GRAMMAR

In a monumentally depressing report, the Royal Literary Fund assessed the state of literacy among British undergraduates. It was a compilation of the accounts of professional writers sent in to help students with the basic skills of writing essays. Hilary Spurling, the chairman of the scheme, wrote: 'The individual accounts read like dispatches from a front line where students struggle to survive without basic training or equipment… What began as a private scheme devised primarily for the benefit of writers has exposed a public catastrophe.

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