Accurate Communication is important

It's not enough to "know" English, you must also be able to understand it AND accurately communicate it to others. Think about the answers to the questions below from the scavenger hunt held in the library this week:

1- What is the capital of French Polynesia?

2- Which famous car company is based in Turin?

3- What is the population of the Metro area of Hong Kong?

These questions are asking about the capital of a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean, a car company in Turin, Italy and the total number of people living in Hong Kong, yet the answer students gave were, respectively, Paris, France a country in Europe, the Shroud of Turin a piece of cloth some say was used to wrap Jesus, Son of Mary in his grave and by leaving off the last three digits of a number reducing the population of a major international city from millions to thousands.

In your role as young scholars, engineers, and leaders of your country, you must be able to know AND understand what it is you are asked and communicate that information accurately and effectively. That makes all the difference in the world between answering question 2 with the name of a car company instead of a burial cloth, or removing over 6 million people from a city's population from 7,182,000 down to 7,182, or finally placing a European capital city right in the middle of Oceania. Being accurate is as important as "knowing" the answer, especially when you have to communicate that answer to others.

Read as much as you can and when you run across words you don't understand write them down and bring them to our 'Brain Dump' sessions in class. See you in class!