Are you smarter than a 5th grader or Kellie Pickler?

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2-17-2008 @ 12:54PM

Eva said...

In fairness to Kellie Pickler, I wouldn't expect everyone I know to be able to answer the question "What country is Budapest the capital of?" (which was the question by the by), and I certainly wouldn't have been able to answer that question in Grade Five. It's easy for us travel enthusiasts to forget that for most people, Hungary and Budapest are pretty obscure places.

What got Kellie into trouble, for me, was her thinking that maybe Budapest was the capital of France, and then speculating about whether Europe was a country, and then, when the answer was revealed, making it clear that she had never even heard of a country called "Hungry".

As I wrote in a blog post over at World Hum (http://www.worldhum.com/weblog/item/in_defense_americans_botching_geography_questions_on_television_20071221/) I don't think Kellie Pickler is representative of a particularly American problem - I think all of us could stand to brush up on our geography, but that a lot of foreigners use these videos as an excuse to pick on Americans. What's funny is that a lot of highly educated Americans, like Susan Jacoby, seem eager to do the same.

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