In the 2000 census, 92 percent of Americans lived in zip codes in which the majority of adults ages 25 and older did not have college degrees

How Thick is Your Bubble Quiz by Charles Murray.

A fascinating exercise in measuring one's social isolation. He is targeting the upper middle class as the group he thinks is most self-insulated from the rest of America. One could quibble about each of the twenty-five questions and can fuss about the weighting of the responses. The value, however, is not so much in the calibration of the details but that the questions serve as a catalyst for reflection. Some of the facts behind why he asked the question or why he weighted it as he did are fascinating. Example:

Have you ever lived for at least a year in an American neighborhood in which the majority of your fifty nearest neighbors did not have college degrees?

Seven points maximum. Score 4 points if you answered “yes” plus a bonus point for every five years you have lived in such a place up to fifteen years. In the 2000 census, 92 percent of Americans lived in zip codes in which the majority of adults ages 25 and older did not have college degrees. Seventy-seven percent lived in zip codes where fewer than a third of those adults had degrees. You should make your judgment with regard to your neighborhood, not your zipcode. Zero points if you are thinking of a gentrifying neighborhood in which you were one of the Gentrifiers.

I scored a 53, on the far end of the scale for the proper category "A second-generation (or more) upper middle-class person who has made a point of getting out a lot. Range: 0–43. Typical: 9." I managed to pick up extra points for having graduated university at the height of 1982 recession necessitating both greyhound bus travel (around the country interviewing) and working the graveyard shift at Little Tavern, at the end of which most things hurt; from having been in management consulting which has taken me to a lot of factory floors and working with union members, and being involved in Boy Scouts (fishing among other things).

But really a quite interesting quiz. Here's another piece that I find fascinating:

Have you ever lived for at least a year in an American community under 50,000 population that is not part of a metropolitan area and is not where you went to college?

Seven points maximum. Score 5points if you answered “yes,” 6 points if the place was under 25,000, and 7 points if you lived in a town of fewer than 10,000 people or in a rural area. The percentage of Americans fitting the description in the question was 58 percent in the 1960 census and 48 percent in the 2000 census. You may find it surprising, as I did, that 21 percent of Americans still lived in rural areas as of the 2000 census and another 10 percent lived in towns of fewer than 10,000 people — in total, almost a third of the population. That figure is not completely cleansed of bedroom communities, but it’s close.