Posted on 12/21/2010 5:00:59 PM PST by Baladas
MIAMI — Nearly one-fourth of the students who try to join the military fail its entrance exam, painting a grim picture of an education system that produces graduates who can't answer basic math, science and reading questions.
The report by The Education Trust found that 23 percent of recent high school graduates don't get the minimum score needed on the enlistment test to join any branch of the military. The study, released exclusively to The Associated Press on Tuesday, comes on top of Pentagon data that shows 75 percent of those aged 17 to 24 don't qualify for the military because they are physically unfit, have a criminal record or didn't graduate high school.
"Too many of our high school students are not graduating ready to begin college or a career — and many are not eligible to serve in our armed forces," U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the AP. "I am deeply troubled by the national security burden created by America's underperforming education system."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Are you ready? There's a surprise here! ...
Crossing this dusky entry, and on through yon low-arched way - cut through what in old times must have been a great central chimney with fire-places all round - you enter the public room. A still duskier place is this, with such low ponderous beams above, and such old wrinkled planks beneath, that you would almost fancy you trod some old craft's cockpits, especially of such a howling night, when this corner- anchored old ark rocked so furiously. On one side stood a long, low, shelf-like table covered with cracked glass cases, filled with dusty rarities gathered from this wide world's remotest nooks. Projecting from the further angle of the room stands a dark-looking den - the bar - a rude attempt at a Right Whale's head. Be that how it may, there stands the vast arched bone of the whale's jaw, so wide, a coach might almost drive beneath it. within are shabby shelves, ranged round with old decanters, bottles, flasks; and in those jaws of swift destruction, like another cursed Jonah (by which name indeed they called him), bustles a little withered old man, who, for their money, dearly sells the sailors deliriums and death.Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison. Though true cylinders without - within, the villainous green goggling glasses deceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating bottom. Parallel meridians rudely pecked into the glass, surround these footpads' goblets. Fill to this mark, and your charge is but a penny; to this a penny more; and so on to the full glass - the Cape Horn measure, which you may gulp down for a shilling.
Upon entering the place I found a number of young seamen gathered about a table, examining by a dim light divers specimens of skrimshander. I sought the landlord, and telling him I desired to be accommodated with a room, received for answer that his house was full - not a bed unoccupied. "But avast," he added, tapping his forehead, "you haint no objections to sharing a harpooneer's blanket, have ye? I s'pose you are goin' a whalin', so you'd better get used to that sort of thing."
What the surprise? That the typical Harry Potter novel is as difficult as Moby Dick! Here are the scores, Moby Dick vs Harry Potter, for the excerpts given.
When contradictions exist, examine your premises.
I couldn't read Moby Dick until I was past 35, and even then I needed to keep a dictionary close at hand.
Something is wrong with the methods you chose for scoring.
ML/NJ
The SMOG Index is as follows:
The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level is:
That you needed a dictionary for Moby Dick is understandable because of the archaic words used. Those words would have been familiar to the reader at the time of publication. Likewise a reader of the 1850's would need a dictionary to read Harry Potter, if magically a copy of one of those books could be sent back in time.
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