My Observation Essays

My Observation Essays My Observation Essay My Observation Essay Name: Instructor: Course: Date: My Observation 1.35 pm- I arrived at the p.s 120 schoolyard located at the back and stood at the middle. From this position, I could notice everything that happened all around me. The first thing I noticed was that there were several parents also at the schoolyard pacing about and waiting patiently. There were several exits at the back of the school building that led into the schoolyard. The schoolyard also had a paddleball court. 1. 38pm- A security officer strolled into the schoolyard to inspect the area. After making his rounds, he went and stood at the center back of the schoolyard. 1.43 pm- I was still at the schoolyard when three classes made their way to the schoolyard from the exit door at left backside of the yard. The three classes then lined up in different areas in front of orange cones. Each grouping was representative of the different classes. Each class had two lines, one for the boys and the other for the girls. Even though the children were supposed to stand in line and remain orderly, that was not the case. Some of the children were leaning on the fence; others were jumping all over the place as they threw and swung around their book bags, but other children behaved correctly and remained orderly. The parents who stood at schoolyard moved forward to pick up their children, but before they could take them away, they had to sign a sheet of paper for the teacher who was supposed to release the children to them. The children were then released and the children went away with their respective parents and guardians. 1.45- A similar scenario took form once more. Three more classes came out into the schoolyard only this time they came in from the center exit located at the back of the schoolyard. Once more, the three classes lined up separately in front of the orange cones. Each class again had two lines, one for the boys and the other for the girls just like the previous group that came before them. In a similar fashion like the other lot, some children were behaving in a disorderly manner and some were orderly. The parents and guardians then moved forward, signed a sheet of paper and the children released to them by the teacher while the security officer kept a close watch of what was happening. 1.50pm- A teacher and the school security officer were speaking to a man who was recording his children as they came out of the school. The teacher and the security officer requested the man to put away his phone and stop recording since it was against school policy to record within the school vicinity. It also made other parents uneasy since they felt that the man was recording their children. In fact, it was a mother brought the issue to the attention of the teacher and the school security officer in the first place. After the conversation, the man put away his phone. 1.58- Three more classes came out. This time round, they came from the right exit located at the back of the schoolyard. There were still other parents in the schoolyard waiting for their children to come out. The children in a similar fashion like the rest of the groups stood in front of the orange cones under the direction of their teacher. The children made two lines each for the different classes. One line was meant or the girls and the other for the boys. Parents again went forth to pick up their children and just like the other parents and guardians, they had to sign a sheet of paper before the children were released. The teacher then released the child to their respective parents and guardians.

7 Writing Warm Ups for More Productive Writing

7 Writing Warm Ups for More Productive Writing Wonder how to stimulate and encourage your brain to simply dive into the writing process? A few warm-up activities will help to get your words and ideas flowing. Why is it important to warm up? The answer is quite predictable: to avoid the writers block and start writing right away. You would be surprised at how much writing will come from you once youre warmed up. Youll easily banish all distractions and get down to putting the words on paper. Here are a few proven ways to make you think and force your brains into action. 1. Describe Whats Going On Outside Your Window It is the easiest writing warm up ever! You just to have look out your window and write down your observations. Try not just to focus on people, buildings and weather, think what else is there. Do you see something unusual? Consider the peoples emotions and imagine what they may be talking about. Try to be specific to make sure that your description takes no more than 5 sentences. Its just a short warm up that shouldnt last more than 15 minutes. 2. Write Imaginary Definitions of Unknown Words Take a dictionary and open it on a random page. Find a word you are not sure how to define. Then create an imaginary definition for it. Play with words and youll discover new ways of saying old things. Be inspired and your imagination will help you produce the most vivid descriptions. Repeat this exercise for several times until you feel that your brain is warmed up enough to proceed with your main task. 3. Describe Your First Experience Describe your first. Your first day of school, first kitten, first job, first car, first yoga class, first date, it doesnt matter – all will make excellent stories. The first time of doing something is always an exciting experience, so youll easily find the right words to describe it and avoid that situation of staring at a blank sheet of paper. Concentrate on your emotions and start developing them in full – get the creative juices flowing! 4. Pretend Youre a Travel Writer Find a world map and blindly put your finger somewhere. Then pretend you are a travel writer and tell about the weird experience in that particular country. What happened? How did you behave in that unusual situation? How did you solve the problem? You may include anyone and anything you want into your story – locals, taxi drivers, bartenders, random people. Youll get a killer piece of content, just take some inspiration and put your pen to paper. 5. Create a Half-Page Monologue Creating monologues is a great way to warm up, so get in the habit of writing them. Take a newspaper or go to google news, find an interesting headline, then decide on a character who comes from that headline and write a short monologue for that character. Be specific, it is just a warm up and you dont have to create a long piece of writing. A half-page monologue will be more than enough to get your brain into the writing mode. 6. Write a Letter to Your Future Self Writing a letter can be a really wonderful experience. There are no restrictions on how old you should be – one year, five years or 10 years from now. What would you say? What kind of person would you be? What goals would you want to have achieved? Think about your place in life, your achievements or fails. First of all, identify the period of time to write about and start writing. Dont pay much attention to the letter format as its just a quick warm up. 7. Consider a Free Writing Session Give yourself a time limit and go. Dont stop, just get the words on a page. Write about everything that comes to your mind. Dont give your brain a moment to stop or evaluate your ideas, set a timer for 10 or 15 minutes and write without interruption. Free writing is not the time for editing or judging, you need to keep your pen moving. You will see that a free writing session is beneficial for more productive writing.

Design Differences Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Design Differences - Essay Example Qualitative research is basically concerned with the social aspects of the research topics, such as, reasons for any specific behavior of people, reasons for differences between cultures and societies, reasons fro differences of behaviors, and the ways people shape their beliefs and opinions. On the other hand, quantitative research constructs statistical models based on the observations to explain issues in a statistical form. Quantitative research requires a good understanding of the statistics for the scientists in order to produce statistical results generated using large-scale surveys. However, all scientists are not good statisticians, so extensive statistical analysis can be a big problem for some researchers. Therefore, we can say that qualitative research is somewhat easier to do as compared to quantitative research. â€Å"Quantitative research is all about quantifying relationships between variables† (Hopkins, 2008). A quantitative research determines the relationshi p between an independent and a dependent variable in order to establish an association between the two variables. A quantitative research is a better way to prove a hypothesis based on numeric results of a research. Relationship with what is Being Researched Another difference between qualitative and quantitative forms of research is related to the relationship, which the researchers have with what they are researching. In a qualitative research, the researchers do not know much about the topic being researched; rather they have to make interactions with people in order to get a better understanding of the research topic. The researchers are interested in getting awareness of the meanings created by the people. In a qualitative form of research, the researchers interact personally with what is being researched whereas in a quantitative research, the researchers are independent of what is being actually researched. â€Å"Qualitative research may be necessary in situations where it i s unclear what exactly is being looked for in a study† (McGuigan, 2011). Qualitative research is purely a fieldwork in which a researcher needs to go to different people at different places in order to observe their actions and behaviors, whereas quantitative research is based on the opinions of different people, which the researchers use to produce the facts. In qualitative research design, researchers use focus group technique and in-depth interviews to explore attitudes and behaviors of people whereas in quantitative research design, the researchers measure opinions and behaviors of people using structured research instruments. In a qualitative research, the primary instrument used for data collection and analysis is the research, whereas in quantitative research design, researchers make use of interviews and questionnaires to collect data in a numeric form. â€Å"Quantitative research involves gathering data that is absolute, such as numerical data, so that it can be exam ined in as unbiased a manner as possible† (McGuigan, 2011). Time and Efficiency Another difference between the characteristics of qualitative and quantitative researches is based on time and efficiency of the two forms of researches. Qualitative research design consumes more time for completion as compared to quantitative rese

