The Simple 3-Question Financial Quiz Most Americans Fail: Can You Pass It?

Following are three questions. If you've been around the financial block a few times, you'll probably find all of them easy to answer. Most Americans didn't get them right, though, reflecting poor financial literacy. That's a shame -- because, unsurprisingly, the more you know about financial matters and money management, the better you can do at saving and investing, and the more comfortable your retirement will probably be.

Here are the questions -- see if you know the answers.

Suppose you had $100 in a savings account and the interest rate was 2% per year. After five years, how much do you think you would have in the account if you left the money to grow? (A) More than $102. (B) Exactly $102. (C) Less than $102.
Imagine that the interest rate on your savings account was 1% per year and inflation was 2% per year. After one year, how much would you be able to buy with the money in this account? (A) More than today. (B) Exactly the same. (C) Less than today.
Please tell me whether this statement is true or false: Buying a single company's stock usually provides a safer return than a stock mutual fund.

Did you get them all right? In case you're not sure, the answers are, respectively, A, C, and False.

There's more than one kind of literacy, and financial literacy is critical to your financial well-being.

Surprising numbersThe questions originated about a decade ago, with Wharton business school professor and executive director of thePension Research Council Olivia Mitchell, and George Washington School of Business professor and academic director of theGlobal Financial Literacy Excellence Center Annamaria Lusardi.In a quest to learn more about wealth inequality, they've been asking Americans and others these questions for years, while studying how the results correlate with factors such as retirement savings. The questions are designed to shed light on whether various populations "have the fundamental knowledge of finance needed to function as effective economic decision makers."

They first surveyed Americans aged 50 and older and found that only half of them answered the first two questions correctly. Only a third got all three right. As they asked the same questions of the broader American population and people outside the U.S., too, the results were generally similar: "[W]e found widespread financial illiteracy even in relatively rich countries with well-developed financial markets such as Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Japan, Italy, France, Australia and New Zealand. Performance was markedly worse in Russia and Romania."

If you think that better-educated folks would do well on the quiz, you'd be wrong. They do better, but even among Americans with college degrees, the majority (55.7%) didn't get all three questions right (versus 81% for those with high school degrees). What Mitchell and Lusardi found was that those most likely to do well on the quiz were those who are affluent. They attribute a full third of America's wealth inequality to "the financial-knowledge gap separating the well-to-do and the less so."

This is consistent with other research, such as that of University of Massachusetts graduate student Joosuk Sebastian Chae, whose research has found that those with higher-than-average wealth accumulation exhibit advanced financial literacy levels.

Financial literacy means understanding how interest rates affect your savings and borrowings.

The importance of financial literacyThis is all important stuff, because those who don't understand basic financial concepts, such as how money grows, how inflation affects us, and how diversification can reduce risk, are likely to make suboptimal financial decisions throughout their lives, ending up with poorer results as they approach and enter retirement. Consider the inflation issue, for example: If you don't appreciate how inflation shrinks the value of money over time, you might be thinking that your expected income stream in retirement, from Social Security and/or a pension, will be enough to live on. Factoring in inflation, though, you might understand that your expected $30,000 per year could have the purchasing power of only $14,000 in 25 years.

Mitchell and Lusardi note that financial knowledge is correlated with better results: "Our analysis of financial knowledge and investor performance showed that more knowledgeable individuals invest in more sophisticated assets, suggesting that they can expect to earn higher returns on their retirement savings accounts." Thus, better financial literacy can help people avoid credit card debt, take advantage of refinancing opportunities, optimize Social Security benefits, avoid predatory lenders, avoid financial scams and those pushing poor investments, and plan and save for retirement.

Even if you got all three questions correct, you can probably improve your financial condition and ultimate performance by continuing to learn. Many of the most successful investors are known to be voracious readers, eager to keep learning even more.

The article The Simple 3-Question Financial Quiz Most Americans Fail: Can You Pass It? originally appeared on Fool.com.

Longtime Fool specialist Selena Maranjian, whom you can follow on Twitter,has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.