Thursday, November 7, 2019

Free Essays on How To Click It Or Ticket

Click it or ticket â€Å"Click it or ticket†, that is what my grandson has to say every time someone gets ready to leave in an automobile. I can’t believe what one child has to say would make such a difference in my life. I was one who hated when the law passed, making not wearing seat belts illegal. I truly felt that seat belts could cause death or major injury. This was real to me, because when growing up, I was in a car accident with my sister. She was driving me and my friend to pick up a birthday cake. A Car came out of now where, ran a stop sign and completely removed the front end of the car. She was not wearing a seat belt and was able to jump into the back seat where we were. That saved her, otherwise she would have probably loss her legs or been paralyzed. Another time, about 15 years ago, she was involved in another accident. Again, not wearing a seat belt, she was broad sided on both sides of her car (a chevette). On one side by a 18 wheel vehicle and the other, a pick up truck. She was just like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, smashed together. Luckily she was not in a seat belt and was able to scoot over to the center of the vehicle. The accident was so bad; they had to get her out of the car with the Jaws of Life. She only had a few bruises and sore bones. The thing that changed my mind about seat belts happened about 4 months ago. I would never put on a seatbelt, but when listening to my grandson repeat over and over the slogan he had heard on television â€Å"click it or ticket†, I appeased him, and for this was the right thing to do. As I left home one morning, he ran up to me saying â€Å"click it or ticket† grandma, I Love You! I put on my seat belt and drove off. Not even 2 blocks away, a speeding car came through the intersection, not stopping for the sign. Guess what? BANG! There I was being hit on the tail end of my car. My car went spinning around in circles, hitting a fire hydrant, and ending ... Free Essays on How To Click It Or Ticket Free Essays on How To Click It Or Ticket Click it or ticket â€Å"Click it or ticket†, that is what my grandson has to say every time someone gets ready to leave in an automobile. I can’t believe what one child has to say would make such a difference in my life. I was one who hated when the law passed, making not wearing seat belts illegal. I truly felt that seat belts could cause death or major injury. This was real to me, because when growing up, I was in a car accident with my sister. She was driving me and my friend to pick up a birthday cake. A Car came out of now where, ran a stop sign and completely removed the front end of the car. She was not wearing a seat belt and was able to jump into the back seat where we were. That saved her, otherwise she would have probably loss her legs or been paralyzed. Another time, about 15 years ago, she was involved in another accident. Again, not wearing a seat belt, she was broad sided on both sides of her car (a chevette). On one side by a 18 wheel vehicle and the other, a pick up truck. She was just like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, smashed together. Luckily she was not in a seat belt and was able to scoot over to the center of the vehicle. The accident was so bad; they had to get her out of the car with the Jaws of Life. She only had a few bruises and sore bones. The thing that changed my mind about seat belts happened about 4 months ago. I would never put on a seatbelt, but when listening to my grandson repeat over and over the slogan he had heard on television â€Å"click it or ticket†, I appeased him, and for this was the right thing to do. As I left home one morning, he ran up to me saying â€Å"click it or ticket† grandma, I Love You! I put on my seat belt and drove off. Not even 2 blocks away, a speeding car came through the intersection, not stopping for the sign. Guess what? BANG! There I was being hit on the tail end of my car. My car went spinning around in circles, hitting a fire hydrant, and ending ...

