Afghanistan? Young Americans Can't Find It on Map, Survey Finds
Though it has topped the news for much of the past year, Afghanistan has not secured a place on most young American's mental maps. Half drew a complete blank on its location, and only 17 percent could pick it out correctly on an unlabeled map, according to a study released last week.
And that's just the start of what the nation's 18- to 24-year-olds don't know about geography, as uncovered by a National Geographic Society survey that found little improvement in geographic literacy since 1988.
Young Americans fared worse than their peers in seven of the eight other countries surveyed earlier this year, though no national group earned an excellent mark. Young people in the other English-speaking countries in the study—Canada and Great Britain—scored almost as poorly as Americans on a test of...
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