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If you have that particular ability. Not everybody does, and it's not just "oh well that's because it was taught badly in school". Some people can't math, that's the sad fact (I am one).
And then we find they can't understand books that are not the "relevant to the youth" ones they read.
Who the hell needs to understand Dickens today? Sure, that's a point. But what do you do when it's a text for the workplace that isn't Dickens but is also not "The Hunger Games"?
This study is even worse than I first thought, because while I had sympathy that American kids of today wouldn't be familiar with 19th century British law terms, then I find they were allowed to look up unfamiliar terms and couldn't even put it together then for the joke about the dinosaur (bolding mine):
It's even more depressing, because these kids got into college to do an English degree with a poor starting level of English:
They wanted to study English literature without the ability to even read Dickens. This would be like me trying to do a degree in Mathematics. You'd have more luck teaching a dog to walk on its hind legs, pace Dr. Johnson:
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