Civics 101: The New Citizenship Test

  • Name an author of the Federalist Papers.
  • Name a government power that belongs to the states.
  • Name your congressman.
  • Who was president during World War I?

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services released the 100 questions that it will be asking next year on its revised citizenship test. And while some of them seem like breeze even for first graders (Who is the “Father of Our Country?”), others could stump plenty of high schoolers.

Other examples:

  • What are two rights only available to U.S. citizens?
  • How many voting members of the House of Representatives?
  • Name a U.S. territory.

Washington Wire

How Not to Cheat

Let’s say you discover an old lamp and rub it, and out comes a genie offering to grant you a wish. You are greedy and devious, so you wish for the ability, whenever you play online poker, to see all the cards that the other players are holding. The genie grants your wish.

What would you do next?

Steven D. Levitt tells us not to do what these guys did.

Best line of the day, so far (if you play bridge)

“[Warren] Buffett is deeply addicted. He once said, ‘Bridge is such a sensational game that I wouldn’t mind being in jail if I had three cellmates who were decent players and who were willing to keep the game going twenty-four hours a day.'”

— David Owen in a good article on the history and current status of bridge in last week’s New Yorker, “Turning Tricks.”

Stuff ‘R’ Us

Try to unscramble a rack of letters from GRE Vocabulary Word Scramble. Hit play again (after checking the answer) or refresh your browser to get a new word.

Here’s a short item on a Pregnant Woman On The Way To Hospital Charged With Reckless Driving And Subject To Virginia’s Abusive Driver Fee of $1050. 57 mph in a 35 zone. (She wasn’t in labor, but thought she was.) What d’ya think?

It still surprises me a little when I click on a page and it knows where I am.

Some of these are LOL. Annoying things to do on an elevator.

The Fifteen Most Dynamic Duos in Pop Culture History.

Somebody’s idea of The 20 Most Beautiful Colleges in the USA.

Confusing headline of the day: Men’s Undiagnosed Diabetes Down. How could they know?

Even more stuff

Take a Cognitive Mental Abilities IQ test from the International High IQ Society. 36 questons; takes about 12-15 minutes. Yes, it gives you your result as an IQ. (I refer to the eCMA test.)

A video of a half-time show in Korea that has to be better than the game could have been — Incredible Halftime Show.

The books may be over but J.K. Rowling goes Beyond Hogwarts in interviews.

Oh, and from Scholastic, “find out how to say Hermione, Eeylops, and Azkaban, using our handy” Harry Potter: Pronunciation Guide.

Worried About iPod Theft? Hide It In a Zune!.

Snuggly. The Security Bear.

TBIF

Thank the Bible it’s Friday. I mean, years, seasons, lunar months, the day are all the result of creation, but the seven day week is a biblical invention, no? 1

You might get a laugh or two from the History Of The Internet.

Interesting. god v. satan (one image).

“So you think you know the McDonald’s menu like the back of your hand? Think again. From McDonald’s international, here are some menu items you have probably never tried before.” McDonald’s Strange Menu Around the World.

Celebrities – now and then.

The kid looks to be about 8. Kleiner Kerl spiel Gitarre (Led Zeppelin).

And last (yeah!), a silly little quiz from Car Talk.


1 No one seems to know where, when or why the 7-day week originated. Most theorize it represents the seven visible (to the human eye) objects in the sky that aren’t stars (the sun, the moon and five classical planets — Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn). The seven-day week seems to have originated in more than one culture.

Trivia time

How many of America’s ten largest cities can you name?

By largest here I mean the 10 with the most residents in 2006 (Census estimates). And I mean in one city not in a metropolitan area that includes suburbs.

Would it help if I told you three of the ten have “San” in their name? Careful, it might not be the Sans you think.

Would it help if I told you that only three of the ten were also in the top ten in 1910?

The answer is in the first comment. How’d you do?

Stuff

Like to learn how to identify constellations, stars, planets and how to navigate at night? Follow the link.

An interesting 90-second map-based presentation that shows the growth of the world’s dominate religions. From Maps of War.

Mathematical proof that girls are evil.

Rejected Google Holiday Logos.

Gandolfini Autograph

On eBay you can buy Tony Soprano’s Chevy Suburban.

Disney's Desperate Housewives

Click cartoon if you need larger image.

And this is just wrong.

That and This

“Despite what we read in the popular press, the only known symptom of ’empty nest syndrome’ is increased smiling.”

Daniel Gilbert in Stumbling on Happiness, a fascinating and entertaining book NewMexiKen will write more about later.

Trivia time: What’s the longest un-dammed river in the lower 48 states?

The New West Network tells how that river kept its course. (Thanks to Coyote Gulch for the pointer.)

It’s the Yellowstone.

At Freakonomics Blog Steven D. Levitt suggests you might want to invite your enemies over if you live in Missouri, where a new law says that “people are not required to retreat from an intruder and can use deadly force once the person illegally enters their home, vehicle or other dwelling, including a tent.” Who’s to say whether you invited them in or they entered illegally?

Do you know the Stroop Effect?

The Stroop Effect is one of the most-studied phenomena in psychology. The test is easy to administer, and works in a variety of contexts. The simplest way to see how it works is just to look the following two lists. Don’t read them, instead say the color each word is displayed in, as quickly as you can:

Stroop

Source: Cognitive Daily, which has more.

Zebra Horse

Did you say the colors or read the words?

Did you know that zebras and horses could be bred?

Source: The Underwire, which has details.

And, this from Cheers and Jeers:

Percent of single American men and women who religious conservatives say should remain celibate until marriage: 100%

Percent of single American men and women who actually remain celibate until marriage (or so they say): 11%

Could you pass the U.S. citizenship test?

