28% of adults scored at or below Level 1
Looks at current presidential favorability polling in US
Huh, weird how close those numbers are.
this post was submitted on 16 May 2026
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That was my first thought too
Because the potus is one of them. He's fucked kids at a higher reading level than him.
I’m not surprised.
My company is trying to replace HR with AI bots for employee things like missed time punches and requesting bereavement, accommodations, etc.
It’s failing because the executives forgot that the average employee has low reading comprehension and can’t follow 2-3 paragraphs of instructions without someone to help in person.
Over a decade ago an old boss was hiring for an electronic assembly position. Not super high pay, about $15 an hour in 2010 but no college needed only basic soldering ability. Everything had work instructions, extremely detailed point to point instructions. Think "1. Turn on soldering iron (insert picture of soldering iron with power button circled) 2. Turn temperature to 650 degrees (another picture) 3. Wait till digital display shows between 640 and 660." type of instructions. He was going to give the interviewees a simple test, basically here's a board, here's some components, read and follow these instructions, come back when you are done. The trick was if you actually read the instructions there were some odd things, like only solder one leg of this resistor or install this capacitor backwards. Theses were in the same font and size but were bold. He interviewed 10 people, 8 got immediately ignored because they installed all the components normally and didn't follow the instructions. He got called into hr and told he could never do that again. Supposedly they claimed it was racist.
I don't get the moral of the story. He wanted absolute obedience or checked to see if people followed exact instructions? Do HR think that the people he rejected were rejected because adults with higher technical skills and EFL would assemble it correctly and thus be discriminated against?
Basically he wanted to make sure people read and followed the instructions.
Hr claimed it was potentially discriminating against people who didnt have English as as their native language. Their argument really made no sense since we were legally required to follow the instructions which were written in English. And it was medical devices so yes actually legally required.
curious if he said they would be scored on how well they followed instructions because if a paltry task was presented I could see many folks immediately just doing it. Its like ok here on the instructions to toast bread and we want it medium toasted. I immedidately toast the bread to the medium level without reading isntructions because. Its toasting bread. Instructions at some point say to crumble the bread into the slots or something else kinda dumb.
There was no scoring, it was binary, you followed instructions or you didn't. This was medical device so if you didn't follow instructions you could theoretically kill or atleast severely harm a person. This was stressed multiple times before hand in the discussion part of the interview. They had to read the instructions to some point to know what goes where. Like one of the steps would be like "solder the 1.0k resistor in location R7. ONLY SOLDER ONE LEG OF THE RESISTOR." This tested their ability to solder, their ability to identify a 1.0k resistor, and their reading of the instructions.
If it was a bakery and you were told to make a lemon pound cake, you likely could just make it without the instructions. A similar idea would be like a sticker in a warehouse with a series of steps to receive a delivery. A box could come in with 10,000 screws but do you mark it as 1 box of screws, 10,000 screws, or maybe 100 packs of screws if you process them in groups of 100? No way for you to know how the company does that but if you do it wrong your inventory will be totally wrong.
Yeah if it was stressed about going by the book or carefully reading and doing what the instructions then I think its fair. If it was do this task and some instructions were present but the task was again paltry or obvious then its a bit unfair.
It was stressed and you needed to read the instructions to know what goes where. He took a real board we used and a selection of components. There could be 50 resistors on the real board but you are only given 5 as this is only a test. Does this resistor go on r13, r23, r33, r41 or r07? If you can figure that out with instructions you are being wasted in this position...
Does anyone know what level 1 is in CEFR?
I couldn't find a straightforward crosswalk between those scales, I think because they are measuring different things (skill in a second language vs pure literacy). It seems like all other things being equal (which they often are not), PIAAC level 1 might roughly be equivalent to CEFR level A2, seeing that both are defined to comprehending short paragraphs of simple sentences. Someone can correct me if I am (ironically) comprehending the scales incorrectly
I think you are comprehending them correctly, they are not equivalent. Comparing the descriptions of capabilities may be the closest we can get.