Sufficient evidence?

Last week I asked my class the following question about this chart (taken from The Economist's Daily Chart online feature) :

Do you think these statements are TRUE or FALSE? Do you have enough evidence to verify each statement?

1. DVDs are cheap in China because they are all illegally copied.

2. The average Polish employee has to work longer than the average Indian employee in order to be able to afford a DVD.

3. DVDs are cheaper in Germany than in India.

4. The best films are made in France.

5. The currency used in Australia is dollars.

6. People in Japan like to watch DVDs.

7. The average US worker can earn enough money in 200 minutes to buy 4 DVDs.

Together we agreed that 2 and 7 are true, 3 is false, and we do not have sufficient evidence to comment on the other 4 statements. The students then wrote statements about other charts. Please comment on whether their statements are true, false, or impossible to comment on without further information.

Big Mac Index

1) In Norway a Big Mac costs 7.02 dollars.

2) The Swiss Franc is overvalued against the US dollar by 75%.

3) In Britain a Big Mac is 9p more expensive than in the USA

4) In Japan the cost of a Big Mac is the same.

5) Chinese currency is least expensive in the chart.

6) USA citizens eat more burgers than the rest of the world .

US Border Control

1. The cost per apprehension of illegal immigrants was steady between 1992 and 2000.

2. The total cost per apprehension of illegal immigrants from 1997 to 200 was as high as in 2008.

3. There was a decline in the cost per apprehension of illegal immigrants for the two years following 2003.

4. The average cost per apprehension of illegal immigrants has been increasing since 1992.

Read-e for the masses

1. The line graph shows the sale of e-books in 2008 and forecasts growth from 2009 to 2011.

2. The sale of e-books will grow substantially from 2008 (1 million) to 2009 (5 million).

3. Between 2009 and 2010, e-book sales will experience an incredible increase from 5 to 12 million, followed by modest growth (to 15 million) in 2011.

Foreign Students in America

1. Do you think the percentage of British people who go to study in America is lower because they have English as their first language as well?

2. The percentage of Spanish students studying in America is higher than the percentage of Indian students.

3. Studying in America is cheaper than in the UK.

4. The country that sends the most students to study in America is China.

5. The American people prefer to receive Italian students than Japanese students.

6. People from Japan do not like to study in America.

Countries with most installed wind power

1. China produces more wind power than Spain because China owns a greater proportion of the world.

2. Spain produces less wind power than China because Spain owned a smaller proportion of the world.

3. The United States produced the most wind power in the world from 2008 to 2009.

4. Perhaps because it is physically larger than Spain, Germany produces more wind power.

Africa Cup of Nations

1. There are more African football players in France than in Germany.

2. There are more Africans in England than in Germany.

3. 24 players playing in the African Cup of Nations are from England.

4. Domestic leagues provide significantly more players for the African Cup of Nations than other leagues.

5. There are 345 footballers playing at the African Cup of Nations.

Graduate Diploma Reading & Writing : Spring Term 2011

It's been too long since I've posted anything meaningful to this blog, so here's a quick summary of what we've covered this week in my Graduate Diploma Reading & Writing class. I have uploaded powerpoint files from session one, two, and three to my brand new Windows Live Skydrive if you're interested in downloading and viewing them (please let me know if the links don't work).

After some work on describing data and a needs analysis exercise in our first session of the week, we reviewed important aspects of vocabulary like word form, collocation, and pattern grammar (class handout here) in the context of a "model" essay. There was an analysis of complex sentence from the essay, and this reading activity as homework, before analysing fact and opinion in the essay and looking at the difference between strong and weak evidence.

A selection of videos from TED.com