Diversion for the map-challenged

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My oldest daughter introduced me to the Geography Olympics this week-end; she suggested, however, that a patriot would spend some time on this before bringing down America’s average (as she well knew I would).

It’s a nice break. This is my daughter (now seeking diversions from dissertation-writing) who in primary school fastened a world map to the front of her binder and asked her classmates to point our their native lands. She’d come home with questions about Qatar and Bulgaria and Botswama. Third-world nations building up their ag & engineering skills often send grad students to red-state schools. Something like 36 languages were spoken by those primary students, since that school also serves married student housing.

11 thoughts on “Diversion for the map-challenged”

  1. Now that was awesome! I increased the US score by .001% and the Minnesota score by .003%! I’m bummed though that Minnesota is below the US average right now. C’mon, Minnesota, you can do it!

  2. I got 9/10. Couldn’t find San Marino. I saw only one dot on Italy, which I figured was Vatican City. Oh well. I brought the USA up a hair.

  3. In keeping with the logic of most other criticisms of the USA these days I will say..

    HAHA…United States….your people can only locate 77% of the countries on the map when presented them in a random quiz! With the exception of every other nation on the planet, you are the WORST at this test!!!

  4. Yeah, Chris, but they all know where we are. And they want to move here, invest here where their money is safe and returns are good, etc. We Americans should know our geography better, agreed, but don’t get too smug about it.

  7. Well your response seems as though you think I am actually taking a shot at americans in my post, when I am doing just the opposite…maybe my sarcasm wasn’t well put….

  8. Unhappily, it is the nature of blog comments that any subtle attempt at humor will get stripped away like forbidden HTML code.

  9. Wait a minute, that was too subtle. I meant that blog comments are a poor medium for subtle humor, not that we censor the comments to remove the humor.

  10. “blog comments are a poor medium for subtle humor” Right. Text only. Very literal. The medium is not the message, but it shapes and molds the message.

    (Extra credit: Who knows what that phrase “shapes and molds” is an allusion to?)

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