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Bush, Kerry 'Graded' at Presidential Debates"
NEW YORK -- George W. Bush and John Kerry spoke to Americans last night as if the voters were school children -- middle schoolers to be precise, finds an analysis released by the Princeton Review, a private company that helps students improve their scores in college and graduate school admissions tests.Though he wins points for strong topic sentences with good supporting statements, President George W. Bush spoke at a level that most sixth graders could understand. U.S. Sen. John Kerry, known for his meandering sentences, faired a bit better than the commander-in-chief coming in at the 7th grade level, the analysis found.With these grade level ratings, the candidates may have had the least sophisticated debate in history, according to The Princeton Review. The Lincoln/Douglas debates of 1858 used language ranked at the 11th grade and 12th grade level, respectively. Kennedy and Nixon averaged around the 10th grade level. And just four years ago, Al Gore spoke at the 7th (almost 8th) grade level while Bush stayed the course on his 6th grade level. This year's debate simply provided more of the same, the study foundThe Princeton Review graded the debates by using techniques that help evaluate mastery of the language. The first, the Flesch-Kinkaid Index, is a test developed by the U.S. Defense Department to evaluate whether reading materials are appropriate for an audience. The grade level indicates the minimum education level required for a reader to understand a document -- on a scale of zero to 12.The candidates' closing statements were graded by the same standards that eleventh graders will be graded on their SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) essays. Bush received a 4 out of a possible 6 score and Kerry scored a 3 out of 6. Bush's strengths were his simple topic sentences reinforced with well supported arguments and clearly well-differentiated paragraphs. Kerry's vocabulary and more complex sentence structure were the stronger points of his performance. The grades, on a scale of 1 -6, include holistic organization, grammar, topic sentences, supporting statements and other key factors.Visit the Princeton Review at www.princetonreview.com"