Criminology research proposal- To what extent is employee theft Proposal

Criminology - To what extent is employee theft effecting busness - Research Proposal Example This new aspect has threatened to derail business progress of many companies, with competitor firms easily finding ways to fix the subject firms using such secrets. Based on various statistics, as brought out by Walsh (2000), approximately 75% of employees have at one time or another been involved in employee theft, with a vast majority of the group having perpetrated the act multiple times. This, he notes, stems from mistreatment of an employee by the firm, a prospect that creates an urge of retaliation among the employees. In addition, the problem of employee theft has been proposed to result from underpayment of the workers. In some cases though, the employees are encouraged into adopting the vice due to lack of stringent regulatory and punitive measures. Indeed, the theft cases may hold long-standing effects on the economy and to the employees at personal levels. As such, it is often instrumental for appropriate response procedures to be adopted to withstand such cases. For instance, many firms have often been encouraged into adopting stringent regulations which, nevertheless, impact negatively on business performance. Therefore, it is nota ble that the measures adopted so far have been less effective considering the increase in incidences of theft and consequent collapses and insolvencies among many traditional firms. This study is based on various objectives around which the aspect of employee theft revolves. Firstly, the study seeks to determine the internal and external business factors that precipitate employee theft. The study also seeks to determine the probable impacts of the theft cases to social and economic setups within and without the firm, and the implications of such business factors to the economy of the UK. In addition, the study seeks to ascertain what globalization and technological advancement in business administration means to employee theft. Further, the

Electric Generator Essay Example for Free

Electric Generator Essay Early 20th century alternator made inBudapest, Hungary, in the power generating hall of a hydroelectric station In electricity generation, an electric generator is a device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy. A generator forces electric charge (usually carried by electrons) to flow through an external electrical circuit. The source of mechanical energy may be a reciprocating or turbine steam engine, water falling through a turbine or waterwheel, aninternal combustion engine, a wind turbine, a hand crank, compressed air, or any other source of mechanical energy. Generators supply almost all of the power for the electric power grids which provide most of the worlds electric power. The reverse conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy is done by an electric motor, and motors and generators have many similarities. Many motors can be mechanically driven to generate electricity and frequently make acceptable generators. History Before the connection between magnetism and electricity was discovered, electrostatic generators were used. They operated on electrostaticprinciples. Such generators generated very high voltage and low current. They operated by using moving electrically charged belts, plates, and disks that carried charge to a high potential electrode. The charge was generated using either of two mechanisms: * Electrostatic induction * The triboelectric effect, where the contact between two insulators leaves them charged. Because of their inefficiency and the difficulty of insulating machines that produced very high voltages, electrostatic generators had low power ratings, and were never used for generation of commercially significant quantities of electric power. The Wimshurst machine and Van de Graaff generator are examples of these machines that have survived. In 1827, Hungarian Anyos Jedlik started experimenting with the electromagnetic rotating devices which he called electromagnetic self-rotors, now called the Jedliks dynamo. In the prototype of the single-pole electric starter (finished between 1852 and 1854) both the stationary and the revolving parts were electromagnetic. He formulated the concept of the dynamo at least 6 years beforeSiemens and Wheatstone but didnt patent it as he thought he wasnt the first to realize this. In essence the concept is that instead of permanent magnets, two electromagnets opposite to each other induce the magnetic field around the rotor. It was also the discovery of the principle of self-excitation.[1] Faraday disk, the first electric generator. The horseshoe-shaped magnet (A) created a magnetic field through the disk (D). When the disk was turned, this induced an electric current radially outward from the center toward the rim. The current flowed out through the sliding spring contact m, through the external circuit, and back into the center of the disk through the axle. In the years of 1831–1832, Michael Faraday discovered the operating principle of electromagnetic generators. The principle, later called Faradays law, is that an electromotive force is generated in an electrical conductor which encircles a varying magnetic flux. He also built the first electromagnetic generator, called the Faraday disk, a type of homopolar generator, using a copper disc rotating between the poles of a horseshoe magnet. It produced a small DC voltage. This design was inefficient, due to self-cancelling counterflows of current in regions that were not under the influence of the magnetic field. While current was induced directly underneath the magnet, the current would circulate backwards in regions that were outside the influence of the magnetic field. This counterflow limited the power output to the pickup wires, and induced waste heating of the copper disc. Later homopolar generators would solve this problem by using an array of magnets arranged around the disc perimeter to maintain a steady field effect in one current-flow direction. Another disadvantage was that the output voltage was very low, due to the single current path through the magnetic flux. Experimenters found that using multiple turns of wire in a coil could produce higher, more useful voltages. Since the output voltage is proportional to the number of turns, generators could be easily designed to produce any desired voltage by varying the number of turns. Wire windings became a basic feature of all subsequent generator designs. Dynamos are no longer used for power generation due to the size and complexity of the commutator needed for high power applications. This large belt-driven high-current dynamo produced 310 amperes at 7 volts, or 2,170 watts, when spinning at 1400 RPM. Dynamo Electric Machine [End View, Partly Section] (U.S. Patent 284,110) The dynamo was the first electrical generator capable of delivering power for industry. The dynamo uses electromagnetic induction to convert mechanical rotation into direct currentthrough the use of a commutator. The first dynamo was built by Hippolyte Pixii in 1832. A dynamo machine consists of a stationary structure, which provides a constant magnetic field, and a set of rotating windings which turn within that field. On small machines the constant magnetic field may be provided by one or more permanent magnets; larger machines have the constant magnetic field provided by one or more electromagnets, which are usually called field coils. Through a series of accidental discoveries, the dynamo became the source of many later inventions, including the DC electric motor, the AC alternator, the AC synchronous motor, and the rotary converter. Alternating current generating systems were known in simple forms from the discovery of the magnetic induction of electric current. The early machines were developed by pioneers such as Michael Faraday and Hippolyte Pixii. Faraday developed the rotating rectangle, whose operation was heteropolar each active conductor passed successively through regions where the magnetic field was in opposite directions.[2] The first public demonstration of a more robust alternator system took place in 1886.[3] Large two-phase alternating current generators were built by a British electrician, J.E.H. Gordon, in 1882. Lord Kelvin andSebastian Ferranti also developed early alternators, producing frequencies between 100 and 300 Hz. In 1891, Nikola Tesla patented a practical high-frequency alternator (which operated around 15 kHz).[4] After 1891, polyphase alternators were introduced to supply currents of multiple differing phases.[5] Later alternators were designed for varying alternating-current frequencies between sixteen and about one hundred hertz, for use with arc lighting, incandescent lighting and electric motors.[6] Large power generation dynamos are now rarely seen due to the now nearly universal use of alternating current for power distribution. Before the adoption of AC, very large direct-current dynamos were the only means of power generation and distribution. AC has come to dominate due to the ability of AC to be easily transformed to and from very high voltages to permit low losses over large distances. Electromagnetic generators Dynamo Main article: Dynamo Dynamo Electric Machine (end view, partly section, U.S. Patent 284,110) A dynamo is an electrical generator that produces direct current with the use of a commutator. Dynamos were the first electrical generators capable of delivering power for industry, and the foundation upon which many other later electric-power conversion devices were based, including the electric motor, the alternating-current alternator, and the rotary converter. Today, the simpler alternator dominates large scale power generation, for efficiency, reliability and cost reasons. A dynamo has the disadvantages of a mechanical commutator. Also, converting alternating to direct current using power rectification devices (vacuum tube or more recently solid state) is effective and usually economic. Alternator Main article: Alternator Without a commutator, a dynamo becomes an alternator, which is a synchronous singly fed generator. Alternators produce alternating current with a frequency that is based on the rotational speed of the rotor and the number of magnetic poles. Automotive alternators produce a varying frequency that changes with engine speed, which is then converted by a rectifier to DC. By comparison, alternators used to feed an electric power grid are generally operated at a speed very close to a specific frequency, for the benefit of AC devices that regulate their speed and performance based on grid frequency. Some devices such as incandescent lamps and ballast-operated fluorescent lamps do not require a constant frequency, but synchronous motors such as in electric wall clocks do require a constant grid frequency. When attached to a larger electric grid with other alternators, an alternator will dynamically interact with the frequency already present on the grid, and operate at a speed that matches the grid frequency. If no driving power is applied, the alternator will continue to spin at a constant speed anyway, driven as a synchronous motor by the grid frequency. It is usually necessary for an alternator to be accelerated up to the correct speed and phase alignment before connecting to the grid, as any mismatch in frequency will cause the alternator to act as a synchronous motor, and suddenly leap to the correct phase alignment as it absorbs a large inrush current from the grid, which may damage the rotor and other equipment. Typical alternators use a rotating field winding excited with direct current, and a stationary (stator) winding that produces alternating current. Since the rotor field only requires a tiny fraction of the power generated by the machine, the brushes for the field contact can be relatively small. In the case of a brushless exciter, no brushes are used at all and the rotor shaft carries rectifiers to excite the main field winding. [edit]Induction generator Main article: induction generator An induction generator or asynchronous generator is a type of AC electrical generator that uses the principles of induction motors to produce power. Induction generators operate by mechanically turning their rotor faster than the synchronous speed, giving negative slip. A regular AC asynchronous motor usually can be used as a generator, without any internal modifications. Induction generators are useful in applications such as minihydro power plants, wind turbines, or in reducing high-pressure gas streams to lower pressure, because they can recover energy with relatively simple controls. To operate an induction generator must be excited with a leading voltage; this is usually done by connection to an electrical grid, or sometimes they are self excited by using phase correcting capacitors. [edit]MHD generator Main article: MHD generator A magnetohydrodynamic generator directly extracts electric power from moving hot gases through a magnetic field, without the use of rotating electromagnetic machinery. MHD generators were originally developed because the output of a plasma MHD generator is a flame, well able to heat the boilers of a steam power plant. The first practical design was the AVCO Mk. 25, developed in 1965. The U.S. government funded substantial development, culminating in a 25 MW demonstration plant in 1987. In the Soviet Union from 1972 until the late 1980s, the MHD plant U 25 was in regular commercial operation on the Moscow power system with a rating of 25 MW, the largest MHD plant rating in the world at that time.[7] MHD generators operated as a topping cycle are currently (2007) less efficient than combined cycle gas turbines. [edit]Other rotating electromagnetic generators Other types of generators, such as the asynchronous or induction singly fed generator, the doubly fed generator, or the brushless wound-rotor doubly fed generator, do not incorporate permanent magnets or field windings that establish a constant magnetic field, and as a result, are seeing success in variable speed constant frequency applications, such as wind turbines or otherrenewable energy technologies. The full output performance of any generator can be optimized with electronic control but only the doubly fed generators or the brushless wound-rotor doubly fed generator incorporate electronic control with power ratings that are substantially less than the power output of the generator under control, a feature which, by itself, offers cost, reliability and efficiency benefits. Homopolar generator Main article: Homopolar generator Faraday disk, the first homopolar generator A homopolar generator is a DC electrical generator comprising an electrically conductive disc or cylinder rotating in a plane perpendicular to a uniform static magnetic field. A potential difference is created between the center of the disc and the rim (or ends of the cylinder), the electrical polaritydepending on the direction of rotation and the orientation of the field. It is also known as a unipolar generator, acyclic generator, disk dynamo, orFaraday disc. The voltage is typically low, on the order of a few volts in the case of small demonstration models, but large research generators can produce hundreds of volts, and some systems have multiple generators in series to produce an even larger voltage.[8] They are unusual in that they can source tremendous electric current, some more than a million amperes, because the homopolar generator can be made to have very low internal resistance. Excitation A small early 1900s 75 KVA direct-driven power station AC alternator, with a separate belt-driven exciter generator. Main article: Excitation (magnetic) An electric generator or electric motor that uses field coils rather than permanent magnets requires a current to be present in the field coils for the device to be able to work. If the field coils are not powered, the rotor in a generator can spin without producing any usable electrical energy, while the rotor of a motor may not spin at all. Smaller generators are sometimes self-excited, which means the field coils are powered by the current produced by the generator itself. The field coils are connected in series or parallel with the armature winding. When the generator first starts to turn, the small amount of remanent magnetism present in the iron core provides a magnetic field to get it started, generating a small current in the armature. This flows through the field coils, creating a larger magnetic field which generates a larger armature current. This bootstrap process continues until the magnetic field in the core levels off due to saturation and the generator reaches a steady state power output. Very large power station generators often utilize a separate smaller generator to excite the field coils of the larger. In the event of a severe widespread power outage where islanding of power stations has occurred, the stations may need to perform a black start to excite the fields of their largest generators, in order to restore customer power service. Electrostatic generator Main article: electrostatic generator A Van de Graaff generator, for class room demonstrations An electrostatic generator, or electrostatic machine, is a mechanical device that produces static electricity, or electricity at high voltage and lowcontinuous current. The knowledge of static electricity dates back to the earliest civilizations, but for millennia it remained merely an interesting and mystifying phenomenon, without a theory to explain its behavior and often confused with magnetism. By the end of the 17th Century, researchers had developed practical means of generating electricity by friction, but the development of electrostatic machines did not begin in earnest until the 18th century, when they became fundamental instruments in the studies about the new science of electricity. Electrostatic generators operate by using manual (or other) power to transform mechanical work into electric energy. Electrostatic generators develop electrostatic charges of opposite signs rendered to two conductors, using only electric forces, and work by using moving plates, drums, or belts to carry electric charge to a high potentialelectrode. The charge is generated by one of two methods: either the triboelectric effect (friction) or electrostatic induction. [edit]Wimshurst machine Main article: Wimshurst machine Wimshurst machine with two Leyden jars.Suppose that the conditions are as in the figure, with the segment A1 positive and the segment B1 negative. Now, as A1 moves to the left and B1 to the right, their potentials will rise on account of the work done in separating them against attraction. When A1 and neighboring sectors comes opposite the segment B2 of the B plate, which is now in contact with the brush Y, they will cause a displacement of electricity along the conductor between Y and Y1 bringing a negative charge, larger than the positive charge in A1 alone, on Y and sending a positive charge to the segment touching Y1. As A1 moves on, it passes near the brush Z and is partially discharged into the external circuit. It then passes on until, on touching the brush X, has a new charge, this time negative, driven into it by induction from B2 and neighboring sectors. As the machine turns, the process causes exponential increases in the voltages on all positions, until sparking occurs limiting the increase.| The Wimshurst influence machine is an electrostatic generator, a machine for generating high voltages developed between 1880 and 1883 by Britishinventor James Wimshurst (1832–1903). It has a distinctive appearance with two large contra-rotating discs mounted in a vertical plane, two crossed bars with metallic brushes, and a spark gap formed by two metal spheres. Van de Graaff generator Main article: Van de Graaff generator A Van de Graaff generator is an electrostatic generator which uses a moving belt to accumulate very high voltages on a hollow metal globe on the top of the stand. It was invented by American physicist Robert J. Van de Graaff in 1929. The potential difference achieved in modern Van de Graaff generators can reach 5 megavolts. The Van de Graaff generator can be thought of as a constant-current source connected in parallel with a capacitorand a very large electrical resistance, so it can produce a visible electrical discharge to a nearby grounding surface which can potentially cause a spark depending on the voltage.

