This is horrible. http://www.news9.com/global/story.asp?s=11141949 I realize this is Oklahoma, but can the rest of the states really be that much better? I think it's a fair bet that most of them have an unacceptable amount of retarded children living within their borders. Only 43% know the two major political parties in the U.S.!!! How is that even possible? Even if you never attended school a day in your life, how can you get that wrong?
That's a pretty severe lack of interest. I have a friend who's lack of interest in sports is to the point that if you even bring it up, his eyes glaze over and he actively tunes out everything you say. Despite this, he can name all the professional sports teams in Chicago (where he lives). Some shit you just pick up whether you want to or not.
The reality is that the two parties are only distinctive in imaginary terms. I'd give extra credit to the student who said "It is one party of wealthy political elites, divided into two functionally-interchangeable parties to give the illusion of choice."
Uh well, isn't the anser to that a grey area? Washington was the first President of an independent US but John Hanson was the first president of the US.
Everyone of us here in the United States who are over 12 years of age should have easily answered all of those questions. J.
1) The United States was independent before Hanson was elected. 2) There were two presidents of the Continental Congress before Hanson. Whether or not they were president of "an independant US" depends on who you ask. The Americans had long since declared themselves independent. The British had not yet recognized it. But in light of the fact that the British eventually did recognize it, it seems pretty obvious that the States were independent from July 4, 1776 onwards. The British refusal to recognize that only means they were not yet willing to admit it, not that it hadn't happened. 3) President of the Continental Congress and President of the United States are not equivalent offices. The Articles of Confederation provided for a president of the Congress, not a president of the United States. The president presided over the meetings of the Congress and that is all. He had no power whatsoever where the United States as a whole is concerned. In short, you have bought into a myth, and gotten your facts mixed up as well.
Hanson was President of Congress during the time the U.S. was governed by the Articles of Confederation. He had virtually no executive power. As for it being a gray area, you're arguably correct. A knowledgable student might make this claim. I would be highly amused (and impressed) if a student could argue the case for Hanson. But I think you'll find that, as depressingly few American students are aware of the Constitution, even fewer of them have ANY awareness of the Articles of Confederation. For them the question "Who is the first President?" doesn't raise any historical ambiguities...
I'd love to defend my state here, but we're talking about a population that lives on 3.2 beer, indian casinos and college football. Sam Bradford?
1000 was their pool? That's all. It's not hard to send out a poll and have it taken and sent back. They should have used more kids. I particularly like the comment in the bottom about how "medieval" Oklahoma is. But I digress. We do have a lot of stupid people in Oklahoma. And they keep having kids.
You seriously think 75% of Oklahomans knew that John Hanson was the first president of the United States under the articles of confederation?
I got 6 right, and I'm not even from the country. But I also had the benefit of hanging out here with filthy Americans.
As much as I would like to use this as an opportunity to make fun of Mobilehoma, I cannot. It's too scary and I don't think these results would be drastically different in most states. I think kids these days are severely ignorant. I noticed it when I went back to college after the Army. These kids are dumb.
Oh, I've seen Newswipe, you guys are just as bad in all the same ways. Well, not quite the same. Your game shows look they were filmed in a garage with a 1992 Sony HandyCam. You win, I guess.
You really need to take a statistics class. That's more than large enough a sample to conduct an accurate poll of a population the size of Oklahoma public high school students. I tend to think it's likely there were problems with this poll, but sample size is not one of them. High school students having a tendency to be jokers and a stronger tendency to not feel like being serious with or wasting their time with phone pollsters, on the other hand . . .
Isn't this the state where that girl got expelled for saying the pledge of allegiance instead of the lord's prayer before a basketball game, and who's family was basically run out of town for being atheists?
Not that I'm a aware of. EDIT: I've heard prayers at games, but never the lord's prayer. They usually consist of thank you for looking over us and making sure everyone gets home safe. And either the Pledge of Allegiance is said, or the Star Spangled Banner is sung/played. This is not only a religious state, not as bad as some,** but a very Patriotic one as well. **A lot of our "religious" types are face types. They go out and party hard and sin it up then go in on Sunday to keep a good face with the community.
I have Bitch. In fact I've probably taken more in depth statistic classes than you. :shiver: and 1000 I still do not believe is very representative of 685,000. Just like I don't believe the polls that come out for politics when they are of short numbers. How many of those kids were rural and how many were inner city? How many were upper class and how many were lower class. And how many of that number just said fuck off I don't want to take this seriously? Edit: And for clarity I also know of several people who have gotten their Doctorates in Education (I know I know not hard to do). When they went through looking for trends they did not just use 1000 students as their data reference they used upwards of 10,000 to be legitimate, when making their conclusions. So are you going to tell me that the people who supervise and recommend a Doctorate at OU or OSU don't know anything about statistics?
If 1000 out of 685000 was the actual case, then that's a good enough sample for broad generalities and trends, but not much more than that. But just because I did statistical analysis for a living for nine years doesn't mean I know anything about it.
It's a sample of public high school students in Oklahoma. There are nowhere near 685,000 public high school students in Oklahoma. And, in any event, 1000 would be a large enough sample to conclude conclusively a state of general idiocy if the population were 685,000, the survey were otherwise well constructed, and the survey produced the results given in this case. 1,000 is a large enough sample size for accurately surveying any population, which, combined with its being a nice round number and not to big a sample to be unwieldy, is why it's a pretty standard sample size for surveys of large populations. It's not a large enough sample size to allow conclusions about smaller subpopulations, but if all one is looking for is a set of conclusions about the broadest group that defines the population being sampled there's pretty much never a reason to sample more than 1000 people.
