Enjoy!

 

http://www.lizardpoint.com/geography/africa-quiz.php

 

 

For me...

I got 89%Quiz over. You scored 147 out of 165.

Your score is 89%.

These quizzes bring up something I find extremely troublesome. In the entirety of my public school years, not once did I ever have one of those "name every country" style curriculums. It was never taught where everything was on earth. I learned where certain things were just through association with other topics and because I find maps interesting, but for someone who doesn't share that interest in acquiring knowledge, this isn't taught. Which is scary. A lot of what I'm interested in has no relation to Africa and as such I am woefully underinformed about the geography of the continent and it embarrasses me. I consider myself to be well educated and intelligent and find knowledge in general something to be sought everyday, but this test just proved how much the system really failed me and undoubtedly thousands of others in educating us on the geography of the world.

 

And with that, I'll be withholding my score haha.

Quiz over. You scored 138 out of 165.

Your score is 83%.

 

I wish I'd have done better. Most Americans struggle with their own country's geography, let alone Africa. I'm willing to bet that the average American could pick out Morocco, Egypt, South Africa, and Madagascar on a map of Africa, but that's about it.

84.  Damn. 

These quizzes bring up something I find extremely troublesome. In the entirety of my public school years, not once did I ever have one of those "name every country" style curriculums. It was never taught where everything was on earth. I learned where certain things were just through association with other topics and because I find maps interesting, but for someone who doesn't share that interest in acquiring knowledge, this isn't taught.

 

You're kidding?  This was taught where I went to (public) school.  Not that it did me any good.

You scored 125 out of 165.

Your score is 75%.

 

I should have done better, those tiny western coastal countries always mess me up.

I got a 149, which I'm OK with, but I relied on the second/third guess for a lot of the geographically smaller west African countries (I hear you dlte24). And I doubt I'll ever be able to remember which is Burundi and which is Rwanda. 

 

I grew up with a giant world map applied like wallpaper to a full wall of my bedroom which I think helped set some of this stuff deep into my memory.

You're kidding?  This was taught where I went to (public) school.  Not that it did me any good.

 

Nope. I had the typical 50 states stuff in elementary school, but nothing country related to the extent of really learning where all modern day countries are on a map. And I know I'm not alone either. I've actually discussed this with several people both from home (same school district) and at college and several other people said they really never learned what should be such a basic lesson. I know in my school district there are four elementary schools and then one middle and one high school and once you get into middle school you can pick and choose which classes you want to take (with more options in high school obviously). I wonder if a lack of communication of when and where this type of lesson should occur could be at fault. Since this seems like an elementary school level type of lesson it could have to do with places not equalizing their lessons across elementary schools which are usually smaller than middle and high schools. I don't know, I may just be grasping for straws right now.

^ I went to public high school and had World History, where we had to memorize a map of Africa. I still did abysmally on this quiz! You can forget a lot in 15+ years.

I've never thought it particularly useful to memorize the geography of Africa. As late as the 1870's it was presented to Europeans as generally one big blob.

 

http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/photolib/maps/Map_of_Africa_1876.htm

 

It's nothing against Africans. I would no more readily study the fiefdoms of the collapsed Holy Roman Empire as I would the shifting post-colonial lines of sub-Saharan Africa. I think it would be much more important to teach American kids an actual broad history of this continent, and from there one could start to learn the contemporary powers there like Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, etc, and where they are located. I also think it would be important to learn about some of the contemporary success stories like Botswana (despite it's high HIV rate) because it would show that not all African nations are post-colonial basketcases, and provide a model of how they succeeded.

^ I think students need to learn about our country more as well. And also that we aren't the only "free country"

>I went to public high school and had World History, where we had to memorize a map of Africa. I still did abysmally on this quiz! You can forget a lot in 15+ years.

 

When I was a freshman in high school we had to learn all of the African countries and their capitals as our very first test.  I either got a D or I failed it.  Give me about 20 minutes to study and I could probably nail it now. 

 

Before the internet it was very difficult to form any real idea of foreign countries without visiting them.  Now with google earth & street view, image searches, and the ability to talk to people online from around the world a lot of the mystique has disappeared. 

I quit halfway through I was doing so poorly.

FWIW, I did a report on The Belgian Congo in jr high...

I had forgot most of this, but spent an hour last night with this quiz refamiliarizing myself.  I can get them all now.... at least until I forget them again next week.

 

 

I quit halfway through as well. I really know NOTHING about African geography. It was never taught in school, I never had any sort of world geography class like that, as someone else stated above.

 

I started educating myself using this same tool about European geography a couple of years ago because I was so, so stupid about it. But I want to get that completely down before I start working on other areas of the world, including Africa. I can now get a pretty darn good score on the Europe one, but still not 100%.