As the grandchild of an American History teacher,

[camwyn]

and the great-grandchild of immigrants, I am deeply ashamed that it just took me five whole minutes to remember all fifty states. And that I had to look at a list of abbreviations at minute four to realise that I'd left Arizona off the list - but couldn't remember Nebraska at all until the bitter end.

*sigh* I'm just lucky I didn't grow up in a state where they expected you to learn the names of all the counties in your state at third or fourth grade level. The proper names of the five boroughs of New York, yes (Queens County, Kings County (aka Brooklyn), Richmond County (aka Staten Island), Bronx County (traditionally referred to as The Bronx, never just Bronx), and New York County (aka Manhattan)), but everything else? No.

So ashamed. Must memorize list all over again. At least I remembered the states by walking along a blank map in my head and pegging anything I recognized. It's just that I forgot to write down Arizona when I got to the Southwest, and Nebraska's kind of amorphous compared to easily visually recognisable states like Oklahoma and Texas. Bleah on me.

Comments

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

Oh my god.

I can no longer visualize a map of my own country in my head.

And I failed totally at remembering all 50 because of it.

Right, I'll be under my bed, studying an atlas...

I was so close...

[talmanes.livejournal.com]

In a three-minute period, whilst eating pizza, I got 49 states. After three more minutes of not figuring out which state I missed, I had to go check.

I missed Wyoming.

Wyoming, of all states! It's the other W-state. It's us, them, West Virginia (aka "the Cheater"), and Wisconsin.

I think my biggest problem is that I went west to east with the states (Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, et cetera), and that was the only one I skipped, and so it was hard for me to go back and think of where I had a gap. Also, holding a list of 50 in your head is tough--you have a hard time remembering which state you skipped.

I'd be screwed on the counties of Washington, though. There are about 37, and I can remember ten off the top of my head (Pierce, King, Snohomish, Skagit, Whatcom, Kitsap, Okanogan, Chelan, Yakima, Cowlitz). That's not even enough for a C- on an elementary school test.