A. Australia fully reopened its international borders to travelers vaccinated   16   the coronavirus after nearly two years of pandemic-related closings as tourists returned and hundreds of people were reunited with family and friends. Australia closed its borders to almost everyone except citizens and residents in March 2020   17    to slow surging COVID-19 case numbers. Tourism is one of Australia’s biggest industries, worth more than A$60 billion ($43 billion) and   18   about 5% of the country’s workforce. But the sector was crippled after the government shut its borders in March 2020. 

       19   a champion of COVID-suppression strategy, Australia has shifted away from its fortress-style controls and relentless lockdowns since late last year and began living   20    the virus after reaching higher vaccination levels. Skilled migrants, international students, and backpackers have been allowed to fly into Australia since November in a staggered reopening exercise.

     But   22   the secret to connecting with someone may actually be easier than it seems: simply copy them. We already know mimicking body language, expressions, and gestures can help people     23       relationships, but results from a new organizational-behavior study indicate that imitating someone’s communication style can also make you more persuasive. The   24   technique is called “linguistic mirroring,” and data shows that implementing the strategy can boost the efficacy of your message. Developing this   25   -like skill could prove to be a very useful addition to your toolbox for winning people over – and getting ahead. 

    To   26    linguistic mirrorings, the new study suggests people pay attention to how others ask their questions and observe what pieces of presentations they find more or less compelling. This would be “a window of not just how to communicate with them, but also how they process information.” In writing,   27  how your colleagues compose emails, memos, or on chat, and echo the form and sentiment. People can find lots of hints in the way they like to communicate. For example, a career consultant says, “I have some colleagues who love long emails with lots of bullet points and spreadsheets attached. The way to respond to them is probably to write an equally long email by   28   their bullet points one by one.” In other situations, you might know someone who adds color with personal anecdotes and feelings. You could shoot off a similar response—perhaps including a short story of your own to   29   home your point. Or, if you’re talking to someone who’s more buttoned-up and direct, maybe a superior or an executive, go straight for the answer. Leave the humor at the door, if that’s what they do. In short, if you present something to me in a way that I’m used to hearing, how I    30  my thoughts—it’s easier for me to process the essence of that argument, so as a result, it allows you to be more persuasive.

     When I write, the standards I try to meet are my own: Do I want to read what I’m writing? It’s that simple. If I write a poem or an essay that I want to read and re-read after I’ve finished writing and editing it, then it’s good in my own light. If you don’t feel that way about your  own writing, the challenge becomes: Write something that you would want to read. It may sound 35 , but I don’t think most writers hold themselves to these standards. Did you know that people are faster to recognize photos of themselves that have been photoshopped to make them look slightly more attractive? Self-assessments are often self-flattering and help in evaluating your own writing.

    A.
    Americans are, compared with populations of other countries, particularly enthusiastic about the idea of meritocracy, a system that rewards merit (ability + effort) with success. Americans are more likely to believe that people are rewarded for their intelligence and skills and are less likely to believe that family wealth plays a key role in getting ahead. And Americans’ support for meritocratic principles has remained stable over the last two decades despite growing economic inequality, recessions, and the fact that there is less mobility in the United States than in most other industrialized countries.
    This strong commitment to meritocratic ideals can lead to suspicion of efforts that aim to support particular demographic groups. For example, initiatives designed to recruit or provide development opportunities to under-represented groups often come under attack as “reverse discrimination.” Some companies even justify not having diversity policies by highlighting their commitment to meritocracy. If a company evaluates people on their skills, abilities, and merit, without consideration of their gender, race, sexuality, etc., and managers are objective in their assessments, then there is no need for diversity policies. The thinking goes.
    The paradox of meritocracy builds on other research showing that those who think they are the most objective can actually exhibit the most bias in their evaluations. When people think they are objective and unbiased, then they don’t monitor and scrutinize their own behavior. They just assume that they are right and that their assessments are accurate. Yet, studies repeatedly show that stereotypes of all kinds (gender, ethnicity, age, disability, etc.)are filters through which we evaluate others, often separated into advantage dominant groups and disadvantage lower-status groups. For example, studies repeatedly find that the resumes of whites and men are evaluated more positively than are the identical resumes of minorities and women.
    This dynamic is precisely why meritocracy can exacerbate inequality—because being committed to meritocratic principles makes people think that they actually are making correct evaluations and behaving fairly. Organizations that emphasize meritocratic ideals serve to reinforce an employee’s belief that they are impartial, which creates the exact conditions under which implicit and explicit biases are unleashed.

  This American anachronism may be on its way out. Johns Hopkins abandoned it in 2014, reducing the percentage of legacy students from 13 to 4 percent. “Legacy preference is immobility written as policy, preserving for children the same advantages enjoyed by their parents. It embodies in stark and indefensible terms inherited privilege in higher education,” Hopkins President Ron Daniels has written. In 2021, Amherst College followed suit.
    Lawmakers are starting to move against legacy admissions too. A bill introduced into Congress in March 2022 would prohibit colleges that get federal money from giving an advantage to legacy applicants. A bill has been introduced in the New York Assembly and Senate that would ban the practice in both public and private colleges in the state. A similar bill is being considered in Connecticut. Colorado banned legacies in public colleges last year.
    These recent efforts, however, are not the first time lawmakers have made a run at legacy preferences. In 2003, Senator Edward Kennedy proposed requiring colleges in receipt of federal funds to publish data on the economic and racial composition of their legacy admits. His bill was defeated.
Things may be different this time around, but we should not be too sure. Powerful vested interests are at work here. They include those of the well-connected alums of these colleges,who are rather inclined toward a policy that will give their children a better chance of following in their footsteps. Support for both legacy and donor preferences rises with household income, according to a USA Today poll. Many upper-middle-class parents feel little compunction about pulling every string possible to get their offspring a place at a prestigious college, even if that means elbowing out a more qualified but less fortunate applicant. The prevailing norm in the U.S. is that parents should do everything possible to
help their children get ahead of others. Few feel any shame in sending their children to expensive private K–12 schools or providing internship opportunities to friends and family.
Even many parents who profess a desire for a fairer society appreciate that legacy applicants get an admission bump equivalent to an extra 160 points on their SAT. Parental interest is often seen as an unalloyed virtue. Blood is thicker than justice.