People who work with an advisor can build a more solid financial plan, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they know more about retirement.

Few Americans know the basics of retirement, according to The American College of Financial Services, displaying a “worrying” understanding of one of the most important financial events of their lives.

Three in four respondents failed to pass The American College of Financial Services’ 38-question quiz regarding strategies to make savings last through a retirement. A passing grade meant that a respondent answered at least 60 percent of the questions correctly: Only 26 percent of the quiz takers were able to do so.

Participants who worked with an advisor had lower overall levels of financial literacy, according to the College.

According to the study, the average quiz taker received a score of 47 percent.  Men had a median score of 20 out of 38 correct, while women had a median score of 16 out of 38. Only 18 percent of women and 35 percent of men passed the test.

Twenty-six percent of the people who took the test passed it, and half of those who passed got a D. Fewer than 1 percent of the respondents were able to correctly answer more than 90 percent of the questions and earn an A.

On the bright side, the College said that financial literacy was likely increasing among Americans. In 2014, the same study recorded an 81 percent failure rate.

Before taking the quiz, 61 percent of the participants felt like they had high levels of knowledge about retirement income, but just one-third of those who said they were highly knowledgeable were able to pass the quiz, according to the College.

Areas of concern included knowledge of long-term care needs, as 82 percent of the respondents said that they did not expect that most older Americans will have any need for long-term care. Only 38 percent of respondents could identify a “safe” 4 percent withdrawal rate.

Few Americans understood the characteristics of different kinds of investments and factors. Only 10 percent of the respondents understood that companies with smaller capitalizations yield higher returns than large companies, and approximately 30 percent knew that actively managed mutual funds tend to have higher fees than ETFs. Just one-in-three correctly responded that bond values tend to fall as interest rates rise, and only one-in-four displayed an understanding of bond ratings and asset classes.

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