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Are adults forgetting how to read?
成年人正忘记如何阅读吗？
Are you smarter than a ten-year-old? New data suggest that a shockingly large portion of adults in the rich world might not be.
你比十岁的孩子更聪明吗？新数据表明，富裕国家中相当大部分的成年人可能并不是。
Roughly one-fifth of people aged 16 to 65 perform no better in tests of maths and reading than would be expected of a pupil coming to the end of their time at primary school, according to a study released on December 10th by the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries.
根据经济合作与发展组织（主要由富裕国家组成的集团）于12月10日发布的一项研究，在16岁至65岁的人群中，大约有五分之一的人在数学和阅读测试中的表现并不比将小学毕业的学生更好。
Worse still, adults in many places have grown less literate over the past ten years.
更糟糕的是，在过去十年里，许多地方的成年人的读写能力变得更差了。
The OECD’s “Survey of Adult Skills” is carried out only once a decade. The researchers arranged for 160,000 adults in 31 countries and regions to sit short tests in numeracy, literacy and problem-solving.
经合组织的“成人技能调查”每十年才进行一次。研究人员安排31个国家和地区的16万名成年人参加算术、读写、解决问题的简短测试。
These aim to gauge if they have the skills to hold down a job, participate in civic life and generally thrive in the real world. At their most basic, they find out how well people can make sense of the warnings on the back of an aspirin packet, or work out how much wallpaper is needed to cover a room.
这些测试旨在衡量他们是否具备保住工作、参与公民生活、在现实世界中好好生活的技能。在最基本的层面，测试会发现人们对阿司匹林包装盒背面的警告语理解程度如何，或者对于一个房间需要贴多少墙纸的计算能力如何。
At more advanced levels, they explore how well people can draw sound conclusions from analysis and charts of the sort one might stumble across in, say, a popular current-affairs magazine.
在更高级的层面上，测试探索对于人们可能在流行时事杂志中偶然看到的那种分析和图表，人们从中推断出正确结论的能力如何。
Finland will rejoice at the results: it posts the highest average score in all three fields. People in the Netherlands, Norway and Japan, who performed better than average across the disciplines, will also be pleased.
芬兰将为测试结果感到高兴：该国在所有三个领域都获得了最高的平均分。荷兰、挪威、日本也会感到高兴，这三国在各个学科上的表现都优于平均水平。
England has risen up the league table in the ten years since the tests were last run, owing to better performances among young adults. By contrast, America’s results are heading south.
英国自十年前上次测试以来排名有所上升，这是由于年轻成年人表现更好。相反，美国的成绩正在下降。
Similarly, Chile, Italy, Poland and Portugal all boast a high share of people who score below the norm. Almost half of Chileans score badly enough to place in the bottom two categories in both maths and reading, compared with just 8% of Japanese people.
同样地，智利、意大利、波兰、葡萄牙都有很高比例的人得分低于正常水平。几乎一半的智利人在数学和阅读方面的得分都很差，排名为最末的两档，而日本人的比例只有8%。
Zoom out, and the picture is one of worsening basic skills. For almost every country that has seen its score in numeracy rise significantly over the past ten years, there is another that has seen its score fall.
放眼全局，就能看到基本技能下降的图景。在过去十年中，每有一个在算术方面得分显著提高的国家，几乎就有一个得分下降的国家。
When it comes to literacy, countries with falling scores outnumber those making significant progress. This is the case even though more people are completing secondary school, and many more are getting degrees.
对于读写能力，分数下降的国家数量超过了取得显著进步的国家数量。尽管有更多人完成了中学学业，还有更多人获得了大学学位，但情况依旧是这样。
