do this is by publishing the results of the "Civic Literacy Quiz" by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute's National Civic Literacy Board (ISINCLB) under the catchy title: "Failing our Students, Failing America". The study reports that college freshmen nationwide averaged 50.4% on the quiz and seniors 54.2%. You can take the quiz yourself here. My best effort netted me a 55/60 or 91.67%, because I am a dweeb. I would venture that if you put any set of 60 multiple choice questions in front of your average college student, their immediate reaction would be to balk at the amount of time they are expected to waste with it that could be much better spent writing term papers or earning the pittance that keeps their nostrils just above the rising tide of loan debt and simply guess on at least half the questions, especially since it doesn't affect their grade anyway. In the end, stuff like this serves primarily to give conservative drunkard, Bruce Tinsley a few days off, and old people in general something to bitch about over prunes.