Narrators in Faulkner’s Barn Burning and The Unvanquished Essay

Narrators in Faulkner’s Barn Burning and The Unvanquished â€Å"Barn Burning† and The Unvanquished present very different ways to tell a story. In â€Å"Barn Burning,† Faulkner uses a third person, limited omniscient point of view that allows him to enter the mind of the story’s protagonist, Colonel Sartoris Snopes. In this point of view, the narrator establishes that the story took place in the past by commenting that â€Å"Later, twenty years later, he was too tell himself, ‘If I had said they wanted only truth, justice, he would have it me again.’ But now he said nothing† (8). The narrator of â€Å"Barn Burning† develops Colonel Sartoris as a child by describing his relationship with his father; no matter how many times Ab Snopes burns a barn or strikes his son, Colonel Sartoris wants to believe in his father’s goodness and potential for change. In the first half of The Unvanquished, Bayard Sartoris’s character often reflects innocence and naivetà ©, but Faulkner develops the character in an entirely different way. Rather than using a third-person limited omniscient narrator to describe Bayar... Narrators in Faulkner’s Barn Burning and The Unvanquished Essay Narrators in Faulkner’s Barn Burning and The Unvanquished â€Å"Barn Burning† and The Unvanquished present very different ways to tell a story. In â€Å"Barn Burning,† Faulkner uses a third person, limited omniscient point of view that allows him to enter the mind of the story’s protagonist, Colonel Sartoris Snopes. In this point of view, the narrator establishes that the story took place in the past by commenting that â€Å"Later, twenty years later, he was too tell himself, ‘If I had said they wanted only truth, justice, he would have it me again.’ But now he said nothing† (8). The narrator of â€Å"Barn Burning† develops Colonel Sartoris as a child by describing his relationship with his father; no matter how many times Ab Snopes burns a barn or strikes his son, Colonel Sartoris wants to believe in his father’s goodness and potential for change. In the first half of The Unvanquished, Bayard Sartoris’s character often reflects innocence and naivetà ©, but Faulkner develops the character in an entirely different way. Rather than using a third-person limited omniscient narrator to describe Bayar...