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

How to Improve Your ACT Reading Score 8 Expert Tips

How to Improve Your ACT Reading Score 8 Expert Tips SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Are you struggling with ACT Readingscores between 14 and 24? You're not alone- hundreds of thousands of students are scoring in this range. But many don't know the best ways to break out of this score range and score 26 or higher. Here, we'll discuss how to improve your ACT Reading score effectively, and why it's so important to do so. Unlike other fluffy articles out there, I'm focusing on actionable strategies.Put these eight strategies to work, and I'm confident you'll be able to improve your ACT score. Brief note: This article specifically targets lower-scoring students- i.e., those scoring below 26 on ACT Reading. If you're already above this range, my perfect 36 ACTReading score article is more appropriate for you as it contains more advanced strategies. In this article, I'm going to discuss why scoring high is a good idea, go over what it takes to score a 26, and then jump into our top ACTReading tips andstrategies. Stick with me- this is like building a house. You need to lay a solid foundation before you can put up the walls and pretty windows. Similarly, we need to make sure we understand why you're doing what you're doing before we can dive into tips and strategies. In this guide, I talk mainly about getting to a 26. But if your goal is a 24 or lower, these concepts still equally apply to how you should study. This is a pretty long article, so here's what we'll be covering (in case you want to skip around or review a section): Getting a 26 on the ACT: Understand the Stakes Know That You Can Get a 26 ACT Score or Higher What It Takes to Get a 26 in ACT Reading Strategy 1: Save Time on Reading Passages by Switching Your Reading Strategy Strategy 2:Learn to Eliminate the 3 Wrong Answers Strategy 3:Find Your Reading Skill Weaknesses and Drill Them Strategy 4: Only Use High-Quality ACT Reading Sources Strategy 5:Don't Focus On Vocab Strategy 6:Skip the Most Difficult, Time-Consuming Questions Strategy 7:Understand All Your Reading Mistakes Strategy 8: Guess on EveryQuestion You Don't Know Getting a 26 on the ACT: Understand the Stakes At this score range of 14-24, improving your ACT Reading scoreto a 26 or higher will dramatically boost your chances of getting into better colleges. Let's take a popular school as an example: the University of California, Riverside. The average ACT score of admitted applicants to UC Riverside is 23(out of 36). Its 25th percentile score is 22, and its 75th percentile score is 28. Furthermore, its acceptance rate is 56%. In other words, a little more than half of all applicants are admitted.But the lower your ACT score is, the worse your chances are of getting in. In our analysis, if you score around 22, your chance of admission drops to just 43%. But if you raise your score to 26, your chance of admission goes up to 75%- that's a really good chance of admission!And the higher your score gets, the more certain you are to get in. In short, improving your ACT Reading score will bump up your average composite score.And improving your ACT composite score, even by just 5 points, can make a huge difference in your chances of getting into your target colleges. For the Reading section, this is especially true if you want to apply to humanities majors and programs, such as English or communications. They expect you to have a strong Reading score. If you have a low one, they'll doubt your ability to do college-level humanities work. Even if you're a math superstar and are applying to a science major, schools still need to know that you can process difficult texts at a college level. A low Reading score will cast huge doubt on you. 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 ACTscore? Check out ourexpert college admissions guide for a 26 ACT score. Know That You Can Get a 26 ACT Score or Higher This isn't just supposed to be a vague happy-go-lucky message you see in a fortune cookie. I mean, literally, you and every other student can do this. In my job here at PrepScholar, I've worked with thousands of students scoring in the lower ranges of around 14-20. Time after time, I see students who beat themselves up over their low scores and think improving them is impossible. They often say the following: "I know I'm not smart." "I just can't read passages quickly, and I don't know how to improve my ACT Reading score." "I was never good at English, and my English teachers have never told me I did a good job." This breaks my heart. Because I know that, more than anything else, your ACTscore is a reflection ofhow hard you work and how smartly you study. Not your IQ and not your school grades. Not how Mr. Crandall in 10th grade gave you a C on your essay. The key point here is thatACT Reading is designed to trick you- and you need to learn how. Here's why: the ACT is a weird test. When you take it, don't you feel as though the questions are different from those you've seen in school? I bet you've had this problem: withACT Reading passages, you often miss questions because of an "unlucky guess." You try to eliminate a few answer choices, but the remaining choices all seem like they are equally likely to be correct. So you throw up your hands and randomly guess. The ACT is purposely designed this way to confuse you.Literally millions of other students have the exact same problem you do. And the ACT lovesthis. Normally, in your school's English class, your teacher tells you that all interpretations of a text are valid. You can write an essay about anything you want, and English teachers aren't usually allowed to tell you that your opinion is wrong. They can get in trouble for telling you what to think, and they feel bad about restricting your creativity. But the ACT has an entirely different problem. It's a national test, meaning it needs a level playing field for all students around the country. It's even used in many states as a statewide standardized test. As a result, the test needs to be rock solid. And every question must have a single, unambiguously, 100% correct answer. There's only ever one correct answer. Find a way to eliminate three incorrect ones. Imagine if this weren't the case. Imagine that a Reading question had two answer choices, both of which might beplausibly correct. When scores come out, every single student who got the question wrong would probably complain to ACT, Inc., about the test being wrong or misleading. If this were true, ACT, Inc., would then have to throw out the question, which is a huge hassle. Have too many of these incidents, and there'd be a big scandal about the ACT failing to do its job. ACT, Inc., wants to avoid this nightmare scenario. Therefore, every single Reading passage question has only one correct answer. This is an important concept to remember. It makes your life a lot easier- all you have to do is eliminate the three wrong answer choices to get the single right one. But the ACT purposely disguises this fact to make life more difficult for you. It asks questions that are typically worded as so: It can reasonably be inferred that: Which of the following best describes: The author's contemporaries for the most part believed: Notice a pattern here? The ACT always disguises the fact that there's only one unambiguous answer. It tries to make you waver between two or three answer choices that are most likely. And then you guess randomly. And then you get it wrong. You can bet that students fall for this. Millions of times every year. Students who don't prepare for the ACT in the right way don't appreciate this. But if you prepare for the ACT in the right way, you'll learn the tricks the ACT plays on you.And you'll raise your score. The ACT Reading section is full of patterns like these. To improve your score, you just need to do the following: Learn the types of questions the ACT tests, such asthe ones above Learn strategies to solve these questionsusing skills you already know Practice with a lot of realistic questions so you learn from your mistakes The point is that you can learn these skills, even if you don't consider yourself a good reader or a great English student.I'll go into more detail about exactly how to do this. First, though, let's see how many questions you need to get right to get a 26 on Reading. What It Takes to Get a 26in ACTReading If we have a target score in mind, it helps to understand what you need to get that score on the actual test. Remember that we're aiming for a Reading test score of 26,out of 36. Here's the raw score to ACT Reading Score conversion table. (If you could use a refresher on how the ACT is scored and how raw scores are calculated, read this guide.) Raw Scaled Raw Scaled Raw Scaled Raw Scaled 40 36 29 26 19 19 9 12 39 35 28 25 18 18 8 38 34 27 24 17 17 7 10 37 33 26 23 16 16 6 10 36 32 25 23 15 16 5 8 35 32 24 22 14 15 4 7 34 31 23 21 13 14 3 6 33 30 22 21 12 14 2 5 32 29 21 20 13 1 3 31 28 20 19 10 12 0 1 30 27 Source: Official ACT Practice Test 2017-18 Note that if you're aiming for a 26 in ACT Reading, you'll need a raw score of 29/40.This is a 72% score. This has serious implications for your testing strategy. In essence, you only need to get right about 3/4 of all Reading questions.We'll go into more detail below about what this means for your approach to this ACT section. Whatever you're scoring now, take note of the difference you'll need to get to a 26. For example, if you're scoring a 20, you'll need to answer about eight more questions correctly on ACT Reading in order to get a 26. Once again, if your goal is a 20, the same analysis applies. Just find your target raw score using the chart above. OK- so far we've covered why scoring a higher ACT Reading score is important, why you're fully capable of improving your score, and the raw score you'll need to get in order to hit your target score of 26. I hope a lot of this was useful and changed how you thought about ACTprep. Now, we'll get into the real, working strategies you should use in your ACT Reading prep. 8 Strategies to Improve Your Low ACT Reading Score In this section, we introduce our eight best strategies that are guaranteed to raise your low ACT Reading score. Strategy 1: Save Time on Reading Passages by Switching Your Reading Strategy From the thousands of students I've worked with, by far the most common problem students have with ACTReading passages is that they keep running out of time before they can get through all the questions. This is a problem because, unlike ACT Math, the passage questions aren't arranged in order of difficulty. Therefore, by not completing all the questions in time, you could miss easy questions at the end that you would have gotten right if you'd only had enough time. What's the cause of this? The most common one I see is that students are reading the passages in far more detail than they actually need to be.Once again, this is a consequence of what you learn in English class. In English, you've probably gotten (stupid) tests that quiz you about what Madame Bovarysaid in a particular scene, or what color Tom's T-shirt was. So of course you've learned to pay attention to every single detail. The ACTis different. For a passage that's 90 lines long, there will be only 10 questions. Many of these don't even refer to specific lines- they talk about the point of the passage as a whole,or the tone of the author. The number of questions that focus on small, line-by-line details is low. Therefore, it's a waste of time to read a passage line by line, afraid that you'll miss a detail they'll ask you about. The best way to read a passage: skimming it on the first read-through. This is why I recommend thatall students try this ACT Reading passage strategy: Skim the passage on the first read-through. Don't try to understand every single lineor write notes predicting what the questions will be. Just get a general understanding of the passage. You want to finish reading the passage within three minutes, if possible. Next, go to the questions. If the