full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Anand Giridharadas: A tale of two Americas. And the mini-mart where they collided

Unscramble the Blue Letters

From a distance, Mark samtorn was always the spark of praties, always making girls feel pttrey. Always working, no matter what drgus or fights he'd had the night before. But he'd always wrestled with demons. He entered the wlrod through the three gateways that doom so many young armeaicn men: bad parents, bad schools, bad prisons. His mother told him, regretfully, as a boy that she'd been just 50 dollars short of aborting him. Sometimes, that little boy would be at school, he'd suddenly pull a knife on his fellow classmates. Sometimes that same little boy would be at his grandparents', tenderly feiedng horses. He was getting arrested before he shaved, first juvenile, then proisn. He became a casual white supremacist and, like so many around him, a drug-addled and absent father. And then, before long, he found himself on dteah row, for in his 2001 counter-jihad, he had shot not one mini-mart clerk, but three. Only Raisuddin survived.

Open Cloze

From a distance, Mark _______ was always the spark of _______, always making girls feel ______. Always working, no matter what _____ or fights he'd had the night before. But he'd always wrestled with demons. He entered the _____ through the three gateways that doom so many young ________ men: bad parents, bad schools, bad prisons. His mother told him, regretfully, as a boy that she'd been just 50 dollars short of aborting him. Sometimes, that little boy would be at school, he'd suddenly pull a knife on his fellow classmates. Sometimes that same little boy would be at his grandparents', tenderly _______ horses. He was getting arrested before he shaved, first juvenile, then ______. He became a casual white supremacist and, like so many around him, a drug-addled and absent father. And then, before long, he found himself on _____ row, for in his 2001 counter-jihad, he had shot not one mini-mart clerk, but three. Only Raisuddin survived.

Solution

  1. prison
  2. stroman
  3. feeding
  4. drugs
  5. death
  6. parties
  7. american
  8. pretty
  9. world

Original Text

From a distance, Mark Stroman was always the spark of parties, always making girls feel pretty. Always working, no matter what drugs or fights he'd had the night before. But he'd always wrestled with demons. He entered the world through the three gateways that doom so many young American men: bad parents, bad schools, bad prisons. His mother told him, regretfully, as a boy that she'd been just 50 dollars short of aborting him. Sometimes, that little boy would be at school, he'd suddenly pull a knife on his fellow classmates. Sometimes that same little boy would be at his grandparents', tenderly feeding horses. He was getting arrested before he shaved, first juvenile, then prison. He became a casual white supremacist and, like so many around him, a drug-addled and absent father. And then, before long, he found himself on death row, for in his 2001 counter-jihad, he had shot not one mini-mart clerk, but three. Only Raisuddin survived.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
tattooed man 2
olive garden 2
moral challenge 2

Important Words

  1. aborting
  2. absent
  3. american
  4. arrested
  5. bad
  6. boy
  7. casual
  8. classmates
  9. clerk
  10. death
  11. demons
  12. distance
  13. dollars
  14. doom
  15. drugs
  16. entered
  17. father
  18. feeding
  19. feel
  20. fellow
  21. fights
  22. gateways
  23. girls
  24. horses
  25. juvenile
  26. knife
  27. long
  28. making
  29. mark
  30. matter
  31. mother
  32. night
  33. parents
  34. parties
  35. pretty
  36. prison
  37. prisons
  38. pull
  39. raisuddin
  40. regretfully
  41. row
  42. school
  43. schools
  44. shaved
  45. short
  46. shot
  47. spark
  48. stroman
  49. suddenly
  50. supremacist
  51. survived
  52. tenderly
  53. told
  54. white
  55. working
  56. world
  57. wrestled
  58. young