Make sure you are familiar with what happens, and what skills you need to show, in each part of the test.
Practise speaking English as much as possible in groups and in pairs, both inside and outside the classroom.
Listen carefully to the instructions and questions during the test and respond appropriately.
Speak clearly, so that both the interlocutor and assessor can hear you.
Use all the opportunities you're given in the test to speak, and extend your responses whenever possible.
Ask for clarification of instructions or a question if you're not sure.
Be prepared to initiate discussion as well as responding to what your partner says.
Make full use of the time so that the examiner who is listening hears plenty of your English.
DON'T
Don't prepare long answers in advance, or learn and practise speeches.
Don't try to dominate your partner or interrupt them abruptly during the Speaking test.
Don't leave long or frequent pauses.
Don't worry about being interrupted by the examiner. This shows you have spoken enough. The tests have to keep to the time limit for administrative reasons.
FAQS (Frequently Asked Questions)
How many marks is the Speaking test worth?
Reading, Writing, Use of English, Listening and Speaking are each worth 20% of the total score for the Cambridge English: First exam.
Can I do the Speaking test with another student from my school? This depends on the centre. In some centres, candidates from the same school do the Speaking test together. In other centres, where candidates from several different schools do the exam at the same time, you may have a partner from another school. Check this with your exam centre.
Do my partner and I speak to each other as well as to the examiner?
Yes. In Parts 1 and 2, you speak to the interlocutor (the examiner who speaks to you) but in Part 3, you must discuss something with the other candidate. In this part, you must speak to each other and NOT to the interlocutor. In Part 4, you can speak to the interlocutor or to your partner, or to both.
Do both examiners speak throughout the test?
No. Only the interlocutor (the examiner who speaks to you) speaks. The assessor is silent except for greeting and saying goodbye to you.
Does knowing your partner make it easier to do well?
There is no evidence that knowing your partner helps you to perform better, or worse, in the Speaking test. Some people feel more relaxed and confident when they do the test with someone they know, but other candidates may find this situation difficult or unnatural. In both cases, the examiners are trained to give all candidates equal opportunities to show their abilities.
What if the two candidates have very different personalities, e.g. one is very shy and one is very outgoing?
Examiners are trained to manage this situation and ensure that everyone has an equal chance to show their abilities during the test. However, you must try to make the best use of the time to show the examiners your language skills without dominating your partner.
What should I do if I don't understand the instructions?
Just ask the examiner to repeat the instructions.
What happens when there is only one candidate left at the end of a Speaking test session?
In this case, the last candidates would be examined as a group of three.
The First Certificate in English (FCE) has five parts:
Reading (60 minutes) You will need to be able to understand information in fiction and non-fiction books, journals, newspapers and magazines.
Writing (80 minutes) You will produce two different pieces of writing such as a short story, a letter, an article, a report, a review or an essay.
Use of English (45 minutes) Your use of grammar and vocabulary is tested in a few different tasks.
Listening (40 minutes) You need to show you can understand the meaning of a range of spoken material, including news programs, speeches, stories and anecdotes and public announcements.
Speaking (14 minutes) In a group excercise you will show how well you are able to interact with both other students and the axaminer.
FCE Results
Each of the listed components carries 20% of your total FCE score. If you are graded with an A, B, or C you will be awarded the First Certificate in English, if you do not achieve a pass grade (eg. D or E) you will not receive a certificate.
Along the backpacker’s trail you hear about particular “can’t miss” activities like the Camino de Santiago in Spain, Machu Picchu in Peru and recently popular the 2 day slow boat trip down the Mekong River in Laos. As the country has become more of a tourist destination many travelers have moved past the border of familiar Thailand to explore a place less traveled.
The European Council on Tourism and Trade (ECTT) has awarded Laos the “World’s Best Tourist Destination for 2013.” The ECTT cited Laos’ promotion of free and fair tourism, tourist safety and access to sites of cultural and historical significance as reasons to honor Laos. Luang Prabang, which is the endpoint of the slow boat journey, is a UNESCO World Heritage Destination.
