Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[joyapple]

(When the University of California, Berkeley briefly considered introducing means-based affirmative action, it rejected the idea on the ground that �using poverty yields a lot of poor white kids and poor Asian kids�. )

Whao does �using poverty yields a lot of poor white kids and poor Asian kids�mean? Will University of California adopt means-based affirmative action or not?

[asterix]

It means that if you use poverty (the family's annual income has to be below a certain amount) as a guideline for preferential treatment when applying for admission to the university, you will get a lot of eligible poor white people and a lot of eligible poor asian people

No, I would say that U of C Berkely did not adopt the measure, but only considered it briefly. (This means they only thought about it for a short time, and then dropped the idea).

[kerstin]

Aid workers are racing to stockpile food ahead of *that* raining season, knowing most roads will soon become impassable.
Is *the* better than that in that case?

After several *passionate* debates...
Doesn't passionate have a positive meaning? It doesn't seem to sit well with *debates*.

A parent can call *to* the Robot and then they can watch how their children are doing therough teh eyes of the Robot .
Is teh *to* omitable?

[asterix]

Kerstin.
Usually we say, "The rainy season", but it may be referring to a rainy season that had just been discussed, in which case, that is OK.

Passionate, in debates, usually means heated arguments about deeply held views.
Passionate in general means to feel very strongly about something, and is indeed positive.

I think you can leave out the to without any loss or change of meaning.