More than 40 percent of Americans cannot identify Israel on a map of the Middle East, according a Pew research poll.
Asked to identify the Jewish state from a list of four possible countries, 57 percent of Americans polled selected correctly, according to Pew, which tested the public’s general knowledge of basic political and world issues.
Seventy percent of respondents, however, correctly identified Ben Bernanke as the chairman of the Federal Reserve, and a similar number correctly noted that the Republican Party is associated with an elephant, according to the results.
Generally, respondents answered 11.5 of the 19 questions correctly, scoring an average of 60 percent correct.
Just 42 percent of respondents were able to correctly identify the crescent moon and star as the symbol most closely associated with Islam. Thirty-four percent of those who took the poll incorrectly selected the Om symbol, which is associated with Hinduism, as the symbol representing Islam.