Parsing thoughts

Abstract

A national newspaper reported recently that of a sample of university students one quarter failed basic tests in English. The report stated that professors were worried that some students had such a poor grasp of English that they could not understand what they were being taught. Though the sample consisted of only one quarter of home‐educated students, and the tests were devised for chemical engineering and science & society courses at Bradford University, the general indictment of the standard of English must have obvious wider implications. Indeed as the director of the university educational development service said: