1. June 30, 2015

2.  13 members of the Politboro voted for the proposal. (The committee has 25 members.)  The decision was made by one man – President Xin Jinping

3.  Today, a quart of milk costs 13 RMB. Last year, it costs 10 RMB.  In China, 100% of children go to school. In India, 78% of children go to school.

4.  ‘Apples to apples,’ not ‘apples to oranges’  China has 197 billionaires  Thailand has 11 billionaires  Why is that a bad comparison?

5.  China has 197 billionaires out of 1.4 billion people (137 billionaires for every 1 billion population)  Thailand has 11 billionaires out of 68 million people (161 billionaires for every 1 billion population)

6.  Journalism majors make up __% of Xiamen University’s total students  There are 1,200 journalism majors  Xiamen U. has 18,000 total students  1,200 / 18,000 =.07 (or 7%)  ‘Percent’ means ‘of 100’  Most common rate

7.  When something is rare (and the percent would be too small, like 0.004% − which is really 0.00004)  Then, multiple result by a bigger ‘base’ (such as 100,000 or 1 billion)  Instead of 0.00004, say 4 of every 100,000

8.  No more than 3 numbers in a paragraph (including dates)  Round off numbers  Interpret numbers – try to use only words (‘increased’ or ‘decreased’)

9.  … went from 51 to 106 …  … more than doubled …  … 13 of the 36 students …  … a third of the students  … rose 98.7 percent …  … nearly doubled

10.  … increased 200 percent …  … tripled  … 12.5 percent of the voters …  … one in eight voters  U.S. textbooks cost 600 percent more than Chinese textbooks.  U.S. textbooks cost 7 times what Chinese textbooks cost.