Wednesday, November 27, 2019

munich massacre essays

munich massacre essays As soon as Ilana Romana heard about the situation in Munich, she expected the worst: I knew who he was. He would not sit quietly. He was not the type. I knew it would end badly. She spoke of her husband, and, unfortunately, her prediction was correct. Earlier that day, her husband, Yossef, and his teammates were awoken by Arab terrorists beginning an episode that would result in the death of eleven Israeli athletes and forever scar the 1972 Olympics, leaving the games to be remembered for the years to come as the Munich Massacre. Most Germans hoped that the 1972 Olympics would help to heal the racial damage caused by the 1936 Olympics. It was the first time the games had returned to the state since Nazism and Adolph Hitler were in full stride; the first time the games were held in Germany since Hitler had tried to use them as a way to show the superiority of his Aryan race on a worlds stage. At this time, the world was still in political unrest as the Vietnam War raged on, racial tensions in the United States continued, and violence persisted in the Middle East. German president Gustav Heinemann welcomed the Olympics as a milestone on the road to a new way of life with the aim of realizing peaceful coexistence among peoples. His goal was not meant to be, however. At approximately four oclock in the morning on September 5, 1972 (six days before the end of the games), Yossef Gutfreund, a 275 pound wrestling referee, reacted to the sound of Arab voices behind the door of the apartment where he and other Israeli athletes were staying. The terrorists had accessed the building unnoticed as they were dressed in athletic warm-ups and carried their weapons in gym bags. Gutfreund quickly alerted his roommates that something was wrong and proceeded to push his body against the door in an effort to prevent Arab entrance. His efforts were successful for only a few moments, howe...

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Definition and Examples of Narrators

Definition and Examples of Narrators A narrator is a person or character who tells a story, or a voice fashioned by an author to recount a narrative.   Professor Suzanne Keene points out that the  nonfiction narrator  is strongly identified with the author, whether a first-person self-narrator  in autobiography or a third-person historian or biographer (Narrative Form, 2015).An unreliable narrator (used far more often in fiction than in nonfiction) is a first-person narrator whose account of events cant be trusted by the reader. Examples and Observations The term narrator can be used in both a broad and a narrow sense. The broad sense is one who tells a story, whether that person is real or imagined; this is the sense given in most dictionary definitions. Literary scholars, however, by narrator often mean a purely imaginative person, a voice emerging from a text to tell a story. . . . Narrators of this kind include omniscient narrators, that is, narrators not only who are imaginary but who exceed normal human capabilities in their knowledge of events.(Elspeth Jajdelska, Silent Reading and the Birth of the Narrator. University of Toronto Press, 2007)Narrators in Creative Nonfiction- Nonfiction often achieves its momentum not just through narrativetelling the storybut also through the meditative intelligence behind the story, the author as narrator thinking through the implications of the story, sometimes overtly, sometimes more subtly.This thinking narrator who can infuse a story with shades of ideas is what I miss most in much nonfic tion that is otherwise quite compellingwe get only raw story and not the more essayistic, reflective narrator. . . . [I]n telling nonfiction stories we cant as writers know anybodys interior life but our own, so our interior lifeour thought process, the connections we make, the questions and doubts raised by the storymust carry the whole intellectual and philosophical burden of the piece.(Philip Gerard, Adventures in Celestial Navigation. In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction, ed. by Lee Gutkind. W.W. Norton, 2005)- Readers of the nonfiction work expect to experience more directly the mind of the author, who will frame the meaning of things for herself and tell the readers. In fiction, the writer can become other people; in nonfiction, she becomes more of herself. In fiction, the reader must step into a believable fictional realm; in nonfiction, the writer speaks intimately, from the heart, directly addressing the readers sympathies. In fiction, the narrator is generally not the author; in nonfictionbarring special one-off personas as encountered in Jonathan Swifts A Modest Proposalthe writer and narrator are essentially the same. In fiction, the narrator can lie; the expectation in nonfiction is that the writer wont. Theres an assumption that the story is, to as great an extent as possible, true; that the tale and its narrator are reliable.(New York Writers Workshop, The Portable MFA in Creative Writing. Writers Digest Books, 2006) First Person and Third Person Narrators[S]imple, direct storytelling is so common and habitual that we do it without planning in advance. The narrator (or teller) of such a personal experience is the speaker, the one who was there. . . . The telling is usually subjective, with details and language chosen to express the writers feelings. . . .When a story isnt your own experience but a recital of someone elses, or of events that are public knowledge, then you proceed differently as narrator. Without expressing opinions, you step back and report, content to stay invisible. Instead of saying, I did this; I did that, you use the third person, he, she, it, or they. . . . Generally, a nonparticipant is objective in setting forth events, unbiased, as accurate and dispassionate as possible.(X.J. Kennedy et al., The Bedford Reader. St. Martins, 2000)- First-Person NarratorOnce there, beside the ocean,  I felt a little frightened. The others didnt know Id gone. I thought of the violence in t he world. People get kidnapped on the beach. A sneaker wave could take me out, and no one would ever know what had happened to me.(Jane Kirkpatrick, Homestead:  Modern Pioneers Pursuing the Edge of Possibility. WaterBrook Press, 2005)- Third-Person NarratorLucy felt a little frightened, but she felt very inquisitive and excited as well. She looked back over her shoulder and there, between the dark tree-trunks, she could still see the open doorway of the wardrobe and even catch a glimpse of the empty room from which she had set out.(C.S. Lewis,  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, 1950) Narrators and ReadersIt is well known that in linguistic communication I and you are absolutely presupposed one by the other; likewise, there can be no story without a narrator and without an audience (or reader).(Roland Barthes, An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative, 1966) Pronunciation: nah-RAY-ter

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Organisational Leadership and Performance Essay

Organisational Leadership and Performance - Essay Example Leadership is essential for any organisation to become successful. In today’s knowledge based global economic environment, the topic of leadership has become more important and debated. Leadership has emerged as a subject almost inseparable from the basic concepts of organisational behaviour at the various levels of an establishment. Characteristics of a Leader What does a leader need to have? In other words, what does an individual need to emerge as a leader? Robbins et al (1998: 395) think that the following traits are important for an individual to become a leader: †¢ â€Å"long term vision; †¢ people and team-building skills; †¢ decisiveness; and †¢ self-confidence† In today’s dynamic world, the factor of long term vision has become more important since resources are limited and demands are increasing. Soft skills are important for people management and essential team building. Decisiveness and self-confidence helps the leader to decide his/her course of action. These leadership traits are necessary at the management level of a given organisation so that it can remain dynamic to stay competitive and survive. Leadership Development Leadership development must begin at the level of staff development and the related realm of education management is utterly concerned with the behaviour and training of the human resources of the organisation.... and team-building skills; decisiveness; and self-confidence† In today’s dynamic world, the factor of long term vision has become more important since resources are limited and demands are increasing. Soft skills are important for people management and essential team building. Decisiveness and self-confidence helps the leader to decide his/her course of action. These leadership traits are necessary at the management level of a given organisation so that it can remain dynamic to stay competitive and survive (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1995). Leadership Development Leadership development must begin at the level of staff development and the related realm of education management is utterly concerned with the behaviour and training of the human resources of the organisation (Bhindi, 1996). Thus education management becomes an integral part of the operations. Prospective staff members should be educated in the direction of becoming leaders at their levels. Definitely, the policy of leadership development, if implemented in a right way, can make a big difference to the organisation. Both the intra-organisational and inter-organisational behaviouristic patterns can be maintained, tuned and improved if leadership development programmes are initiated within the organisation (Boaden, 2006). According to Robbins et al (1998), leadership development has the phases of conceptual understanding, skill building and coaching. A feedback process and a development centre are also required. Conceptual understanding of leadership should be imparted to as many staff members as possible, especially those who belong from the young generation so that they can correlate their personal growth plan to the leadership practices that are productive, sensible and sustainable. (Robbins et al, 1998)

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Language Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Language - Essay Example Language and culture are closely related, especially because language is part of culture. When considered individually, however, language and culture have a major impact on national identity. In this regard, Anderson is right in arguing that the mother tongue is the medium through which fellowships are imagined, history is rebuilt, and futures fantasised among patriots1. First, it is important to explore the concept of nationalism since it has a huge bearing on the impact of language. Nationalism is a relatively new concept for most countries; this is because most countries are relatively young. In this regard, it could be said that the oldest countries have the strongest links to nationalism2. For example, it is hardly surprising that terms like Americanism, capitalism, and communism, liberalism, socialism and anarchism are more entrenched in Western societies than in African ones. These isms are not only foreign but also imposed, and language is the vehicle used to facilitate such imposition. However, what differentiates younger from older countries is culture, because culture is rarely dependent on nationalistic ideals. In English in the World: History, Diversity, Change, Seargeant and Swann explore the concept of globalisation and its connection to the spread of English3. Globalisation is often cited as one of the hindrances to nationalism and the development of nationalist ideals; this makes it a prime candidate for the examination of the relationship between struggles over the English language and struggles over national identities. The authors argue that the relationship between globalisation and English is two-way4. On one hand, the greater dynamism in society and the manner in which numerous facets of contemporary life function on an international rather than national level create a need for a standard method of communication that supersedes national boundaries. For example, if an enterprise wants to trade with businesses in other parts of the

Sunday, November 17, 2019

How Luxury Brands Were Affected by Recession Essay Example for Free

How Luxury Brands Were Affected by Recession Essay Bovis homes group PLC, a leading UK house builder, had to review its corporate plans as a result of the recession and major cuts in government spending on building projects. Gives the high level of change in economic and political environments, is there any point in corporate planning? Justify your answer with reference to the house building industry and/or other organisations or industries you know that have been affected by such changes. (40 marks) Post 2007, global economy has been reeling under recession. Recessionary pressure began with United States economy slowing down; however it has spread globally affecting all countries in some way or the other. Income level, employment have been affected badly. Consumption levels have gone down drastically, which affected consumer dependant countries, such as the UK. Traditionally, luxury brands have not been affected by recession so much, since they have been catering to the higher end class, which is not so affected by the economic downturn. However, in recent past, the luxury has been catering to the inspirational customers, whose consumption patterns are affected due to economic recession. During times like these, companies usually dependant on corporate planning. Some of them in order to grow, others – to survive. Corporate planning is the process of drawing up detailed action plans to achieve an organizations goals and objectives, taking into account the resources of the organization and the environment within which it operates. Music and books retailer HMV Group became a company that was heavily affected by recession in 2008, as it had to close 60 UK stores in the next 12 months in response to declining sales. The 60 stores set to close represent roughly 10% of the groups UK High Street presence, which comprises 285 HMV shops and 312 Waterstones outlets. The massive store closure of outlets was an attempt to survive, as they has been hammered by competition from digital downloads as well as supermarkets and online retailers undercutting it on price. As well as the store closures, HMV said it would implement other cost-cutting measures that would save it a further ? 10m per year. However HMV’s corporate planning hasn’t proved to be successful, as it turns out HMVs share price has declined steadily throughout 2010, and the latest drop brings its cumulative fall to more than 75% over the last 13 months. Also the firms shares dropped 20% even further after it revealed the sales data, and admitted it was having trouble meeting the terms of a bank loan. As it turns out, HMV’s retail analyst didn’t expected music and DVD market falling that fast, despite their attempts to change their sales mix, offering iPods and live music in order to stay in the market. HMV is repeating Woolworths and Zavvi collapse during the recession. Fox described extremely difficult trading conditions with total sales of physical CDs and DVDs down 10% and 8% respectively against the same six-month period last year. Without a new console to fire the imagination the picture was even worse in video games where sales plunged 12%, a fall that was on top of the 30% slump seen in 2009. It is not that value is moving from physical to the digital sales – it is just that value is being lost, said Fox. Therefore the HMV is facing severe competition and tough times due to recession. Their corporate planning proved to be unsuccessful, they are trying to deal with already dead market, which don’t have any prerequisites to grow in the future. Poundland is complitely different business, with different approach and corporate plan, as they grow during the recession periods. They are aimed at consumer who requires value. Some of that is driven by the economy or the economic conditions, some of that is because the people have low disposable incomes and traditionally that’s been the case, and they have needed to seek value. During tough economic conditions, that was always the case. When US recession just took place, in 2008, poundland started to grow using external growth. At christmas 2008, when Woolworth post-administration 600 stores became available, poundland took 70 of those over three years. Big success from the very beginning was due to , very talented property team, who use a network of agents so they are are constantly searching for new opportunities of expansion. A number of other opportunities have arisen over the years as well and they have been able to convert those quite quickly because they had a new store opening team and a refurbishment programme, which really is about pie-cutting. So there’s a process. The average around 60 stores a year now, so over one a week, which I think is testament to the quality of the team, the sourcing of the stores and the continual improvement in the performance of the business, which of course helps finance those opportunities. In the recession – or difficult economic periods, all decisions needs to be discussed and implemented using professional team, which will make your business distinguish from arising competition. In the conclusion I would like to say that recession is not true for every business. As we have seen above, poundland did well during the recession period, as they targeting those on low-incomes and those, who willing to save, however a situation in a luxury industry differs: The wealthy are not much affected by economic downturn and to use luxury goods is a kind of addiction; it isnt easy to change the lifestyle even if personal income dropped. The Geneva motor show 2013 is happening right now. Rolls Royce is selling better than they did last year, as is Lamborghini. The Middle East, Russia do not seem to be feeling the crunch for the time being. The general feeling is that desire for the super luxury brands remains high but purchases are being delayed. Lamborghini always under produce and have enough orders to remain keep production going for a long time whilst mass to mid luxury car factories are laying off workers, that is the trend that works in the luxury sector. However, the middle-class luxury brands will be heavily affected due to concept that was stated above with an example of poundland. Surely some of them could be richer during the trouble times, but most are struggling and havent the mind to spend freely money for luxury items as before. The wealthy never stop spending, they just change what they spend their money on. For example companies like Hermes, Alfred Dunhill, Vacheron Constatine, and Botega Veneta are designed to be recession proof. Marc Jacobs and Chanel on the other hand will feel the pain. As stated above its all about client base and how corporate plan was developed and implemented.

Thursday, November 14, 2019

The Affirmative Action Debate Essay -- argumentative persuasive 2014

For the sake of this essay, affirmative action in education is defined as: â€Å"policies and programs designed to advance equality of educationalopportunity for individuals from groups that have suffered systematic historical discrimination† (Mickelson 29). What is being referred to here is race-based affirmative action, or the act of taking into consideration an applicant’s race in the college admissions process. This is a hot topic all over the United States and has been for quite a while, the debate raging between two sides: those in support of affirmative action and those opposed. The ethics of affirmative action itself are difficult to determine, but here an attempt will be made to prove that affirmative action is indeed unfair. In addition, perhaps people are looking at the wrong issue. Maybe the real problem is the early education gap between the minority and majority students, something that, if fixed, could solve the issue of affirmative action once and for al l. Just to make things clear, because the topic of this is race-based affirmative action, â€Å"majority† will refer to the racial majorities in college admissions (mainly whites and to some extent Asians) and â€Å"minority† will refer to racial minorities (such as African Americans, Hispanics, etc.) Also, diversity, unless stated otherwise, means racially diverse. Before any analysis can take place, it is beneficial to first know a little bit about the subject area. With that in mind, the history of affirmative action can be condensed into the basics: Supreme Court cases and major legislation. Civil Rights Act of 1964 got the ball rolling on affirmative action, both in education and in general. Title VI of this Act ordered desegregation of public educational institutions, from... .... 2008. Web. 01 Nov. 2011 Garrison-Wade, Dorothy F., and Chance W. Lewis. â€Å"Affirmative Action: History And Analysis.†Journal Of College Admission  184 (2004): 23-26.  Academic Search Premier. Web. 4 Nov. 2011. Mickelson, Roslyn A. â€Å"Affirmative Action in Education.†Ã‚  Education and Sociology: anEncyclopedia. By David L. Levinson, Peter W. Cookson, and Alan R. Sadovnik. New York: RoutledgeFalmer, 2002. Print. Moreno, Pamela Barta. â€Å"The History Of Affirmative Action Law And Its Relation To College Admission.†Ã‚  Journal Of College Admission  179 (2003): 14-21.  Academic Search  Premier. Web. 4 Nov. 2011. Ogletree, Jr., Charles J. â€Å"The Case For Affirmative Action.†Ã‚  Stanford Alumni Association. Stanford Magazine. Web. 01 Nov. 2011. Sacks, David, and Peter Thiel. â€Å"The Case Against Affirmative Action.†Ã‚  Stanford Alumni  Association.  Stanford Magazine. Web. 01 Nov. 2011.

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Orensic Anthropology Field School Essay

Assignments: Detailed descriptions, expectations, and grading rubrics will be posted for each assignment and made available for students to download from blackboard. Late Assignment Policy: Late assignments will not be accepted. Students will receive a 0 for any assignment not turned in on time. Hard copies of assignments are due at the beginning of class on the due date (except for labs, which are due at the  end of the lab class). If you are ill and have a doctor’s note, you may email the assignment to me prior to the class in which it is due. Policies regarding religious holidays and accommodations for religious activities from Section 3.1 of the 2006-2007 Faculty Handbook: Absent for Religious Holidays: †¢ The general tenor of the University’s policy regarding accommodations for religious observances is that no student should suffer academic penalty because of the observance of their faith. For example, students may wish to be excused from classes or examinations for religious reasons on Holy Days or on the Jewish Sabbath (one-and a-half hours before sunset Friday to one-and-a-half hours after sunset on Saturday), or on Friday at 1:00 p.m. for Muslim community prayers. †¢ Students have a responsibility to alert members of the teaching staff in a timely fashion to upcoming religious observances and anticipated absences. Every effort should be made to avoid scheduling tests, examinations or other compulsory activities at these times. If compulsory activities are unavoidable, every reasonable opportunity should be given to these students to make up work that they miss, particularly in courses involving laboratory work. When the scheduling of tests or examinations cannot be avoided, students should be informed of the procedure to be followed to arrange to write at an alternate time. †¢ While the University’s policy makes no special provision for Holy Days of other faiths, the same general consideration is understood to apply: no students should be seriously disadvantaged because of their religious beliefs. Final Grades: Final grades will be calculated according to the weights listed in the Grading Scheme. There will be no make up assignments or extra credit assignments. The grades you earn on your assignments are the grades you will receive. The breakdown of percentages into letter grades, GPA, and grade definitions is viewable here: http://www.artsandscience.utoronto.ca/ofr/calendar/rules.htm#grading Student Participation Policy: Students are expected to do the required readings before attending lecture/lab. There will be no time to read the text before starting the lab. Each lab is based upon text and assigned materials. Lectures will NOT be posted online. It is the student’s responsibility to come to class and take notes. A handout listing tips on efficient note taking is linked in the recommended reading section, below. Students are encouraged to take advantage of workshops in note taking and other study skills provided by The Robert Gillespie Academic Skills centre. Student questions are encouraged during lecture and lab. Course Rationale: This course provides students with theoretical knowledge and practical skills related to searching for, documenting, and recovering human remains and associated exhibits from outdoor scenes. Crime scene protocols and the role of the forensic anthropologist during crime scene investigations are emphasized. This course encourages students to develop their critical thinking skills and focuses on a reflective learning approach to create an experience-based learning opportunity. Goals and Learning Objectives Goals: ââ€" ª Introduce students to the main techniques used in a forensic anthropological search, recovery, and analysis of human remains at outdoor scenes ââ€" ª Highlight the importance of collaboration and teamwork in forensic science ââ€" ª Show students how to incorporate the scientific method in crime scene analysis and reconstruction ââ€" ª Help students develop public speaking skills and professionalism ââ€" ª Emphasize the importance of ethics and safety in forensic anthropology and forensic science ââ€" ª Build critical thinking and reasoning skills through an iterative process as new variables are introduced Learning objectives By the end of the course: ââ€" ª Students will have the skills to volunteer as members of a search team  in cases of found human remains and missing persons presumed dead ââ€" ª Students will be able to verbally explain their rationale for adopting particular protocols ââ€" ª Students will gain knowledge and understanding of the proper methods of processing a crime scene Required Reading: Gardner, R. 2005 or 2012. Practical Crime Scene Processing and Investigation. CRC Press. Please see the class schedule for assigned readings for each lecture. Recommended Reading: How not to plagiarize: http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/plagsep.html) Writing tips and study skills (including note-taking, referencing, lecture listening, test writing): http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/asc/Students/tips.htm E-Culture Policy: Students should treat email as professional correspondence, using a formal tone and phrasing questions clearly. Email without ANT306 in the subject line will not be answered. Students must use their UTOR email to ensure that their messages get delivered and is not filtered out as spam. Blackboard will be used to inform students of important course-related information. It is the student’s responsibility to check the website regularly. Statement on Learning Technology: Laptops are permitted in class for word processing only. Due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter, the use of voice recorders, digital photography and video recorders is prohibited. Classroom Conduct: Disruptive behaviour during lectures (e.g. cell phones ringing, chatting,  text messaging, etc.) is a show of disrespect to the speaker, as well as an academic offence (see Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters), and as such, will not be tolerated. If someone is being disruptive, he/she will be asked to leave. During the field component of the course we will follow briefing and debriefing protocols – students are expected to be aware when the person in charge of briefing enters the room and should immediately give that individual their undivided attention. Note taking is permitted and expected. What I expect from students: Students are expected to arrive at lecture/lab prepared to work on their mock cases. In this context, prepared means having read the assigned textbook chapter; generating and bringing relevant data sheets, such as inventory forms; etc. Forensic anthropology is a field requiring attention to detail, professionalism, careful, and critical analysis. I expect students to bring these qualities to the field and the lab What students can expect from me: I will provide as complete, organized, and detailed an overview of the process of a forensic anthropological search and recovery, including crime scene protocols, as possible to give you the most realistic experience possible. I will make your health and safety a priority, outlining the potential hazards one can encounter at a crime scene, and addressing the ethical issues associated with the excavation and recovery of human remains in a medico-legal context. I will emphasize professionalism and help you achieve a professional note taking style, demeanor, and manner of public speaking. I will be available to discuss your course work and career goals during office hours or by appointment. I want you to do your best and will support you in your efforts to achieve success. Academic Integrity: From the Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters: It shall be an offence for a student knowingly: (d) to represent as one’s own any idea or expression of an idea or work of another in any academic examination or term test or in connection with any other form of academic work, i.e. to commit plagiarism. Wherever in the Code an offence is described as depending on â€Å"knowing†, the offence shall likewise be deemed to have been committed if the person ought reasonably to have known. The full policy can be found here: http://www.governingcouncil.utoronto.ca/policies/behaveac.htm Plagiarism is considered an academic offense and will be dealt with according to the Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters. Please be advised that while it is necessary and desirable to work in groups to complete the mock case, generating discussion and leading to additional learning opportunities, each student must write his/her own reports. Copying sections from someone else’s report (with or without a few word changes) is considered plagiarism. Drop Policy: Nov 5, 2012 is the final day to drop this course from academic record and GPA. By this time students will have completed 45% of their final grade. Academic Support: Robert Gillespie Academic Skills Centre: The Robert Gillespie Academic Skills Centre (Room 390, Hazel McCallion Academic Learning Centre) offers a range of workshops, seminars and individual consultations to help students develop the academic skills they need for success in their studies. For more information on the Centre’s services and programs, go to www.utm.utoronto.ca/asc or phone 905-828-3858. AccessAbility Policy: â€Å"Students with diverse needs are welcome in this course, although it is physically demanding. The UTM AccessAbility Resource Centre offers services to assess specific student needs, provide referrals, and arrange appropriate accommodations. Students with questions about disability/health accommodations are encouraged to contact their instructor and/or the  AccessAbility Resource Centre when the course begins. The AccessAbility Resource Centre staff can be contacted by phone (905-569-4699), email (access@utm.utoronto.ca) or in person (Room 2047, South Building).†

Sunday, November 10, 2019

Disaster recovery training

It is almost inevitable that at some point, a business or organization will experience a serious calamity that may hinder it from carrying out its normal day to day business operations. Such calamities may include computer malfunctioning, accidents, floods, fires, grievous acts, among others. When disaster strikes, it is important for the organization to have a proper disaster recovery plan that will help the business significantly reduce the losses incurred and recover within a short time frame.For this reason, this organization has set up a talented disaster recovery planning team which will cater for such eventualities. However, even as the expertise of the team cannot be questioned, it is still important for the members to undergo disaster recovery training from a credible third party and be properly certified so as to provide our company with the international best practices and recommendations for the implementation of disaster recovery as well as business continuity. Offering Disaster recovery training to our team will also help prevent our organization from â€Å"reinventing the wheel† (Thejendra, 2008).There are several organizations that provide consultancy and training in Disaster Recovery practices but it is important to choose carefully, those who will train our disaster recovery team so as to achieve the best possible training and exposure. The choice is to a large extent, dependent on their Disaster Recovery certification and relevant experience in this field. Based on these requirements, the following are five possible sources that can adequately train our disaster recovery planning team. They include professional training organizations and academic options. DRI internationalDRI is an acronym for the Disaster Recovery Institute and is a reputable international organization which provides training and certification on disaster recovery and business continuity. The training courses that it offers range from basic to advanced levels and its certification programs are aimed towards helping an organization to maintain its professional level of competence even in the midst of calamity. If contracted, DRI will help our planning team learn how to develop a business continuity management program and come up with proper resilience strategies to overcome disasters in the shortest time frame possible.The training offered by DRI international is quite comprehensive and covers each career level therefore members of our DR planning team can grow and improve their knowledge as they progress up the career ladder (â€Å"DRI International†, 2009). The professional certification is given in five different levels starting from entry level to more advanced levels. The entry level certification training is the Associate Business Continuity Professional (ABCP) which will support our team members who have less than two years experience in this field.The second certification level is the Certified Business Continuity Vendor (CBCV) whi ch is offered to those with more than two years experience and who demonstrate knowledge of the DRI professional practices. Another certification level is the Certified Functional Continuity Professional (CFCP) level which is open for those who demonstrate knowledge, have more than two years working experience and have practical experience in at least three professional practices subject areas.The Certified Business Continuity Professional is offered to those who have practical experience in at least five professional practice subject areas and the Master Business Continuity Professional (MBCP) will cater for those who have more than five years working experience and have practical experience in at least seven professional practices subject areas. DRII certification is internationally recognized meaning that our team will get the best possible Disaster Recovery training and apply it to our organization (DRI International, 2009). Business continuity instituteThe Business Continuity i nstitute (BCI) is an internationally recognized organization that offers training on business continuity. It was started in 1994 with the aim of helping its members to get guidance on proper management of business continuity. This institute offers training and certification on business continuity management through a program known as the BCI professional recognition program. This program is aimed at helping organizations to identify any potential threats to their business and achieve resilience so that they can respond effectively and safeguard their business when disaster strikes.Some of the skills imparted by BCI training include business resilience as well as recovery strategies, business continuity plans and strategies for risk management. (Business Continuity Institute, 2009). Training with BCI can be very beneficial to our organization especially due to its international status. The BCI professional recognition program is a benchmark for assessing best practice and has encoura ged the improvement of business enhancing skills. Our disaster recovery planning team can therefore greatly benefit from the high quality training which this institute is capable of providing.BCI certification is based on the Certification standards for Business Continuity Professionals which are internationally recognized standards of disaster recovery and were published in conjunction with DRI international. Thus BCI certification is internationally recognized and its prestigious status will boost our organization’s credibility and portray us a competent enough to carry out business continuity practices consistently and to a very high professional standards (Business Continuity Institute, 2009). International Consortium for Organizational ResilienceThis is another international organization that offers training on disaster recovery and business continuity. It offers professional certifications through several certification programs that have been tailor made to suit each ca reer level. ICOR courses are offered at the ICOR University and include ten disciplines, among them, Business Continuity Management, Risk Management and Insurance, social resilience and crisis management and communication. The CORA Associate certification program is for entry level professionals and is offered even to those with no work experience.The CORS Specialist certification level is given to those with a minimum of three years work experience and who have a certification in one discipline from ICOR University. CORM manager is a more advanced certification level and for those with more than five years work experience and certifications in at least two disciplines from ICOR University. CORP Professional ICOR certification requires more than seven years work experience and certifications in four disciplines from ICOR University.Finally, CORE executive certification program is for those with more than ten years working experience and certifications from six disciplines in ICOR Un iversity. The credentialing program from ICOR is designed to help students to progress as professionals (The ICOR, 2009). The main aim of ICOR is to empower the professionals who are in charge of business continuity planning with skills that will enable them to come up with adequate resilience strategies for their businesses. If our team trains at ICOR, they will have the benefit of interacting with other professionals making their learning more meaningful.ICOR is also recognized worldwide as offering resilience solutions to organizations therefore if we gain corporate membership, our team will be able to access quite a number of benefits. Some of these advantages include interacting with professionals, having unlimited access to the ICOR library so they can read widely on the subject and have unlimited access to a wide variety of resources. As members, they will undergo thorough training and certification at a lower cost. They can attend professional conferences and constantly be u pdated on what is going on in this field.These benefits will be translated to the organization in from of improved business continuity practices as they apply what they have learnt (The ICOR, 2009). Norwich University This is one of the few academic options which offer training in the field of disaster recovery and business continuity. The disaster recovery course which started in December 2008 is offered at the Norwich online school of Graduate studies under the Masters of Science in Business continuity program. Norwich University developed this program so as to increase the level of training in the disaster recovery field.Among the subject areas that it addresses are policies, systems and procedures that will help a company to carry on with its day to day operations even in the face of a disaster that threatens interruption. Being a military college, Norwich University seems like a natural setting for this program since the military is among the first organizations in the United S tates to initiate contingency planning. The MSBC program will help organizations to strengthen information assurance thereby enhancing business continuity (Larkin, 2008).The MSBC program seeks to help businesses adopt business continuity as a best practice, assessing all business aspects from information technology to supply chains. It will help our team learn how to identify weaknesses in the disaster recovery system. The fact that lessons in this program also involve learning directly from experts and analyzing case studies of those who have actually undergone business interruption at this point and this provides more adequate and relevant information which our disaster recovery planning team can then apply to our workplace.Learning from those who have undergone a disaster first hand is more beneficial than just learning theoretically. The program is provided online so our team members can learn from the comfort of their homes or in the office and as they learn, they apply it conc urrently to the workplace. This can be likened to on the job training, only the company is not providing the training directly. Furthermore, Norwich University is able to recruit instructors in diverse working in their different fields worldwide therefore its students benefit from a wide field of knowledge (Larkin, 2008). Boston University Metropolitan CollegeBoston University is another academic option which offers training in the field of disaster recovery and business continuity. The course is offered online in two distinct programs. One is offered as a Graduate Certificate in Risk Management and Organizational Continuity (RMOC) and the other is offered as a Masters of Science in Business Continuity and Emergency Management (MSBCEM). The graduate certificate program has been designed to help businesses come up with the best strategies to cope with the various calamities that may present themselves in the lifetime of the company (Boston University online, n.d). Students in the RMO C program are taught both proactive and reactive aspects of managing a crisis. The program covers preparedness planning, proper development of a business continuity plan among others. Students will also undergo a simulation of an emergency situation at the workplace and this will help them apply the theoretical concepts that they have learned in the duration of their coursework. Members of our planning team will be able to gain useful knowledge in business continuity.They will be able to gain valuable professional credentials. It is also possible for them to further their training by enrolling in the online Master of Science in specialty management which specializes in Business Continuity, Security & Risk Management. This course is offered to build on the graduate certificate RMOC program and students under the RMOC program can simply transfer their credits to MSBCEM program and complete it only by covering the eight core courses (Boston University Online, n. d).

Thursday, November 7, 2019

Whats the Difference Weighted vs Unweighted GPA

What's the Difference Weighted vs Unweighted GPA SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Most students think a lot about their GPA in high school. There’s no doubt that GPA is one of the most important pieces of information colleges will consider in your application. However, GPA can vary drastically in the way it’s calculated at different schools. Some high schools use unweighted GPAs and some use weighted GPAs. I’ll give you an overview of the differences between the two and what each type of GPA might mean in the context of your personal experiences. Basic Differences Between Weighted and Unweighted GPAs So what are weighted and unweighted GPAs? Here are the main differences between the two. Unweighted GPA Traditionally, GPA is calculated on an unweighted scale.Unweighted GPA is measured on a scale of 0 to 4.0. It doesn’t take the difficulty of a student’s coursework into account.An unweighted GPA represents an A as a 4.0 whether it was earned in an honors class, AP class, or lower-level class. Weighted GPA Weighted GPA is often used by high schools to better represent students’ academic accomplishments.Weighted GPA takes into account course difficulty rather than providing the same letter grade to GPA conversion for every student.Usually, weighted GPA is measured on a scale of 0 to 5.0, although some scales go higher.An A in an AP class may translate into a 5.0 weighted GPA, while an A in a regular-level class will give you a 4.0 weighted GPA. Many schools also have mid-level classes (such as honors classes) where the highest weighted GPA you can earn is a 4.5. Differences in Calculation As you might expect, unweighted and weighted GPAs are calculated differently. In this section we give an in-depth explanation of how to calculate both GPA types. Unweighted GPA Unweighted GPA is much simpler to calculate than weighted GPA.This is because you don’t have to consider the levels of your classes in the calculations. Let’s say you’re taking five classes, and you have As in two of them and Bs in three of them.The two As will each translate to 4.0s, and the three Bs will each translate to 3.0s.If you add 4.0 + 4.0 + 3.0 + 3.0 + 3.0 and then divide by five, you’ll get an unweighted GPA of 3.4. If your grades aren’t quite as simple as that, here’s a quick letter grade and percentile to GPA conversion chart to make things easier. Letter Grade Percentile GPA A+ 97-100 4.0 A 93-96 4.0 A- 90-92 3.7 B+ 87-89 3.3 B 83-86 3.0 B- 80-82 2.7 C+ 77-79 2.3 C 73-76 2.0 C- 70-72 1.7 D+ 67-69 1.3 D 65-66 1.0 F Below 65 0.0 Most schools more or less follow this scale for unweighted GPAs. Yours may be slightly different, but it shouldn’t vary too much. Weighted GPA The calculations for weighted GPA can get a little more tricky because you may be taking a variety of courses at different academic levels. Going withthe example that we used for unweighted GPA, let’s say once again that you’re taking five classes and getting As in two of them and Bs in three of them.But this time let’s also say that one A is in a regular-level class, one A is in an honors class, two Bs are in AP classes, and one B is in an honors class. How is your weighted GPA calculated?Well, each grade has to be considered in conjunction with class level.This means using the unweighted GPA conversion scale for grades in regular-level classes, adding 0.5 to the scale for mid-level/honors classes, and adding 1.0 for high level/AP classes. This means: The A in a regular-level class would still be a 4.0 The A in an honors class would be a 4.5 The two Bs in AP classes would each be 4.0s The B in the honors class would be a 3.5 If you add 4.0 + 4.5 + 4.0 + 4.0 + 3.5 and divide by 5, you get a 4.0 weighted GPA. Remember, not all schools will use this exact weighted GPA scale, but as you can see, there can be a big difference between the numbers you get for unweighted GPA and weighted GPA based on the types of classes you’re taking. Even if two students have identical grades, one might have a weighted GPA that’s a full point higher than the other. Let's say you have a 3.2 unweighted GPA and are taking five classes. If even two out of the five classes are honors or AP and the rest are regular-level, your GPA would get bumped up to a 3.6 on a weighted scale. A slight difference in the levels of your classes can make a big difference in your weighted GPA. Go for it! All you have to do is believe! (and study more, but mostly believe!) What Does All of This Mean for You? Whether your school uses weighted or unweighted GPA can impact your class rank and experiences in the college admissions process. If Your School Uses Unweighted GPAs†¦ Admissions committees look at your coursework in conjunction with your GPA to reach conclusions about your academic potential.They understand that some schools do not take the difficulty of students’ classes into consideration when calculating GPA.If you challenge yourself in your classes but don’t have a perfect GPA, you will look better in the college admissions process than someone in regular-level classes who has a 4.0. It may be harder to stand out from your classmates with your GPA because more students will have GPAs that are at the same level when class difficulty is not a factor in the calculation.If class rank is based purely on unweighted GPA, your class rank may not reflect the effort you expended.Students with a lot of AP classes can have lower unweighted GPAs than students who took less difficult classes despite being more academically driven. Don’t worry too much though. College admissions officers are aware of the limits of the unweighted system, and they will look closely at your course record to determine whether your GPA is an accurate reflection of your academic potential. If Your School Uses Weighted GPAs†¦ First off, you should know that having a 4.0 weighted GPA doesn’t mean you can get into any college.A 4.0 may be the commonly accepted gold standard, but with weighted GPAs everything shifts upward.A truly elite GPA under the weighted system will actually be close to a 5.0, so you will need to make sure you adapt your concept of what constitutes a high GPA to fit this model. With a weighted GPA, your class rank is more likely to reflect your academic drive and ability because your GPA is a reflection of both your grades and the levels of the classes in which you earned them.You’ll have a higher rank than someone who earns the same grades as you in lower level classes. Weighted GPAs mean that you need to be careful because they can be deceptive. A lot of the advice that's out there is targeted towards unweighted GPAs, so you'll need to adjust your thinking to account for the size of the GPA scale at your school. The bottom line is that colleges will look deeper than the raw numbers when evaluating your high school academic record regardless of whether your GPA is weighted or unweighted. Admissions officers willbe able to tell which classes you took and how much you pushed yourself, so your GPA by itself becomes only one part of a much larger picture. You will also be required to lift the weight of your GPA times 40 in order to walk at graduation, so start training. Why do you think valedictorians are always so ripped? Do Colleges Look at Weighted or Unweighted GPAs? So, which do colleges care more about then, your weighted or unweighted GPA? The short answer is that most colleges care somewhat more about weighted GPAs because they do a better job showing the difficulty of the classes you took. However, colleges care more about your entire record of coursework than just your GPA out of context. They'll look to see which classes you took, how difficult those classes typically are, and what your class rank is. All of these factors are going to give them a better understanding of your GPA. So, when you're wondering which GPA is more important, the real answer is that colleges will look at all the information they're given to get the best idea of your academic skills. They won't just glance at your GPA and decide whether it's a good number or not without looking at other factors. If your transcript shows increasing difficulty in your coursework, this will look impressive to colleges, even if your GPA isn’t perfect.If you have a 4.0 GPA but took all the least challenging classes in high school, colleges will be less impressed since you didn’t push yourself academically.This means you should continue working on taking difficult classes and getting high grades in them in order to be as impressive as possible. Summary Your high school GPA may be measured on either an unweighted or weighted scale.The main difference between the two is that weighted GPAs take into account the difficulty of your coursework and unweighted GPAs don’t.Most unweighted GPAs are recorded on a scale of 0 to 4.0, and most weighted GPAs are recorded on a scale of 0 to 5.0. For the most part, whether your high school uses unweighted or weighted GPA shouldn’t affect you in the college application process.Colleges will look at your GPA, but they will also consider the bigger picture. Their greatest concern is that you’ve managed to challenge yourself intellectually with your coursework. GPA is important, but proof of your determination and perseverance in the face of academic struggles is often more impressive than a 4.0. What's Next? Want more information about how to interpret your GPA in the college search process? Find out what it means to have a good or bad GPA for college. Is your GPA above average? Do you need to work on bringing it up? Learn more about the average high school GPA. Your college GPA may end up being very different from your high school GPA. Read this article about average GPAs in college to see what might be in store.

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

How to Improve Your ACT English Score 9 Tips From a Perfect Scorer

How to Improve Your ACT English Score 9 Tips From a Perfect Scorer SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Are you struggling with ACT Englishscores between 14-24? You're not alone - hundreds of thousands of other students are scoring in this range. But many don't know the best ways to break out of this score range and get 26+on the ACT. Here we'll discuss how to improve ACT Englishscore effectively, and why it's so important to do so. Put these principles to work and I'm confident you'll be able to improve your score. Brief note: This article is tailored for lower-scoring students, currently scoring below a 26 on ACT English. If you're already above this range, my perfect 36 ACT Englishscore articlewill be better for you as it contains advanced strategies. In this article, I'm going to discuss why scoring high is a good idea, what it takes to score a 26, and then go into ACT English tips. Stick with me - this is like building a house. First you need to lay a good foundation before putting up the walls of the house and pretty windows. Similarly, we need to first understand why you're doing what you're doing, before diving into tips and strategies. In this guide, I talk mainly about getting to a 26. But if your goal is to get to a 24 or lower, these tips still equally apply. Understand the Stakes At this ACT score range, improving your low ACT Englishscore to a 24 range will dramatically boost your chances of getting into better colleges. The reason? A 26 puts you at right about the 83rd percentile, well above the national average of all ACT test takers. This is roughly equivalent to a 1200 out of 1600 on the SAT. Let's take a popular school, University of Central Florida (UCF), as an example. Its average ACT score is a 27. Its 25th percentile score is a 23, and 75th percentile is a 28. Furthermore, its acceptance rate is 49%. In other words, a little less than half of all applicants are admitted. Good odds, but the lower your scores, the worse your chances. In our analysis, if you apply with an ACT score of 23, your chance of admission drops to 23%, or around 1/4 chance. But if you raise your score to a 28, your chance of admission goes up to 55% - a very good chance of admission. For the Englishsection, this is especially true if you want to apply to humanities or language programs. They expect your Englishscore to be better than your math score, and if you score low, they'll doubt your ability to do college-level humanities work. It's really worth your time to improve your ACT score. Hour for hour,it's the best thing you can do to raise your chance of getting into college. Curious what chances you have with a 26 ACT score? Check out ourexpert college admissions guide for a 26 ACT score. Know that You Can Do It This isn't just some lame inspirational message you see on the back of a milk carton. I mean, literally, you and every other student can do this. In my work with PrepScholar, I've worked with thousands of students scoring in the lower ranges of 15-21. Time after time, I see students who beat themselves up over their low score and think improving it is impossible. "I know I'm not smart." "I've just never been good at writing, and I can't see myself scoring high." "I don't know what to study to improve my score. Is it grammar rules? Do I do practice?" It breaks my heart. Because I know that more than anything else, your ACT score is a reflection ofhow hard you work and how smartly you study. Not your IQ and not your school grades. Not how Ms. Anderson in 10th grade gave you a C on your essay. Here's why: the ACT is a weird test. When you take it, don't you get the sense that the questions are nothing like what you've seen in school? You've learned grammar before in school. You know some basic grammar rules. But the ACT questions just seem so much weirder. It's purposely designed this way. The ACT can't test difficult concepts, because this would be unfair for students who never took AP English. It can't ask you to decompose Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. The ACT is a national test, which means it needs a level playing field for all students around the country. So it HAS to test concepts that all high school students will cover. How to transition between paragraphs, grammar rules like subject verb agreement, etc. You've learned all of this throughout school. But the ACT still has to make the test difficult, so it needs to test these concepts in strange ways. This trips up students who don't prepare, but it rewards students who understand the test well. Example Question Here's an example: find the grammar error in this sentence: The senator, along with his dozen campaign staff, are running a competitive race against the newcomer. This is a classic ACT English question. The error is in subject/verb agreement. The subject of the sentence is commissioner, which is singular. The verb is "run," but because the subject is singular, it should really be "runs." If you didn't see an error, you fell for a classic ACT English trap. It purposely confused you with the interrupting phrase, "along with his 20 staff members." You're now picturing 20 people in a campaign - which suggests a plural verb! The ACT English section is full of examples like this. Nearly every grammar rule is tested in specific ways, and if you don't prepare for these, you're going to do a lot worse than you should. Here's the good news: this might have been confusing the first time, but the next time you see a question like this, you'll know exactly what to do: find the subject and the verb, and get rid of the interrupting phrase. So to improve your ACT English score, you just need to: learn the grammar rules that the ACT tests study how the ACT tests these grammar rules and learn how to detect which grammar rule you need in a question practice on a lot of questions so you learn from your mistakes I'll go into more detail about exactly how to do this. First, let's see how many questions you need to get right to get a certain score. What It Takes to Get a 26in ACT English If we have a target ACT score out of 36 in mind, it helps to understand how many questions you need to get right on the actual test. The ACT English section has 75 questions on it. Depending on how many questions you get right, you'll get a Scaled score out of 36. Here's the raw score to ACT English Score conversion table. (If you could use a refresher on how the ACT is scored and how raw scores are calculated, read this.) Scaled Raw Scaled Raw Scaled Raw Scaled Raw 36 75 27 62 18 41-42 9 18-19 35 72-74 26 60-61 17 39-40 8 15-17 34 71 25 58-59 16 36-38 7 12-14 33 70 24 56-57 15 32-35 6 10- 32 68-69 23 53-55 14 29-31 5 8-9 31 67 22 51-52 13 27-28 4 6-7 30 66 21 48-50 12 25-26 3 4-5 29 65 20 45-47 23-24 2 2-3 28 63-64 19 43-44 10 20-22 1 0-1 So if you're aiming for a 26, on this test you need to get just 60 questions correct. This is just an 80% on the test! Also, keep in mind that you'll be able to GUESS on a lot of questions. Because there are 4 answer choices, you get a lot of questions right with a 25% chance! So here's an example. Let's say you know how to solve just 55 questions for sure. You guess on the remaining 20, and get 5 of them right by chance. This gives you a raw score of 60, or a scaled score of 26! This has serious implications for your testing strategy. In essence, you only need to answer 4/5 of all questions right. We'll go into more detail below about what this means for your testing strategy below. Whatever you're scoring now, take note of the difference you need to get to a 26. For example, if you're scoring a 21, you need to answer 10-13 more questions right to get to a 26. Once again, if your goal is a score below 26, like a 23, the same analysis applies. Just look up what your Raw Score demands above. OK - so we've covered why scoring a higher ACT Englishscore is important, why you specifically are capable of improving your score, and the raw score you need to get to your target. Now we'll actually get into actionable ACT English tipsthat you should use in your own studying to maximize your score improvement. Tipsto Improve Your Low ACT English Score Strategy 1: Know What's On the Test. It's Not Just About Grammar! The first tip to doing well on the ACT is understanding what you're actually going to be tested on. You need to predict every type of question that comes up so you have a game plan to get the right answer. If you've studied ACT English before, you've probably worried about memorizing grammar rules like subject/verb agreement or pronoun antecedent. The truth is, grammar is only half of the test. The other half is made up of what are called "Rhetorical Skills" s of concepts you need to know are Wordiness (how to phrase things concisely) and Transitional Logic (how to connect sentences and paragraphs together). For these skills, you don't just memorize grammar rules - you need to understand how to write effectively in the context of the ACT. At PrepScholar, we believe in dividing ACT English into individual skills you can attack separately. This is the best way to divide and conquer - understand what the ACT tests, and focus on mastering individual skills. Here's a complete breakdown of the skills in ACT English: Grammar (53% of ACT English) Punctuation - Commas Punctuation - General Number Agreement Pronouns Verb Forms Comparison/Description Word Choice Idioms Run-On Sentences Sentence Fragments Parallelism Modifiers Rhetorical Skills (47% of ACT English) Relevance Author Intent Transitional Logic Macro Logic Wordiness Formality and Tone That's it! All of ACT English is wrapped up in these 18 skills. What seemed like a scary, giant 75-question section can actually be wrapped up entirely in these 18 skills. Now, don't get overwhelmed. This may LOOK like a lot of stuff to study,but when you're aiming for a 26, you only have to master a fraction of these skills. I'll explain more in the next strategy. For a more detailed look, check out our guide breaking down theACT Englishsection. Strategy 2: Learn the Most Important Grammar Rules. Ignore the Others If you've tried studying for ACT English before, you might have been daunted by the large number of grammar rules you seem to have to know. The reality is, there is a huge difference in how important different grammar rules are on the test. Just as an example, Transition questions appear roughly 9 times per test, but Logical Comparison questions show up only once per test. So some skills show up nearly 10x more often than other skills!This has a huge implication on what you should be spending your precious time on studying - not all study hours are treated equal. If you study the most important grammar rules first, you will get the biggest bang for your buck. Here's the complete list of skills and how often they appear on a typical ACT English section: Skill Category # per Test % per Test Transitional Logic Rhetoric 9 12.41% Relevance Rhetoric 7 9.49% Wordiness Rhetoric 7 9.49% Punctuation - Commas Grammar 5 6.93% Punctuation - General Grammar 5 6.93% Macro Logic Rhetoric 5 6.57% Author Intent Rhetoric 4 5.84% Run-On Sentences Grammar 4 5.84% Idioms Grammar 4 5.47% Verb Forms Grammar 4 5.% Sentence Fragments Grammar 3 4.01% Word Choice Grammar 3 4.01% Formality and Tone Rhetoric 3 3.65% Pronouns Grammar 3 3.65% Number Agreement Grammar 2 3.28% Parallelism Grammar 2 2.92% Modifiers Grammar 2 2.92% Comparison/Description Grammar 1 1.46% Look at the difference in commonality between the skills. Transitional logic shows up a whopping 9 times per test, while modifiers shows up just 2 times. If it takes the same amount of time to study both skills, clearly your time is better spent on studying Transitional logic. Remember what we said about how you only need to get 80% of questions correct to get a 26? If you master the top 10 skills above and get all those questions right, you can totally ignore the other 8 skills!This is what I mean by bang for your buck. Unfortunately, most books and test prep resources ignore this distinction - they just treat every skill equally. They'll give you the same number of practice questions and give you no guidance on how to spend your time. This means you can waste a lot of time studying things that truly don't matter on the ACT. (Why do they do this? I believe this is usually because these companies hire people who are good at English to write their materials, NOT people who are good at taking tests. These are different skills). At PrepScholar, we strongly believe in getting our students the biggest score improvement for every hour they spend on ACT prep. This is why our program focuses your attention on the most important skills that will lead to the most ACT score improvement. You only have limited time to study, and we don't want to waste it.We designed our program this way because they were the same methods we used to get perfect scores on the ACT. If you plan to study by yourself - make sure you organize your time well.Instead of reading a book cover to cover, you should be focusing on the most critical grammar rules to improve your score most. Strategy 3: Find Your Grammar Weaknesses and Drill Them If you're like most students, you're better at some areas in ACT English than others. You might know transitions really well, but you'll be weak in sentence fragments. Or maybe you really like parallel construction, but have no idea what faulty modifiers are. If you're like most students, you also don't have an unlimited amount of time to study. You have a lot of homework,you might have intense extracurriculars, and you want to spend time with your friends. This means for every hour you study for the ACT, it needs to be the most effective hour possible to raise your ACT score. In concrete terms,you need to find your greatest areas of improvement and work on those. Too many students study the 'dumb' way. They just buy a book and read it cover to cover. When they don't improve, they're SHOCKED. I'm not. Studying effectively for the ACT isn't like painting a house. You're not trying to apply thin coats of understanding evenly across a lot of subjects. What these students did wrong was they wasted time on subjects they already knew well, and they didn't spend enough time improving their weak spots. Instead, studying effectively for the ACT is like plugging up the holes of a leaking boat. You need to find the biggest hole, and fill it. Then you find the next biggest hole, and you fix that. Soon you'll find that your boat isn't sinking at all. How does this relate to ACT English? You need to find the most important grammar rules that you're having the most trouble in, and then practice hard until it's no longer a weakness. Fixing up the biggest holes. Doesn't this make sense? For every question that you miss, you need to identify the type of question it is, and why you missed it. When you notice patterns to the questions you miss, you then need to find extra practice for this grammar rule. Say you miss a lot of comma punctuation questions (the mostcommon ACT English grammar rule). You need to find a way to get lesson material to teach yourself the main concepts that you're forgetting. Then you need to find more practice questions for this skill so you can drill your mistakes. This is by far the best way for you to improve your Englishscore. Bonus: If all of this is making sense to you, you'd love our ACT prep program, PrepScholar. We designed our program around the concepts in this article, because they actually work.When you start with PrepScholar, you’ll take a diagnostic that will determine your weaknesses in over forty ACT skills, including individual grammar rules. PrepScholar then creates a study program specifically customized for youto maximize your score. To improve each skill, you’ll take focused lessons dedicated to each skill, with over 20 practice questions per skill. This will train you for your specific area weaknesses, so your time is always spent most effectively to raise your score. For example, if you're weak in Subject/Verb Agreement, we'll give you a dedicated quiz focused on that skill so that you master your weakness. There’s no other prep system out there that does it this way, which is why we get better score results than any other program on the market. Check it out today with a 5-day free trial: Strategy 4:Attack Passages Sanely - By Paragraph ACT English has a passage-based format. You get a passage with 4-6 paragraphs, and you get 15 questions per passage. When you go into the test, you MUST have a plan on how to attack the passage and answer the questions. Students make two common mistakes on ACT English: They panic about how many questions there are (75!) and they rush through the passage, making careless mistakes along the way. They think that only sentences that are underlined are important, and they ignore the sentences in between. This makes you ignore context, which is critical for Rhetoric questions like Transitions and Organization. Have you ever felt this way before? The good news is, there's a sane way to attack the passage. We call it the "paragraph method." Here's how it works: Read a paragraph in the passage. Answer the questions in that paragraph. Here's an example passage: In this case, you read the passage until you hit the purple line. Then you answer all the questions marked in purple boxes. Next, you read the passage until you hit the green line. Then you answer the question marked in a green box. That's it. Pretty simple, but here's why it works: by reading each paragraph one at time, you force yourself to understand the context around the sentences. This is critical for Rhetoric questions like, "Should this sentence be deleted?" or "Sentence 3 should be placed before..." For example, notice how Question 26 comes at the beginning of the paragraph, but it requires you to understand the rest of the paragraph first: "which one most effectively introduces the information that follows in this paragraph?" In our experience, this is the most effective and sanest way to attack the ACT English passage. If you want to read more about this strategy, and possible alternatives to this method, read more: "The Best Way to Approach ACT English Passages." Because strategy lessons like this can be very effective in improving your score quickly, we include many of them in our PrepScholar ACT program. Learn how to eliminate answer choices systematically. Strategy 5: Don't Pick Answer Choices Based on "Sounding Weird." Know the Specific Rule Being Tested The ACT tests proper English grammar very strictly. Imagine that it's a 60-year-old English professor with perfect diction and grammar. It's not going to be the same language you use when you talk to your friends or text. For example: "Jake and me went to the ball game." This might be something you say informally in conversation, but it's 100% wrong on ACT English. A lot of students figure out grammar mistakes by what "sounds wrong" to their ear. The problem is,if you usually don't spot grammar errors easily, you can't fully rely on your ear to figure out what "sounds wrong."The ACT knows this, and it purposely puts in traps that will trick you if you can't precisely identify what's wrong and what's correct. Here's what you should do instead. For every wrong answer choice that you eliminate, you should justify to yourself clearly why you are eliminating that answer choice. Here's an example of a real ACT English question: Here's my thinking as I go through the question: When I see this sentence, there's a comma splice error. "The shop opens at six in the morning" and "I arrive thirty minutes early to set up" are both independent clauses. Two independent clauses can only be joined with a semicolon, or a comma and a conjunction (like ", and") F: NO CHANGE is incorrect because it keeps the comma splice error we just found. G: This gets us closer - there's a comma here, followed by "however," The problem is that "however" isn't a conjunction - it's a conjunctive adverb. That means it doesn't behave like "and" - it needs to follow a semicolon or a period. Strike this out. H: This is what we were looking for - a comma and a conjunction. This is grammatically correct. J: This is just removing the comma, which doesn't solve the error - it then becomes a "run on sentence" where the two independent clauses are still improperlyjoined. I've eliminated every answer choice but H, which must be the correct answer. Note that I'm not literally thinking all these words in my head, but this gives the gist of my thinking. I've identified the specific grammar error, so I know what I'm looking for. It's like if I told you, "The bee fly to the hive." You know this is wrong instantly if you say it aloud because it feels wrong. After a few more seconds, you'd be able to point out that "bee" is singular and "fly" is plural, so we have a subject/verb agreement error. By learning more grammar rules and practicing them, you'll be able to do this elimination very quickly and naturally. You'll pinpoint exact reasons that a phrase has a grammar error and use that to eliminate answer choices. This is a lot better than guessing based on things "sounding weird" and you'll get many more questions right. It really does take repetition to train grammar skills to this level, though. You need both lesson material to teach you the core content, then lots of practice questions to hammer the concepts home. That's whyinPrepScholar ACT, every ACT English skill gets a detailed strategy lesson, followed by dozens of practice questions to test what you just learned. We've found this to be the most effective method to learn the most important ACT English concepts. If you're studying by yourself without a program, make sure you can find the best study material to teach you grammar and give you enough practice. Strategy 6: Understand ALLYour ACT English Mistakes Every mistake you make on a test happens for a reason.If you don't understand exactly why you missed that question, you will make that mistake over and over again. Too many students scoring at the 12-20score range spend too little time studyingtheir mistakes. It's harsh. I get it. It sucks to stare your mistakes in the face. It's draining to learn difficult concepts you don't already understand. So the average student will breeze past their mistakes and instead focus on areas they're already comfortable with. It's like a warm blanket. Their thinking goes like this: "So I'm good at subject/verb agreement? I should do more subject/verb agreement problems! They make me feel good about myself." The result? NO SCORE IMPROVEMENT. Think about this: let's say you were learning how to cook, and you cut your finger accidentally while chopping carrots. Would you just ignore this, brush it aside, and keep chopping? No! You'd figure out where you went wrong - are you holding the knife incorrectly? Are you holding the carrot incorrectly? Is the knife sharp enough? You would do everything you can to avoid cutting yourself, because it's painful. ACT English is the very same way. You HAVE to understand WHYyou're making mistakes, and how you're going to AVOID making this mistake in the future. So here'swhat you need to do: on every practice test or question set that you take, mark every question that you're even 20% unsure about when you grade your test or quiz, review every single question that you marked, and every incorrect question. This way even if you guessed a question correctly, you'll make sure to review it. in a notebook, keep a separate section by grammar rule. Write down: the gist of the question why you missed it what you'll do to avoid that mistake in the future It's not enough to just think about it and move on. It's not enough to just read the answer explanation. You have to think hard about why you specifically failed on this question. By taking this structured approach to your mistakes,you'll now have a running log of every question you missed, and your reflection on why. In our ACT prep philosophy, reviewing your mistakes is the #1 way to improve your ACT score.We've designed our program accordingly - after you take a quiz inour PrepScholar ACT program, we give you immediate quiz results to review. We basically force you to review your mistakes before you do anything else. It's that important. No excuses when it comes to your mistakes. Strategy 7: Go Deeper - WHY Did You Miss a English Question? Now, what are some common reasons that you missed a question? Don't just say, "I didn't know this material." That's a cop out and you won't learn anything from this. Always take it one step further - what specifically did you miss, and what do you have to improve in the future? Here are some examples of common reasons you miss a question, and how you take the analysis one step further: Content:I didn't learn the knowledge or grammar rule needed to answer this question. One step further:What specific knowledge do I need to learn, and how will I learn this skill? Incorrect Approach:I knew the content or grammar rule, but I didn't know how to approach this question. One step further:How do I solve this question? How will I solve questions like this in the future? Careless Error:I misread what the question was asking for or I missed a grammar rule I already knew. One step further:Why did I misread the question? Why did I miss this grammar error? What trick did the ACT play on me? What should I do in the future to avoid this? Get the idea? You're really digging into understanding why you're missing questions. Yes, this is hard, and it's tiring, and it takes effort.That's why most students who study the easy way - just reading a book cover to cover - don't improve. But you're different. Just by reading this guide, you're already proving that you care more than other students. And if you apply these principles and analyze your mistakes, you'll improve more than other students too. If you find it hard to understand why you're making mistakes, then you might find a program like PrepScholar helpful. Every one of our questions has a detailed answer explanation explaining how to solve the question, how to eliminate each wrong answer choice, and common ACT English traps. We purposefully write these explanations to guide you when you've missed an answer choice. Strategy 8: Don't Spend More than 30 Seconds per Question Of all sections, ACT English has the least amount of time per question. In one section, you get 60minutes to answer 75 questions, which means only 48 seconds per question! Remember what we said above about getting a 26? You only need a raw score of 60 out of 75. This is 80%. Therefore, DON'T feel bad about skipping a question. Chances are, it's actually a pretty hard question designed to waste your time. You're better off skipping it so you can get more questions right elsewhere in the section. Furthermore, you can't predict which questions are easy or hard. Unlike ACT Math, where the questions increase in difficulty from start to finish, ACT English is more or less random. So if you find yourself spending more than 30 seconds on a single question, skip it for now. You might have enough time to come back to it. You definitely want to avoid sucking up 2 minutes on a single question. This is taking up way more time than a single question deserves, and you're better off spending that time on other questions to get extra points. This requires discipline during the test, and many students ignore the clock until it's too late. Don't run out of time. And now, my final ACT English prep tip: Strategy 9: Don't Study General Grammar. Target ACT English When many low-scoring students think about studying ACT English, they think it's mainly a matter of learning grammar. So to prep for ACT English, they'll use general grammar books from school or English class. This points you in the wrong direction. Remember, ACT English tests grammar in very SPECIFIC ways. You're not learning how to write a good essay and using good grammar generally. You're learning how to defeat ACT English. The ways that grammar rules like punctuation or run-on sentences appear on ACT English are very formulaic - they show up in similar ways each time, with similar wrong answer choices. A run-on sentence question will have the same types of wrong answer choices, time and time again. Your job is to learn these patterns, screen out wrong answer choices, and get the right answer. So to do well on ACT English, you have to train with the best materials focused on ACT English. This means realistic practice questions that test Grammar and Rhetoric skills in the same way. Understanding the ACT at a deep level isn't easy. That's why at PrepScholar, we hire only the country's leading experts on the ACT to craft our test content. All of our test content writers scored perfect ACT scores or in the 99th-percentile, and they've often tutored for hundreds of hours before joining us. We turn down dozens of applicants who score a 34 or below on the ACT. Our standards for content are extremely high, because we want our students to have the most realistic practice possible. If you don't use PrepScholar, make sure you're confident of the quality of the materials you're using.If you train on low quality practice questions, you're going to develop bad habits and learn to attack questions the wrong way. In Overview These are the main ACT English tips I have for you to improve your score. If you're scoring a 15, you can improve it to a 20. If you're scoring a 21, you can boost it to a 26. I guarantee it, if you put in the right amount of work, and study like I'm suggesting above. Notice that I didn't actually teach you that many grammar rules. I didn't point to any tips and tricks that you need to know, or specific grammar rules that will instantly raise your score. That's because these one-size-fits-all, guaranteed strategies don't really exist. (And anyone who tells you this is deceiving you). Every student is different. Instead, you need to understand where you're falling short, and drill those weaknesses continuously. You also need to be thoughtful about your mistakes and leave no mistake ignored. This is really important to your future. Make sure you give ACT prep the attention it deserves, before it's too late, and you get a rejection letter you didn't want. What's Next? We have a lot more useful guides to raise your ACT score. Read my corresponding guides for other ACT sections: Get a 26 in ACTMath, ACT Reading, and ACT Science. What's a good ACT score for you? Read our detailed guide on figuring out your ACT target score. Want a bunch of free ACT practice tests to practice with? Here's our comprehensive list of every free ACT practice test. Want to improve your ACT score by 4+ points?We have the industry's leading ACT prep program. Built by Harvard grads and ACT full scorers, the program learns your strengths and weaknesses through advanced statistics, then customizes your prep program to you so you get the most effective prep possible. Check out our 5-day free trial today: Have friends who also need help with test prep? Share this article! Tweet Allen Cheng About the Author As co-founder and head of product design at PrepScholar, Allen has guided thousands of students to success in SAT/ACT prep and college admissions. He's committed to providing the highest quality resources to help you succeed. Allen graduated from Harvard University summa cum laude and earned two perfect scores on the SAT (1600 in 2004, and 2400 in 2014) and a perfect score on the ACT. You can also find Allen on his personal website, Shortform, or the Shortform blog. Get Free Guides to Boost Your SAT/ACT Get FREE EXCLUSIVE insider tips on how to ACE THE SAT/ACT. 100% Privacy. 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Sunday, November 3, 2019

Pol 211 Mile 2 Realism, idealism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Pol 211 Mile 2 Realism, idealism - Essay Example The state is supposed to develop its interests first in terms of security when considering relationships with other states. Idealists view the national interest with reference to the balance of power. Idealist administrators seek to advance their national interests. Diplomacy is the art of combining national power to produce maximum effect to the international situation that will hence affect the national interest directly. The collapse of the Soviet Union is best described using the realism and idealism concept of â€Å"Balance of Power†. This was whereby Bush succeeds in convincing Gorbachev to implementing reform efforts towards shifting the USSR into a democratic system and a market-based economy. Gorbachev allows elections under a multi-party system and the presidency of the Soviet Union. This gradually develops the democracy that goes along with destabilizing communist control and later on the total collapse of the Soviet Union (Strayer, 1998,

Friday, November 1, 2019

Final Manifesto of Architecture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Final Manifesto of Architecture - Essay Example In this manifesto on architecture, I am going to present my personal views on architecture with historical evidences. First of all, I would like to describe my vision of architecture by considering it as something with modern approach. As Buckminster Fuller (1969) in his essay ‘From Utopia or Oblivion’ quoted on the future architectural approach that started in an era with the stepping of foot on human on moon. It was this era that made man to think of creating ‘floating city’ or a utopian state. He also talked about the change in our way of living that is more oriented toward making changes in our surroundings by adjusting them according to our needs. I would like to relate architecture with his vision that is the name of creating buildings and places that better serve our needs to adjust to temperature changes and other things that were beyond our control in the past. Also architecture should be focused on simple but modern way of constructing buildings th at is not much oriented toward immense decorations. Adolf Loos (1929) in ‘Ornaments and Crime’ identified the modern man’s focus toward simplicity with lack of interests in ornaments and decorations. I believe that architecture should focus on the modern approach of man in order to create buildings according to his taste. Architecture is a way of symbolizing different things depending upon the way a building is structured. Roland Barthes in ‘Image Music Text’ talked about the power the image has in terms of communicating a message to receivers. There are many ways in which a message gets to a person through studying numerous parts of an image. It can be linguistic, if an image has a text or caption on it or simply iconic that may be coded or non-coded. It may also possible that the image is conveying a message in the context of a certain culture or society. In other words, we get to know various meanings by simply looking at an image. Likewise, archi tecture is an art that give rise to erect structures and buildings with a touch of sculptures and art work that convey to us a specific message that can be deciphered in a language or coded in a certain way. Therefore, architecture should give rise to a carefully designed structure in order to signify many things in a specific setting. In addition to the description of architecture as a skill that needs careful handling by people involved in doing architectural work; architects, it is also a profession that has seen changing trends from the last decade. It is important to state that it has now become more of a heterogeneous nature than before with bringing strangely conflicting structures to places on earth. It has been quoted by Greg Lynn in ‘Architectural Curvilinearity’ that architecture had been deviating from pervious forms and now practicing principles of pliancy and curvilinearity. I suggest that architecture should inculcate modern methods in attempting to give people the places they want to live in. The heterogeneous approach is a particularly a new one with great potential and it could be continued to give a new form to architecture. Moreover, the buildings that are constructed now are not accurately of geometrical figures or anything close to that. Rather they are given different shapes that is not to be find similar with other buildings. Based on the architectural manifesto