In Ghana, for example, sixth-graders sitting a simple multiple-choice reading test scored on average the same mark that would be gained by random guessing.

ECONOMIST: Education

In one seminal study in 2005, the University of California at Irvine informatics professor Gloria Mark found that information workers on average switch tasks every three minutes.

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Mark Zuckerberg can crow about how his users spend, on average, 6.35 hours per month on Facebook versus 18 minutes for LinkedIn.

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You can see from the table that the market has rebounded roughly 6 percent on average over the three-month period after hitting the 40 mark.

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"On average, we have five customers per circuit mile, " says Superintendent Mark Doty.

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Mr McCain gets his highest mark, an average of 3.5 and a clear advantage over Mr Obama, for his position on free trade and globalisation.

ECONOMIST: The Economist's poll of economists

Of the eight CEE countries still outside, all bar Poland and the Czech Republic missed the mark on inflation, which was supposed to be no more than 1.5 percentage points above the average of the three EU countries with the lowest rate.

ECONOMIST: The financial crisis has made the euro look more alluring