I'm Not Smarter Than a 12th Grader

I probably shouldn't admit this, but I did not earn a perfect score on the financial literacy quiz we recently posted online. The quiz, which is excerpted from a test given to 12th graders every two years by the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, asks practical money questions, just like the ones this blog addresses. The average score for seniors who take the entire exam is usually just over 50 percent, suggesting many students don't have a strong grasp of money management concepts.

But perhaps it's possible that answering the questions is harder (or easier) than making real-life decisions. Reasoning on paper that investing in stocks is a good long-term choice is not quite the same as actually purchasing stocks. I may be just trying to make an excuse for my own error, but it seems like a valid point.

Readers, if you took the quiz, what do you think? (For the record, the one that got me was question No. 5, on earning interest on savings accounts.)

Tags: personal finance | financial literacy

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