The Constitution Test

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Constitution IQ Test Summary - Subtopics include The Bill of Rights; Specific amendments to the U.S. Constitution; Present consitutional controversies; Relevant constitutional history, The laws and text of the Constitution.

Constitution Novice IQ Test - Our US Constitution Novice Political IQ Test is a moderately difficult 15 question multiple-choice quiz, designed to simultaneously test, inform and engage the casual user. Most test-takers will find this quiz to be somewhat challenging. It features an ample 25 minute time limit and a randomly compiled question set drawn from both our easy and moderate difficulty US Constitution question databases.

Constitution Advanced IQ Test - Our US Constitution Advanced Political IQ Test is a very challenging 20 question multiple-choice quiz. It is designed to truly test the limits of the test-takers relevant knowledge and informedness on the subject. Even the most hardcore political pundits will be challenged. It features a leisurely 35 minute time limit and a randomly compiled question set drawn from both our moderate and challenging difficulty US Constitution question databasess.

Interesting Constitution and Law Links

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The Constitution of The United States - It never hurts to read the thing every once in a while - seriously, it's the shortest written constitution of any nation, so there's no excuse.

Supreme Court Homepage - The Supreme Court's website features the latest decisions, as well as transcripts of recent arguments, briefs and opinions.

Annotated Constitution - Official Publication of the U.S. - A good resource for discovering how the legislative branch of the U.S government has come to interpret the content of the Constitution and its 27 amendments in modern times.

Wikipedia: "U.S. Constitution" - U.S. Constitution homepage.

U.S. Constitution Political Commentary and Analysis

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Can We Trust Google? A Review of American Anti-Trust Law

(This article is both an examination of the intended role of American Antitrust law and the case study of Google as possibly in violation of such law. Part I will focus on Google, Part II will look at the progression of Anti-Trust Law in the U.S.)

Part I: More About Google

In September of 1998, Google Inc. was created.

At its beginning, Google was nothing more than a quaint search alternative to the likes of Yahoo as well as many other search engines now long forgotten. Today, barely more than a decade later, Google has become a giant, employing over 20,000 personnel and generating more than $20 billion annually in advertising revenue. But don’t let the title of this article mislead you, by no means does Google possess a classic monopoly in the online advertising market. Google currently competes primarily with Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL in the e-advertising industry, but as long as Google Search continues to host the majority of internet search queries worldwide Google stands to remain as the dominant party in the growing online advertising game - a fact not remiss with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

The Army of Misinformed Martyrs: Commentary on Health Care Reform

While politics often oscillates between being a source of extreme optimism and being a source of tragic disillusionment, it seems that many people in politics are used to such vicissitudes, and are immune to the emotional effects that accompany them. Indeed, I once thought I was capable of abstracting personal feelings from the polemics of the democratic process. Unfortunately, after attending Congressman John Dingell’s August 7th town hall meeting in Michigan, I was dislodged from my emotional indifference to the natural ebb and flow of politics and thrust into a whirlwind of so-called political passion. As I stared blankly at the unruly crowd, which was screaming at the representative who was given no opportunity to answer questions that were posed by interested voters, I observed what seemed to me as a failure of the democratic process.

Three of Obama’s Broken Campaign Promises – How Egregious are They Really?

Before we delve into the particulars of Obama’s broken promises, something must first be said about assessing the relative “badness” of a broken presidential campaign promise in the first place. Clearly all skilled candidates (even those without Obama’s incredible rhetoric) need to paint a glossy picture of the future they’ll be able to provide us as President.

However, not surprisingly, candidates often find it difficult to follow through 100% of the time – even when they want to. Sometimes political expediency and/or the realities of a new day get in the way. Determining the relative “badness” of a broken campaign promise, then, has to do with how blatant, outrageous and unfathomable the betrayal - did the candidate lie, foolishly over-promise, or simply make a mistake? Perhaps a situation changed rendering the execution of a particular promise impossible.

So, four months into his Presidency, Obama is bound to have either forgotten, lost interest in, or even just plain shelved some of the things he vowed to change while he was out stumping for change. Here are a noteworthy few - but check out Politfact.com for a complete list.

Statistical Implications – Public Awareness About Amending the Constitution?

When a user completes one of our fine Political IQ tests, their gain from the experience is rather straightforward. They receive the instant satisfaction of a Political IQ score rating that evaluates their performance relative to others, and while I would imagine this pursuit is done purely out of self-interest, you and I also stand to learn something every time one of these diagnostics is completed, albeit less directly. Here’s how it works:

When a test is finished, the selected question answer-choices are recorded (anonymously mind you) and stored in our database. Hypothetically, lets imagine that the database has recorded 1,000 unique responses to a particular Political IQ economy question. Now, because each of our questions test for a user’s awareness of relevant facts - like say, the fact that the real growth-rate of the U.S. GDP in 2008 was 1.1% - the response data can be extrapolated as a measure of public awareness regarding the knowledge necessary to correctly answer the question.

For example, suppose a question asking for the actual 2008 U.S. GDP growth-rate offers four possible answer-choices - 0.1%, 1.1%, 2.1% and 3.1% - and out of 1,000 total respondents only 1 out of every 4 select the correct sum, 1.1%. Since we know that if a person randomly guessed the answer 1,000 times they would guess correctly about 1 out of 4 times, we can conclude that practically no respondents had had precise knowledge of the correct figure beforehand. Thus, with very simple statistical analysis of our questions we can gain insight about which facts are typically public knowledge and which are not.

However, the correlation between our our test-taking sample and say ‘the average American’ remains extremely unclear. For the time being, I am under the impression that any person who has not only found our website but has also elected to take a particular P.I.Q. test is quite likely to be more knowledgeable than the “average person” when it comes to a selected political test topic.

That being said, there is still plenty to take away from the data. To demonstrate, let’s take a look at a question dealing with the constitutional amendment process:

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Posted in Political Test Statistics, The Politics of Government, Law | »