[Cultural and trivial knowledge among Chilean university students]

Culture is defined by the Webster's dictionary as acquaintance with and taste in fine arts, humanities, and broad aspects of science as distinguished from vocational and technical skills.

To assess the general cultural knowledge of university students.

A test containing 58 questions about art, national and universal literature, national and universal history, mythology science and trivial national issues was designed and applied to 251 medical students in Santiago (149 from first year and 86 from fifth year, Universidad de Chile) and 138 agronomy students in Valdivia (61 from first year and 77 from fifth year, Universidad Austral de Chile).

All students answered the test. Medical students from first and fifth year omitted 19 and 15% of questions respectively The figures for first and fifth year agronomy students were 23% each. The percentage of cored answers among first and fifth year medical students was 50 and 59% respectively. The figures for first and fifth year agronomy students were 39 and 44% respectively. The questions with higher rates of cored answers were those about trivial issues.

There was a high rate of omissions and wrong answers about general cultural issues among university students particularly in national cultural subjects.