Nowadays the effect of modern society have clearly shown on human society Essay

Nowadays the effect of modern society have clearly shown on human society after 1950’s; however, there still have people live in minority types of family role in the united states and others Asian, Middle East, and Africa are known that man as breadwinner and woman as homemaker. There are few categories that play primary factors including culture and religion, and they become a barrier for people want to live in modern society. Although the changing gender roles of modern society have been observed and been perceived through times, the acceptance of its transformation still causes negative effects to society and family. In modern society, the idea of changing gender roles seem to be difficult not only woman or man do not have the skills for other one’s tasks but it also brings potentially risk to our society. In 1950s, the gender roles have been defined that man as breadwinner and woman as homemaker. As the society’s evolved, a woman becomes more active, ambitious and independent and a man becomes more emotional and involved in house tasks. According to Aaron H. Devor in his article, â€Å"Becoming members of Society: Learning the Social Meaning of Gender,† â€Å"†¦society demands different gender performance from us and reward, tolerates, or punishes us differently for conformity to, or digression from social norm† (527). Thus, when the gender roles are defined in terms of social interaction, then social norms seem to play a key role with it. The social norms tell us how the male and female should behave, expecting people to have their own personal characteristic an d act in a way appropriate to their gender. Even when the changing gender roles affect society, it still needs to consider and follow particularistic obligation of each gender roles. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, woman make up 47 percents of the work place between the ages of 25 and 54 worked outside home in 1995. Therefore, woman spends less time with their children or sends them to babysitter. When the society evolves and the value of the society around us has evaluated as more generalized norms of society, it will affect to the next generation. According to Devor in his article, â€Å"Becoming members of Society: Learning the Social Meaning of Gender,† â€Å"†¦.children initially acquire the value of the society around them almost indiscriminately. To the degree that children absorb the generalized standard of society into their personal concept of that is the generalized other† (530). Therefore, the changes of each parent directly affect to their children and its transformation causes the original characteristic of children to disappear or unnoticeable. Most children consider their parent as role model to follow and learn. Thus, the society and family both play a primary affect to the next generation through changing gender roles. As the previous idea, the family will affect to their children’s gender role; however, the reason unnecessarily applies to all aspects. When the families loosen attention on their children, the lacks of familial concern causes more damaged or perverted and leads the children to the wrong path in future. Each of individual family members which play a central help to their children need to consider what they do or how they behave toward their children. According to â€Å"Becoming members of Society: Learning the Social Meaning of Gender,† the family cannot pressure their children to choose the gender, when the time is right, their children will choose the appropriate gender (Devor 534). I deprecate the way of Devor’s thought, there are statistical datas show that the gender roles of children or adults have been modified by their parent and they are more likely becoming their own gender role. It is only right when the parent helps their children to choose the right path. Because of development of modern society, it appears many people not become what they are such as gays and lesbian, and it is because the lack of concern from their family. In conclusion, modern society has tremendous effects toward the development of our society; however, it also brings the potential risk, and affect to each family generation, and the lack of concerning to children in family during their mature. If we can mix the old and modern family types together, it will give us a perfect family formation in reality. The family cannot live either old type or modern type because it rules out the family existence or cannot have rigid family bond.

Assess Functionalsu and New Right View of the Family Essay

Functionalists believe that the family have specific or traditional functions within the family. One function of the family would be reproduction or having children as this is imperative for the world as they will be the future workforce. For example family businesses will need to pass down the factories/shops to the next generation in the family for the continuing of the ancestors business. Other functions include economic maintenance this is where the family provides necessities for all the family members for example shelter, food and clothing. Another is that the family helps teach children how to socialise with others and also educate them with the correct norms. An important function of the family is that it gives a sense of identity and belonging for example the family allows people to be able to rely on because they are connected through family. Talcott Parsons is one of the key functionalists that strongly argued that the nuclear family fits the needs of the contemporary family and so believes that that extended family, which could involve divorce, will prevent the family from growing and being taken care of. He supported the traditional functions of the family and spoke about how the modern family is changing a lot of the former functions. Parsons identified two remaining functions within the family one being primary socialisation of young which is when the parents raise the children and educate them about the norms and values for example the rights and wrongs so they are able to pass them one. For example in abusive families negative norms are passed on. However how they act in other ways depend on their school life. The other main function is the stabilisations of adult personalities which is where children turn into adults and are forced to ‘grow up’ and get a job and buy a house etc. they are made to take things more seriously in the world so they are able to achieve a sense of belonging on their own and actually have a purpose. Overall Parson’s view of the family is centred around the middle and upper classes and focuses on the male’s purpose and ignores the female perspective. This suggests that parsons believes women are happy to be housewives and don’t aspire to be anything else but loyal to their husbands. A few positive functions of the family is that they are much more financially stable as the husband and father have a stable job and are able to earn enough money to support the whole family. The nuclear family also results in a much closer relationship between family members as they are with each other daily and so relationships are created. For example siblings are taught to share with each other and so form a bond of trust with each other. Children in the family are more likely to stay on a positive path if they are in a nuclear family as disruption could cause difficulties with school life and social life. Married parents are seen to be very good role models when they are part of a nuclear family. However a disadvantage of the nuclear family is that functionalist advertises it so it seems to be very isolated and private and therefore they are seen to have a poor social life because they keep to themselves and don’t concern themselves with wider groups of people. The family becomes attached to home leisure with TV the internet and games resulting in them becoming more home-centred. The family makes little contact with neighbours and is very self-contained. The family as a result of being private becomes reliant on support from the welfare state. Alternatively functionalists are said to idealise the family life too much. Therefore ignore the rising divorce rates. They refuse to acknowledge the negatives about the changing family life, and the growing family diversity. Another view would be those functionalists don’t take in account the abuse that can occur within any families. That is a reason as to why the modern family is changing, it’s due to the fact that the laws against domestic violence have become much stricter. This leads to the feminists who argued against this nuclear family as it portrayed women in a way that was very sexist. Ronald Fletcher a British sociologist who agreed with the functionalist’s perspective but argued that modern societies are changing and that there is an increase in modern functions in the family such as regulating sexual behaviour and the increase in parental involvement in their education. Other includes the being responsible in the rearing of children and caring for dependent people whether young or old. All these factors contribute to the changing family life and their morals. More and more people are starting to argue like Fletcher that the nuclear family is the dominant family structure but that its modifying over time for example mothers are now getting jobs as well as husbands so they both support the house hold and aren’t dependent on just one person for the whole family. Charles Murray a social scientist says ‘the traditional family life is under threat’. His main concern was with the welfare benefits that single women were being given. He thought that it was too easy for them to leave the nuclear family and live alone and just depend on benefits. Murray also argues that being or living with a single parent on benefits is giving the wrong role models to children as they are able to see that they can live alone and live off benefits so don’t strive to achieve any goals. There are fewer father figures to show discipline as the mother could lose control so the children go down a path of drug dealing vandalism and crime which gives a very positive look on the new right approach. Halsey and Dennis who agrees with what Murray argues saying that single parenthood and absent fathers is one of the key issues with the decrease in nuclear family lives. Due to the lack of jobs and rise in unemployment men are starting to struggle to maintain their title of bread winners and the industries are changing from heavy workloads so women are more likely to find a job in modern times. As a result men may be reject by the women as they can’t financially depend on them so would rather be given benefits than struggle to keep a roof over them and their children’s heads. Halsey debates that being in a one parent family with the factors of unemployment and poverty being high could inevitably lead to crime and vandalism by the younger members of the family. Against a nuclear family with a stable income and stable household would again lead to any crimes and vandalism by the offspring in the family. Abbott and Wallace’s critically judge the new right about how women are being exploited in the families and how a lot of frustration and unhappiness is able to be experienced by living in this environment. The new right also disagrees to acknowledge the violence that can be cause in a nuclear family life and the abuse a family can actually suffer from being forced to stay and live with them as it isn’t socially acceptable to be a one parent family. Some of the ideas that Abbott and Wallace criticised are that the new right are opposed to having an easy availability to a divorce; this again goes against women having the right to leave a violent family life and actually possibly saving theirs and their children’s lives by leaving. Again the new right disagrees with abortions as they say the foetuses have a right to life but Abbott and Wallace criticise this because bringing a baby into the world is a big thing and some people are unable to care for the baby correctly. The new right makes men have a very stressful life as they have a whole family dependent on them as a role model of a breadwinner and the same with women being role models for the girls and showing how much work goes into being involved in a family. Abbott and Wallace favour letting people take control of their own lives by living alone or being involved in a homosexual relationship or even women being the breadwinners while men are in charge of the household and children. Some of the traditional family values that the new right followers agree on bringing back involve that a woman’s place is in the home and shouldn’t be working as a bread winner as that’s the mans job as head of the household. This is associated with gender patriarchy as women are treated completely different to the way men are, and so it’s seen as unfair and sexist in the modern day. Gender patriarchy would be one of the main factors that feminists would argue about as they say women are oppressed by the nuclear family and its rules and values. Different feminist groups argue about different factors, liberal feminist argue about sex discrimination and want changes in the law to be made. However radical feminists argue against men patriarchy, where men are seen to have more power for example women are considered to be responsible for raising the children and choosing and cooking the food and keeping the home as welcoming as possible. Traditionally a man would never be seen do to the cooking or cleaning as it was seen as a wife’s job but in modern times it’s a much more equal task. There are however some positive aspects as to why many people agree with the new rights theory as Brigitte Berger, who defends the nuclear family by saying it’s a very positive feature of modern societies as it helps the youth of the world understand decency, common sense, politeness and respect for others. These values and morals will help make a better life for the person as common decency is seen as a norm and many people agree that in a single parent family the mother might find it s a struggle to teach the children all of that on her own due to the lack of help from the father figure.

