full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Andrew Yang: Why US politics is broken — and how to fix it

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So this change was made in 2020, it applied in 2022. How many of you have heard of Sarah Palin? Somehow wdlodiwre. How many of you have heard of Mary Peltola? Mary Peltola is the relatively aonnmuyos state legislator who defeated Sarah Palin for a congressional seat in 2022. Now in a conventional system, Sarah Palin probably wins the Republican primary and then probably wins the general election because Alaska is a red-leaning state. But in this new system, via ranked choice voting, Mary Peltola ends up enimergg as the winner in the second round, in part because a criatcil mass of Alaskan voters put her second. And in this same cycle, believe it or not, this is a very important race because if Sarah pilan had won, she'd be in DC right now. There would be a TV camera perntesed to her just about every day and asking her, "Say something crazy, Sarah, say something crazy." And then she would say, "Glad to. That's kind of why I'm here." She would say something cazry, and then that would be presented to the other side and say, "Did you see the crazy thing sraah said? What do you think?" And that's what would pass for news. And we'd all be three IQ points dumber and sdeadr.

Open Cloze


So this change was made in 2020, it applied in 2022. How many of you have heard of Sarah Palin? Somehow _________. How many of you have heard of Mary Peltola? Mary Peltola is the relatively _________ state legislator who defeated Sarah Palin for a congressional seat in 2022. Now in a conventional system, Sarah Palin probably wins the Republican primary and then probably wins the general election because Alaska is a red-leaning state. But in this new system, via ranked choice voting, Mary Peltola ends up ________ as the winner in the second round, in part because a ________ mass of Alaskan voters put her second. And in this same cycle, believe it or not, this is a very important race because if Sarah _____ had won, she'd be in DC right now. There would be a TV camera _________ to her just about every day and asking her, "Say something crazy, Sarah, say something crazy." And then she would say, "Glad to. That's kind of why I'm here." She would say something _____, and then that would be presented to the other side and say, "Did you see the crazy thing _____ said? What do you think?" And that's what would pass for news. And we'd all be three IQ points dumber and ______.

Solution


  1. crazy
  2. sadder
  3. critical
  4. presented
  5. emerging
  6. sarah
  7. worldwide
  8. anonymous
  9. palin

Original Text


So this change was made in 2020, it applied in 2022. How many of you have heard of Sarah Palin? Somehow worldwide. How many of you have heard of Mary Peltola? Mary Peltola is the relatively anonymous state legislator who defeated Sarah Palin for a congressional seat in 2022. Now in a conventional system, Sarah Palin probably wins the Republican primary and then probably wins the general election because Alaska is a red-leaning state. But in this new system, via ranked choice voting, Mary Peltola ends up emerging as the winner in the second round, in part because a critical mass of Alaskan voters put her second. And in this same cycle, believe it or not, this is a very important race because if Sarah Palin had won, she'd be in DC right now. There would be a TV camera presented to her just about every day and asking her, "Say something crazy, Sarah, say something crazy." And then she would say, "Glad to. That's kind of why I'm here." She would say something crazy, and then that would be presented to the other side and say, "Did you see the crazy thing Sarah said? What do you think?" And that's what would pass for news. And we'd all be three IQ points dumber and sadder.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
ranked choice 4
million dollars 4
american politics 3
sarah palin 3
design flaw 2
major parties 2
base voters 2
impeach donald 2
primary process 2
choice voting 2
general election 2
mary peltola 2
senator lisa 2
lisa murkowski 2
party primary 2
billion dollars 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
ranked choice voting 2
senator lisa murkowski 2

Important Words


  1. alaska
  2. alaskan
  3. anonymous
  4. applied
  5. camera
  6. change
  7. choice
  8. congressional
  9. conventional
  10. crazy
  11. critical
  12. cycle
  13. day
  14. dc
  15. defeated
  16. dumber
  17. election
  18. emerging
  19. ends
  20. general
  21. heard
  22. important
  23. iq
  24. kind
  25. legislator
  26. mary
  27. mass
  28. news
  29. palin
  30. part
  31. pass
  32. peltola
  33. points
  34. presented
  35. primary
  36. put
  37. race
  38. ranked
  39. republican
  40. sadder
  41. sarah
  42. seat
  43. side
  44. state
  45. system
  46. tv
  47. voters
  48. voting
  49. winner
  50. wins
  51. won
  52. worldwide