Ok sorry, but how are 30% of people getting that wrong? It's very obviously false. Are people confusing it with the Bermuda Triangle? I really don't want to sound rude--I've had my share of dumb responses--but 30% is a lot for what seemed a really easy question to me. Can someone who got it wrong please explain what they were thinking?
I misread it and thought "500 miles from the coast seems about right." It just totally didn't even register that the question meant 500 miles the other way. It still would've been the wrong answer, but not as obviously wrong.
It's not an issue of people being dumb, it's just that a lot of people (especially non-Americans) have never heard of it. In that context you have a 50/50 shot. Why couldn't there be a place dedicated to research out in the ocean?
Figured I'd get 100% on one of these "State True or False" quizzes eventually. Wouldn't have guessed it'd be North Carolina. No offense or anything, it's just not a state I've had much contact with.
That answer would still be wrong if the clue meant "inland" because (1) the part of North Carolina furthest from the sea (Cherokee County, on the border with Georgia and Tennessee) is a little less than 500 miles from the Atlantic, as the crow flies, and (2) the Triangle is maybe 150 miles (as that same busy crow flies) from the Atlantic at its westernmost point in Chapel Hill.