Holiday Shopping Safety Tips

Holiday Shopping Safety Tips The holiday season is a time when people can become careless and vulnerable to theft and other holiday crimes. People are often in a rush buying gifts, decorating their homes, visiting friends or traveling. There is a big increase in the number of people that are out and about shopping at the malls and grocery stores, packing the parking lots, grabbing taxis, filling up the seats on rapid transit and waiting in lines at ATM machines. Late Nights Many stores extend hours late into the night. People head to the stores after work, then at closing time, you see them emerging with the dazed eyes of sleepwalkers. Amazingly, then the mall parking lots empty out in record time and within minutes become deserted. Without fail, there are always a handful of people wandering the lots alone, looking for where they parked their cars or digging through handfuls of shopping bags searching for their lost car keys. To normal, law-abiding people, all of this kind of holiday hoopla and pressure is just part of the festive mood of the season. And all the gaiety, unfortunately, also tends to cause people to let their innate sense of caution temporarily fall by the wayside. Why Thieves Love the Holiday Season All the hustle and bustle going on over the holidays gives thieves what they want, almost as much as an unlocked bank vault, and that is the opportunity to become invisible. By being as nondescript as possible, they can move through big crowds of rushed and distracted people without anyone noticing them. They can pickpocket and shoplift and when their victims realize that they have been robbed, they will have no idea who did it.   In most communities, the police work additional hours during November and December. They are kept busy the increase in traffic accidents, home fires, bar fights, and family disputes. Also, during the month of December, more people die of natural causes than any other time of the year. Police often have to change their regular routines and leave the nightly patrol through neighborhoods to answer emergency calls. Thieves Feed on Opportunities Thieves know that the police are overloaded during the holiday season and they take full advantage it. They thrive on the fact that the police and stores loss prevention staff have their hands full with amateur thieves who are hauled to jail for trying to steal from the electronics departments or waiting for the parents of pre-teens who pocketed the latest video game. In the meantime, the professional thieves are busy breaking into cars in the parking lots to steal gifts, cell phones, and electronics, or stalking and robbing or scamming the people who are alone. Some thieves prefer burglarizing homes. They spend their time walking neighborhoods, looking for houses that appear that the homeowners are away. Darkened homes nestled between neighbors with front yards bursting with holiday lights will draw their attention. Having the kids off from school is another concern because of the number of unsupervised teens hanging around without anything to do. Homes within neighborhoods are broken in more times by young male teens that live in or near the neighborhood. They often choose a home and then hang out to see when the homeowners leave each day. They might be so brazen and ring the doorbell, then pretend to try to sell something if anyone answers. How to Keep From Becoming a Holiday Crime Victim The following tips can help you be more careful, prepared and aware during the holiday season. Try to shop during the day, but if you do shop at night, do not do it alone.Dress casually and comfortably.Avoid wearing expensive jewelry.Do not carry a purse or wallet, if possible. Consider bringing a security travel pouch instead.Always carry your drivers license or identification along with necessary cash, checks and/or a credit card you expect to use.Recognize when you are rushed, distracted and stressed out, and stay alert to what is going on around you.Avoid carrying large amounts of cash.Pay for purchases with a check or credit card when possible.Keep cash in your front pocket.If you discover that a credit card is missing, notify the credit card company as soon as possible. Dont assume that you misplaced it and will find it later.Keep a record of all of your credit card numbers in a safe place at home.Be extra careful if you do carry a wallet or purse. They are the prime targets of criminals in crowded shopping areas, terminals, bus stops, on buses and other rapid transit.Av oid overloading yourself with packages. It is important to have clear visibility and freedom of motion if you are approached. Beware of strangers approaching you for any reason. At this time of year, con-artists may try various methods of distracting you, including working in teams, with the intention of taking your money or belongings.

