February 27, 2009
Poets' Puffery
Europeans have often seen Americans as optimists and themselves as "realists." It is true that in the United States, the sense of exceptionalism — a term revived in the recent presidential campaign — seems to have driven hyperbole to new heights. In the academic sphere, grade inflation has been increasing since the late 1960s (at elite institutions more than elsewhere). Studentevaluation forms have as many as eight categories, the highest indicating "top 5 percent" and
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