Aise GK bhi Kya Fayda?

L D Arts College students are not the only ones with appalling general knowledge levels. They have the company of many


By Yogesh Avasthi And Dhwani Pathak
Posted On Thursday, January 21, 2010 (Ahmedabad Mirror : http://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/index.aspx?Page=article§name=News%20-%20City§id=3&contentid=2010012120100121030023177f1178fe8)

They were all born intelligent and ignorant. Nearly 20 years of education later, they still remain intelligent, yet ignorant. Really, what feat has their education achieved? On Wednesday, Mirror reported that only eight out of 130 students cleared a tough general knowledge test at LD Arts College, leaving the principal stunned.

So we decided to check out the GK quotient of their counterparts in six other educational institutions in the city — St Xavier’s College, H L College of Commerce, H K Arts College, Smt S R Mehta Arts College, C U Shah Science College and Gujarat Vidyapeeth. The result: They are no better. This should serve as a wake-up call for colleges who take pride in enrolling distinction holders of class XII.

Mirror drafted a simple questionnaire to assess the student’s knowledge on politics, education, science and entertainment. As many as 73 respondents were chosen randomly to fill up the questionnaire at the colleges selected.

Not a single student got all the 10 answers right. Well, no one even scored a 9 on 10. Only one student managed an 8.

Nearly 90 per cent of the students said Parimal Trivedi was the chancellor of Gujarat University when he is in fact the vice-chancellor.

They did not know that the governor of the state is the ex-officio chancellor of the university. Well, for that they should have known who the governor is, right? For 62 per cent students, Nawal Kishore Sharma is still the governor, nearly two months after Dr Kamla was sworn in as the new governor of the state.

Leave the governor, 58 per cent respondents did not even know that neighbouring city Vadodara is known as the ‘sanskari-nagari’ of Gujarat.

For the question, why was Copenhagen in news, 17 of the 73 students surveyed were confident it was for the SAARC Summit. We bet, they don’t even know which are the SAARC countries, then.

As many as 15 students felt it was the venue for the next Football World Cup. These respondents are all students who specialise in arts, commerce and science subjects. But several even compromised on the ‘specialists’ knowledge they boast of. A student of C U Shah Science College said the process of digestion begins in the food pipe.

At least 27 per cent of the students marked the food pipe as the answer. Mouth is where the digestion begins. We learnt it in class II or III. But looks like somewhere down the line the fingertip ease of the worldwide web has made dimwits out of the so-called bright individuals.

If you thought the MTV generation could never get a question on entertainment wrong, sample this. A student of H K Arts College says Saumya Joshi, who is her own professor, is the scriptwriter of 3 Idiots. It is in fact his brother Abhijat Joshi who has penned the script for the movie that recently ran into controversy.

Worse still, a name we cooked up — Chirag Joshi — was credited with writing the script by 26 per cent students. For a good 40 per cent of the students Somnath Chatterjee is still the Lok Sabha Speaker. And would remain forever, if they are not reading the newspapers.