The typical slow boat path starts at the border town of Chiang Khong in Thailand. Here trekkers stamp out at Thai passport control and walk down to the bank of the Mekong River to catch a short wooden boat. The trip takes 2 mins to cross over to Huay Xai in Laos.
The main commerce in Huay Xai revolves around catering to slow-boaters before they take off early the next day on their journey. There are a few decent restaurants and guesthouses but nothing noteworthy. We stayed at the Phonevintch guesthouse, which is the closest accommodation to the boat launch. It also has air conditioning, which is hard to come by in this region, as well as some very nice views overlooking the Mekong River. Otherwise, Huay Xai is very much a classic “border town.”
Quick Tips
Arrive more than an hour before the boat leaves. The company sells more tickets than there are seats. Many people end up riding on the floor or standing on the back of the boat breathing the engine fumes. The early bird gets the good seats.
The boats don’t serve lunch. There is a small snack bar with beer, soda, ramen noodles and cookies. Most guesthouses in both Houay Xai and Packbeng sell packaged lunches for the slowboaters.
Your backpacks are loaded under the boat so have your important items in your carry on pack.
Most boats have cushioned seats. Some of the older boats have wood benches. When you purchase your tickets inquire if the seats are wooden or cushioned and prepare accordingly.
The slow boat should arrive into the half way point of Pakbeng around 6 p.m. for the first night’s stay. When you get off the boat in Pakbeng there are swarms of Lao people with laminated brochures showcasing their guesthouses. Sometimes these can be ok, but be sure to ask lots of questions. How far away is it? Do you provide transportation to and from the dock? Do you serve breakfast before we get on the boat? Do you offer a brownbag lunch for tomorrow?
The journey the second day is smooth and the views off the Mekong are greener as you head south. The boat journey ends in Luang Prabang, which is rightfully the most touristic city in Laos. There’s a plentiful supply of lovely guesthouses around the very quaint and walkable downtown area. Also, Luang Prabang has some of the highest quality food in South East Asia.
In the downtown area you can find great food at a few different places. If you are searching for an easy lunch spot specializing in healthy food and European coffee drinks, try Saffron. Tamarind is famously the best Lao food in town at a reasonable budget. For a higher end option try L’Elephant, which delivers farm-to-table French inspired food with unique plays on typical European flavors.
After days of staying in less than inspiring accommodations and sitting cooped in a boat, you may want to indulge a little while in Luang Prabang. A visit to La Residece Phou Vao will do the trick.
This hotel hosts lush tropical grounds and the famously best view of town set high atop a hill only 5 mins away from the city center. The accommodations take luxury to the next level. If you can’t spend the night, visit the Phou Savanh restaurant for an early dinner so you can watch the dramatic sunset over town paired with a crisp glass of white wine. Watch the Lao sky illuminate with dramatic pinks, golds and purples while surrounded by hundreds of flickering candles and glowing paper lanterns. It’s simply magical.
For more information about travel is Laos check out their Tourism organization here. http://www.tourismlaos.org/
One of the words that you will hear most often in Thailand is’aloi’ (or’aroi’ – the’l's and’r's are often interchangeable). ‘Aloi’ means delicious. Or yum-yum. The Thais love their food so you’ll hear it all the time. Fortunately you don’t have to eat in expensive restaurants to experience aloi food. It is cheap, clean and easily available on the streets of every town and city. Many Western tourists (falang or farang) are nervous of eating on the street as they are afraid of picking up a stomach bug. In reality, they are for more likely to suffer a runny bottom from the expensive tourist buffets that often leave food lying around for days. The street food is nearly always fresh, hygienic and cooked right in front of your eyes (you might not be so impressed with’proper’ restaurants and hotels if you were to see where the food was actually stored, prepared and cooked).
