 Welcome to Learning English, a daily 30-minute program from the Voice of America. I'm Dan Friedel. And I'm Katie Weaver. This program is aimed at English learners. So we speak slowly, and we use words and phrases, especially written for people learning English. Today on the program, Anna Matteo is here to discuss success and all the fun words and phrases we use when it comes up. Then Kelly Jean Kelly tells us about the World War II General who became president. But first, the higher education report. American high school students' scores on the ACT College admissions tests have dropped to their lowest in more than 30 years. The average score of students who completed high school in 2023 was 19.5 out of a possible 36. Last year, students averaged 19.8. The average score dropped for the sixth straight year. Scores were already falling before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the scores fell faster during and after the pandemic period. The students who took the test in 2023 were in their first year of high school, when COVID-19 reached the United States. Janet Godwin leads ACT, the nonprofit organization that administers the test. She said that high schools are not doing enough to ensure that graduates are truly ready for post-secondary success in college and career. The average scores in reading, math, and science were all below the level that ACT says demonstrates a good chance of succeeding in first-year college courses. The average score in English was just above the benchmark level, but it was still lower than in 2022. The falling scores come at the same time, many colleges and universities established admissions policies that do not require the test. However, students are welcome to provide the scores if they wish. Some universities do not look at test scores even if students send them in. College admission tests have been criticized for favoring students who come from wealthier families and schools. Godwin, however, said the test scores from her organization still help universities place students in the proper classes. Even in a test-optional environment, these kinds of objective test scores about academic readiness are incredibly important, she said. Some current high school students wonder why the tests are necessary. Denise Cabrera is a 17-year-old in Hawaii. She said all of her classmates had to take the test in 11th grade. Cabrera said she believed taking it and getting a good score would help her get into a good college, but she thinks colleges and universities can learn more about a student by looking at different qualities outside of just a one-time test score. Godwin said about 1.4 million high school students took the test this year. That was an increase over 2022 but still below the numbers recorded before the pandemic. Only 21% of students reached the levels the ACT organization believes are necessary to predict good success in college. I'm Dan Friedel. And now, words and their stories from VOA Learning English. We all want to be a success in life, but success can look different from person to person. Perhaps the key to success is really knowing yourself. What do you want? What are your skills and strong suits? What are you really good at and what are you not? Climbing the ladder of success also requires different strategies in different industries. If you want to be a success in a traditional corporate environment, you may have to wear business clothing like a suit. As they say, you may have to dress for success. If you want a creative job, you may need to wear the latest fashions. Again, English has a common expression about clothes and future job goals. Dress for the job you want, not the one you have. However, success takes more than just the right clothes. It also takes hard work. Oftentimes, others do not see all the hard work that goes into a project. They think success comes suddenly. For example, overnight. Let's say an unknown writer makes it big with her first book. People may call her an overnight success, but they do not know about the many years she spent studying and writing. Another ingredient in the recipe for success is a plan. To reach your goal, you need to get organized and break the goal down into doable steps. You know what they say, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Many English phrases make the road to success sound like a real physical path, something we could find on a map. Real roads are paved with materials such as asphalt. But when we talk about success, the roads to it are paved with different materials. Sometimes we say the roads are paved with gold. This suggests a place where success, especially financial wealth, is easy to come by. For some people, the road to success is paved with hard work or luck. Others may find their road to success is paved with failures. Learning from their failures taught them how to succeed. Often, if you follow the right road, you can achieve your goal. Then life is filled with the sweet smell of success. You have the world at your feet. You are riding high. You've got it made and are killing it. You are golden. As you can see, we have many expressions describing success. But make sure that you do not lose sight of what really makes you happy and successful. Some people become a victim of their own success. This means you start having problems because of your success. And that explains our final popular English saying, a gentle warning. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. And that's all the time we have for this Words and Their Stories. How would you define success for your English studies? And do you have a plan to reach it? Go to our website and comment on the story. Or you can send us an email to this address, learningenglishatvoanews.com. In the subject line, write Words and Their Stories and success. Until next time, I'm Anna Matteo. Thank you, Anna. We'll be back in just a moment to talk a little bit more about success and all the idioms we use to describe it. VOA Learning English has launched a new program for children. It is called Let's Learn English with Anna. The new course aims to teach children American English through asking and answering questions and experiencing fun situations. For more information, visit our website, learningenglish.voanews.com. I'm Dan Friedel, and you're listening to the Learning English podcast. We just heard Anna Matteo talk about ways we discuss success. Welcome, Anna. Hello, Dan. Thanks for having me. I think we all hope to be successful in many of our life's activities. When we're young, maybe we get a gold star for doing well on a test in school. Later, we might get a financial bonus for doing well at work. Anna, what are some of the idioms we use in English to talk about success? Well, Dan, I would like to add that I like both financial bonuses and gold stars just to add that. We have many ways to talk about succeeding. We can say we made it big. We have the world at our feet. We are riding high and have finally arrived. Anna, those are all good ones. What about the road to success? How do people prepare along the road? Well, they say one way to prepare for success is to dress for the job you want, not the one you have. So if you are in law school, you might invest in a couple really nice suits, the kind lawyers would wear. Or if you want to work in a creative industry, you might want to wear something funky and cool. Anna, I have some pretty nice clothes by now, but probably none that are super funky or cool. Do you have any other success phrases that you think our listeners might want to review? Yeah, Dan, I think people should know about an overnight success. You recently wrote about a man who became an overnight success after writing books and plays for 40 years, right? That's right, Anna. I wrote about Jan Fossa, the Norwegian writer who won the recent Nobel Prize for literature. Many people who read books in English did not know about him, but he first started writing books in the 1980s and 1990s before finding success with books and plays that were performed in Europe. People who do not know his work might have heard his name during the Nobel Committee's announcement and thought he's an overnight success, but he worked hard for 40 years. So maybe I'll celebrate Jan Fossa's overnight success that took 40 years by picking up one of his books this winter. I wonder, Anna, do you think everyone wants success or wants what comes with success? Well, I think everyone defines success their own way, right? But I do think sometimes if we don't really know what we want, success could go awry, meaning we think we know what we want to be happy and successful, but then we get it and we're not. That's why we say, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. That means that you think you know what you want, but when you get it, it doesn't really make you happy. And also, Dan, we have a saying that goes like this, success went to his head or went to her head, and that means she became successful, but as a result, she also became unpleasant to be around. So that means after you achieve success, you turn into kind of a not a nice person. I can see how some people would be disappointed with maybe a good friend who became really successful and then didn't have time for them anymore. Right. And we also call those people bigheaded. His head became too big or her head became too big with success. So Anna, I'd say this was a successful conversation. How do you think we should celebrate? I don't know. I like to say awesome when I feel successful. That's just me, though. I'll join you. My phrase will be, that's tremendous. Perfect. One, two, three. That's tremendous. Well, that was not successful. We will work on it, listeners. We will work on it. Okay. You can do yours first. Okay. I'll say mine first. One, two, three. Awesome. Tremendous. Perfect. Thanks for joining us, Anna. That was fun. Thanks, Dan. Thanks for having me. Take care. VOA Learning English presents America's Presidents. Today we are talking about Dwight Eisenhower. He took office in 1953 and was re-elected in 1956. Eisenhower was famous before he became President of the United States. He was a general in World War II and led the Allied invasion of Europe. The attack began with the Air and Sea operation called D-Day. As President, Eisenhower became known for his efforts to keep peace. He tried to have good relations with the Soviet Union especially. He believed one of the best ways to do that was to build America's military strength. When Americans think of Eisenhower, they often note the growth of the U.S. defense industry and tensions with the Soviet Union. Those tensions became known as the Cold War and lasted long after Eisenhower left office. Dwight David Eisenhower was born in Texas but raised in this state of Kansas. His parents had seven sons. The future president was the third. Eisenhower's parents did not have much money. His father worked as a mechanic. His mother was a member of the Mennonite Church which opposed war and violence for any reason. But young Dwight, who used the nickname Ike, enjoyed reading about military history and doing physical activities. He played football and liked hunting and fishing. When he finished high school, Eisenhower earned a position at the U.S. Military Academy better known as West Point. At first, he did not excel as a soldier. Eisenhower tested some of the army's traditional ideas. But in time, military leaders came to value Eisenhower's ability to think independently and strategically. He accepted increasingly important positions. In only a few years, Eisenhower took command of allied troops during World War II. He directed invasions in North Africa, Italy, and finally in Western Europe. His words, okay, let's go, launched the invasion of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944. Eisenhower's personal life changed during his military years. He married a young woman named Mamie Dowd in 1916. The following year, they had a son named Dowd Dwight. However, the boy became sick and died at the age of three. In 1922, the Eisenhower's had a second