Education: Shock in Chicago

"Use the words listed below in sentences that will illustrate their respective meanings: incoherent, dietary, punitive, travesty, succinct, insurgent, malcontent, and divest."

In Chicago last month, 400 college-trained applicants for high-school teaching jobs dutifully answered the question on an English examination. Last week a shocked Education Examiner Office reported some of the more glaring results:

¶ "The cake was on the punitive side." ¶ "Your research paper has malcontent." ¶ "The travesty of the blast could not be measured."

¶ "The insurgent in her side was two inches deep."

¶ "The original species of monkeys is succinct."

¶ "Divest problems will inflict you on this task."

Said one Chicago school official: "Some people who go to college get through in a peculiar way. They pay their tuition so long, and stay exposed so long that somebody just finally gives them the necessary credits."