There are plenty of stories written in the American media about how little Americans know about the world and how few can identify various countries on a world map.  Certainly such knowledge is important to have and as of late, quite a bit has been going on in the North Africa – Middle East – Central Asia area.  So it was with interest that I received an email forwarded by my father that linked to a map quiz from the RethinkingSchools.org website.  The results were interesting.

First off, the quiz (which is located here) is an easy drag-and-drop style quiz where you simply drag the name of the country to the corresponding space on the map.  If you are correct, the name sticks and the country color fills in.  If you are incorrect, a red “X” appears.  There is no timer and no score is given so there is no external pressure.

“Interesting,” I thought, resolving to try the quiz.  I consider myself a bit more knowledgable about the world than the average American, although the primary arc of the Muslim world is not the corner of the globe with which I am most familiar. 

I started dragging names to places, beginning with the ones with which I was most familiar and then filling in around them based on the spacial relationships I know exist.  Of the 35 countries I was able to fill in 24 before I began to second guess myself.

I’ll add a few blank lines and you can scroll down if you want to see which ones I knew.  Warning: If you plan on taking the test yourself, you should do so before you scroll down.  No cheating!

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This was how far I made it.  The next two countries I guessed – Chad and Niger – I got correct.  But after that it was a bit of hunting and pecking.

The complete results are here.  A good exercise to reinforce that we rarely know as much about the world as we think we do and can always benefit from some more learning.