Difficulty is defined by (a) frequency of use, (b) frequency of spelling pattern, and (c) developmental norms. It is not difficult, then, for teachers to place students with words of appropriate difficulty based on simple measures of instructional level (Schlagal, 1996).
If one assumes that shifts in the supply curve of ethanol are solely due to the changing price of corn, then, up to an ethanol price of $2.90, the price of corn completely determines the price of ethanol. In other words, the price of corn drives the price of ethanol, not the other way around. This is actually quite logical since the amount of ethanol used is essentially fixed; consequently, something else must be driving the price of ethanol.
Ethanol is a 2-carbon alcohol, responsible for the behavior-altering effects of Alcoholic Beverages, and for the devastation of the social and physical well being of alcoholics and their communities. This alcohol is a simple molecule, a carbohydrate, which is burned as a fuel supplying energy to cells. Ethanol in its disguise as a fuel can be considered a non-essential nutrient. But before it is metabolized as a fuel, it is an active brain-drug and an all-purpose cellular toxin. As a brain drug, ethanol acts to depress brain function from the top down, very much in the style of an anaesthetic. With low blood concentration, the cortical depression of ethanol seems to release behaviors that are otherwise inhibited. At this low level of mind intoxication, ethanol is useful and possibly pleasant.