It might be a good idea to avoid eating slabs of meat that have been left lying on grills next to pollution strewn motorways, and some Thai food will simply be too spicy (‘pet’ in Thai) for the average falang. Other Thai food will simply not be to Western tastes. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like everything – it’s cheap and you can put it all down to experience.
Here are some of the best Thai dishes to be experienced on the cheap and on the street:
1. Som Tam (Pappaya Pok Pok)
This is a spicy salad made by bashing it all up together with a large mortar and pestle. The pestle – or is it the mortar? – is held gripped tightly in one hand and vigorously moved up and down. When working at a Thai boys’ school I would often ask them about their favourite foods. They would always claim that it was ‘Pappaya Pok Pok’ so that they would have an excuse to make the accompanying hand gesture. Boys will be boys.
2. Noodle Soup
Variations of noodle soup – you can also have it dry – are found everywhere. You can choose the type of noodles you want, along with any extras, from the vendors stall. Often includes fish balls, bean sprouts, pork, assorted green vegetables, beef, wanton and jelly like square lumps (this is actually congealed blood). Falangs usually prefer the white or clear noodle soup to the darker variety.
3. Ladyboy Cocktails
Not strictly speaking food and not always served by ladyboys. Never the less, a lot of the best cocktail stalls in Bangkok do seem to be made by men pretending to be ladies. Amongst the most popular of their concoctions are Pina Coladas (white rum, coconut cream and pineapples) and Mai Tais (white rum, orange, lime and pineapples). Don’t bother with anything that is blue, green, purple or fluorescent – at best it will taste like cough medicine.
4. Deep Fried Insects, Bugs and Scorpions
If it crawls past too slowly then the Thais will eat it. They like their snacks. The best of the bugs will be hard and crunchy on the outside but soft and squidgy on the inside; once you have bitten through the hardened crust, the soft white insides will squirt out on your tongue. The insects’ legs will get stuck between your teeth and the scorpions are hard to bite in two. In truth, most of the insects and bugs will taste of nothing more than the cooking oil that they were deep fried in.
5. Pad Thai
This style of fried noodles is a definite falang favourite. It can be done with prawns, chicken, pork and egg or can be a purely vegetarian dish of bean sprouts, onions and whatever type of noodle you choose. Simple, aloi and not too’pet’ (spicy).
6. Chicken’s Feet
Many falang will balk at the thought of nibbling on theses evil looking appendages. They taste like rubber and toe nails but Thai’s love them. Not for ‘lightweight’ falangs.
7. Roti (Pancakes)
Thai pancakes are another falang favourite. Often made with eggs and bananas, and topped with sticky condensed milk and chocolate. Some roti vendors have recently become more ambitious and offer additional toppings such as Nutella and jam. These ‘fancy’ flavours have yet to really catch on – they are unlikely to prove much of a threat to the classic ‘banana and chocolate’ roti.
8. Barbecued Pork and Sticky Rice
These slices of grilled pork and lumps of fat are usually served skewered on wooden sticks, along with a small plastic bag of gelatinous sticky rice. Greasy, fattening and slightly dangerous (you need to be careful not to skewer you cheek as you munch down to the bottom of the sharp pointy stick); never the less, cheap, filling and aloi.
9. Chicken Fried Rice
No list of Thai street food would be complete without mentioning fried rice. Chicken fried rice is probably the most popular – usually accompanied with some sliced cucumber – but pork, beef and duck are also popular. If it’s too plain for your taste, there are usually loads of sauces, herbs and chilis that you can use to spice it up.
10. Banana and Pineapple Wonton
Wonton wrappings are usually used for encasing shrimp and pork. A recent, cutting edge, culinary development in Thailand, is to use them to encase hot chunks of banana or pineapple. The wantons are then skewered on a stick, lightly dusted with castor sugar and dripped over with warm chocolate – very aloi and highly recommended.