question refers to a line number, go back to that line and try to make sense of the text around it. If you can't answer a question within 30 seconds, skip it. (More on this strategy later.) These steps are important because Reading questions ask about far fewer lines than the passage actually contains. For example, lines 5-20 of a passage might not be relevant to any question that follows. Therefore, if you spend time trying to deeply understand lines 5-20, you’ll be wasting time you could've spent elsewhere. Some students take this strategy to the extreme by reading the questionsbefore the passage. If a question refers to any specific line or lines, they mark those in the passage. This then gives them a guide to focus on important lines when they actually start to read the passage. Different strategies work for different students. You need to try out different ones so you can see which one gives you the best results. But by and large, I'm confident that you're spending way too much time reading the passage. Strategy 2:Learn to Eliminate the 3 Wrong Answers I talked above about how the ACT always has one unambiguously correct answer. This has a huge implication for the strategy you should use to find the right ACT Reading answer. Here's the other way to see it: out of the four answer choices, three of them have something that is totally wrong about them.Only one answer is 100% correct, which means the other three are 100% wrong. You know how you try to eliminate answer choices and then end up with a few at the end that all seem equally likely to be correct? You're not doing a good enough job of eliminating answer choices. Remember- every single wrong choice can be crossed out for its own reasons. You have to learn how to eliminate three answer choices for every single Reading question. "Great, Allen. But this doesn't tell me anything about how to eliminate wrong answer choices." Thanks for asking. There are a few classic wrong answer choices the ACTloves to use. Here's an example: Imagine you just read a passage focusing on how human evolution shaped the environment. It offers a few examples. First, it talks about how the transition from earlier species such asHomo habilus to neanderthals led to more tool usage like fire, which caused wildfires and thus shaped the ecology. It then talks about Homo sapiens 40,000 years ago and their overhunting of certain species, such as the woolly mammoth, to extinction. Sounds like a plausible passage, right? It fits into that weird style of ACT Reading passages that's oddly specific about a topic you've likely never thought deeply about before. We then run into a question asking, "Which of the following best describes the main subject of the passage?" Here are our possible answer choices: A: The transition between Homo habilus and neanderthals B: The study of evolution C: How the environment shaped human evolution D: The plausibility of evolution E: The influence of human development on ecology (Note that we're using five answer choices for illustration even though the ACT only has four.) As you're reading these answer choices, a few of them probably started sounding really plausible to you. Surprise! Each of the answers from A-D has something seriously wrong with it. Each one is a classic example of a wrong answer type given by the ACT. Let's look at how we can tell these are incorrect. Wrong Answer 1 (A): Too Specific A: The transition between Homo habilus and neanderthals This type of wrong answer focuses on a smaller detail in the passage. It’s meant to trick you because you might think to yourself, "Well, I see this was mentioned in the passage, so it’s a plausible answer choice." Wrong! Think to yourself: can this answer choice really describe the entire passage? Can it basically function as the title of this passage? In this case, you’ll find that A is just way too specific to convey the point of the overall passage. Wrong Answer 2 (B): Too Broad B: The study of evolution This type of wrong answer has the opposite problem than the one above- it’s way too broad. Yes, theoretically the passage is about the study of evolution, but only one aspect of it (human evolution) and particularly as it relates to its impact on the environment. To give another crazy example- let's say you talked to your friend about losing your cell phone. He saysthe main point of your conversation was the universe. Well, while you were talking about the universe in some form (you're part of the universe just like everyone else is!), this was actually only a tiny, tiny fraction of your conversation. Just the same, answer choice Bis far too general. Wrong Answer 3 (C): Reversed Relationship C: How the environment shaped human evolution This wrong answer choice can be tricky because it mentions all the right words. But of course the relationship between those words needs to be correct as well. Here, the relationship is flipped.The passage is about how humans affected the environment- not the reverse. Students who read too quickly make careless mistakes much like these because all the words sound right at a glance! Wrong Answer 4 (D): Unrelated Concept D: The plausibility of evolution Finally, this kind of wrong answer preys on the tendency of students to overthink the question. If you’re passionate about arguing about evolution in your personal life, this might be a trigger answer since any discussion of evolution becomes a chance to argue about its plausibility. Of course, althoughthis concept appears nowhere in the passage,some students just won’t be able to resist choosing answer choice D. Do you see the point? On the surface, each of the answer choices sounds possibly correct. But possibly isn't good enough. The right answer needs to be 100%, totally right. Wrong answers might be off by even one word- and you need to eliminate those. Carry this thought into every ACT Reading passage question you do. Next strategy: find your weak links and fix them. Strategy 3:Find Your Reading Skill Weaknesses and Drill Them ACT Reading passage questions might look similar, but they actually test very different skills. At PrepScholar, we've categorized the major passage skills as follows: Big Picture/Main Point Little Picture/Detail Vocabulary in Context Inferences Author Function That's a good number ofskills! More than is obvious when you're reading a passage on the test. Each of these question types uses different skills in regard to how you read and analyze the passage.They each require a different method of prep and focused practice. If you're like most students, you're better at some areas in Reading than you are at others. You might be better at getting the big picture of a passage compared to an inference. Or you might be really strong at understanding the author's tone but not so strong at figuring out the meaning of a phrase in context. 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 have extracurriculars (for example, maybe you're an athlete or a member in your school band), and you have friends to hang out with. This means that for every hour you study for the ACT, it needs to be the most effective hour possible. 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 ACTisn't like painting a house. You're not trying to cover all your bases with a very thin layer of understanding. What these students did wrong was this: they wasted their time on subjects they already knew and didn't spend enough time on their weaknesses. Studying effectively for the ACT is like plugging up holes in a leaky boat. You need to find the biggest hole and fill it. You then need to find the next biggest hole and fix that, too. Soon you'll see that your boat isn't sinking at all. How does this relate to ACT Reading? You need to find the sub-skills you're weakest in and then drill those until you're no longer weak in them. Fixing up the biggest holes. With ACT Reading, you need to figure out whether you have patterns in your mistakes. Are you consistently running out of time on reading passages? Having trouble with Inference questions? Really struggling with interpreting details? For every question you miss, you must identify what type of question it is. Once you notice patterns in the questions you miss, you need to practice this sub-skill extra hard. Say you miss a lot of inference questions (this is typically the hardest type of question for students to get). Your goal is to find a way to get focused practice questions for this skill so you can drill your mistakes and improve. Bonus: If all of this is making sense to you, you'd love our ACTprep 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 - in Reading, English, Math, and Science. 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. 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: Only Use High-Quality ACT Reading Sources ACT Reading passages are very specific in how they work. ACT Reading questions, too, are very specifically phrased and constructed to have bait answers. If you want to improve your Reading score, you have to use realistic ACT Reading sources.If you don't, you'll develop bad habits and end up training the wrong skills. Think about it like this: let's say you're trying out for a baseball team. Instead of practicing with real baseballs, you decide to practice with Wiffle balls instead.It's a lot cheaper and easier, and hitting the ball makes you feel good. So you train and train and train with a Wiffle ball. You understand how the Wiffle ball curves when it's thrown, how to hit it, and how to throw it. Finally, you try out for the baseball team. A pitch comes, but it's way faster than you've ever practiced with before. It doesn't curve like a Wiffle ball does. Swing, and a miss. You've trained with the wrong thing, and now you're totally unprepared for baseball. This is not real baseball. ACT Reading works in the exact same way. Train on badly written tests, and you'll develop poor habits and unhelpful strategies. The very best sources for ACTReading passages areofficial ACT practice tests.This is why we include official practice testsin our ACT prep program- we can gauge your progress and train you on the real thing. Unfortunately, there's a limited number of official practice tests: five free PDFs online, and five in the old third edition of theofficial ACT prep guide(the newest edition includes three practice tests, but these overlap significantly with the free ones online). Thus, to have enough questions to practice on, you'll need to find other sources of questions. The first suggestion is to use prep resources customized for the ACT.Be careful, though- most companies release poor quality passages and questions (most books you see on ACT Reading are pretty terrible, frankly). This is especially harmful for ACT Reading because the style of passages and what questions ask are complex, as opposed to ACT Math which is more straightforward. To write realistic questions, you need to understand the test inside and out. That's why at PrepScholar, we've created what I believe are the highest quality Reading questions available anywhere. This is what we've done: We've deconstructed every available official ACT practice test, question by question, answer choice by answer choice. We've statistically studied every question type on the test, and we understand exactly how questions are phrased and how wrong answer choices are constructed. As head of product, I'm responsible for content quality. I hire only the most qualified content writers to craft our test content. This means people who got perfect scores on the ACT, who have hundreds of hours of ACT teaching experience, and who graduated from Ivy League schools. This results in the most realistic, highest quality ACT Reading questions. Even if you don't use PrepScholar, you should be confident that whatever resource you do use undergoes the same scrutiny as we use.If you're not sure, or you see reviews saying otherwise, it's best to avoid it. For more tips on what ACT resources to use,learn what my favorite ACT Reading books are. Strategy 5:Don't Focus On Vocab Vocab gets way too much attention from students. It feels good to study vocab flashcards