While I was writing an essay I found it was difficult to select which phrase that I should use. Therefore, could someone please let me know which of the following phrases would be appropriate.
Therefore, many critics conjecture that it might lead to an decline in pupils basic abilities to read and write / basic abilities such as reading and writing.
We usually call them skills. Abilities are inborn, skills are learned. Your first option says that "it", whatever that is, will harm their basic abilities, but it's hard to conceive what a basic ability is.
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We usually call them skills. Abilities are inborn, skills are learned. Your first option says that "it", whatever that is, will harm their basic abilities, but it's hard to conceive what a basic ability is. "Basic skills to read and write" is not idiomatic. You need an apostrophe on "pupils" because the skills belong to them. The "such as" phrase needs a comma because you don't mean skills tha
dileepaTherefore, many critics conjecture that it might lead to a decline in pupils' basic abilities to read and write / basic abilities such as reading and writing.
It depends what you want to say. Do you want to restrict it to reading/writing, or do you want to include o