Non-native speakers achieve higher GCSE English grades than native speakers

Published on March 6, 2014

Quickies

Speak­ers of Eng­lish as a for­eign lan­guage beat na­tive speak­ers in Eng­lish GCSEs

Ac­cord­ing to a sur­vey of all pupils in Great Britain, “work­ing class British boys” per­form worse than sec­ond lan­guage speak­ers in the GCSE Eng­lish exam that every stu­dent takes at the age of 16. The 1.1 mil­lion pupils with Eng­lish as a sec­ond lan­guage seem to be more at­ten­tive to teach­ers.

Read on independent.​co.​uk 5/3/2014

Swedes com­plain their taxes are too low

With elec­tions just six months away in Swe­den, the con­ser­v­a­tive party is suf­fer­ing badly in opin­ion polls de­spite strong eco­nomic growth. The rea­son? Taxes are too low and they need to be raised! It's a com­plaint that is un­think­able in many coun­tries, but not in mag­nan­i­mous Swe­den.

Read on WSJ.com 5/3/2014

Translated from Erhöht Schweden die Steuern!