-184 The reason why non-English speaking countries tend to have higher standardized test scores is probably because their populous cannot reduce a conversation to texting language. If they were to use text speaak as we do, they would have to have some basic knowledge of English in the first place, translate their thoughts and then type poorly, which in itself is more mental exercise, amirite?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Uhhh? every country uses abbreviations and all I went to Mexico and they did not translate their thought they abbreviated in Spanish. Go visit another country before saying things like that! Oh and other languages understand words like lol lmfao because of the internet

by Anonymous 11 years ago

...the fuck?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

My thoughts exactly.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

No. English speaking places are more lazy because they don't have to work as hard as a child. They think everything will be given to them without effort. I know this for a fact.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

To know something as a fact... It should probably be a fact. It saddens me that I have to point that out.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Really? We are completely lazy. Most people do their work half-assed, complain all the time, and sit around on the computer and look at cats. Seems pretty lazy to me.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I agreed until you said it was a fact...

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Explain how you know this for a fact. Remember how many people you're generalizing together here...

by Anonymous 11 years ago

http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2010/02/15/the-laziest-countries-in-the-world.html 1,2,5,14,19,22 are English speaking countries. Pretty lazy if you ask me.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Right cause an article from The Daily Beast's website is cold hard fact. Not biased at all...

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I wouldn't know, I dont prejudice based off stuff I hear online. Never been there until that list.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

So then explain how you know it for a fact!

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I looked it up, wrote for a fact, then later posted the list.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

They don't speak English as a first language in most contries in Europe for example and we really don't have to work hard as kids.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I can only speak for Spanish, because one of my Mexican friends uses spanish text speak with me sometimes. They use text abbreviations. pq= porque. k=que, on and on. Also, in a lot of non-English speaking countries, school only goes so far. Usually if they aren't smart enough to continue to higher learning, they'll drop out sometime right before or during middle school to work. The smarter children will further their education. Their test scores are test scores of some of the smartest kids in their country. Our test scores are an average of scores ranging from the lowest to highest ends. I'm not trying to make an excuse for American complacency, just making a point.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I can only speak about Nicaragua, but from what I've seen it's true there. Most of the kids don't stay in school that long. We visited schools and worked with the kids, there's a noticeable difference in numbers. There's a lot of younger kids, but the higher up you go the less and less students remain in school. Yes, not everyone drops out just cause they can, but it is extremely common. Only certain people make it all the way through.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

It's socially unacceptable to be a drop-out here. In those other countries, it's not

by Anonymous 11 years ago

In the Netherlands you have to get a diploma. It's mandatory. But we have several levels of educations, namely VMBO, HAVO and VWO. VMBO is more practical, takes four years, not sure what exactly people do after that. HAVO is in between VMBO and VWO. If you graduate from HAVO, you can't go to university, but you can go to what english speaking countries probably call college. It takes five years Then you got VWO, takes six years, is focussed more on theory and knowledge and if you graduate from it, you can go to university.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Sorry forgot to add something; Each of these levels has it's own standardized tests, the final exams. VWO exams will be a lot harder then VMBO exams. So that probably also makes it harder to compare them with standardized test of English speaking countries. Oh and I can also assure you that we also have text speak here. Both Dutch and English

by Anonymous 11 years ago

@ O___o : What are the age ranges for each?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Well, everyone starts at age 12 So most VMBOers are 16 when they're done HAVOers are 17 And VWOers 18 Though there are of course also different cases and stuff, but most people are around that age Though for example, a girl in my class was 20 I think Cause she first did HAVO, graduated from it, took a year off, then decided she wanted to get her VWO as well, so that was another extra two years for her (as you can't just step into the final year) wasn't able to pass her final exams last year, so she tried again this year (and graduated) So she was a little older then most of my classmates

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Text Speak isn't confined to english. All languages have abbreviations and slang words within them.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Who Homepaged this?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

i'd like to see abbreviated chinese

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Text speak is only challenging to people that have passed first grade English.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Dafuq did I just read?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

seems legit

by Anonymous 11 years ago

So ignorant...

by Anonymous 11 years ago