This is just a sample of the numerous delicacies available on the streets of Thailand for less than the cost of a soft drink in most Western countries. Other favourites include grilled fish; tom yum (hot and sour soup); iced bubble tea; deep fried chicken, potato spirals and ice cream; mountains of fresh fruit, and even a Thai interpretation of Sushi. Go on, be brave and try it (but be careful of the chiles!).
- See more at: http://www.travelculturemag.com/top-ten-thai-street-food/#sthash.7OTAYkoZ.dpuf
Japan is an amazing country with an extremely rich culture of folklore which is still currently relevant to modern society. Folklore has played an important role in society for generations, in countries around the world in addition to Japan, such as in North America. The influence of folklore played a role in my life as I was growing up and became enchanted by the world of knights, dragons, princesses and the very notion of valor. As I grew older and more knowledgeable, my hunger to understand the folklores of the word became a quest of sorts. Tales of King Arthur and Excalibur turned into those of the Shogun Yoritomo and his brother Yoshimitsu and their adventures through ancient Japan. I feel this curiosity peaked during my last year of university when I completed my thesis on the evolution of Japanese folklore as an East Asian Studies undergraduate student, and compared it to its western neighbors.
I have evolved from that young boy intrigued by elements of fantasy and valour into a grown man who feels a certain tie to these forgotten folk legends. In my opinion, all things lost and forgotten must be found. Therefore, after obtaining my undergraduate degree I headed to Japan for a one year work opportunity, and decided to take it upon myself to engage in cultural exchanges and report on Japanese culture. Fate seemed to have chosen me for this quest, and I was going to do nothing other than cooperate.
My quest was dangerous, often leading to places such as the town of Ooe in Kyoto province, forgotten by the Japanese themselves. Ooe was the town of Shutendoji, or the drunken demon. The town was famous for the biggest demon museum in the country as well as a shrine housing the head of the drunken demon! Despite the authenticity of the town, Ooe was being overlooked due to its rural location; all the young people had left for the bigger economic centers while all the local business were catering to a tourist market that no longer existed. Demon mechanic and hardware stores lined the streets, and even the local undertaker was demon themed. Local Ramen or noodle shops sold demon noodles, a heavy miso ramen with quail eggs and other spices. But, alas there were no tourists to enjoy the spectacle, only a lonely Canadian on a tight budget.
I continued my adventure in Chigoku and Shikoku, the smallest of Japan’s four main islands. I came here because it was famous for its rare temples, museums and historic sites. Specifically, small temples and shrines dedicated to obscure gods or long forgotten tourist towns. I traveled Shikoku looking for the illusive Tinuki, as well as a shape shifting raccoon in Tokushima. I further found the illusive Ushioni or cow demon on the 88 temple trail in Takamatsu. In Okayama, I followed ancient kings and demon slayers on the Kibi trail and visited the cradle of the gods in Shimane. I also went ghost hunting in Matsue looking for the souls of spited women and angry samurai who embodied forgotten temples, and even visited Tottori province in search of a famous demon toilet and phone booth.
The last part of my quest took me to the North of Japan, Tohoku, a mysterious place where the local dialects are even undistinguishable to the Japanese themselves. This area throughout history had been seen as the cradle of folklore. Cold winters and lush forests steeped the entire region. Only exiled samurai and the worst of criminals would end up in this dark land. In Tohoku, the bear hunting Matagi can be found in Akita. Osorezan, the gate to hell can be found in Aoimori province, and for those interested in the occult there is the resting place of the Japanese Jesus Christ, which is also oddly enough famous for garlic ice cream. Probably the most famous place in this region in the village of Tono in Iwate province know as the “birth place of Japanese folklore”. The town of Tono and surrounding hamlets were the grail of my quest since the entire town felt like a jump back to Japan’s ancient past.
I am not delusional and know these monsters do not exist, but they represented aspects of fear, joy and mischief found in the Japan of old. Sadly, since the failure of the Fukushima nuclear power plant Japan has become a dark land once more. Through this journey though I did not come face to face with the supernatural, however, I did achieve what all travelers yearn for a unique experience. Taking the road less traveled brought me to towns not even the Japanese visit. I hung out and ate with locals and shared a love of their culture and grew as an individual. Given this opportunity again I would change nothing!
- See more at: http://www.travelculturemag.com/japanese-folklore/#sthash.VDOZB7j8.dpuf
“The United States is where great things are possible.” Those are the words of Elon Musk, whose astonishing career illustrates that the American dream can still come true.
Musk was born in South Africa but emigrated to the United States via Canada in the 1990s. After completing degrees in economics and physics at the University of Pennsylvania, he moved to Silicon Valley, intent on addressing three of the most “important problems that would most affect the future of humanity”: the Internet, clean energy, and space. Having founded PayPal, Tesla Motors, and SpaceX, he has pulled off an astonishing trifecta. At the age of 42, he is worth an estimated $2.4 billion. Way to go!
But for every Musk, how many talented young people are out there who never get those crucial lucky breaks? Everyone knows that the United States has become more unequal in recent decades. Indeed, the last presidential election campaign was dominated by what turned out to be an unequal contest between “the 1 percent” and the “47 percent” whose votes Mitt Romney notoriously wrote off.
But the real problem may be more insidious than the figures about income and wealth distribution imply. Even more disturbing is the growing evidence that social mobility is also declining in America.
The distinction is an important one. For many years, surveys have revealed a fundamental difference between Americans and Europeans. Americans have a much higher toleration for inequality. But that toleration is implicitly conditional on there being more social mobility in the United States than in Europe.
But what if that tradeoff no longer exists? What if the United States now offers the worst of both worlds: high inequality with low social mobility? And what if this is one of the hidden structural obstacles to economic recovery? Indeed, what if current monetary policy is making the problem of social immobility even worse?
It’s harder than ever for Americans at the bottom to rise to higher income levels.
This ought to be grist for the mill for American conservatives. But Republicans have flunked the challenge. By failing to distinguish between inequality and mobility, they have allowed Democrats, in effect, to equate the two, leaving the GOP looking like the party of the 1 percent—hardly an election-winning strategy.
To their cost, American conservatives have forgotten Winston Churchill’s famous distinction between left and right—that the left favors the line, the right the ladder. Democrats do indeed support policies that encourage voters to line up for entitlements—policies that often have the unintended consequence of trapping recipients in dependency on the state. Republicans need to start reminding people that conservatism is about more than just cutting benefits. It’s supposed to be about getting people to climb the ladder of opportunity.
Inequality and social immobility are, of course, related. But they’re not the same, as liberals often claim.
The American Dream has become a nightmare of social stasis.
Let’s start with inequality. It’s now well known that in the mid-2000s the share of income going to the top 1 percent of the population returned to where it was in the days of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby. The average income of the 1 percent was roughly 30 times higher than the average income of everyone else. The financial crisis reduced the gap, but only slightly—and temporarily. That is because the primary (and avowed) aim of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy since 2008 has been to push up the price of assets. Guess what? The rich own most of these. To be precise, the top 1 percent owns around 35 percent of the total net worth of the United States—and 42 percent of the financial wealth. (Note that in only one other developed economy does the 1 percent own such a large share of wealth: Switzerland.)
By restoring the stock market to where it was back before the crisis, the Fed has not achieved much of an economic recovery. But it has brilliantly succeeded in making the rich richer. And their kids.
According to Credit Suisse, around a third of the world’s thousand or so billionaires in 2012 were American. But of these, just under 30 percent were not self-made—a significantly higher proportion than for Australia and the United Kingdom. In other words, today an American billionaire is more likely to have inherited his or her wealth than a British one is.
This is just one of many indications of falling social mobility in the U.S. According to research published by the German Institute for the Study of Labor, 42 percent of American men born and raised in the bottom fifth of the income distribution end up staying there as adults, compared with just 30 percent in Britain and 28 percent in Finland. An American’s chance of getting from the bottom fifth to the top fifth is 1 in 13. For a British or Finnish boy, the odds are better: more like 1 in 8.
