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Thread: English Proficiency test

  1. #1
    God/dess Deogol's Avatar
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    Default English Proficiency test

    --- The rest is from the Blog, not from me even though it might read as from this poster ---

    The test itself then follows:
    IDIOT NATION

    Do you feel like you live in a nation of idiots? I used to (1) console myself about the state of (2) [STUPID] in this country by repeating this to myself: Even if there are two hundred million stone-cold idiots in this country, that (3) [LEAVE] at least eighty million who'll (4) get what I (5) [SAY] - and that's still more than the populations of the United Kingdom and Iceland combined! Then came the day I found myself (6) [SHARE] an office with the ESPN game show Two-Minute Drill. This is the show that (7) [TEST] your knowledge of not only who plays what position for which team, but who hit what where in a 1925 game between Boston and New York, who was ( rookie of the year in 1965 in the old American Basketball Association, and what Jake Wood had for breakfast the morning of May 12, 1967. I don't know the answer (9) [prep] any of those questions, but for some reason I do remember Jake Wood's uniform number: 2. Why (10) [prep] earth am I retaining that (11) [USE] fact? I don't know, but after (12) [WATCH] scores of guys (13) [WAIT] to audition for that ESPN show, I think I do know something about (14) [INTELLIGENT] and the American mind. There are forty-four million Americans who cannot read and write above a fourth-grade level - in other words, who are functional (15) [LITERATE]. How (16) [...] I [LEARN] this statistic? Well, I read it. And now you (17) [READ] it. So we (1 [...] already [EAT] into the (19) mere 99 hours a year an average American adult (20) [SPEND] (21) [READ] a book - compared with 1,460 hours (22) [WATCH] television. I've also read that only 11 percent of the American public bothers to read a (23) [DAY] newspaper, beyond the funny pages or the used car ads. So if you live in a country where forty-four million can't read - and perhaps close to another two hundred million can read but (24) [USUAL] don't - well, friends, you and I are living in one very scary place. A nation that not only (25) churns out illiterate students but (26) goes out of its way to (27) remain (2 ignorant and stupid is a nation that should not be running the world - at least not until a (29) [MAJOR] of its citizens can locate Kosovo (or any other country it has bombed) on the map.

    It comes as no surprise to foreigners that Americans, who love to (30) revel their simplicity would "elect" a president who (31) [RARE] reads anything - including his own briefing papers - and thinks Africa is a nation, not a continent. An idiot leader of an idiot nation. In our (32) [GLORY] land of (33) plenty, less is always more when it comes to (34) taxing any lobe of the brain with the (35) [TAKE] of facts and numbers, critical thinking, or the comprehension of anything that isn't ...well, sports. Our Idiot-in-Chief does nothing to hide his ignorance - he even brags about it. During his (36) [COMMENCE] address (37) [prep] the Yale Class of 2001, he spoke proudly of (3 [BE] a mediocre student at Yale. "And to the C students, I say you, too, can be President of the United States!" The part where you also need an ex-President father, a brother as governor of a state with (39) [MISS] (40) ballots, and a Supreme Court full of your dad's buddies must have been too complicated to bother (41) [prep] in a short speech.

    As Americans, we have quite a proud tradition of (42) [REPRESENT] by ignorant high-ranking officials. In 1956 President Dwight D. Eisenhower's (43) [NOMINATION] as ambassador to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) was unable to identify either the country's prime minister or its capital during his Senate (44) [CONFIRM] hearing. Not a problem - Maxwell Gluck was confirmed anyway. In 1981 William Clark (45) [ADMIT] (46) [prep] a wide-ranging lack of knowledge about foreign affairs at his hearing. He had no idea how our allies in Western Europe (47) [FEEL] about (4 [HAVE] American nuclear missiles based there, and (49) [NOT KNOW] the names of the prime ministers of South Africa or Zimbabwe. Not to worry - he (50) [CONFIRM], too. All this just (51) paved the way for Baby Bush, who (52) [HAVE NOT] quite absorbed the names of the leaders of India or Pakistan, two of the seven nations that possess the atomic bomb. And Bush went to Yale and Harvard.

    Recently a group of 556 seniors at fifty-five (53) [PRESTIGE] American universities (e.g. Harvard, Yale, Stanford) (54) [GIVE] a multiple-choice test (55) [CONSIST] of questions that (56) [DESCRIBE] as "high school level." Thirty-four questions (57) [ASK]. These top students could only answer 53 percent of them (5 [CORRECT]. And only one student got them all right. Walk into any public school, and the odds are good that you (59) [FIND] (60) [FLOW] classrooms, leaking ceilings, and (61) [MORAL] teachers. Why is this? Because the political leaders - and the people who vote for them - (62) [DECIDE] it's a bigger priority to build another bomber than to educate our children. They would rather hold hearings about the (63) [DEPRAVE] of a television show called Jackass than about their own (63) [DEPRAVE] in (64) neglecting our schools and children and (65) maintaining our title as Dumbest Country on Earth.
    The full text of the test was sent to me from within the University of Leiden itself. Imagine such a test in a US university that was similarly insulting about the Netherlands.