Just in time for Independence Day from MSNBC.com.

When immigrants want to become Americans, they must take a civics test as part of their naturalization interview before a Citizenship and Immigration Services (INS) officer. The questions are usually selected from a list of 100 sample questions that prospective citizens can look at ahead of the interview (though the examiner is not limited to those questions). Some are easy, some are not. We have picked some of the more difficult ones.

NewMexiKen is proud to report that I scored an ace — 20 for 20!

Thanks to Cat’s Mom Tanya for the link.

Update: Last year’s Independence Day trivia quiz is getting a number of visits today. Want to test your U.S. history and geography trivia knowledge again?

Bits and pieces

Harper’s Magazine has a series of brief essays on Undoing Bush: how to repair eight years of sabotage, bungling, and neglect.

YouTube has Jay Leno’s post-jail interview with Paris.

Another video, this of the World’s fastest, longest zip-line in South Africa. This would be like taking the Tram without the tram.

Out in Left Field takes her kids to Charles Edward Fromage. You know, Chuck E. Cheese. (A place NewMexiKen went once.) “‘Come on,’ I mumble, taking him by the hand and letting him know in no uncertain terms that he’s a pain in the ass. But that I love him anyway.”

And I know, at some level this isn’t funny, but … From The Onion, After 5 Years In U.S., Terrorist Cell Too Complacent To Carry Out Attack:

“We remain wholly committed to the destruction of America, the Great Satan,” al-Sharif said. “But now is not a good time for us. The season finale of Lost was such a cliff- hanger that we have to at least catch the first episode of the new season. After that, though, death to the infidels.”

“Probably,” added al-Sharif, who noted that his nearly $6,000 in credit-card debt from recent purchases of a 52-inch HDTV and a backyard gas grill prevents him from buying needed materials for the attack.

Try the 20Q Pocket Game Demo. NewMexiKen has the real thing and it is pretty amazing at guessing objects if you answer correctly.

Do you think Fiona Apple would be as successful if she went by her birth name Fiona Maggart?

Did you notice?

iTunes 7.3, which was released yesterday to incorporate the iPhone, alphabetizes the library differently than its predecessors.

Punctuation marks are somehow incorporated into the order — for example, Miles Davis’s ‘Round Midnight or Otis Redding’s (Sittin’ on the) Dock of the Bay. These used to be listed before “A” because of the apostrophe and the parenthesis. Now they show up under R and S.

And numbers now come after the letters rather than before — for example, Prince’s 1999.

I don’t care — I think I prefer this — but I thought it odd that the change was made.

——–

Some other stuff:

If you’re a shut-in you can check out the Moon Phase. (Today’s was a blue moon for most of the world. The U.S. had a blue moon last month.)

Here’s a bunch of photos of celebrities when they were kids. They’re captioned, but how many would you recognize?

For whatever reason, a video of Mika Brzezinski trying to do the right thing — and two knuckleheads.

How fast can you handle simple mathematical calculations?

Here in ‘Burque, using a pseudonym, a member of Mayor Marty’s cabinet called his radio show to flatter Marty and rail against the city council. Linda has ‘always been my alter-ego name’ CFO Gail Reese later said. Tbe Albuquerque Tribune has the story.

And Scott Adams has a take on lottery winners, prompted by the couple that won $105 million Wednesday night.

But I notice that the people who win are coincidentally the people who would be best for marketing future Powerball lotteries. You know what story you will never hear about a lottery winner? It’s this one:

“Wealthy bachelor neurosurgeon, age 30, wins $300 million in the lottery. The lucky winner, Winston Arbuckle III, says he plans to “Buy another yacht, smoke more weed, and float around the Mediterranean until I die from the clap.” Asked about his neurosurgery practice, Arbuckle quipped, “I never liked sick people.”

No, you will only hear stories about the modest couple with the hard-working husband, usually in his late fifties or early sixties. They will be “thinking about” getting a nicer house. In this latest lottery story, the husband is a long-haul trucker whose truck has recently crapped out. He plans to buy a new (used) truck and keep working.

I’m Reasonably Confident I Would Beat Ken Jennings in These Jeopardy! Categories

Owen Morris says he Would Beat Ken Jennings in These Jeopardy! Categories.

Read his list, then come back and list your winning categories.

NewMexiKen’s list:

  • The Sweeties
  • I-25 exits between Albuquerque and Denver
  • Location of Albuquerque’s Red Light cameras
  • I-25 exits between Albuquerque and Hatch
  • Costco
  • Peeps

NewMexiKen has corresponded with Jeopardy! champion Jennings by the way, and he really deserves to be beaten.

Via Avelino, who has his list at Live From Silver City.

Your News IQ

[W]e invite you to take our short quiz about prominent people and major events in the news — then see how you did in comparison with 1,502 randomly sampled adults asked the same questions in a recent national survey conducted by the Pew Research Center.

You’ll also be able to compare your News IQ with the average scores of men and women; with college graduates as well as those who didn’t attend college; with people who are your age as well as with younger and older Americans.

Take the Quiz.

NewMexiKen got all nine, which puts me in the top 4 percent.

Here’s Pew’s Summary of Findings: Public Knowledge of Current Affairs Little Changed by News and Information Revolutions.

How many of the world’s 245 countries can you type in 10 minutes?

Jill has it down to 238. Here’s the ones she missed last time:

Abkhazia
Akrotiri and Dhekelia
Kyrgyzstan
Myanmar
Nagorno-Karabakh
Pridnestrovie
Tuvalu

Be honest, how many of those countries had you even heard of?

NewMexiKen’s original posting for the countries item.

The actual challenge. When you click the clock begins to tick. 600 seconds, 245 countries.