True, the relatively flat income distribution of Scandinavian countries makes it easier to get from the bottom to the top—there’s less financial distance to travel. But the same cannot really be said of Britain. Indeed, the amazing thing about the most recent research on social mobility is that the United Kingdom—which used to have the most rigid class structure in the developed world—now risks losing that title to the United States. No wonder Downton Abbey is so popular here.
The American Dream has become a nightmare of social stasis. According to research by Pew, just under 60 percent of Americans raised in the top fifth of incomes end up staying in the top two fifths; a fractionally higher proportion of those born in the bottom fifth—60.4 percent—end up staying in the bottom two fifths.
This is the America so vividly described by Charles Murray in his bestselling book Coming Apart. At one end of the social scale, living in places with names like “Belmont,” is Murray’s “cognitive elite” of around 1.5 million people. They and their children dominate admissions to the country’s top colleges. They marry one another and cluster together in fewer than a thousand exclusive neighborhoods—the enclaves of wealth that Murray calls the SuperZips.
At the other end, there are places like “Fishtown,” where nobody has more than a high school diploma; a rising share of children live with a single parent, often a young and poorly educated “never-married mother.” Not only has illegitimacy risen in such towns, so has the share of men saying they are unable to work because of illness or disability or who are unemployed or who work fewer than 40 hours a week. Crime is rampant; so is the rate of incarceration. In other words, problems that used to be disproportionately associated with African-American communities are now endemic in the trailer parks and subprime slums inhabited by poor whites. You get born there, you stay there—unless you get sent to jail.
What has gone wrong? American liberals argue that widening inequality inevitably causes falling social mobility. This was what Alan Krueger, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, had in mind back in January, when he came up with the “Great Gatsby Curve,” showing that more unequal countries have less social mobility. (Hang on, wasn’t Gatsby a self-made bootlegger?) But to European eyes, this is also a familiar story of poverty traps created by well-intentioned welfare programs. Consider the case highlighted by Gary Alexander, Pennsylvania’s former secretary of public welfare. A single mom with two young kids is better off doing a part-time job for just $29,000—on top of which she receives $28,327 in various benefits—than if she accepts a job that pays $69,000, on which she would pay $11,955 in taxes.
How can social mobility increase in a society that cares twice as much for Grandma as for Junior?
Another good example is the growth in the number of Americans claiming Social Security disability benefits. Back in the mid 1980s, little more than 1.5 percent of the population received such benefits; today it’s nearly 3.5 percent. Nor (as used to be the case) are the recipients mainly elderly. Around 6 percent of the population aged between 45 and 54—my age group—are SSDI beneficiaries. Payments to disabled workers average $1,130 a month, which works out as $13,560 a year—just $2,000 less than a full-time wage at the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour.
Maybe we really are unhealthier than we were 30 years ago, though the data on life expectancy tell a different story. Maybe work really has got more physically demanding, though the shift from manufacturing to services also suggests otherwise. The more credible possibility is that it has become easier for the mildly unwell or unfit to get classified as disabled and to opt for idle poverty over working poverty, which pays only slightly better and means working with that niggling backache or mild depression.
Significantly, after two years on disability benefit, you qualify for Medicare, swelling the ever-growing number of beneficiaries of the federal government’s most expensive welfare program. Right now, federal spending on health care, according to the Congressional Budget Office, is around 5 percent of GDP, but it is forecast to double by the 2040s. Needless to say, this reflects the great demographic shift that is inexorably driving up the share of seniors in the population. But consider how the combination of an aging population and welfare programs is working to reduce the resources available to young people.
According to the Urban Institute, the current share of federal spending on the young is around 10 percent, compared with the 41 percent that goes on the non-child portions of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Per capita government spending—including state and local budgets—is roughly double for the elderly what it is for children. Perhaps not surprisingly, the child poverty rate is more than double the poverty rate for seniors. Ask yourself: how can social mobility possibly increase in a society that cares twice as much for Grandma as for Junior?