because it seems like you're making progress. "I studied 1,000 vocab words- this must mean I improved my score!" This is why other test prep programs love teaching you vocab- you feel as though you're learning something and it's worth your money. But the truth is, learning vocab doesn't really help you. Fortunately, vocab doesn't play more than a minor role in your ACT Reading score. This has always been less of a problem for the ACT than the SAT, which used to feature vocab-heavy Sentence Completion questions. Thankfully, the SAT removed these questions in 2016. But still, a lot of students look for ACT vocab lists to study with, and it's just not a good use of time. The only real questions you'll need to use vocab skills for are the Vocab in Context questions. Here's an example of one from an official ACT practice test: As it is used in line 13, the word popular most nearly means:A)well likedB)commonly knownC)scientifically acceptedD)most admired Wait- "popular"? They're asking a question about the word "popular"? Yes, it's a common word, but the key to this question is understanding how it's used in context.Popular can mean all the things listed in the answer choices, but only one of them is actually correct in this case. Here's the source sentence: It includes the area known in popular legend as the Bermuda Triangle. In this case, popular is used to describe a legend that's well known, so answer choice B is the best choice. Here are examples of words you'll need to understand in context on the ACT: adopted concentrated humor nostalgia read something These are all reasonable words you've probably heard before. The trick to these questions is to actually understand how the word is used in the passage- not to focus on what you think it means. So don't waste too much of your time studying vocab, and think twice before you're convinced by someone that it's a good use of your ACT prep time. Don't spend a lot of time studying vocab- most likely, it's not the best use of your time. This time is far better spent learning how to deal with Reading passages better.There are so many more questions about passages that it's a better use of your time to learn passage strategies and how to answer Reading questions. Strategy 6:Skip the Most Difficult, Time-Consuming Questions Here's an easy strategy most students don't do enough. Remember what I said above about raw scores? To score a 26, you only need a raw score of about 29 (that's 29 correct answers out of a total of 40 Reading questions). This varies from test to test, but it's pretty consistent in general. What does this mean?You can completely guess on 15 questions, get four of them right by chance, and still score a 26 on Reading. Once again, you can completely guess on almost 40% of all questions and still hit your goal! Skip questions carefree like this woman. Why is this such a powerful strategy? It gives you way more time on easy and medium difficulty questions- the questions you have a good chance of getting right. If you're usually pressed for time on the ACT Reading section, this will be a huge help. Here's an example: on the Reading section, you get 35 minutes to answer 40 questions. This is usually pretty hard for most students to get through- it's just 52 seconds to answer each question, including the time it takes to read each passage. The average student will try to push through all the questions. "I've got to get through them all since I've got a shot at getting each question right," they think. Along the way, they'll probably rush and make careless mistakes on questions they should have gotten right. And then they spend five minutes on really hard questions, making no progress and wasting time. Wrong approach. Here's what I suggest instead. Tryeach question but skip it if you're not getting anywhere after 30 seconds.Unlike math, the Reading passage questions aren't ordered in difficulty, so you can't tell right away which questions are harder or easier. You need to try each one but then skip it if it's costing you too much time. By doing this, you can raise your time per easy/medium question to 100 seconds per question or more. This is huge! It's a 100% boost to the time you get per question.As a result, this significantly raises your chances of getting easy/medium questions right. And the questions you skipped? They're so hard you're honestly better off not even trying them. These questions are meant for 30-36scorers. If you get to 26, then you have the right to try these questions- but not before you get to 26. How do you tell which questions are going to take you the most time?This varies from person to person, but here are a few common question types: Questions without a line number that make you hunt for a detail: You'll spend a lot of time rereading the passage looking for a certain detail if you can't remember where it was originally mentioned. "EXCEPT" questions: These are specifically designed to waste your time. They'll ask something like, "The author mentions all of these details EXCEPT: ... " and your job is to find which three are mentioned and which one isn't. Inference questions that ask you what the author most likely meant: These are usually quite difficult because they take multiple steps to solve: (1) What did the author explicitlysay in the passage? and (2) What does the author most likely mean? But don't just take my word for it. You need to figure out your own weaknesses after doing a lot of practice. They might not be the same question types as the ones above. Approach your Reading prep with this in mind. If you notice yourself getting stuck on a question, pay attention to what type of question it is and see whether there's a pattern. For example, do you always get stuck on that particular question type? Strategy 7: Understand All Your Reading Mistakes Every mistake you make on a test happens for a reason. If you don't understand exactly why you missed a question, you'll make that mistake over and over again. Think about it like learning how to cook. The first time you learn to chop vegetables, you might cut your finger accidentally. Ouch- that hurts. But you quickly learn from your mistakes- you start to keep your fingers away from the knife and hold the knife differently. After all, if you don't learn from your mistake, you'll keep cutting your finger over and over again. Why would you treat ACT prep any differently? Too many students scoring at the 18-24 level refuse to study their mistakes. It's not fun.I get it. It sucks to stare your mistakes in the face. It's draining to learn skills you're not good at. So the average student will skip reviewing their mistakes and instead focus on areas they're already comfortable with. It's like cozying up with a warm blanket. Their thinking goes like this: "So I'm good at Big Picture questions? I should do more Big Picture problems! They make me feel good about myself." The result? No score improvement. You don't want to be like these students. So here'swhat you need to do instead: On every practice test or question set you take, mark every question that you're even just 20% unsure about. When you grade your test or quiz, review every question 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, write down the gist of the question, why you missed it, and what you can do to avoid making this mistake in the future. Have separate sections by subject and sub-topic (e.g., Big Picture, Little Picture, Inference, etc.). It's not enough to just think about it and move on, or to just read the answer explanation. You have to think hard about why you specifically failed on this question. For Reading Passage questions, you must find a way to eliminate every incorrect answer. If you were stuck between two answer choices, review your work to figure out why you couldn't eliminate the wrong answer choice. If you don't do this, I guarantee you will not make progress. But if you do take this structured approach to your mistakes,you'll now have a running log of every question you missed, and your reflections on why you might've missed them. No excuses when it comes to your mistakes. Strategy 8: Guess on EveryQuestion You Don't Know You probably already know this one but if you don't, you're about to earn some serious points. The ACT has no guessing penalty. This means you have no reason not to guess and fill up every blank on your answer sheet. So before you finish the Reading section,make sure every blank question has an answer filled in.When you look at your answer sheet, you shouldn't see any blank questions. For every question you're unsure about, make sure you guess as best you can.If you can eliminate even just one answer choice, this gives you a much better shot at getting it right- from 25% to 33%. If you have no idea, just guess! You still have a 25% chance of getting it right, after all. Most people know this strategy already, so if you don't do this, you're at a serious disadvantage. Here's a bubbling tip that will save you a few minutes per section. When I first started taking tests in high school, I did what many students do: after I finished one question, I went to the bubble sheet and filled it in. Then I solved the next question. This was my pattern: finish question 1, bubble in answer 1. Finish question 2, bubble in answer 2. And so forth. This approach actually wastes a lot of time. You're distracting yourself between two distinct tasks: solving questions and bubbling in answers. This costs you time in both mental switching costs and in physically moving your hand and eyes to different areas of the test. Here's a better method: solve all your questions first in the book, and then bubble all of them in at once at the end. This has a couple of huge advantages: You focus on each task one at a time, rather than switching between two different tasks. You eliminate careless entry errors, like if you skip question 7 and bubble in question 8's answer into question 7's slot. By saving just five seconds per question, you get back three minutes and 20 seconds on the Reading section. This is huge! These extra secondscan buy you time to solve three more questions, which will dramatically improve your score. Be very careful, though, as you do not want to run out of time before you've bubbled in all your answers. Definitely make sure you bubble in your answers to that point with at least 10 minutes remaining. If the proctor calls time and you haven't bubbled in any answers yet, you're going to get a 1 on Reading! Overview: How to Raise Your Low ACT Reading Score These are the eight main strategies I have for you to improve your ACT Reading score. If you're scoring 12, you can improve it to 18.If you're scoring 20, you can boost it to 26.I guarantee you'll get a score increase, as long as you put in the right amount of work and study using the tips I've given you above. The main point is this: you need to understand where you're falling short and constantly drill those weaknesses. You also need to be thoughtful about your mistakes- in other words, don't ignore any of them. 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 go back and review any of the strategies, here's a quick listing: Strategy 1: Save Time on Reading Passages by Switching Your Reading Strategy Strategy 2:Learn to Eliminate the 3 Wrong Answers Strategy 3:Find Your Reading Skill Weaknesses and Drill Them Strategy 4: Only Use High-Quality ACT Reading Sources Strategy 5:Don't Focus On Vocab Strategy 6:Skip the Most Difficult, Time-Consuming Questions Strategy 7:Understand All Your Reading Mistakes Strategy 8: Guess on EveryQuestion You Don't Know What's Next? We have a lot more useful guides you can use to raise your ACT score. For ACT Reading, learn the#1 fundamental, most important strategy.It's an expansion of one of the strategies in this guide and certain to raise your score. Curious how to prep to get a perfect ACT Reading score? Read our in-depth guide to getting a perfect 36 on the Reading sectionfor our best tips. What's a good ACT score for you? Figure out your ACT target score todayusing our step-by-step guide. 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:

