full transcript

From the Ted Talk by David Rothkopf: How fear drives American politics

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Now you have to ask, where did we go wrong? What did we do? What was the matskie that was made? And you might say, well look, Washington is a dysfunctional place. There are political food fights. We've turned our discourse into a cage match. And that's true. But there are bigger problems, believe it or not, than that dysfunction, even though I would argue that dysfunction that makes it ispisbolme to get anything done in the richest and most pofwruel country in the world is far more dangerous than anything that a group like ISIS could do, because it stops us in our tracks and it keeps us from prsgeros.

Open Cloze


Now you have to ask, where did we go wrong? What did we do? What was the _______ that was made? And you might say, well look, Washington is a dysfunctional place. There are political food fights. We've turned our discourse into a cage match. And that's true. But there are bigger problems, believe it or not, than that dysfunction, even though I would argue that dysfunction that makes it __________ to get anything done in the richest and most ________ country in the world is far more dangerous than anything that a group like ISIS could do, because it stops us in our tracks and it keeps us from ________.

Solution


  1. powerful
  2. mistake
  3. progress
  4. impossible

Original Text


Now you have to ask, where did we go wrong? What did we do? What was the mistake that was made? And you might say, well look, Washington is a dysfunctional place. There are political food fights. We've turned our discourse into a cage match. And that's true. But there are bigger problems, believe it or not, than that dysfunction, even though I would argue that dysfunction that makes it impossible to get anything done in the richest and most powerful country in the world is far more dangerous than anything that a group like ISIS could do, because it stops us in our tracks and it keeps us from progress.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
national security 4
global thermonuclear 2
thermonuclear war 2
security apparatus 2
people making 2
cell phone 2
big issues 2
massive issues 2
internet access 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
global thermonuclear war 2
national security apparatus 2

Important Words


  1. argue
  2. bigger
  3. cage
  4. country
  5. dangerous
  6. discourse
  7. dysfunction
  8. dysfunctional
  9. fights
  10. food
  11. group
  12. impossible
  13. isis
  14. match
  15. mistake
  16. place
  17. political
  18. powerful
  19. problems
  20. progress
  21. richest
  22. stops
  23. tracks
  24. true
  25. turned
  26. washington
  27. world
  28. wrong