full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Ivan Krastev: Can democracy exist without trust?

Unscramble the Blue Letters

So now when you know what to expect, let's give you the story. And this is a raniy election day in a small country — that can be my cuntory, but could be also your country. And because of the rain until four o'clock in the afternoon, nobody went to the polling stations. But then the rain stopped, people went to vote. And when the votes had been counted, three-fourths of the people have vteod with a blank ballot. The government and the osppiitoon, they have been simply paralyzed. Because you know what to do about the protests. You know who to arrest, who to negotiate with. But what to do about people who are vonitg with a blank bllaot? So the government decided to have the elections once again. And this time even a greater nbmeur, 83 percent of the people, voted with blank ballots. Basically they went to the ballot boxes to tell that they have nobody to vote for.

Open Cloze

So now when you know what to expect, let's give you the story. And this is a _____ election day in a small country — that can be my _______, but could be also your country. And because of the rain until four o'clock in the afternoon, nobody went to the polling stations. But then the rain stopped, people went to vote. And when the votes had been counted, three-fourths of the people have _____ with a blank ballot. The government and the __________, they have been simply paralyzed. Because you know what to do about the protests. You know who to arrest, who to negotiate with. But what to do about people who are ______ with a blank ______? So the government decided to have the elections once again. And this time even a greater ______, 83 percent of the people, voted with blank ballots. Basically they went to the ballot boxes to tell that they have nobody to vote for.

Solution

  1. voting
  2. rainy
  3. voted
  4. ballot
  5. opposition
  6. country
  7. number

Original Text

So now when you know what to expect, let's give you the story. And this is a rainy election day in a small country — that can be my country, but could be also your country. And because of the rain until four o'clock in the afternoon, nobody went to the polling stations. But then the rain stopped, people went to vote. And when the votes had been counted, three-fourths of the people have voted with a blank ballot. The government and the opposition, they have been simply paralyzed. Because you know what to do about the protests. You know who to arrest, who to negotiate with. But what to do about people who are voting with a blank ballot? So the government decided to have the elections once again. And this time even a greater number, 83 percent of the people, voted with blank ballots. Basically they went to the ballot boxes to tell that they have nobody to vote for.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
market revolution 3
democratic institutions 2
small country 2
people start 2
cold war 2
political community 2
elites basically 2
digital world 2
big brother 2
brother watching 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
big brother watching 2

Important Words

  1. afternoon
  2. arrest
  3. ballot
  4. ballots
  5. basically
  6. blank
  7. boxes
  8. counted
  9. country
  10. day
  11. decided
  12. election
  13. elections
  14. expect
  15. give
  16. government
  17. greater
  18. negotiate
  19. number
  20. opposition
  21. paralyzed
  22. people
  23. percent
  24. polling
  25. protests
  26. rain
  27. rainy
  28. simply
  29. small
  30. stations
  31. stopped
  32. story
  33. time
  34. vote
  35. voted
  36. votes
  37. voting