What Surprised You Most About the National Geographic Geosurvey Results?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the surprising results of a National Geographic geosurvey, focusing on participants' reactions to various statistics about geographical knowledge among different countries. The scope includes conceptual reflections on geography, cultural awareness, and educational implications.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants express shock that fewer Americans aged 14-25 know the population of the US compared to other countries.
  • Others note that only 89% of Americans could identify the US on a world map, which several find surprising.
  • A participant mentions that more French identified Italy on the map than Italians did, highlighting perceived geographical knowledge discrepancies.
  • Some participants question the overall performance of Americans in the survey, suggesting a cultural emphasis on "feelings" over factual knowledge.
  • There are comments on the poor performance of various countries regarding specific geographical questions, such as identifying the Pacific Ocean or the location of major cities.
  • Several participants wonder about the implications of a math-based survey and speculate on how knowledge of African or Southeast Asian countries would fare.
  • One participant reflects on the educational system in the US, suggesting it lags behind other countries based on the survey results.
  • There are discussions about the largest world religion, with some expressing surprise that Christianity has the largest following, contrary to their previous beliefs about Hinduism or Buddhism.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a range of reactions, with some agreeing on the surprising nature of the results while others emphasize their lack of surprise regarding Americans' performance. Multiple competing views on the implications of the survey results remain, and the discussion does not reach a consensus.

Contextual Notes

Some participants mention limitations in their ability to answer due to unclear map visuals or personal knowledge gaps, indicating that individual experiences may affect perceptions of the survey results.

  • #31
I though at first that this was a survey to show how dumb America is, so I expected to see other countries in the 90s for every question. I wasn't suprized at America's results, it's the other countries like Sweden, Germany, and Great Britain that suprized me. Like a quarter of those countries' peoples couldn't find the pacific ocean on the map. That's just sad. And I thought Europeans had good schools. Bah!

I give up on humanity. I don't know how any reasonably intelligent human being could have missed more than one or two questions on that test. I only had to think about one question and that was the question that asked "where is Afganistan(sp?) located on this map?" But I still got 20/20.
 
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  • #32
I honestly do wonder what would happen if i was able to walk up to superintendant of a school system and ask "why are these kids so stupid"...

And it's like no one really wants to deal with this problem! There has probably been 1000x as many articles published about this intelligent design in school crap then there has been about the overall failure of our school system. It's like no one wants to hear about this. No one wants to hear about their stupid little school system failing in all worthwhile aspects.
 
  • #33
Evo said:
I wonder, given a picture of the solar system, how many Americans could pick out the earth?
Howards Stern used to bring people who were exceptionally dull mentally into his studio and ask them questions. I particularly remember that all of them did not know how many planets there are in the solar system, most did not know which planet Earth is, and one particularly ditzy stripper couldn't even identify what planet she was on at that moment.
 
  • #34
I got 20/20 but spent a lot of time figuring our Isarel(I thought it was a huge counrty near Iraq), I then did it by elimination.
I wonder why the NATGEO didnt take the survey in Asian countries
 
  • #35
I received a funny video clip via email yesterday. It's somewhat related to this discussion. Americans were asked, by an Australian (I guess it was taken from an Australian TV show), which country should be invaded next with respect to the War on Terror. Most answers were somewhere in the Middle East. Next, there was asked to mark that nation in a map with countries labled, and with Australia (mis)labled as that particular country! Even then many marked Australia! One even remarked how much larger "N.Korea" (Australia) was compared to "S.Korea"(Tasmania)! :smile:

Don't ask me how the presenter knew what to name Australia. It looks like he had a stack of maps.

As for this Nat.Geo survey, I got 18/20. Got the questions on the population of the U.S (Guessed 500M - 750M) and the location of Sweden wrong. Regards,
Navneeth
 
  • #36
I was surprised that more Mexicans could find the US on a map than people from the United States -- especially since only 29% of Mexicans could find West on a map.

I'd say there must be differences in the geographic skills taught in each country. People in the US seem to be pretty bad at reading global maps while Mexicans don't seem to pay much attention to the people living in various countries.

The biggest shock was that Sweden has successfully hidden itself from the entire world. Besides Sweden, only Germans had a better than 50% chance of finding Sweden. I could kind of understand it if the alternate choices were Norway, Finland, and Denmark, but the other choices were Great Britain, Poland, and Australia!

In general, it seems that if you speak English, you don't know that much about geography.
 
  • #37
neutrino said:
One even remarked how much larger "N.Korea" (Australia) was compared to "S.Korea"(Tasmania)! :smile:
That's just priceless ! Do you still have the file ?
 
  • #38
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  • #39
Gokul43201 said:
Take this survey, and look at the numbers below each answer showing the results by country.
http://geosurvey.nationalgeographic.com/geosurvey/templates/question_1.html
Which statistic shocked you the most and why ?
11% of americans can't even locate their own country?? :bugeye:
pretty much the whole survey shocked me, funny that the americans DO know which region exports the most oil..
 
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  • #40
Only 15% of the French knew what El Nino is. France is stupid.
 
  • #41
FredGarvin said:
Only 15% of the French knew what El Nino is. France is stupid.
I know you're kidding, but what's your guess on the fraction of Americans who know what the Mistral really is?
 
  • #42
Gokul43201 said:
That's just priceless ! Do you still have the file ?
Sure I do...can't afford to lose something as priceless as that! :biggrin: Want me to forward it to you?
 