How to Improve ACT Science Scores 7 Tips From a Perfect Scorer

How to Improve ACT Science Scores 7 Tips From a Perfect Scorer SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Are you struggling with ACT Sciencescores 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 your ACT Sciencescore 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 Science. If you're already above this range, my perfect 36 ACT Sciencescore 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 Science tips. Stick with me - this is like constructing a building. First you need to lay a good foundation before putting up the walls and windows. Similarly, we need to first understand why you're doing what you're doing and what goal you're aiming for, 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 Sciencescore to a 26 range will dramatically boost your chances of getting into better colleges. The reason? A 26 puts you at the 83 percentile, well above the national average of all ACT test takers. This is roughly equal to a 1200 out of 1600 on the SAT. Let's take a popular school, University of Massachusetts Amherst,as an example. Its average ACT score is a 27. Its 25th percentile score is a 24, and 75th percentile is a 29. Furthermore, its acceptance rate is 63%. In other words, a bit more than half of all applicants are admitted. This is a decently competitive school - almost half the people are rejected, and the lower your score, the greater the chance you'll be rejected. In our analysis, if you apply with an ACT score of 21, your chance of admission drops to 25.4%. This means you have a 3 in 4 chance of being rejected! But if you raise your score to a 26, your chance of admission shoots up to 57.7% - over double the chances of admission, for just 5 points of improvement. And because your ACT Science score factors into your ACT composite score, raising your Science score will really help raise the average of your total score. In fact, if you raise your ACT Science score by 4 points, your Composite score will increase by a whole point. 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 scoreto see what colleges you're competitive for. Know That You Can Do It This isn't just some fuzzy, feel-good message you find in a fortune cookie. I mean, literally, you and every other reasonably capable student can score a 26 on ACT Science. The reason most people don't is they don't try hard enough or they don't study the right way. Even if you don't consider yourself a science geek, or you got a B in Biology, you're capable of this. Because I know that more than anything else, your ACT score is a reflection ofhow hard you work and how strategically you study. Here's why: the ACT is a weird test. When you take it, don't you get the sense that many questions are nothing like what you've seen in school? It's purposely designed this way.The ACT is a national test, which means it needs to be a level playing field for ALL students around the country. It can't discriminate against students who never took AP Physics (or whose schools don't even offer AP classes). Therefore, the ACT can't test difficult concepts, because this would be unfair for students who never took AP Physics.The ACT Science sectioncan't ask you to solve cold fusionor build a rocket to get to Mars. So it HAS to test scientific concepts that every high school student will cover: how to interpret data graphs, what the scientific method is, how scientific theories disagree from each other. This leads to the big secret of ACT Science. The Big Secret: You Don't Have to Know Much Actual Science Many students who study ACT Science are intimidated by the mistaken impression that they need to know a lot of science to get by. The reality is the opposite - it's much more about reading comprehension, understanding graphs, and logic. Now, it SEEMS like you need to know a lot of science, because there will be weird scenarios you've never seen before, from dinosaur claw sizes to how clouds affect soil temperature. These may seem intimidating because you've never learned this in school. Here's an example graph: You've probably never seen a graph like this before in school. The thing is,every other high school student in America hasn't seen this graph before either! The ACT expects you to solve questions for this graph through the skills you've learned in high school - looking at two axes, understanding how a plot works, and getting data values from the graph. This is good news for you: if you can practice the basic skills tested on ACT Science, and you know what types of questions will be asked, you'll do a great job on the section. I guarantee it. Just to prove this to you, further down we're going to understand this graph and go through a few sample questions. The key to improving your ACT Science score is to: Learn the types of questions that the ACT tests, like the one above Put together the concepts you already know to solve the questions 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 a 26 in ACT Science. Disappointed with your ACT scores? Want to improve your ACT score by 4+ points? Download our free guide to the top 5 strategies you need in your prep to improve your ACT score dramatically. What It Takes to Get a 26in ACT Science 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 Science section has 40 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 Science 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 40 27 32 18 16 9 5-6 35 39 26 30-31 17 14-15 8 - 34 38 25 28-29 16 13 7 4 33 37 24 26-27 15 12 6 3 32 - 23 24-25 14 5 2 31 36 22 22-23 13 10 4 - 30 35 21 21 12 9 3 1 29 34 20 19-20 8 2 - 28 33 19 17-18 10 7 1 0 So if you're aiming for a 26, on this test you need to get just 30 questions correct. This is just a 75% on the test! Also, keep in mind that you'll be able to GUESS on a lot of questions. Because there are only 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 27 questions for sure. You guess on the remaining 13, and get 4 of them right by chance. This gives you a raw score of 31, or a scaled score of 26! This has serious implications for your testing strategy. In essence, you only need to answer 2/3 of all questions right. In school, this would be a D, but on the ACT, this can get you to your ACT score target! 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 22, you need to answer 8-10 more questions right to get to a 26. Once again, if your goal is a score below 26, like a 24, the same analysis applies. Just look up what your Raw Score demands above. OK - so we've covered why scoring a higher ACT Sciencescore is important, why you specifically are capable of improving your score, and the raw score you need to get to your target. Hopefully, getting to a 26 on ACT Science doesn't seem so tough at this point! Now we'll actually get into actionable ACT Science tipsthat you should use in your own studying to maximize your score improvement. ACT Science Tips to Get a 26 ACT Science Tip #1: Don't Waste TimeUnderstanding Useless Details Tell me if this sounds familiar: you're reading an ACT Science passage, and it's so overwhelming trying to understand every detail of whatever obscure thing they're telling you about. This is by far the biggest time waster for most students - and because you only have 35 minutes to get through 7 passages and 40 questions, time is a huge factor in ACT Science. Here's the truth: ACT Science passages are full of scientific details that don’t actually matter to answering the questions. This is especially true of all those complicated graphs you see. You literally don't have to understand many of the details to get every question correct. The ACT does this on purpose to confuse you and make the test harder, and to show you what real scientific research kind of looks like. But you aren’t reading a science journal – you’re answering ACT Science questions. A common mistake people make is to try too hard to understand the passage in its entirety. They want to understand every detail in every chart. Trying to understand the entire passage is a HUGE waste of time because most of the passage isn’t going to have a question asked about it. This is true in ACT Reading, and it’s even more true in ACT Science. So what should you do instead? Skim the passage and understand the passage at a very high level. Answer these two questions only: What’s the main point here? What’s the figure showing? That’s it. When I read ACT Science passages, I don’t understand the deep details of what’s happening. I get the gist and I move on to the questions. Let’s try an example from a real ACT Science passage. I’m going to show you how useless most of the passage is and how little you need to understand to answer the questions. My skimming: There is a lake. The lake sediment tells us about the climate in the past. They mention average temperature for figure 3, so that’s probably what the main point is. There’s a weird oxygen symbol 18O, but all I need to know is that SMALLER values mean COLDER. This is a map showing 3 sites. We’ll probably be looking at samples from these 3 sites. Otherwise, I don't care right now where the sites are, how big the lake is, or whether I can see my house on this map. I'm ignoring all the fine details. This shows us a cutaway section of the lake, with the 3 sites from Figure 1. The y-axis is elevation. The key shows that each colored section is a different layer. Lake clay, glacial till, bedrock. The layers change as you move across the graph. How exactly they change I’m not going to care about until I get asked about it. I have no idea what the hell â€Å"glacial till† is but I’m not going to worry about that, since I’ll bet the ACT isn’t going to ask me to define it. Here's abunch of graphs designed to be confusing. Well, they all look about the same. We’ll just look at Site 1. The y-axis shows depth, so the further down, the deeper into the earth we go. The x-axis shows the 18O thing. From left to right, this value gets larger. What Site 1 shows is as you go UP in depth, you get a LARGER 18O value. That's all I'm going to care about for now. Now look at the other 2 Sites. Site 2 looks about the same, except for a glacial till line higher up. Site 3 looks the same as Site 1 - curve goes up and to the right. And now there’s this formula. I’m not even going to bother with this crap until they ask me a question about it. Notice from my notes that I really understand the passage only at a 30,000 foot level. I’m not getting bogged down in details, and I’m not understanding every detail of every graph. Doing that would be a waste of time. Just to convince you this high level of understanding works, we’re actually going to answer all 5 questions for thispassage. Look at the Key on the right. Lake clay is gray. Where is it thinnest? Winnipeg, F. You literally didn't even have to read the passage to solve this! You could have solved it just by looking at the picture. We want to find the SMALLEST 18O value, which means it’s more on the LEFTside of the graph. From the dots we see that’s going to be at the BOTTOM LEFTof the figure. Choice C. Once again, you barely had to read the passage to solve this! It's just figuring out where the dots are. OK, so figure 2. We start from Grand Forks on the right, then move to Site 3. Lake clay, the gray piece, gets THICKER. They say this in the question, and we see it in the figure. The question asked about glacial till, the striped layer under it. It gets THINNER as you go from Grand Forks to Site 3. So thickness DECREASES, choice J. Yet once again, you barely had to know the passage to solve this! OK, we want the elevation of the TOPof GLACIAL TILL at each of 3 sites. Glacial till is the STRIPED layer. At Site 1, the top is 200. At Site 2, the top is 205ish. At site 3, it’s 180 ish. Answer choice C is the only one that fits these values. YET AGAIN you barely had to know the passage! To rephrase: it rains. Water gets to 3m deep. What is the 18O 3m deep? Look at figure 3 at a depth of 3m. In each figure, it’s around -15. Answer J. Finally, surprise surprise, you didn't have to know the passage at all to answer this question. EASY PEASY. Notice all the crap we didn’t have to care about: In the passage, we didn’t have to care about how old the lake was or how it formed. Wedidn’t have to care about what 18O means about temperature. We didn’t use Figure 1 at all. Stupid map. In figure 2, we didn’t care at all about bedrock. Also, we only needed to care about how the layers changed when we were asked about it. In figure 3, we didn’t have to care at all about how Site 2 had a glacial till layer. We sure as hell didn’t have to know what the formula meant. I hope you get the point. So much of each passage is USELESSto getting the questions right. The stupid ACT knows this, and they WANT you to get bogged down. â€Å"Oh gee, I wonder what bedrock is? How might they ask questions about this?† â€Å"Boy this formula looks real tough. What is 18O, and what is 16O? What’s groundwater and what’s standard water? Why multiply by 1,000?† You can waste so many minutes trying to make sense of the entire passage. If you have time management problems, skimming the passage can be a huge time savings for you! Again, when you read the passage focus on only two questions: What is the MAIN POINT of the passage? What is the MAIN POINT of each figure? I’ve started yelling more just because of how angry this test makes me. So let me take a deep breath. Moving on†¦ Bonus:Want more helpful tips like this? Check out our new ACT Science prep book. If you liked this lesson, you'll love our book. It includes everything you need to know to ace ACT Science, including deep analysis of the logic behind ACT Science questions, a full breakdown of the different passage and question types, and tons of expert test-taking and study tips. Download our full-length prep book now: ACT ScienceTip #2: Understand What ACT Science Actually Tests ACT Science stands out as the most structured and predictable section on the ACT. What I mean by that is ACT Science has 3 passage types, and each passage type has specific question types associated with it. This is unlike ACT English, where all 5 passages have all sorts of random question types associated with it. To do well on the ACT, you HAVE to predict the questions and passages that you're going to see on test day. Here are the passage types and question types associated with them: 3 Data Representation Passages - describes a study, heavy on graphs and charts Read-the-Graph Questions Interpreting Trends Calculating Values 3 Research Summaries Passages - describes an experiment with multiple parts Experimental Design Hypothetical Experimental Changes Interpreting Experiments 1 Conflicting Viewpoints Passage - 2 or more scientists disagree Understanding Viewpoints Comparing Viewpoints Remember what I said about ACT Science testing basic skills you've learned before in school? This is it - reading graphs, the scientific method, and comparing viewpoints. Here's a helpful writeup of the 3 types of ACT Science passages and an overview of question types. Your job is to understand these skills, figure out what you're weak in, and drill those skills until you've mastered them. Does this sound intimidating? Our PrepScholar ACT program does the hard work for you by dividing up the entire test into specific skills you need to master. For every skill in ACT Science and every other section, you'll get a focused lesson and a quiz customized to your skill level. This is how I studied for the ACT and got a perfect score, so that's how I designed our prep program to work. If you could use help breaking down the ACT like this, definitely check out our PrepScholar ACT program. ACT ScienceTip #3: Learn How to Read Graphs By far the most important single skill on ACT Science is knowing how to read graphs and charts. Nearly half of all questions on the test will relate to reading a graph and making sense of it. Often, the graph will be in a totally unfamiliar subject you've never learned about. The units will be weird, and the shape of the graph might be weird. Don't worry about this - the graph isweird for every other student in the country too. The ACT does this on purpose so that students with advanced science knowledge don't have a huge advantage on the test. For example, if the ACT showed problems from AP Physics, people would riot - it's unfairly discriminating against students whose schools don't have AP Physics. But if the ACT shows a graph about sabertooth tiger tooth sizes, this is OK - almost no one will have seen this graph before, so everyone's on more level footing. If you've been overwhelmed by graphs before, this is important to sink in - ACT Science is designed so that YOU are fully capable of understanding everything you need to answer the questions right - if you learn the right skills. So how do you actually read a graph? The three most important steps you need to understand every single graph are: Skim the intro text. Often the passage will tell you literally "Figure 2 is about X" and this is a big head start. (Like I said in Tip #1, though, don't get bogged down in details.) Read the axes. What does the x-axis represent, and what changes as you move from left to right? What does the y-axis represent, and what changes as you move from bottom to top? This tells you what is actually being shown. Understand the general shape of the graph. Where is it going up or down? If there are multiple lines shown, how do they differ? I mean GENERAL - don't memorize every detail, just get a sense of what's going on. Let's apply this with the following real ACT Science passage. OK - so it's about photosynthesis, which you may remember from AP Biology. It's how plants use sunlight to generate glucose (sugar).We also hear about wavelength, which is a property of light. We can see that Violet light has a shorter wavelength than Red light. Here's Figure 2: Let's step through the 3 steps: Skim the intro text.Here it tells us figure 2 "shows the average rate of photosynthesis at various wavelengths, as a percent of the average rate of photosynthesis at 670 nm." So we get a hunch for what the graph is showing - how fast photosynthesis happens, at different wavelengths. Read the axes.The x-axis shows wavelength, and as you move from left to right, the wavelength gets larger. The y-axis shows rate of photosynthesis, and as you move from bottom to top, the rate gets bigger (which means photosynthesis happensfaster). Understand the general shape of the graph.Generally, I see two peaks and a big valley in between. Remember, higher on the y-axis means faster photosynthesis. This means that photosynthesis happens really fast at two wavelengths, and really low in the middle (around 540 nm). Again, few people have ever seen this graph before - or if they have, they've probably forgotten it. Now you understand it just as well as anyone else. With this in mind, we can try answering a question! Let's rephrase the question. "At what wavelength is photosynthesis faster than it is at 670 nm?" Let's rephrase it even more simply. "At what wavelength is the graph higher than where it is at 670 nm?" Because we understood what the y-axis was showing, we know that HIGHER UP means FASTER PHOTOSYNTHESIS. So first, let's find out how fast photosynthesis is at 670 nm. It's right around 100. (Actually, it tells you this in the intro text: "Figure 2 shows the average rate of photosynthesis at various wavelengths as a percent of the average rate of photosynthesis at 670 nm." Naturally, the value at 670 nm should be 100%. You don't have to know this, and I didn't dwell on it since it's not critical to know.) OK, now we look at where the rate of photosynthesis is higher than 100 at the 4 points: 400, 430, 630, and 700 nm. I show these with orange dots here: It's pretty clear that the only dot higher than 100 is at 430 nm. So B is the answer. What we just went over is exactly how you can approach every single graph on the ACT Science section. Some graphs will be more complicated than this, but the principles are really all the same. You CAN understand every graph in ACT Science. If you keep practicing these skills over and over again, you WILL become much better at getting more questions right. Trust me. Want to learn more about reading graphs on ACT Science? Read our complete guide to How to Read Graphs, Tables, and Data on ACT Science. ACT Science Tip #4: Understand Your Weaknesses, and Keep Drilling Them You only have a limited amount of time to study for the ACT. You need to get the biggest score improvement possible for every hour you study. To get the biggest score improvement, you need to understand where your greatest weaknesses are. Then you need to keep drilling those weaknesses with practice until you solve your weakness. This makes sense, doesn't it? Most students actually actively avoid improving their weaknesses.As a result, they waste a ton of time studying without any actual improvement. Why is focusing on your weaknesses so hard to do? A few reasons: Diagnosing your weaknesses requires a lot of analysis and discipline.To do this right, you need to categorize every practice question you do by skill, score how many questions you get right on each skill, and figure out which skills are best to work on. This is pretty laborious and tough to do right. It's a lot more enjoyable to work on things you already do well.Would you rather eat ice cream or cabbage? In ACT prep, ice cream is working on skills you're already good at - it feels great to knock questions out of the park and get high quiz scores. Unfortunately, this is a false sense of confidence - you're ignoring all the weaknesses that are actually bringing down your score. You should be eating your cabbage by working on weaknesses, which takes a lot more mental energy and is unpleasant since you keep making mistakes. But it's the only way to get better. Even after you find your weaknesses, it's not clear how you should improve on them.Let's say you find out you have problems with interpreting experiments. How do you get better? Do you do a bunch of practice questions? Which questions do you use? How do you teach yourself the right skills? You have to overcome these problems to really drill down on your weaknesses.This is really the only way to get better. But it's the foundation to how I designed our ACT prep program at PrepScholar. Here's a step by step guide on how to find your weaknesses: Categorize every practice question you take by skill, especially for practice tests. You can find every skill listed in our Ultimate ACT Science Study Guide.Try to categorize as accurately as possible. Keep track of how many questions you got right and wrong in each skill. You can use a notebook or a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. Identify the skillsyou're missing the most number of questions in. Don't just focus on the % correct - what really matters is how many more points you can get by mastering that skill. For example, there might be a really uncommon skill that shows up just once on every test. Even if you get 0% of those questions right, it's not lowering your score much. It's much better to work on the skill that appears 10 times per test that you're getting 50% of questions right on. Find the best resources to train your weakness. You need a way to 1) learn the underlying skills, 2) find practice questions to keep drilling that skill. Unfortunately, as I'll discuss below, there aren't that many great books for ACT Science available. Sound overwhelming? It is a lot of hard work, but it's the most effective way to improve. Most students don't take the time to do this, which is why they don't improve their score. However, doing this well really does take a lot of energy and discipline.In PrepScholar ACT, we do all of the above steps automatically for you so you can focus on actually learning.You'll avoid the hard organizational work of finding your weaknesses and gathering practice problems, and focus on actually learning the skills to improve your score. Bonus: If all of this is making sense to you, you'd love our ACT prep program, PrepScholar. It does all of the hard work in finding your weaknesses and giving you the exact lesson you need to get better. 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. PrepScholar then creates a study program specifically customized for you. 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. We also force you to focus on understanding your mistakes and learning from them. If you make the same mistake over and over again, we'll call you out on it. 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: ACT Science Tip #5: Use Only High-Quality Practice Materials ACT Science is an odd section. You take weird scientific concepts and papers, distill them into a high school-friendly format, and ask very specific types of questions to test science reasoning skills. This means that test prep writers have a lot of ways to go wrong. Unlike other ACT sections like Reading or Math, ACT Science has woefully few ACT books to prep from. In fact, I can't recommend ANYpublished ACT books - all the ones I've seen so far are pretty terrible. They all suffer from one or more of these problems: The passage is inappropriate. It's either too easy, too difficult, too short, or uses unnecessary jargon. Official ACT Science passages have a very specificfeel to them. The questions asked aren't stylistically correct. They might test interpretation of graphs in the wrong way, or it doesn't have the right bait answers that ACT Science has to trick you. They don't teach you the fundamental skills underlying the questions. If it's just a book of practice questions, it's not enough. This is often a problem because ACT prep companies hire people who are too unskilled or too advanced to write ACT Science material. If you hire PhD's in science who are super smart but don't know the ACT well, you'll produce ACT Science content that will be way too difficult. So where can you get great practice materials? The very best source of practice questions is official ACT practice tests. These are official tests previously administered to real students. There are some problems with just using these tests though. They aren't organized by skill, which means it's hard to find problems to drill a specific skill like Interpreting Experiments or Comparing Viewpoints. Also, there aren't that many official tests available (up to 10 or so), and you want to save some of these tests to gauge your ACT score. Finally, practice tests don't actually have any instructional material - they're just a bunch of practice questions. If you need lessons to teach you how to actually read graphs and understand ACT science, you won't find that here. If you want to supplement with more ACT Science questions, you might consider our program PrepScholar. To make sure we produce the highest quality questions possible, we broke down the test into its individual skills and categorized every wrong answer type and question type possible. You can see some of this in our Ultimate ACT Science Prep Guide. I also hire only the best ACT content writers - these people usually have years of deep tutoring experience, went to Ivy League schools, and know the test inside and out. Even if you don't use PrepScholar, make sure you find a source of great source of ACT Science materials somewhere. ACT Science Tip #6: Track Your Time Per Passage and Question Tell me if this sounds familiar - in 35 minutes, you don't even make it through the entire section. You just try your best and answer as many questions as you can, then guess on the remaining questions at the end. ACT Science has tough time pressure.You only have 35 minutes to get through 7 passages and 40 questions. Even I, a perfect ACT scorer, find ACT Science to have pretty tough time pressure. Furthermore, unlike ACT Math, the questions and passages aren't arranged in difficulty. Therefore, you can't predict ahead of time which questions are going to be harder, and just skip the hardest questions. This means you need to hustle to get through all the passages and questions. But there's good news. Remember what we said above? To get a 26 on ACT Science, you can miss 10 questions. This means you don't have to fret about getting every question correct. In fact, there are some questions that are so hard that you will never get them right, no matter how much time you spend. Therefore, I have tworecommendations: Spend no more than 1.5 minutes reading each passage. This takes 10.5 minutes away from 35 minutes. From my tip above, you already know that you don't need to actually read the entire passage to answer the questions. Spend no more than 30 seconds trying to answer each question. This takes away another 20 minutes. If you get stuck on a question and have no idea how to solve it, MOVE ON. You do NOT want to spend 90 seconds on one question - that's time better spent getting more questions right. When done right, this gives you a few spare minutes to go back to some tough questions and try to get them right. See a question that you have constant trouble with? Feel free to skip it and come back to it later. As you practice, it might help to have a timer by your side. 90 seconds for reading a passage passes a LOT more quickly than you would expect. ACT Science Tip #7: Don't Worry About Memorizing Science Here's my final tip. A lot of students try to study for ACT Science by reviewing their old class notes from biology, chemistry, and physics. The problem is, ACT Science isn't really a test on science. It's a scientific reasoning test, based mostly on scientific data you've never seen before. Aside from a few questions about basic scientific concepts (like natural selection and electrical charges), nearly everything else can be answered without a deep foundation in the subject matter. For example, look at the photosynthesis example from Tip #3 - you technically don't even need to know what photosynthesis is, and you could answer those questions. The few scientific concepts you likely already remember - but if not, here's all the actual science you need to know for ACT Science. So put aside your textbooks and notes from high school - they're not the best way to study for ACT Science. The best way, as we've discussed throughout this tips guide, is to focus on the test: Understand what's tested on ACT Science Know how to approach ACT Science passages - don't get stuck in the details Understand your skill weaknesses, and drill them Practice time management so you can get through all the questions Summary Those are the main strategies I have for you to improve your ACT Science score. If you're scoring a 17, you can improve it to a 22. 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 any sciencecontent. I didn't point to any facts or formulas 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.If you want to review any of the strategies, here's a list of all of them: Tip #1: Don't Waste TimeUnderstanding Useless Details Tip #2: Understand What ACT Science Actually Tests Tip #3: Learn How to Read Graphs Tip #4: Understand Your Weaknesses, and Keep Drilling Them Tip #5: Use Only High-Quality Practice Materials Tip #6: Track Your Time Per Passage and Question Tip #7: Don't Worry About Memorizing Science What's Next? We have a lot more useful guides to raise your ACT score. Read my corresponding guides for other ACT Math sections: Get a 26 in ACT English, ACT Reading, and ACT Math. 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? Check out our best-in-class online ACT prep classes. We guarantee your money back if you don't improve your ACT score by 4 points or more. Our classes are entirely online, and they're taught by ACT experts. If you liked this article, you'll love our classes. Along with expert-led classes, you'll get personalized homework with thousands of practice problems organized by individual skills so you learn most effectively. We'll also give you a step-by-step, custom program to follow so you'll never be confused about what to study next. Try it risk-free today:

