> One literacy question involves a passage describing how bread and crackers become stale, with the last sentence reading “Crackers seem soft when their moisture level reaches about 9 percent.” The sample “low difficulty” question asks, “At what moisture level do crackers become soft?”
> The question may seem straightforward, but it doesn’t use the kind of sentence structure that appears in oral language. People are more likely to say something like, “When do crackers get soft?” Lack of familiarity with complex syntax can be a huge barrier to comprehension.
I wonder if there is research about whether understanding of complex non-conversational syntax requires practice - or is it like "riding a bike" where an adult who had exposure to this kind of syntax during their education is able to retain this skill without practice?
One pair of major shifts in the recent decade in the US have been a decline in trust in print and televised journalistic sources (who would be more likely to use complex syntax in their presentation), and an increased prevalence of targeted video content that has been effectively optimized to be as concise as possible. Is exposure to complex syntax declining as a result?