son named John. Mamie and the boy spent many months separated from Dwight. And even when the family was together, they were often moving from place to place. They moved nearly 30 times during Eisenhower's military career. After he retired from active duty in the army, Eisenhower accepted a position as president of Columbia University in New York. Then he returned to the military to lead NATO forces in Europe. In the early 1950s, Republican Party officials urged Eisenhower to be their candidate for president. Many Americans approved of Eisenhower's war record, his efforts to contain communism, and his wide smile. They seemed to agree with his campaign slogan, I Like Ike, and decisively elected him into office. His 1952 election brought an end to the Democratic Party's 20-year control of the White House. Although he declared himself a Republican, Eisenhower was a political moderate in many of his ideas. He continued some of the domestic policies of former presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Eisenhower also wanted the government to invest in public works projects. Notably, he approved a bill to build more than 65,000 kilometers of roads. Today, the U.S. highway system connects all parts of the country and supports the nation's economy. Eisenhower also worked hard to have peaceful relations with other countries. In his first months as president, he signed the agreement that ended fighting in the Korean War. He also tried to ease tensions between the United States and Soviet Union. In 1952, the U.S. government tested the first hydrogen bomb. It was even more powerful than the atomic bomb. Soon, the Soviet Union carried out a hydrogen bomb test of its own. The two countries became actively involved in an arms race that made many people around the world very, very nervous. Eisenhower did not fully trust the Soviet leadership, but made some efforts to achieve an agreement on arms control. At the same time, he approved a plan for U.S. airplanes to fly secretly over the Soviet Union to gather information. In 1959, Eisenhower and the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, met in the American state of Maryland. Modern presidents use a mountain retreat there, which Eisenhower called Camp David after his grandson. The U.S. and Soviet officials did not develop a treaty, but they did agree to meet again the following year. However, the agreement collapsed. In 1960, Soviet missiles brought down one of the American spy planes, called a U-2. The pilot was captured. At first, Eisenhower's government denied that the plane was secretly gathering information. Officials said it was only a weather aircraft. But then the Soviets produced evidence that the U-2 was, in fact, a spy plane. Khrushchev said he could not trust Eisenhower and his government, and he ended talks on limiting or disarming nuclear weapons. During his two terms in office, Eisenhower tried many ways to avoid all-out war. He approved other secret actions, especially by the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA. Eisenhower sent U.S. Marines into Lebanon to try to end unrest there, and he decided against ordering airstrikes on Vietnam forces when they surrounded French troops at Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam. In all these efforts, Eisenhower used the threat of U.S. military power to help achieve his foreign policy goals. But he warned Americans against letting businesses aiding the defense industry become too powerful. In his final speech as president, Eisenhower spoke of the dangers of what he called the military-industrial complex. He did not want the country to depend only on war to resolve conflicts. And he did not want the U.S. government to spend so much on weapons that it could not provide other services to Americans. Shortly after that speech, Eisenhower retired to a home he and his wife had bought in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Many Americans were sad to see him go. Eisenhower's presidency lasted most of the 1950s. During that time, the American economy was, for the most part, strong. Many Americans had enough money to buy homes and televisions. At the same time, Eisenhower's presidency was a time of unease. Racial discrimination was intense. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that states could no longer have separate public schools for white and black students. Some whites strongly objected to the decision. They tried to block black students from entering schools, sometimes using violence. Eisenhower sent troops to enforce the federal law to desegregate public schools. Later, Eisenhower used the power of his office to enforce other desegregation and voting rights laws, but he did not speak up strongly in support of civil rights. He thought both those who blocked civil rights legislation and those who demanded it were extreme. Eisenhower also did not publicly criticize Senator Joseph McCarthy, who accused the U.S. government of protecting Soviet spies. Eisenhower strongly disliked McCarthy, but he permitted the Red Scare to continue until the lawmaker could discredit himself. Finally, despite Eisenhower's efforts, the Cold War did not end. In fact, tensions between the U.S. and Soviet Union increased. Although Eisenhower succeeded in keeping the country out of war, many events during his presidency created the conditions for later conflicts. Nevertheless, Eisenhower was a popular president both before, during, and after his time in office. During his final years, he wrote several books about his life, traveled, and advised later presidents. He had suffered a heart attack during his first term in office and eventually suffered another one. He died at the age of 78 with his family by his side. I'm Kelly Jean Kelly. And that's the Learning English podcast for today. Thank you, Kelly, for that report. And thanks to our VOA colleagues for their work on today's program. Most importantly, thank you for listening. For more, visit our website at learningenglish.voanews.com. I'm Katie Weaver. And I'm Dan Friedel.