How Scientifically Literate Are You?

Before getting all smug about how easy the questions are and expressing mock outrage that anyone could get them wrong, it's worth considering that we're all chatting here on a science themed forum - suggesting that everyone here has an above average interest in science, and thus should be expected to do better than average at a test of science literacy.I think it's more interesting to look at which questions people were bad at. Most of the questions were answered correctly by the majority, two by slightly less than half - only one did the overwhelming majority (4 out of 5) get wrong - the question about the most common gas in the atmosphere. Knowledge of this one seemed to decline with age as well.By contrast, the one that the highest number of people got right was about sun-tan lotion protecting us from UV. Do we have advertising to thank for this?

Not just the US. The only reason I knew the fracking question was because there's been a big debate about it here (Czech Republic) recently, as they want to destroy some pretty forest for fracking. I read a big article about the issue on a plane recently.

Air is what we call the mixture of Nitrogen, Oxygen, Argon, Carbon Dioxide and a few other trace gases altogether.ABE: Wait - I just realise you might have meant that as a joke on the 'sunlight? What's sunlight?' theme. If so, ignore my well-meant but patronising response.Edited by caffeine, : No reason given.

Where I grew up, measuring jugs look like this: It baffles me why everywhere else wouldn't do the same.

There's no requirement to provide pounds, but many do for the benefit of people who don't like metric, but it is a legal requirement to provide metric measures, except for a few things (beer, milk bottles, fuel efficiency, and anything measured in miles). Originally, European directives demanded that the UK phase out imperial measurements, but the Commission was apparently surprised about the level of public outrage and vitriol this provoked, so they backed down. The UK is the only country in the EU allowed to use miles instead of kilometres on its road signs.