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What my friends in India (college educated, urban) guessed about America when I asked them these questions:
1. Almost all of them wrongly guessed MLB/Baseball is the most popular American sport. Most thought basketball/NBA was #2 and football/NFL (called incorrectly Rugby in India) was #3. (Actual rank: NFL > NBA > MLB)
2. When I asked them to guess the demographics of the US, they were in this range: Whites 70-80%, Blacks 25-50%, 5% rest. All of them overestimated the number of Indians in the US. All of them there were shocked to hear that there are more Hispanics than Blacks. (Actual distribution: 61% non-Hispanic Whites, 12% Blacks, 17% Hispanics incl. White Hispanics, 5% Asians)
3. Most of them thought the population of America was 500-700M. One friend thought it was 100M.
4. I told them that the actual population of America is only 330M. I asked them to guess the number of illegal immigrants. All of them underestimated the number. The highest number I heard was 5M. (It is 12-15M or higher)
5. All of them underestimated the divorce rate at 30-40%. That black single-parent rate was >75% was a shocker to them. All of them wrongly guessed higher SES Americans have a higher divorce rate than lower SES Americans. Possibly because celebrities have a high divorce rate.
6. That state capitals are not the biggest cities of their respective states was surprising to them. I asked them to guess the capital of NY and CA; they guessed NYC and LA.
7. None of them guessed correctly that there is a quota system for African Americans (and Hispanics) in colleges in America. All of them said no.
8. All of them guessed the most popular meat wrongly as beef. Some guessed pork (just called pig meat in India, very rare in India). It’s chicken.
9. All of them underestimated how much I make when I told them the median income in America is ~$60K.
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