The only mystery that remains is why this generational conflict has not yet become a serious issue in American politics. Bafflingly, young voters still tend to line up with the very organizations that seem most intent on ratcheting up the future liabilities of government (not to mention the teenage unemployment rate)—notably the public-sector unions.
Writing in 1960, the economist Friedrich Hayek made a remarkable prediction about the ultimate consequences of the welfare state. “Most of those who will retire at the end of the century,” he wrote, “will be dependent on the charity of the younger generation. And ultimately not morals but the fact that the young supply the police and the army will decide the issue: concentration camps for the aged unable to maintain themselves are likely to be the fate of an old generation whose income is entirely dependent on coercing the young.”
Hayek was right that by 2000 the baby boomers would expect the young to bear the rising costs of their protracted and generously funded retirements. Almost alone among postwar economists, he saw the generational conflict implied by the welfare state. But he was wrong about how the younger generation would react. Far from rounding up the old and putting them in camps, it is the young who are the docile victims.
One possible explanation for this docility lies in the other main reason for declining social mobility: the disastrous failure of American high schools in the places like Murray’s imaginary Fishtown.
Despite a tripling of per-pupil expenditure in real terms, American secondary education is failing. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, three quarters of U.S. citizens between the ages of 17 and 24 are not qualified to join the military because they are physically unfit, have criminal records, or have inadequate levels of education. A third of high school graduates fail the mandatory Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. Two fifths of students at four-year colleges need to take remedial courses to relearn what they failed to master in high school.
The cognitive elite discreetly rig the game in favor of their offspring with well-timed benefactions.
In international comparison, the United States is now somewhere in the middle of the league table for mathematical aptitude at age 15. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s most recent Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study was damning: in math, the gap between the teenagers in the Shanghai district of China and the United States is as large as the gap between American teenagers and Albanians.
But the real shocker is the differential between rich and poor kids. At the ages of 4 to 5, children from the poorest fifth of homes are already 21.6 months behind children from the richest homes in the U.S., compared with 10.6 months in Canada. The proportion of 15-year-olds who are functionally illiterate (below level 2 in PISA tests) is 10.3 percent in Canada. In the U.S. it is 17.6 percent. And students from the highest social-class groups are twice as likely to go to college than those from the lowest classes.
Meanwhile, there are disturbing signs that America’s elite educational institutions are reverting to their old role as finishing schools for the children of a hereditary elite—the role they played back when F. Scott Fitzgerald was partying at Princeton.
Perhaps those in charge of Ivy League admissions have good reasons for their decisions. Perhaps it is right that they should do more than simply pick the most academically talented and industrious students who apply. But the possibility cannot be rejected out of hand that, whatever their intentions, the net effect of their pursuit of “diversity” is in fact to reduce yet further this country’s once unique social mobility. Nor can we dismiss the hypothesis that the “legacy” system may be the key here, as the cognitive elite discreetly rig the game in favor of their offspring with well-timed benefactions.In a disturbing critique of Ivy League admissions policies, the editor of the American Conservative, Ron Unz, recently pointed out a number of puzzling anomalies. For example, since the mid-1990s Asians have consistently accounted for around 16 percent of Harvard enrollments. At Columbia, according to Unz, the Asian share has actually fallen from 23 percent in 1993 to below 16 percent in 2011. Yet, according to the U.S. census, the number of Asians aged between 18 and 21 has more than doubled in that period. Moreover, Asians now account for 28 percent of National Merit Scholarship semifinalists and 39 percent of students at CalTech, where admissions are based purely on academic merit.
As a professor at Harvard, I am disquieted by such thoughts. Unlike Elon Musk, I did not come to the United States intent on making a fortune. Wealth was not my American dream. But I did come here because I believed in American meritocracy, and I was pretty sure that I would be teaching fewer beneficiaries of inherited privilege than I had encountered at Oxford.