  • #43
I was surprised (honestly) to find that only 98% of Swedes can find Sweden! If THAT statistic can't be 100%, nothing can!
 
  • #44
I wonder why so much emphasis is being placed on locating somewhere on a map... Is it really that important a skill? It's not like you'll ever be told you have to find your own way there, nor does not knowing where Afghanistan is affect your understanding of its political situation.
(19/20 by the way. Didn't get the religion one)

wasteofo2 said:
Here's a pie chart of which percent of the world follows which religion.
http://www.adherents.com/images/rel_pie.gif
Wow, I really had no idea Judaism made such a small percentage.
 
  • #45
Entropy said:
I wasn't suprized at America's results, it's the other countries like Sweden, Germany, and Great Britain that suprized me. Like a quarter of those countries' peoples couldn't find the pacific ocean on the map. That's just sad. And I thought Europeans had good schools. Bah.
Well, there are several different names for the Pacific ocean. I myself know it best as the Great ocean or the 'Silent' ocean, not the Pacific.
 
  • #46
I had some good teachers, so I got all of those right, easily. These statistics do not surprize me especially sitting with some of these people who are bringing down the national average, every day at school. I think a lot of this has to do with television and the current culture of the United States. I find that I can't even watch something remotly intelliegent any time I want. I mean look at how far the discovery channel has fallen. I used to watch that all of the time. I loved "Blue Planet." But then slowly I watched it be consumed by reality TV and now I barely watch it. There is so much previlance on how things look and that is why most kids do not take the time to pursue what they are interested in.
-Scott
 
  • #47
matthyaouw said:
I wonder why so much emphasis is being placed on locating somewhere on a map... Is it really that important a skill?

National geographic was doing the survey... those punks :D

I was wondering something, isn't El Nino more prevelant in the Pacific Ocean then in the other oceans?
 
  • #48
Pengwuino said:
I was wondering something, isn't El Nino more prevelant in the Pacific Ocean then in the other oceans?
Yes, that's right.
 
  • #49
Well then that would make sense as to why north america had such better statistics as far as that question was concerned.
 
  • #50
Pengwuino said:
Well then that would make sense as to why north america had such better statistics as far as that question was concerned.
...as did Japan, naturally.
 
  • #51
The video clip that neutrino referred to : http://www.wimp.com/invading/

It's absolutely hilarious !
 
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  • #52
ahahhaha oh man, you australians are in trouble if we ever decide to invade iran!

the ticker is pretty funny too

haha oooops, looks like australins are also in trouble if we ever decide to invade france.

Man you australians are screwed no matter what...
 
  • #53
This is completely off-topic, and I apologize for that, but it's not worth starting a new thread for and this one is popular enough that most of my buds will see it. Just want to let you know that I'll be off for the weekend. My gf and I, along with her grand-nephew and his gf, are going to Lloydminster for a couple of days to pick up her van and bring it back. She left it there when she moved, because she needed to drive her truck back to carry stuff in. I'll be back either Sunday night or Monday. Three cheers to my boss for letting me go on a busy weekend (I'm the only employee). This is the first time that I've been out of the Calgary area in close to 20 years, so it's a major vacation for me.
 
  • #54
Gokul43201 said:
The video clip that neutrino referred to : http://www.wimp.com/invading/
It's absolutely hilarious !
:smile: :cry: :smile: :biggrin:

Yep - and those are adults. Hopefully he found someone who pointed out that the maps were wrong. :rolleyes:

Danger - have fun, and have a safe trip!
 
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  • #55
Was it real? It looked stage ... with the ticker being a big joke and all...
 
  • #56
Gokul43201 said:
I know you're kidding, but what's your guess on the fraction of Americans who know what the Mistral really is?
Yeah. I was kidding. I was just playing to the France bashing that goes on so much. I dare not guess at what percent of anything Americans know.

Please tell me that the video is a joke. Please.
 
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  • #57
Chi Meson said:
I was surprised (honestly) to find that only 98% of Swedes can find Sweden! If THAT statistic can't be 100%, nothing can!

I would think that more Americans would be able to point out America than only 89%... I mean, it's huge! It's just there! But some people... grrr
 
  • #58
Moonbear said:
That was the one that shocked me the most! I only missed the one about the largest world religion...I actually thought it was something other than Christianity.
I wasn't shocked, but found it disturbing nonetheless, that such a high percentage of Americans couldn't identify the middle eastern countries and didn't know which one the Taliban and Al Quaeda originated in.

Christianity has purportedly roughly 1.9 billion, and Islam roughly 1.1 Billion. Together that amounts to roughly half the world's population.

KM
 
  • #59
Gokul43201 said:
So Christianity wins ! Come to think of it, there's probably nearly as many Catholics as there are Muslims.

I'm not sure, but I would rather doubt that. Given present demographic trends, in fifty years Islam will probably be the largest religion on Earth. Let's just hope that these aren't largely radicalized, or we might have a warm time on this little planet.

KM
 
  • #60
that was a very very simple test. i only got one wrong. i even named sweden. that's sad, the sweds got the highest score on where all the other country's are all the time but nobody knows where sweden is.

of course america knows who exports the most oil. why else would we send hundreds of troops over there and not texas.

i'm too young to apply for this test technically... oh well i brough up the percent thingy hopefully.

1/3 of all americans don't know the sun is a star, if they are shown a map of the solar system...
 

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