World Knowledge Test
13 questions from Hans Rosling's Factfulness
Hans Rosling spent his career fighting misconceptions about the world. In his book Factfulness, he opens with these 13 questions to demonstrate how wrong most people's assumptions are about global development.
The shocking truth: most people score worse than random chance. If you gave these questions to chimpanzees randomly selecting answers, they'd average 4 out of 13. Most humans get only 2-3 right.
This includes audiences of Nobel laureates, CEOs, and world leaders. Our instincts about the world are systematically biased toward pessimism and outdated views.
Question 1
In all low-income countries across the world today, how many girls finish primary school?
60% of girls in low-income countries finish primary school. This has improved dramatically over recent decades.
Question 2
Where does the majority of the world population live?
The majority (roughly 75%) live in middle-income countries. The outdated 'developed vs developing' divide no longer reflects reality.
Question 3
In the last 20 years, the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty has...
Extreme poverty has almost halved. In 1997, 29% of world population lived in extreme poverty; by 2017 it was 9%.
Question 4
What is the life expectancy of the world today?
Global life expectancy is now 72 years. This is a remarkable increase from 50 years in 1960.
Question 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?
UN projections show the number of children will stay around 2 billion. Population growth is coming from adults living longer, not more children being born.
Question 6
The UN predicts that by 2100 the world population will have increased by another 4 billion people. What is the main reason?
Population will grow because there will be more adults. Children born today will grow into adults, but the number of children is not increasing.
Question 7
How did the number of deaths per year from natural disasters change over the last hundred years?
Deaths from natural disasters have decreased dramatically - to less than half - thanks to better preparedness, early warning systems, and infrastructure.
Question 8
There are roughly 7 billion people in the world today. Which map shows best where they live?
About 4 billion people live in Asia. Africa has about 1.3 billion, the Americas about 1 billion, and Europe about 0.7 billion.
Question 9
How many of the world's 1-year-old children today have been vaccinated against some disease?
80% of children are vaccinated. This is one of humanity's greatest public health achievements.
Question 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?
Women have spent 9 years in school on average - just one year less than men. The gender gap in education has narrowed dramatically.
Question 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?
None of them are more endangered today. Conservation efforts have helped stabilize or increase all three populations.
Question 12
How many people in the world have some access to electricity?
More than 80% of people have access to electricity. This has expanded dramatically, particularly in Asia and Africa.
Question 13
Global climate experts believe that, over the next 100 years, the average temperature will...
Climate experts agree temperatures will rise. This question is included because it's one area where the pessimistic view is scientifically accurate.
About the Book
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think was written by Hans Rosling, with Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund, and published in 2018.
Hans Rosling (1948-2017) was a Swedish physician, academic, and public speaker. He was Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institutet and co-founder of the Gapminder Foundation. His TED talks on global development have been viewed over 35 million times.
The book identifies ten instincts that distort our perspective on the world - the gap instinct, negativity instinct, straight line instinct, and others - and provides tools for thinking more clearly about global trends.
View in Reading List →This page was originally published on alexdenne.com in April 2018. Questions are reproduced from Factfulness by Hans Rosling (Flatiron Books, 2018).