Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

This would correlate with 'I have no idea what I'm doing'

"In general, younger Americans tended to provide more accurate responses than their older counterparts: 27 percent of 18-24 year olds correctly identified Ukraine, compared with 14 percent of 65+ year-olds."

65+ year olds spent a big chunk of their lives in the cold war. Presumably they would know more about the geographical breakup of the Soviet Union than 18-24 year olds who didn't even exist when the Berlin Wall fell.

From a data analysis standpoint, I would say discard the outliers that look like mis-clicks. Based on the groupings you still have people that identified Alaska, Greenland, Canada, India South America, and so on. Irregardless of the colorings or map size, those should not have been chosen.

On another note, a given countries foreign policy always makes a hell of a lot more sense when placed in context on a map. I'm glad I read a lot of National Geographic as a child.



No, people who were in primary school before the breakup of the Soviet Union would probably have never seen the Ukraine on a map, since all they would see is a big red area labeled "Soviet Union". I doubt Soviet internal geography & politics were taught regularly. Younger people may not even know that the Soviet Union ever existed, but they have a much better chance of seeing Ukraine on a map in school.


> No, people who were in primary school before the breakup of the Soviet Union would probably have never seen the Ukraine on a map, since all they would see is a big red area labeled "Soviet Union".

Many of the maps I remember seeing (in school and otherwise) as a kid in the 1980s labelled the constituent republics of the USSR.


Yup. No Ukraine on my globe as a kid in the 80s, just "U.S.S.R.".


Perhaps younger Americans took geography in school after the break out of the Soviet Union. I only know where Ukraine is because I recently looked at the map when this crisis came up.


It may come from growing up in a part of the country where there were a lot of Central European DPs, but I'm pretty sure that as a kid I knew where the Ukraine was.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: