Perl

Perl experts were astounded by the results. "I was amazed that none of the students were able to read this simple sentence:

$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$c=142;if((@a=unx"C*",$_)
[20]&48){$h=5;$_=unxb24,join"",@b=map{xB8,unxb8,chr($_^$a[--$h+84])}
@ARGV;s/...$/1$&/;$d=unxV,xb25,$_;$b=73;$e=256|(ord$b[4])<<9|ord$b[3];
$d=$d>>8^($f=($t=255)&($d>>12^$d>>4^$d^$d/8))<<17,$e=$e>>8^($t&
($g=($q=$e>>14&7^$e)^$q*8^$q<<6))<<9,$_=(map{$_%16or$t^=$c^=
($m=(11,10,116,100,11,122,20,100)[$_/16%8])&110;$t^=(72,@z=(64,72,$a^
=12*($_%16-2?0:$m&17)),$b^=$_%64?12:0,@z)[$_%8]}(16..271))[$_]^
(($h>>=8)+=$f+(~$g&$t))for@a[128..$#a]}print+x"C*",@a}';s/x/pack+/g;eval

I mean, come on, that's so easy," said Paul Chen, Chairman of the Learn Perl or Die Association, which administered the test nationwide. "Teachers need to start with simple phrases like $RF=~tr/A-Z/a-z/; and work up from there. We really need to start teaching this in first grade if kids are ever going to understand this by high school."