Word: surmount
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...desultory pace is that many public schools are failing to meet the needs of minority students well before they reach high school graduation, leaving them academically unprepared for college-level work. Also, some 38 states have toughened admissions standards for public universities, raising the hurdle that minorities must surmount...
Congress tried to surmount the language barriers in the federal courts by passing legislation eleven years ago authorizing Government-paid interpreters for those who do not speak English. So far, though, only 308 people have passed the rigorous Spanish-only federal certification process -- a cadre far too small to handle the 43,000 annual requests for interpreters in 60 languages. The situation in the states is bleaker. Last year Cook County, Ill., processed 40,000 requests, and the New York courts sought out interpreters 250 times a day. As in the federal system, Spanish is the language most in demand...
...advance productivity and a highly risky plan to index workers' wages. The Bush Administration is thinking of rewarding Poland for its moves toward liberalization by extending new credits, the first since martial law was imposed in 1981. Even a generous loan, however, may not be enough to help Poland surmount its $39 billion foreign debt, aging industries and chronic consumer shortages. All too many Poles are gripped with a visible depression of spirit that even the astonishing political changes have failed to lift...
England fell into decline in the late 19th century as her industry lost the battle against the rising economies of Germany and the United States. Germany attempted to take Britain's place in two bloody wars, but could not surmount the strength of the twin superpowers--the United States and the Soviet Union...
Even the nomenclature is open to debate. Some "mysteries" contain no puzzle or enigma. In many modern "detective" stories there is no true detective. What the French call a roman policier may not actually include the police. The British surmount the problem by calling the genre crime fiction. Perhaps the crime story is like pornography in Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's oft-cited formulation: impossible to define but unmistakable in its effects...