andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2010 andrew_gelman_stats-2010-481 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Mark Palko comments on the (presumably) well-intentioned but silly Jumpstart test of financial literacy , which was given to 7000 high school seniors Given that, as we heard a few years back, most high school seniors can’t locate Miami on a map of the U.S., you won’t be surprised to hear that they flubbed item after item on this quiz. But, as Palko points out, the concept is better than the execution: With the complex, unstable economy, the shift away from traditional pensions and the constant flood of new financial products, financial literacy might be more important now than it has been for decades. You could even make the case for financial illiteracy being a major cause of the economic crisis. But if the supporters of financial literacy need a good measure of how well we’re doing, they’ll need to find a better instrument than the Jump$tart survey. The ‘test’ part of the survey consists of thirty-one questions. That’s not very long but that many questions should be su
sentIndex sentText sentNum sentScore
1 Mark Palko comments on the (presumably) well-intentioned but silly Jumpstart test of financial literacy , which was given to 7000 high school seniors Given that, as we heard a few years back, most high school seniors can’t locate Miami on a map of the U. [sent-1, score-1.063]
2 , you won’t be surprised to hear that they flubbed item after item on this quiz. [sent-3, score-0.468]
3 But, as Palko points out, the concept is better than the execution: With the complex, unstable economy, the shift away from traditional pensions and the constant flood of new financial products, financial literacy might be more important now than it has been for decades. [sent-4, score-0.824]
4 You could even make the case for financial illiteracy being a major cause of the economic crisis. [sent-5, score-0.275]
5 But if the supporters of financial literacy need a good measure of how well we’re doing, they’ll need to find a better instrument than the Jump$tart survey. [sent-6, score-0.499]
6 That’s not very long but that many questions should be sufficient for a tightly focused, well-structured test. [sent-8, score-0.271]
7 Unfortunately the focus of the Jump$tart survey is ridiculously broad, ranging from investments to retirement to credit cards to debt counseling to auto insurance to macroeconomics to really questionable career advice. [sent-9, score-0.731]
8 There are multiple references to credit histories but no mention of credit scores. [sent-11, score-0.905]
9 None of the few questions on credit cards mention teasers or other cases where rates can change on a credit card. [sent-12, score-1.223]
10 There are no questions that refer to charts or tables though the ability to read both is an essential part of financial literacy. [sent-13, score-0.426]
11 Most of the questions are either badly written, trivial/irrelevant, open to interpretation, guessable or factually challenged. [sent-15, score-0.269]
12 The test resembles nothing so much as the homework paper a student teacher might turn in when asked to come up with 31 questions on financial literacy. [sent-16, score-0.626]
13 One of the more ridiculous items on the test is this one, which looks like an item from the final exam in Wally Cleaver’s high-school civics class: 18. [sent-17, score-0.612]
14 They get extra credit for hyerprecision in reporting the percentage of respondents who picked each item. [sent-30, score-0.391]
15 What this test really reminds me of is the written test they give you when you get your driver’s license: a mix of obvious questions, trivia, and weird things that look like trick questions, along with some items that actually might be useful. [sent-38, score-0.353]
16 The difference is that we’re using our exam to grade the students, and I have every reason to believe that higher scores on the exam correspond to better understanding of statistics. [sent-44, score-0.316]
17 She is an 18-year-old high school graduate with few valuable possessions and no credit history. [sent-54, score-0.652]
18 If Barbara is granted a credit card, which of the following is the most likely way that the credit card company will reduce ITS risk? [sent-55, score-1.096]
19 ) It will make Barbara’s parents pledge their home to repay Karen’s credit card debt. [sent-57, score-0.72]
20 ) It will start Barbara out with a small line of credit to see how she handles the account. [sent-63, score-0.449]
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Introduction: We had 28 class periods, so I wrote an exam with an approximate correspondence of one question per class. Rather than dumping the exam in your lap all at once, I’ll post the questions once per day. Then each day I’ll post the answer to yesterday’s questions. So it will be 29 days in all. I’ll post them to appear late in the day so as not to interfere with our main daily posts (which are currently backed up to early June). The course was offered in the political science department and covered a mix of statistical and political topics. Followers of our recent discussion on test questions won’t be surprised to learn that some of the questions are ambiguous. This wasn’t on purpose. I tried my best, but good questions are hard to write. Question 1 will appear tomorrow.
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