起因是SAT 8月的北美卷考了一篇Economist 的文章，标题叫 A tangled web。
搜索、发现Economist 还挺喜欢这个标题的，从1999，到2014的都有。
考试考察的是2014那篇， 讲的是互联网对于广告人的帮助。
标题的比对当然有失公允，因为哪怕是同一个报纸期刊下的文字，在不同的板块的难易度也是不同的。所以为了尽可能的具备可比性，我们找了一篇来自于NYT的，也是讲相关话题的
Economist 文章部分节选
International | Internet use A tangled web Who goes online, and where
THE internet looks like an adman’s dream. Counting how many times an advert on a bus shelter has been viewed is impossible; counting clicks on a blinking banner ad is a doddle. But knowing where each click came from, and how many people are clicking, is harder than it appears.
Firms dedicated to click-counting put code on websites that reports the times, origins and frequencies of visits, or get consumers to install it buried in browser plug-ins or mobile apps. These record web-users’ digital calling-cards: the internet-protocol (IP) addresses of the devices they are using. But to assume that each IP address represents a single user in its country of registration is a wild oversimplification.
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文字技术统计
New York Times 找了一篇也是类似讲Internet based advertising 的文章，观点上是觉得这种广告业务不好，侵犯人隐私等。但观点不影响文字层面的难易度
NYT 文章节选
Pretend you are the lead detective on a hit new show, “CSI: Terrible Stuff on the Internet.” In the first episode, you set up one of those crazy walls plastered with headlines and headshots, looking for hidden connections between everything awful that’s been happening online recently.
There’s a lot of dark stuff. In one corner, you have the Russian campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election with digital propaganda. In another, a rash of repugnant videos on YouTube, with children being mock-abused, cartoon characters bizarrely committing suicide on the kids’ channel and a popular vlogger recording a body hanging from a tree.
...
NYT 文章 的难度是Grade 14； Economist 的是Grade 11.
从上面的两篇文章来看，NYT 的会比Economist 难一些。这个结果有些意外，因为从日常的阅读体验来看， Economist 的表达书面感会强很多。 不过也只是各拿了一篇文章，不能代表两个机构的整体表达特点。
只是提供一个不同的看文字的角度...
顺便列一下考试常选文的外刊
New York Times Economist Scientific American National Geographic Newsweek Time Magazine The Atlantic Monthly Wired
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