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By CAREN BENJAMIN
.c The Associated Press 

WASHINGTON (June 27) - Do the words ''Give me liberty or give me death'' sound only vaguely familiar? Do you think Thomas Jefferson was the ''Father of the Constitution''?

If so, you're not alone.

Nearly 80 percent of seniors at 55 top colleges and universities - including Harvard and Princeton - received a D or F on a 34-question, high-school level American history test that contained historical references like those.

A group of lawmakers, lamenting the results Tuesday, plan to introduce later this week a resolution calling on boards of trustees, college administrators and state officials to strengthen American history requirements in all levels of the educational system.

More than a third of the students surveyed in December 1999 didn't know the Constitution established the division of power in American government, according to the Center for Survey Research and Analysis at the University of Connecticut, which administered the test as part of a study to measure the teaching of American history.

Students were much more knowledgeable about popular culture. For example, 99 percent of the seniors could identify profane adolescents ''Beavis and Butthead'' as ''television cartoon characters.''

But only 23 percent identified James Madison as the principal framer of the Constitution.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., lamented the findings. Quoting Jefferson, he said that ''if a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects what never was and never will be.''

''This nation seems well on its way to testing this proposition,'' Lieberman said. He, along with Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash.; and Reps. Thomas Petri, R-Wis., and George Miller, D-Calif., will introduce the resolution.

The study, sponsored by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, found none of the 55 schools require American history for graduation. And 78 percent of the schools don't require students to take any history classes, according to Jerry Martin, one of the report's authors.

''These students are allowed to graduate as if they didn't know the past existed,'' Martin said.

Martin's group has been working to try to get colleges and universities to stress American history, but does not advocate a particular curriculum.

Within the last two years, the State University of New York system agreed to add American history to its core curriculum.

The problem also must be addressed in elementary schools, said James C. Rees, who oversees former President George Washington's estate in Mount Vernon, Va.

''George Washington has been virtually eliminated from elementary school textbooks,'' Rees said.

The history test was given by telephone to 556 college seniors chosen at random. The questions were drawn from a basic high school curriculum and many had been used in the National Assessment of Education Program tests given to high school students.