English proficiency test as anti-American rant

Here, below, is the self-administered test which a certain language centre in Europe is using to test proficiency in English amongst its academic staff. It's your English proficiency test as Michael Moore anti-American, anti-Bush rant. The language centre? That of the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.

The test is first explained, thus:

STEP 1

Print and do the test below. There are three types of questions:

(a) Some of the words in the text are underlined. Write down their meaning. Examples are questions (1) and (4).

(b) Fill in the correct form of the word given in capitals. This can be a verb form, but also a noun, adjective or adverb. For example, question (2) requires the correct form of STUPID. What you should be looking for in this case is the corresponding noun. Note that the form you are looking for may very well be a negative: a corresponding adjective of MEAN is, of course, mean, but also meaningless. It depends on the context which form you are looking for.

(c) prep = Fill in the correct preposition (in, on, at, etc.). Examples are questions (9) and (10).

The test itself then follows:

IDIOT NATION

Do you feel like you live in a nation of idiots? I used to (1) console myself about the state of (2) [STUPID] in this country by repeating this to myself: Even if there are two hundred million stone-cold idiots in this country, that (3) [LEAVE] at least eighty million who'll (4) get what I (5) [SAY] - and that's still more than the populations of the United Kingdom and Iceland combined! Then came the day I found myself (6) [SHARE] an office with the ESPN game show Two-Minute Drill. This is the show that (7) [TEST] your knowledge of not only who plays what position for which team, but who hit what where in a 1925 game between Boston and New York, who was (8) rookie of the year in 1965 in the old American Basketball Association, and what Jake Wood had for breakfast the morning of May 12, 1967. I don't know the answer (9) [prep] any of those questions, but for some reason I do remember Jake Wood's uniform number: 2. Why (10) [prep] earth am I retaining that (11) [USE] fact? I don't know, but after (12) [WATCH] scores of guys (13) [WAIT] to audition for that ESPN show, I think I do know something about (14) [INTELLIGENT] and the American mind.

There are forty-four million Americans who cannot read and write above a fourth-grade level - in other words, who are functional (15) [LITERATE]. How (16) [...] I [LEARN] this statistic? Well, I read it. And now you (17) [READ] it. So we (18) [...] already [EAT] into the (19) mere 99 hours a year an average American adult (20) [SPEND] (21) [READ] a book - compared with 1,460 hours (22) [WATCH] television. I've also read that only 11 percent of the American public bothers to read a (23) [DAY] newspaper, beyond the funny pages or the used car ads. So if you live in a country where forty-four million can't read - and perhaps close to another two hundred million can read but (24) [USUAL] don't - well, friends, you and I are living in one very scary place. A nation that not only (25) churns out illiterate students but (26) goes out of its way to (27) remain (28) ignorant and stupid is a nation that should not be running the world - at least not until a (29) [MAJOR] of its citizens can locate Kosovo (or any other country it has bombed) on the map.

It comes as no surprise to foreigners that Americans, who love to (30) revel their simplicity would "elect" a president who (31) [RARE] reads anything - including his own briefing papers - and thinks Africa is a nation, not a continent. An idiot leader of an idiot nation. In our (32) [GLORY] land of (33) plenty, less is always more when it comes to (34) taxing any lobe of the brain with the (35) [TAKE] of facts and numbers, critical thinking, or the comprehension of anything that isn't ...well, sports. Our Idiot-in-Chief does nothing to hide his ignorance - he even brags about it. During his (36) [COMMENCE] address (37) [prep] the Yale Class of 2001, he spoke proudly of (38) [BE] a mediocre student at Yale. "And to the C students, I say you, too, can be President of the United States!" The part where you also need an ex-President father, a brother as governor of a state with (39) [MISS] (40) ballots, and a Supreme Court full of your dad's buddies must have been too complicated to bother (41) [prep] in a short speech.

As Americans, we have quite a proud tradition of (42) [REPRESENT] by ignorant high-ranking officials. In 1956 President Dwight D. Eisenhower's (43) [NOMINATION] as ambassador to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) was unable to identify either the country's prime minister or its capital during his Senate (44) [CONFIRM] hearing. Not a problem - Maxwell Gluck was confirmed anyway. In 1981 William Clark (45) [ADMIT] (46) [prep] a wide-ranging lack of knowledge about foreign affairs at his hearing. He had no idea how our allies in Western Europe (47) [FEEL] about (48) [HAVE] American nuclear missiles based there, and (49) [NOT KNOW] the names of the prime ministers of South Africa or Zimbabwe. Not to worry - he (50) [CONFIRM], too. All this just (51) paved the way for Baby Bush, who (52) [HAVE NOT] quite absorbed the names of the leaders of India or Pakistan, two of the seven nations that possess the atomic bomb. And Bush went to Yale and Harvard.

Recently a group of 556 seniors at fifty-five (53) [PRESTIGE] American universities (e.g. Harvard, Yale, Stanford) (54) [GIVE] a multiple-choice test (55) [CONSIST] of questions that (56) [DESCRIBE] as "high school level." Thirty-four questions (57) [ASK]. These top students could only answer 53 percent of them (58) [CORRECT]. And only one student got them all right. Walk into any public school, and the odds are good that you (59) [FIND] (60) [FLOW] classrooms, leaking ceilings, and (61) [MORAL] teachers. Why is this? Because the political leaders - and the people who vote for them - (62) [DECIDE] it's a bigger priority to build another bomber than to educate our children. They would rather hold hearings about the (63) [DEPRAVE] of a television show called Jackass than about their own (63) [DEPRAVE] in (64) neglecting our schools and children and (65) maintaining our title as Dumbest Country on Earth.

The full text of the test was sent to me from within the University of Leiden itself. Imagine such a test in a US university that was similarly insulting about the Netherlands.