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The Korean orthography is indeed very regular, but that's irrelevant: reading for 15-year-olds doesn't mean deciphering spelling, but rather reading comprehensi

• ctdonath 13y ago
  It is relevant, as reading for American 15-year-olds DOES mean deciphering spelling. Odd anecdote: this became notable in the recent hyped Zimmerman trial when a 19yo witness couldn't read a letter she claimed to have written - it was in cursive. The usefulness of cursive (as an obsolete notation) aside, any high schooler should at least be able to read it, and any witness should be able to read any standard script. As for Shanghai, I have to wonder if the cost of living in some areas necessitates literacy more than other areas. If you can't read, you can't produce value commensurate with the high price of existing there: survival dictates read or get out.
• wisty 13y ago
  > Also note that no. 1 is Shanghai (why not "China", I wonder?) 1) Shanghai is a very developed part of China (along with Beijing, and a few other big cities). 2) I'm pretty sure they rigged it. There's various ways the teachers could have rigged the test, and I doubt there was any effort by the local schooling system to keep them honest.