> In other words, the majority of graduate students are incapable of fully understanding a newspaper I think this indicates a serious problem with the study. W

> In other words, the majority of graduate students are incapable of fully understanding a newspaper I think this indicates a serious problem with the study. While I'm sure there are exceptional cases where someone could graduate from a post-graduate program as functionally illiterate[1], every other non-exceptional case is able to function quite well in our society. You don't need to know every word in the newspaper (you can get those through contextual clues) or if there are 8 ounces in a cup or a pint (I'd Google it) in order to function in our society or to interact with other people writing the same language. [1] Using the common sense definition found at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy