I scored 9/13 which I thought was appalling (yes, high exam achiever me). However, apparently this is a brilliant score as most people only score 2 or 3 / 13.

The late Hans Rosling, much admired by Bill Gates (2 min youtube by Gates here on Rosling  and Gates' review of the book here) and his collaborators (son and daughter-in-law) continue to educate and advocate for a fact-based world view.

While many challenges remain, the core message is that on most measures of human development the world is in a much better place today than 50 years ago, than 100 years ago. It is still the best time in the world to be born. Furthermore, a narrative of us vs them is unhelpful - the world is no longer divided in two.

Be skeptical of what you read and go back to the data to find your own answers.

How did you score? (answers below) The way Rosling looks at big world metrics such as in question 8 (where the world lives) is - I think - a useful way of framing the data. Rosling uses it to suggest 4 levels (see below)

The book only recently published (Amazon link here) is a superb fact based cry out to give us better tools to asses the true state of the world.

Answers are below. Don't cheat!

I am also glad I got question 3 and question 9 right (most people don't, see below), but as it is 2 areas of interest for me - phew.