full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Simon Anholt: Which country does the most good for the world?


Unscramble the Blue Letters


So I've spent a lot of the last 10 or 15 years trying to find out what could be that self-interest that would encourage not just politicians but also busseniess and general populations, all of us, to start to think a little more outwardly, to think in a bgiegr picture, not always to look inwards, sometimes to look outwards. And this is where I decivsoerd something quite important. In 2005, I launched a study claled the Nation Brands Index. What it is, it's a very large-scale study that polls a very large sample of the world's population, a sample that represents about 70 percent of the planet's population, and I started asking them a series of questions about how they perceive other countries. And the Nation bdnras Index over the years has grown to be a very, very lgrae database. It's about 200 billion data points tracking what ordinary people think about other countries and why. Why did I do this? Well, because the governments that I advise are very, very keen on knowing how they are rgerdead. They've known, partly because I've encouraged them to realize it, that countries depend enormously on their reputations in order to survive and poerspr in the world. If a country has a great, positive image, like Germany has or Sweden or Switzerland, everything is easy and everything is cheap. You get more trotsuis. You get more investors. You sell your products more expensively. If, on the other hand, you have a ctnrouy with a very weak or a very nteaigve image, everything is dffiuclit and everything is expensive. So governments care desperately about the image of their country, because it makes a direct difference to how much money they can make, and that's what they've promised their populations they're going to dveiler.

Open Cloze


So I've spent a lot of the last 10 or 15 years trying to find out what could be that self-interest that would encourage not just politicians but also __________ and general populations, all of us, to start to think a little more outwardly, to think in a ______ picture, not always to look inwards, sometimes to look outwards. And this is where I __________ something quite important. In 2005, I launched a study ______ the Nation Brands Index. What it is, it's a very large-scale study that polls a very large sample of the world's population, a sample that represents about 70 percent of the planet's population, and I started asking them a series of questions about how they perceive other countries. And the Nation ______ Index over the years has grown to be a very, very _____ database. It's about 200 billion data points tracking what ordinary people think about other countries and why. Why did I do this? Well, because the governments that I advise are very, very keen on knowing how they are ________. They've known, partly because I've encouraged them to realize it, that countries depend enormously on their reputations in order to survive and _______ in the world. If a country has a great, positive image, like Germany has or Sweden or Switzerland, everything is easy and everything is cheap. You get more ________. You get more investors. You sell your products more expensively. If, on the other hand, you have a _______ with a very weak or a very ________ image, everything is _________ and everything is expensive. So governments care desperately about the image of their country, because it makes a direct difference to how much money they can make, and that's what they've promised their populations they're going to _______.

Solution


  1. bigger
  2. called
  3. tourists
  4. brands
  5. large
  6. negative
  7. difficult
  8. discovered
  9. regarded
  10. deliver
  11. country
  12. prosper
  13. businesses

Original Text


So I've spent a lot of the last 10 or 15 years trying to find out what could be that self-interest that would encourage not just politicians but also businesses and general populations, all of us, to start to think a little more outwardly, to think in a bigger picture, not always to look inwards, sometimes to look outwards. And this is where I discovered something quite important. In 2005, I launched a study called the Nation Brands Index. What it is, it's a very large-scale study that polls a very large sample of the world's population, a sample that represents about 70 percent of the planet's population, and I started asking them a series of questions about how they perceive other countries. And the Nation Brands Index over the years has grown to be a very, very large database. It's about 200 billion data points tracking what ordinary people think about other countries and why. Why did I do this? Well, because the governments that I advise are very, very keen on knowing how they are regarded. They've known, partly because I've encouraged them to realize it, that countries depend enormously on their reputations in order to survive and prosper in the world. If a country has a great, positive image, like Germany has or Sweden or Switzerland, everything is easy and everything is cheap. You get more tourists. You get more investors. You sell your products more expensively. If, on the other hand, you have a country with a very weak or a very negative image, everything is difficult and everything is expensive. So governments care desperately about the image of their country, because it makes a direct difference to how much money they can make, and that's what they've promised their populations they're going to deliver.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
good country 4
awful lot 2
human beings 2
nation brands 2
brands index 2
admire countries 2
lowest score 2
started thinking 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
nation brands index 2


Important Words


  1. advise
  2. bigger
  3. billion
  4. brands
  5. businesses
  6. called
  7. care
  8. cheap
  9. countries
  10. country
  11. data
  12. database
  13. deliver
  14. depend
  15. desperately
  16. difference
  17. difficult
  18. direct
  19. discovered
  20. easy
  21. encourage
  22. encouraged
  23. enormously
  24. expensive
  25. expensively
  26. find
  27. general
  28. germany
  29. governments
  30. great
  31. grown
  32. hand
  33. image
  34. important
  35. index
  36. investors
  37. inwards
  38. keen
  39. knowing
  40. large
  41. launched
  42. lot
  43. money
  44. nation
  45. negative
  46. order
  47. ordinary
  48. outwardly
  49. outwards
  50. partly
  51. people
  52. perceive
  53. percent
  54. picture
  55. points
  56. politicians
  57. polls
  58. population
  59. populations
  60. positive
  61. products
  62. promised
  63. prosper
  64. questions
  65. realize
  66. regarded
  67. represents
  68. reputations
  69. sample
  70. sell
  71. series
  72. spent
  73. start
  74. started
  75. study
  76. survive
  77. sweden
  78. switzerland
  79. tourists
  80. tracking
  81. weak
  82. world
  83. years