Ed note: Hans Rosling has written a fascinating book that Bill Gates called the most important book he’s ever read. Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World–and Why Things Are Better Than You Think. Rosling explains how and why our thinking is distorted and wrong. Even the experts are wrong. And yes, he’s right. He’s uses facts to help us understand. Please take the following test and check your answers with the key below. Then read the book to find out the facts!
1. In all low-income countries across the world today, how many girls finish primary school? □ A: 20 percent □ B: 40 percent □ C: 60 percent
2. Where does the majority of the world population live? □ A: Low-income countries □ B: Middle-income countries □ C: High-income countries
3. In the last 20 years, the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty has … □ A: almost doubled □ B: remained more or less the same □ C: almost halved
4. What is the life expectancy of the world today? □ A: 50 years □ B: 60 years □ C: 70 years
5. There are 2 billion children in the world today, aged 0 to 15 years old. How many children will there be in the year 2100, according to the United Nations? □ A: 4 billion □ B: 3 billion □ C: 2 billion
6. The UN predicts that by 2100 the world population will have increased by another 4 billion people. What is the main reason? □ A: There will be more children (age below 15) □ B: There will be more adults (age 15 to 74) □ C: There will be more very old people (age 75 and older)
7. How did the number of deaths per year from natural disasters change over the last hundred years? □ A: More than doubled □ B: Remained about the same □ C: Decreased to less than half
8. There are roughly 7 billion people in the world today. Which map shows best where they live? (Each figure represents 1 billion people.)
(Skip this one, the map couldn’t be copied)
9. How many of the world’s 1-year-old children today have been vaccinated against some disease? □ A: 20 percent □ B: 50 percent □ C: 80 percent
10. Worldwide, 30-year-old men have spent 10 years in school, on average. How many years have women of the same age spent in school? □ A: 9 years □ B: 6 years □ C: 3 years
11. In 1996, tigers, giant pandas, and black rhinos were all listed as endangered. How many of these three species are more critically endangered today? □ A: Two of them □ B: One of them □ C: None of them
12. How many people in the world have some access to electricity? □ A: 20 percent □ B: 50 percent □ C: 80 percent
13. Global climate experts believe that, over the next 100 years, the average temperature will … □ A: get warmer □ B: remain the same □ C: get colder
Here are the correct answers: 1: C, 2: B, 3: C, 4: C, 5: C, 6: B, 7: C, 8: A, 9: C, 10: A, 11: C, 12: C, 13: A
Score one for each correct answer, and write your total score on your piece of paper. Scientists, Chimpanzees, and You How did you do? Did you get a lot wrong? Did you feel like you were doing a lot of guessing? If so, let me say two things to comfort you. First, when you have finished this book, you will do much better. Not because I will have made you sit down and memorize a string of global statistics. (I am a global health professor, but I’m not crazy.) You’ll do better because I will have shared with you a set of simple thinking tools. These will help you get the big picture right, and improve your sense of how the world works, without you having to learn all the details. And second: if you did badly on this test, you are in very good company. Over the past decades I have posed hundreds of fact questions like these, about poverty and wealth, population growth, births, deaths, education, health, gender, violence, energy, and the environment—basic global patterns and trends—to thousands of people across the world. The tests are not complicated and there are no trick questions. I am careful only to use facts that are well documented and not disputed. Yet most people do extremely badly. Question three, for example, is about the trend in extreme poverty. Over the past twenty years, the proportion of the global population living in extreme poverty has halved. This is absolutely revolutionary. I consider it to be the most important change that has happened in the world in my lifetime. It is also a pretty basic fact to know about life on Earth. But people do not know it. On average only 7 percent—less than one in ten!—get it right. (Yes, I have been talking a lot about the decline of global poverty in the Swedish media.) The Democrats and Republicans in the United States often claim that their opponents don’t know the facts. If they measured their own knowledge instead of pointing at each other, maybe everyone could become
Rosling, Hans. Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World–and Why Things Are Better Than You Think (pp. 3-7). Flatiron Books. Kindle Edition.