A Broadening Understanding of Islam Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

A Broadening Understanding of Islam - Essay Example In the bestselling The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, there is a gut-wrenching scene about a woman being stoned to death because she had not conducted herself according to Islamic law. Another bestseller entitled Reading Lolita in Tehran chronicles a women’s book club that must meet clandestinely to read Western books that have been outlawed by the Islamic fundamentalists in power at the time. Texts such as these lead us to believe that Islam is an antiquated and oppressive religion that is forced upon people by their governments. If people do willingly participate in Islamic rituals, media sources often jump to the conclusion that they have been brainwashed to do so. Yet Tyson’s article tells an entirely different story about Muslims in Turkmenistan who risked persecution at the hands of the Soviet government to worship at sacred shrines. Thus the article very much helps to balance out the often one-sided depiction of theocratic states that force fundamentalist Islam onto its powerless subjects. Not only did the article expand my perspective as to the different contexts in which Muslims have practiced their faith, David Tyson also broadened my idea of how Muslims worship. While mosques, prayer rugs and religious observances such as Ramadan are very much part of the image depicted by the media, I was not aware that pilgrimages had so much religious significance. Tyson details the many holy sites that are significant to Turkmens and shows how they played such an important role in preserving Islam in the face of the Soviet Union that sought to eradicate it from their empire.