Sunday, November 3, 2019

Research Paper on Native Son by Richard wright Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

On Native Son by Richard wright - Research Paper Example Many middle aged adults are content with how they have lived their lives, and others want to change theirs (Shepard, 2013). Middle adulthood presents the reality to folks that there is little time to transform their life configuration. These are times in a person’s life that they can really look back on the aspirations and goals they laid down when they were growing. Growing into middle adulthood can go either way of being pleased and satisfied or being full of uncertainty and distress. The middle age phase serves as a time for reevaluation, a chance to put new choices into consideration. Many individuals feel they need to take their livelihood in a new path or do something they’ve wanted to do their whole life. After such reflection, a person either concludes that he or she is contented with the life structure choices made or quickly plans to made changes while they are still possible (Balswick, 2005) Brian knows that his physiological functioning is weary, and his bio logical clock tells him he is reaching middle adulthood. Since many athletes participate sports over a long period (from adolescence straight to middle adulthood), a lot of wear and tear happens. To most athletes like Brian, their social clocks commence before middle adulthood. At the time, Brian was enjoying playing football; he missed his teenage years and early adulthood. Now that, he is approaching middle adulthood he looks back on what he has missed out on in the last twenty years of his life and most importantly his achievements. Attaining middle adulthood is worthwhile because he now gets to do things he longed to do with his family. This according to Zgourides fulfils the primary psychosocial task of middle adulthood, which is to, develop generativity, or the desire to expand one’s influence and commitment to family, society, and future generations (Zgourides, 2001). Women sometimes sacrifice their ambitions and career plans for their families. Their desire is to be t he best mothers to their kids and good wives to their partners. For women, middle adulthood may bring the feeling of loneliness since those who have children are worried that their children are going to leave them. One woman realized that her children were growing older and were to go away to college. She developed a sense of incompletion inside of her and knew she had to go back to college to further her career. She gave her marriage and raising children her best, unfortunately, her marriage succumbed in divorce, and her children went away to college. The woman managed to earn her degree and went ahead with her life (Miller, 2010). Perhaps middle adulthood is best known for its infamous midlife crisis: a time of reevaluation that leads to questioning long-held beliefs and values (Zgourides, 2001). Many people may feel that they did not live the life they planned for themselves when they were younger, and their lives tend restart when they reach middle adulthood. There are a lot of aspects in a person’s life that may either take a good or bad twist. By the time, adults reach middle adulthood age many of them differ in the opinion on how they have lived their life so far. This is a time when a person reflects on where they came from as opposed to where they are going from the middle of their life. Sometimes during this stage, choices are made to either continue the path already taken or establish somewhat different path of live (Whitbourne, 2005). Many adults

Thursday, October 31, 2019

Business Inventory control Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Business Inventory control - Essay Example At the same time, money which is tied in inventory can’t be used for other purposes (Dubrin, 2011, pg: 211). Because of these reasons, it is very important to monitor and keep a control over inventory. Inventory control takes all the more importance because of the following reasons (Jawahar – Lal, 2008, pg. 118): a. Demand fluctuations –Demand for an organization’s products vary from season to season. In times of fluctuating demands, inventory plays a very critical role. Insufficient inventory will lead to frequent stock-outs whereas a very high inventory will lead to huge costs for storage and maintenance of inventory. b. Uncertainty in receiving the item from the supplier – Often there can be uncertainties in receiving inventory items from the supplier. An organization should keep buffer against such uncertainties by keeping sufficient stocks of the inventory. Inventory is one of the most critical components of the order to cash conversion cycle. It is important for an organization to have a control over the inventory because the same affects the profitability of the firm considerably. A less amount of inventory will lead to stock-outs and customers being returned without the sales while a high amount of inventory on the other hand leads to high cost in storage and

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

UAE and Oman labour laws Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

UAE and Oman labour laws - Essay Example UAE and Oman Labour Laws UAE is the second biggest by population in the GCC and the second biggest economy of the region and transshipment hub. It is the largest gas exporter in the world. On the other hand, Oman is relatively poor in the region and relies on the mineral industry. However, nationalization is highest in this country. The GCC countries have categorized employment visa into to maid visa, farming visa, and employment visa. A common feature in the region is that farmers and housemaids are not part of the labor laws. Officials issue employment visa to establishments and companies and bases it on the size and the company’s capital. ‘Hire and fire’ is the underlying principle of GCC countries (Latham & Watkins, 2009). These countries have nevertheless failed in establishing standards for migrant workers that are intentionally acceptable. Most of the GCC countries’ labor and immigration laws are famous for enhancing and validate inhuman treatment to wards migrant workers. For instance, the Khiraj (exit permit) is a requirement for employees who want to leave the region. The employer must grant the employee permission to leave the country. This is a common practice in the region with the exception of UAE and Kuwait. The employees do not have freedom to change their jobs unless they receive permission from their present employers (Latham & Watkins, 2009). Comparison of the UAE and Oman Labor Laws Statutory Authority In the UAE Federal Law No. 8 of 1980, Regulatory Labour Law Relations govern labor matters, which are simply the Labour Laws. In this country, the Ministry of Labour is the one charged with the responsibility of dealing with labour matters. While in Oman, regulation of labour matters are by Sultan’s Decree No. 35/2003. The state recently amended the statute in October 2011 by Royal Decree No. 113/2011. Unlike the UAE, in Oman the Ministry of Manpower is in charge of labor matters (Latham & Watkins, 2009). Worki ng hours Under the UAE Labour Law, eight hours is the set maximum working hours per day for an adult employee. After five consecutive hours of work, an employee gets to have a rest break. The working week is made of six days. On the other hand, for the Oman Labour Law provides for a five-day working week. The maximum working hours in a week are 45 hours (article 68 of the Oman Labour Law) as opposed to the 48 hours in the UAE (Latham & Watkins, 2009). The daily working hours for each employee is nine hours. During the month of Ramadan, the set maximum working hours per week are 30 hours per week. This means that one has to work for only five hours per day. Contrary to this, the UAE Labour Law sets 36 hours per week as the maximum working hours during the month of Ramadan (Latham & Watkins, 2009). However, the maximum number of hours worked per day is the same for both countries. About overtime, in accordance to the Oman Labour Law the maximum overtime per day is three hours. This is because an employee only receives a total of 12 hours to work per day. The UAE Labour Law provides that overtime hours should not exceed two hours per day. The exceptions for extended overtime hours include a case where the work to be done involves prevention of the occurrence of a serious loss or accident, or removal or

Sunday, October 27, 2019

An Evaluation Of The Impacts Of Tourism Tourism Essay

An Evaluation Of The Impacts Of Tourism Tourism Essay In this project I would like to take a look at the relationship between tourism and the people living in popular tourist locations; specifically the deep impact tourism has on local culture. This topic interests me as although I have never visited the global south myself, many of my friends and acquaintances travel there frequently for vacations. Tourism is sure to have many effects on these destination type communities. I know that many of these destinations are in poorer areas of the world. Some significant effects that tourism has on these areas manifest themselves economically, socially and culturally. Though tourism may create jobs and stimulate the local economy there are some downsides to tourism and aspects of the influx of visitors that may be harmful to local cultures. In my research paper I will analyze the benefits that tourism has on local economies in relation to the social and cultural impact on the community. I hope to evaluate just how beneficial potentially short-te rm economic stimulus is in the face of potential harm to the economy in the long term, local people and local culture. I will discuss this topic globally but with a focus on Southeast Asia and specifically India. My paper will emphasize the important question: is vacationing in a third world country potentially unethical? Or does the stimulus to a developing countrys economy justify the social and cultural implications of tourism and the development that tourism brings in the area. Looking at the ethical issues surrounding this will also be an important factor in determining whether the cultural impacts of tourism is acceptable or justifiable by the economic benefits. In my opinion, although tourism does support economic growth in many communities there is deep and irreversible cultural impact. In Tourism in Destination Communities Shalini Singh looks at an idea by Jafar Jafari the author of Encyclopedia of Tourism. Jafari created the consolidated platforms of tourism. One of Jafaris four platforms is advocacy- that is to say that tourism is capable of economic good. Another platform, the cautionary platform, emphasizes the importance of noting the complex interactions at the local level. The other two platforms are Adaptancy (which is described as pro community tourism) and Knowledge based which is a holistic treatment for community-based tourism (Jafari cited in Singh 2003). Singh and S.W. Boyd (26-30) discuss relationships between tourism and destination communities in terms of win-win, win-lose, lose-win or lose-lose paradigms (Carter and Lowman, 1944; Nepal, 2000). Examples of win-win situations do exist and this indicates that tourism can indeed be economically beneficial to a destination community. The example given by Boyd and Singh is that of Ayers rock (Uluru) wh ich is one of Australias most famous tourist attractions. Although Australia is not a country typically considered to be part of the global south I believe this example is relevant as the aboriginal communities in the area could easily be marginalized and exploited by tourism. The community however takes an active role by defining their relationship with tourism as having control and choice. (Mercer cited in S.W. Boyd and S. Singh: 1994:37). The community participates by providing educational services, which allows them to convey that the religious and cultural significance of Uluru is something to be respected. (Wells, cited in S.W. Boyd and S. Singh 1996:37). The local businesses in the area benefit and are owned by the people of the aboriginal community. This example is congruent to Jafaris platforms of Advocacy and Adaptancy and it shows tourism in this scenario as pro community and capable of economic good. As this situation is economically beneficial to this area, without comp romising or de-valuing the local culture, it is an excellent means of development. Another example where the local community benefits is the win-lose situation, a very salient example being Cuba. The community benefits economically, although mass tourism does not. This is achieved through policies and marketing that emphasizes quality tourism by restricting the number and type of tourists (high spenders, low numbers). The tourism is marketed for exclusivity and affluence and this is done through selective marketing and catering the services towards wealthier people. Cubas tourism industrys markets strategically to target Canadian snowbirds who also take long-term vacations in Florida (Peters 2002:4). Their vacationing for long periods of time in a US location and their ability to spend US currency indicates their affluence. Another strategy is the development of golf courses in the area. Miguel Figueras, a tourism ministry economist and advisor in Cuba, says that golf is a feature t hat can attract higher spending tourists (Peters 2002:5). Strategic tourism planning allows a country to tap into the wealth of the global norths wealthiest tourists allowing maximum economic benefit without mass sharing of what they have to offer. However there are many situations in which local economies lose. This is especially common in coastal-resort based tourism along the Mediterranean coast. These developments only offer short term economic gain and result in long term loss in terms of the community as well as the environment. Although tourism does create many jobs, including direct employment (jobs in hotels and restaurants), indirect employment (jobs not a result of direct tourist spending- such as laundries and banking), and induced employment (jobs created in the community as a result of increased income of members in the community) the majority of jobs are seasonal and part time (D. Ioannides 2003). In addition often much of the money spent by tourists leaves the country. The majority of the money spent by tourists on their vacations goes towards their travel costs and their accommodations. This means the money leaves the country and goes to airlines and transnational corporations who run hotel chains. This can res ult in a good portion of local people sharing their surroundings with tourists without ever actually seeing or experiencing any economic benefits themselves (Krotz 1996:215). Although tourist spending may add an influx of foreign currency to an economy, as well as create a bigger market in terms of demands for goods, which in theory can lower prices, it is important to consider that while tourism receipts rise, agriculture output declines (James Mack, Tourism and the Economy). This is a result of fewer people working in the agricultural sector. In that case the net profit of tourism is actually less than it initially seems, once the loss from agriculture is taken into account. Although some economic benefits resulting from tourism are apparent, there are definite burdens placed upon the destination community. A very prominent challenge is the residents view of visitors and their relationship with them, as outlined by M. Fagence (Tourism and Local Society and Culture). Residents have a negative attitude towards tourists if they do not see immediate and clear economic benefits of their presence, especially in the form of jobs and income. Contrary to James Macks theory that the tourists create a larger market for goods, thus lowering the prices, residents blame tourists for a rise in the price of goods. In a qualitative study by Neha Kala (2008) findings show that tourists are also seen as the cause of increased criminal activity and reduced moral standards by the host community. This is where we have to consider tourism beyond the impacts to the economy. In communities with rich traditional backgrounds some residents see the influence of visiting tourists as compromising to traditional values, as the affluent lifestyles of visitors can be appealing and seductive to the younger generations in the area. The influx of visitors brings the possibility of sometimes unwelcome social or cultural change. In Rajasthan traditional elders often scold children for speaking to tourists. (Joseph 2007:204). Locals see tourism as an exporter of Western lifestyle. (Kala: 2008) Across India, Western dress is popular amongst young males who wear jeans, shirts and baseball caps. (Joseph 2007:211). This is the result of many youth trying to emulate Western tourists (Kala: 2008). Some facets of Western lifestyle however not only replace traditional culture, but also are directly contradictory to them. A priest in Pushkar was quoted in India Today saying The youth here find the openness in foreign girls too tempting. (Joseph 2007:211) This problem is amplified if the host community does not recognize that the behaviour of most tourists are atypical to how the y normally behave and that the behaviours displayed by tourists are reserved for times of recreation, and are not the tourists usual behaviour or even their usual moral standards. Most concerning of M. Fagences findings are that residents blame tourists for reducing the significance of local culture by trivializing and making a commodity of it. In an article by Rosaleen Duffy this idea of culture as a commodity is expanded on. Duffy outlines how tourists are often looking for an authentic cultural experience; however what is considered authentic is nearly always defined by the tourist, resulting in the tourist not really looking for cultural understanding but to serve some other self-serving purpose. Tourists conceptualize their travel stories in a way that assists them in narrating their self-identity. Tourists travel as a means to escape, to broaden the mind, or for self discovery. An illustration of Duffys view that our society uses travel for self-defining and self-narrating purposes, as well as a means to understand culture and for self discovery is the popular movie Eat Pray Love, starring Julia Roberts. In the movie, Liz sets outs after her divorce to e xperience the culture in Italy, India and then Bali. The trailer includes many consecutive images of Liz eating authentic Italian pizza, praying in an old stony temple, touching a painted elephant, brightly coloured flowers being thrown at an Indian wedding, and biking through farmland past villagers carrying baskets on their heads. Liz in the movie is desperate to marvel at something and this is the very notion that Duffy presents in her research as motives that are a felt need for respite from the exigencies of modern life, and/or as authentic projects of self-discovery. In her article, Duffy cites Urry (1994:236-238) who argues that tourism can be reduced to the consumption of signs, images and texts. Evidence that tourism is the consumption of pre-conceived images is in Hillary Brenhouses article (July 22nd, 2010- prior to the release of the movie) where she describes recent vacation packages marketed by luxury hotels and spas to recreate the transformative Eat Pray Love journey . By defining an entire culture into consumable signs and images, tourists participate in the further manifestation of orientalism created by the tourism industry reinforcing images that create a sense of placelessness and even timelessness (Dann, 1996b: 125, cited in Duffy). A demonstration of tourists being consumers of discourses of placelessness and timelessness is the popular tourist destination Rajasthan, in India. The two most marketed marquees of Rajasthan are Royal and Colourful. (Henderson 2007:72). These are the two main features the tourists are looking to consume when they visit. These discourses are prominent in the naming of different locations of the province by tourists and tourism industry. Jaipur is referred to as the Pink City and Jodhpur is known as the Blue City. Royalty links Rajasthan back to the past. Medieval India is romanticized and guests will experience an encounter with a royal past. In this way the Authentic Rajasthan experience is reduced to a few signs and symbols. The most prominent example of a marketing of placelessness and timelessness is the Chokhi Dhani Resort. Located throughout the province of Rajasthan with a few locations elsewhere in western India, this resort is chaired by a NRI (Non-Resident Indian) statione d in Dubai. The Government of India heralds the chain of Chokhi Dhanis as Indias most innovative Tourism Project (official website). The resort is described as a Five-star village resort and includes fifty-five Royal cottages and eight Haveli suites, Havelis being the traditional residences of local royalty. This ethnic village includes conference rooms, spa, fitness, and accepts all major credit cards. What we can conclude from this is that the desire of foreign tourists to experience a sense of timelessness and placelessness is understood and capitalized on. Although this may be trivializing of local culture and history it is important to consider here that many locals are directly participating- and in a way heritage tourism gives them a type of ownership. The foreigners desire to see something that they preconceive as authentic is understood and cashed in on. Most respondents of Kalas study agreed that tourism encourages the mass production of pseudo-traditional arts and that ma ny non-traditional artisans are attracted to this work. This propagates tourists misconceptions because these traditional arts often bought as souvenirs allow the tourist to physically carry the discourse home with them. In some ways however this type of activity increases a communitys sense of pride. The revitalization of some traditional arts such as dance and the propagation of traditional fairs are deemed to be a positive effect of tourism. An example of this is festival of Teej; tourists interest in the festival ensures that every year it continues to be extravagant. Tourists also have a positive effect on the up keeping of historical and religious heritage sites as a result of tourist interest in them. (Kala: 2008) A preserved site is the Ghats in Pushkar, a Hindu pilgrimage site. An increase in popularity of eastern spirituality in the Western world brings many tourists here. Although this creates some inconvenience for Hindu devotees, ownership is taken through religious rhe toric aimed at tourists. Many signs around the Ghats include instructions about how tourists should and should not behave in this place of religious significance. The local priests, similar to the aboriginals at Ulurru, define the significance of this site. However concerned the priests are for the sanctity of the area they are still willing to commodify the religious experience and often perform simplified prayer service or puja for western tourists at four times the price of a native pilgrim. (Joseph: 2007) Although this active role is taken by the locals, religious devotees, and the government, the culture and tradition here is still made available to a consumer for a price. The government protecting the area for the economic benefit can also be seen as the ultimate commodification. This puts a sticker price on the countrys religion, culture and history. Nothing indicates ownership more than putting a price on ones belonging. Although many of these destinations are places of esca pe for tourists, and tourism may introduce some economic benefits to the local area. I believe that the degradation and trivialization of the local culture that ensues is not worth the price. It is however important to remember that as residents of the global north we are poor judges of what is truly beneficial to these regions.