  2. #2
    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: English Proficiency test

    This is merely a modern day example of Nero fiddling while Rome burns, with Euro Elites sitting in their Ivory University Tower espousing their incredibly superior education, culture and political policies while christian churches (Boxmeer) and Islamic schools (Uden) are blowing up as they speak.

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    God/dess Casual Observer's Avatar
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    Default Re: English Proficiency test

    ^ Yup.

    Not sure I could have said it better. The wolves are at the door.
    Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.

    William F. Buckley, Jr.

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    Default Re: English Proficiency test

    This article is just a mirror showing what so many in the US and around the world think of the US and much of US current policy and leaders.


    espousing their incredibly superior education, culture and political policies
    LOL ! Well yes, IMO , most of those who oppose Bush and many of his policies are indeed extpessing incredibly superior education, culture and political policies.
    Last edited by Tigerlilly; 02-07-2005 at 07:08 PM.

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    Veteran Member myssi's Avatar
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    Default Re: English Proficiency test

    I'm not sure what the point of this thread is... to criticize foriegners for criticizing the US,
    to criticize American education, to criticize the blog, to criticize the American electorate, to
    determine intellectual superiority, etc. ?

    In any case, adult literacy is a very serious problem that has been studied for decades.
    Some of the stats from the blog come from theInternational Adult Literacy Survey (IALS),
    in a 1997 survey [similar in design to the 1993 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS)] which
    compared the literacy skills of adults in 11 countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

    Even that study of only 11 industrial countries did not rank the Netherlands at the top and did
    not compare Americans with over 180 other countries.

    Here's another study:

    International Adult Literacy Survey: Benchmarking Adult Literacy in America: An
    International Comparative Study , Albert Tuijnman, Institute of International Education,
    Stockholm University, September 2000

    This report compares literacy levels in America with levels in other countries, according to 10
    indicators: literacy proficiency of youth population, literacy proficiency of recent high school
    dropouts, literacy proficiency of recent college graduates, inequality in literacy proficiency among
    youths, literacy proficiency of the adult population, literacy proficiency among adults in the top 25
    percent, literacy proficiency among adults in the bottom 25 percent, inequality in literacy
    proficiency among adults, percent of poor literacy proficiency among adults aged 45-65, and
    percent with poor literacy proficiency among second-language, foreign-born population.
    It draws upon a survey conducted in 22 countries between 1994 and 1998. The goals of the
    study were to create comparable literacy profiles across national, linguistic and cultural
    boundaries, to study the factors that influence literacy proficiency , and to investigate how
    literacy is related to various social and economic outcomes. The survey used the NALS assessment instrument with representative samples of adults aged between 16 and 65. The
    average scores for the U.S. placed it in the middle range, with countries ranking higher and
    lower; however, the data show a wide range in proficiency levels within the U.S. In fact, the
    inequality ranges for the U.S. and Canada are among the highest of the countries studied.
    [In an endnote:]
    One of the major findings in the Benchmarking report are the data for the literacy proficiency of
    the adult population aged 26-65. These data indicate that, for 21 nations, the United States'
    average literacy score was significantly better than 11 nations (including the United Kingdom and
    Switzerland), no different from 6 others (including Australia, Denmark, Germany, New Zealand, Canada and the Netherlands ) and statistically lower than only three nations-
    Finland, Norway and Sweden. For the population aged 16-25, the U. S. was no different from the
    United Kingdom, Italy, New Zealand, Ireland, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Germany, Canada,
    Belgium (Flanders), though it scored lower on the average than Denmark, Australia,
    Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Finland, but not by much.
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Note that the literacy rate for the Netherlands is supposed to be 99% and for both the
    US and Canada 97%. Functional literacy (what NALS calls level 1 or 2) indeed is a big
    worry for all nations. Here again, for adults aged 26-65, the US ranks even with Canada.
    Should Finns, Swedes, and Norweigens call the Dutch idiots? I guess we can deride
    The Kingdom of the Netherlands for things like the murder of Theo Van Gogh, or debate this
    proposed immigration test (Americans exempt):
    http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/02/020405holland.htm

    As for Bush's remarks from a May 2001 speech at Yale mentioned in the blog post, even the
    Washington Post makes it quite clear that the President was joking. Perhaps the Euros
    didn't get that. Note that neither John Kerry, nor either Clinton (Hillary or Bill) has ever made
    their academic records from Yale public.

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