The first requirement of The Economist is that it should be readily understandable. Clarity of writing usually follows clarity of thought. So think what you want to say, then say it as simply as possible. Keep in mind George Orwell's six elementary rules ("Politics and the English Language", 1946):
Never use a Metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
Never use a long word where a short one will do (see Short words).
If it is possible to cut out a word, always cut it out (see Unnecessary words).
Never use the Passive where you can use the active.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a Jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous (seeIconoclasm).
Read the full Style Guide introduction.
Readers are primarily interested in what you have to say. By the way in which you say it you may encourage them either to read on or to give up. If you want them to read on:
Do not be stuffy. “To write a genuine, familiar or truly English style”, said Hazlitt, “is to write as anyone would speak in common conversation who had a thorough command or choice of words or who could discourse with ease, force and perspicuity setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes.”
Use the language of everyday speech, not that of spokesmen, lawyers or bureaucrats (so prefer let to permit, people to persons, buy to purchase, colleague to peer, way outto exit, present to gift, rich to wealthy, show to demonstrate, break to violate). Pomposity and long-windedness tend to obscure meaning, or reveal the lack of it: strip them away in favour of plain words.
Do not be hectoring or arrogant. Those who disagree with you are not necessarily stupidor insane. Nobody needs to be described as silly: let your analysis show that he is. When you express opinions, do not simply make assertions. The aim is not just to tell readers what you think, but to persuade them; if you use arguments, reasoning and evidence, you may succeed. Go easy on the oughts and shoulds.
Do not be too pleased with yourself. Don't boast of your own cleverness by telling readers that you correctly predicted something or that you have a scoop. You are more likely to bore or irritate them than to impress them.
Do not be too chatty. Surprise, surprise is more irritating than informative. So is Ho, hoand, in the middle of a sentence, wait for it, etc.
Do not be too didactic. If too many sentences begin Compare, Consider, Expect,Imagine, Look at, Note, Prepare for, Remember or Take, readers will think they are reading a textbook (or, indeed, a style book). This may not be the way to persuade them to renew their subscriptions.
Do your best to be lucid (“I see but one rule: to be clear”, Stendhal). Simple sentences help. Keep complicated constructions and gimmicks to a minimum, if necessary by remembering the New Yorker's comment: “Backward ran the sentences until reeled the mind.”
The following letter from a reader may be chastening:
SIR—At times just one sentence in The Economist can give us hours of enjoyment, such as “Yet German diplomats in Belgrade failed to persuade their government that it was wrong to think that the threat of international recognition of Croatia and Slovenia would itself deter Serbia.” During my many years as a reader of your newspaper, I have distilled two lessons about the use of our language. Firstly, it is usually easier to write a double negative than it is to interpret it. Secondly, unless the description of an event which is considered to be not without consequence includes a double or higher-order negative, then it cannot be disproven that the writer has neglected to eliminate other interpretations of the event which are not satisfactory in light of other possibly not unrelated events which might not have occurred at all. For these reasons, I have not neglected your timely reminder that I ought not to let my subscription lapse. It certainly cannot be said that I am an unhappy reader. —WILLARD DUNNING
Mark Twain described how a good writer treats sentences: “At times he may indulge himself with a long one, but he will make sure there are no folds in it, no vaguenesses, no parenthetical interruptions of its view as a whole; when he has done with it, it won't be a sea-serpent with half of its arches under the water; it will be a torch-light procession.”
Long paragraphs, like long sentences, can confuse the reader. “The paragraph”, according to Fowler, “is essentially a unit of thought, not of length; it must be homogeneous in subject matter and sequential in treatment.” One-sentence paragraphs should be used only occasionally.
Clear thinking is the key to clear writing. “A scrupulous writer”, observed Orwell, “in every sentence that he writes will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?”
Scrupulous writers will also notice that their copy is edited only lightly and is likely to be used. It may even be read.