Friday, October 25, 2019

Handwriting: More than Just Ink [Graphology] Essay -- essays research

Handwriting analysis is also known as graphology. Graphology is defined as the study of handwriting, especially as used to infer a person's character. The interest in handwriting as an expression of personality is as old as the practice itself. â€Å"Chinese philosophers have been fascinated with handwriting since ancient times and have been especially interested in the distinct styles of calligraphy produced by different writers† (Sackheim,1990, p. xv-xvi). The first methodical attempts to study handwriting took place in Italy in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Alderisius Prosper published in Bologna a study called Ideographia. Camillo Baldo soon after tried making a formal recording which presented a way for judging the nature of a writer from his letters. These were all lost. But they obviously attracted readers. It became practiced from â€Å"castle to castle† by people trying to make money from handwriting interpretations (Roman, 1952, p.3). The sur prising thing about graphology that is not all about handwriting analysis. â€Å"Graphology is the study of the graphic movement; it is not simply ‘handwriting analysis† (McNichol and Nelson, 1991, p. 23). This is why graphologists can also study doodles, drawings, sculptures, and paintings to infer a person’s character and the physical, mental, and emotional states of the subject. These creations are called brain prints. These reveal who we are, how we think, feel and behave. These mind x-rays are very evident in handwriting since we for the most part don’t think about how we write. Graphology is a good way to loosely judge people, who they truly might be. Whenever we take a write utensil and begin writing, much of what we’re doing comes naturally. This is an unconscious act. But there are times when we’ll change how we write certain letters because we like the other way of writing it more. This is a conscious effort. Both of these can be analyzed. The latter can be analyzed just as well as the former because it is a conscious effort of trying to change unconsciously to a certain trait. The style of the changed letter seems appealing because the characteristic does, unconsciously or consciously (McNichol et al, 1991). There are the fixed traits: IQ, aptitudes, temperament, and identity. And there are unfixed traits: ability... ...tremendously. I found out who the people around me are according to graphology. And it made me pick up on certain characteristics of myself that perhaps I need to change. If I change them in writing, eventually they will change in real life if I make that effort (McNichol et al , 1991) Bibliography Greasley, P. (2000). Handwriting analysis and personality assessment: the creative use of analogy, symbolism, and metaphor. European Psychologist., 5(1), 44-51. Koehler, Derek J., and Roy N. King. "Illusory Correlations in Graphological Inference." Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied Vol. 6.4 (2000): 336-348. Roman, K. (1952). Handwriting: a key to personality. New York: Pantheon Books, Inc. Santoli, O. (1989). How to read handwriting. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc. McNichol, A., & Nelson, J. (1991). Handwriting analysis putting it to work for you. Chicago: Contemporary Books, Inc. Sackheim, K. (1990). Handwriting analysis and the employee selection process. Westport, CT: Quorum Books, Inc. Handwriting: More than Just Ink [Graphology] Essay -- essays research Handwriting analysis is also known as graphology. Graphology is defined as the study of handwriting, especially as used to infer a person's character. The interest in handwriting as an expression of personality is as old as the practice itself. â€Å"Chinese philosophers have been fascinated with handwriting since ancient times and have been especially interested in the distinct styles of calligraphy produced by different writers† (Sackheim,1990, p. xv-xvi). The first methodical attempts to study handwriting took place in Italy in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Alderisius Prosper published in Bologna a study called Ideographia. Camillo Baldo soon after tried making a formal recording which presented a way for judging the nature of a writer from his letters. These were all lost. But they obviously attracted readers. It became practiced from â€Å"castle to castle† by people trying to make money from handwriting interpretations (Roman, 1952, p.3). The sur prising thing about graphology that is not all about handwriting analysis. â€Å"Graphology is the study of the graphic movement; it is not simply ‘handwriting analysis† (McNichol and Nelson, 1991, p. 23). This is why graphologists can also study doodles, drawings, sculptures, and paintings to infer a person’s character and the physical, mental, and emotional states of the subject. These creations are called brain prints. These reveal who we are, how we think, feel and behave. These mind x-rays are very evident in handwriting since we for the most part don’t think about how we write. Graphology is a good way to loosely judge people, who they truly might be. Whenever we take a write utensil and begin writing, much of what we’re doing comes naturally. This is an unconscious act. But there are times when we’ll change how we write certain letters because we like the other way of writing it more. This is a conscious effort. Both of these can be analyzed. The latter can be analyzed just as well as the former because it is a conscious effort of trying to change unconsciously to a certain trait. The style of the changed letter seems appealing because the characteristic does, unconsciously or consciously (McNichol et al, 1991). There are the fixed traits: IQ, aptitudes, temperament, and identity. And there are unfixed traits: ability... ...tremendously. I found out who the people around me are according to graphology. And it made me pick up on certain characteristics of myself that perhaps I need to change. If I change them in writing, eventually they will change in real life if I make that effort (McNichol et al , 1991) Bibliography Greasley, P. (2000). Handwriting analysis and personality assessment: the creative use of analogy, symbolism, and metaphor. European Psychologist., 5(1), 44-51. Koehler, Derek J., and Roy N. King. "Illusory Correlations in Graphological Inference." Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied Vol. 6.4 (2000): 336-348. Roman, K. (1952). Handwriting: a key to personality. New York: Pantheon Books, Inc. Santoli, O. (1989). How to read handwriting. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc. McNichol, A., & Nelson, J. (1991). Handwriting analysis putting it to work for you. Chicago: Contemporary Books, Inc. Sackheim, K. (1990). Handwriting analysis and the employee selection process. Westport, CT: Quorum Books, Inc.