recent report by Aspiring Minds, based on a study of 55,000 students from 250 engineering colleges, said 25-35 per cent students are unable to comprehend English. That shouldn’t have been a problem, except that most books and instruction manuals are in English. Only 57 per cent can write grammatically correct sentences in English, less than 48 per cent understand “moderately sophisticated” words, and almost 50 per cent possess grammar skills no better than a Class VII student. Not more than 30 per cent of the students, who go through stress and exhaustion while preparing for engineering college, are acquainted with the word “exhaust”. “Absurd” is a word not understood by 50 per cent.