The making of Mr Putin essays

The making of Mr Putin essays In order to ask the question who is Putin, it is first necessary ask what is a politician and what do we really know about any of them. The article The Making of Mr. Putin, discusses the fact that what we know about Russians President is filtered. The images we see, the stories we read are all strategically placed to create a certain image of the leader of the Russian state. These images are supposed to play on the emotions of the voters. The qualities that are emphasized and presented are those desirable by the majority. In essence, Putin is a public figure for a force much greater than himself. Hes the front man of a group of people whose interests lie in ruling the state and deciding in what direction the country should go next. It is pointed out, that Putins goal while growing up was to work for the KGB, a very secretive, powerful, efficiently functioning part of the Soviet state machine. He set this goal for himself early in life, found out what had to be done to accomplish the goal, and did it. It is my opinion that everyone wants to have some power. The extent of the desired power depends on a persons determination and character. Putins determination and qualities required to join the KBG are, in my opinion, what got him to where he is today. The conditions of life and government changed, so he adjusted, keeping some the previously learned tactics, which he could use to his advantage. The article mentions several times Putins lack of leadership experience. Until he was introduced to the Russian people by Boris Yeltsin, he worked in highly controlled positions where his every move was dictated by someone else. I wonder if that has changed simply because he is now the President. It is my opinion that no one person can be the leader of an entire State. Yes, he does have the title, but does that mean that everything that happens within the new Russian regime is decided by Putin. I do not ...

Famous Tips For Writing English Essays

Famous Tips For Writing English Essays English Essay: Developing an â€Å"A† grade Essay As you undertake your English coursework in both high school and college, you will realize how important essay writing is. To some students, crafting a good English essay may be a bit challenging, since creativity is an integral part of writing a good essay. Starting the learning process early and using the provided tips below on English essay writing, you will eventually craft a well-written essay. The Planning Stage You cannot just jump into writing an essay! You need to prepare yourself accordingly to ensure you save time when writing your work. Below are some helpful ideas that you can use for the preparation stage: Give Yourself Some Advanced Time Nothing substantial can come out of a 10 minute written work, not only in essay writing but also in other aspects of writing. Give yourself maximum time allowed to prepare and construct your thought and ideas. In this stage, you are expected to brainstorm, conduct research for related information that is already available, and eventually craft the most captivating ways that will convey the meaning of your written work. Jot down Your Ideas as You Brainstorm While you conduct your research, you will interact with many types of information that relates to your work. Make sure you write down the ideas they inspire in you. Bear in mind that at this stage, you are just gathering information and not writing your work. It just requires you to put down your ideas about the topic and be ready for the writing part of your English essay. Be Strictly Mindful of Your Thesis The thesis statement might only take at most two sentences of your total work, but still, it gives essence to your essay. It consists of the main idea that you intend to prove to your target audience, thus indicating its importance. Make sure that you thoroughly brainstorm your work and avoid choosing the first thesis statement that you think of. At least three to four ideas are enough to inspire the main thesis statement you are to come up with. Keep in mind that all the information and ideas you express in your work have to relate to the thesis statement you have given.   Also, your thesis statement should come as the last piece of information in your introductory paragraph. The thesis statement should highlight the main idea behind your essay in brief by understandably impressive manner. It provided the reader with an understanding of what you are to address from the start of your essay until the last part. Do not forget to construct it with a hook in place to ensure the reader is impressed and ready to read through all of the work presented. Put Enough Emphasis and Focus on the Introduction The thesis statement is not the only important part of your introduction. Furthermore, it is placed at the end of the introductory paragraph. This begs for two questions, what should you start with? How should you start your introduction? You are required to start your introduction by stating your problem in a way the reader will be interested in the subject matter you plan on expounding on. The following are ways you can use to achieve a good introduction: Begin your work with an anecdote Utilize the use of an uncommon factor interesting statement Keep the reader hooked by leading with a new notion relating to your topic of discussion. As a way of engaging the readers, pose a rhetoric question that will make them think it through Structure of a Comprehensible Outline Many students aimlessly write their essay without first coming up with an outline, and they eventually suffer in the long run. Please avoid this mistake because it will cost you a great deal of time when you have to restructure it all over again. Spare some quality time during your preparation stage to create a comprehensive outline for your work. By the time you are at this stage, you already have come up with a thesis statement and substantial information about your English essay. Now, arrange the information in a well-organized order until you achieve a logical flow of ideas. This will enable you to convince your readers and impress them at the same time about your point of view. To many students, writing an outline might seem to be a bother or waste of time if you are conversant with what you are to write about. This should be not the case since creating the required outline will save you time on writing and also prevent you from getting a writers block. Writing Process for an English Essay After you have successfully gathered your ideas and constructed an outline for your work, you can begin writing your work. Below are the key steps that are required at this stage of your work: Read Through Your Notes One More Time Go through your notes to ensure you have the required information to fit the outline you created. Even though an English essay requires more creativity, each idea needs to be supported by academic materials that relate to the subject matter. If you find information that lacks, do research about it and add it to your outline accordingly. Creatively Construct the Topic Sentences for Each Paragraph The first sentence is very crucial to your essay work.it is meant to hook the reader and impress them enough to read through the whole of your work. At this point try to avoid equivocal phrasing. Keep in mind that the first sentence of each paragraph should briefly give an outline of what to expect when reading through the whole paragraph. If you already are conversant with the topic of the discussion you intended to write about, then coming up with the topic sentences will be an easy task to handle. Even though the hook should give a clear definition of your paragraph, do not introduce all of the information. Ideally, use the topic sentence as a hook for the reader to read through your work. Develop Your Thoughts in Detail Most students only construct work from one or two ideas and fill up the remaining word count with information lacking sense or logic. This is referred to as padding in the academic level, which is discredited, not only in the writing of an English essay but also in all types of writing altogether.   Ave in mind the experience your professor has had with many students who came before you, so he or she has the knowledge of over a thousand essays regarding the same subject. This should make you understand that even for a new professor; he or she is well informed to detect padding within an essay. When you find yourself in a situation where you feel stuck, or your outline isn’t of enough help, use the following tips to help you through: Revert back to the stage you brainstormed about the topic. Try to broaden the ideas you came up with through extra research. You are also allowed to use free writing which helps a lot to avoid writers block, or even mind maps. Whichever you find fit, utilize it appropriately. Seek membership to a writing lab. Most of the academic institutions today have writing labs, and it can help you if you join one. Even though most of them have different functionalities, the main idea is for you to interact with other student and exchange ideas as all of your work on your projects. This will get you reliable feedback on the work you are doing and inspire you to work on the project more efficiently and effectively. Have a chat with your professor. The professor has the mandate to help you through your coursework to achieve academic excellence. Dont be shy, make an effort and consult where you require assistance. Find out the professors dedicated office hours and consult to improve the validity and credibility of the English essay to be presented. Use MLA Formatting Style A number of essays (especially those that require personal experience) do not need you to avail external references, but most of them do. In relation to writing an English essay on literature, it would be hard to imagine an instance where the work lacks support from either quotes or examples of the original context. Most English essay papers utilize the MLA (Modern Language Association) format. However, if the requirement is not provided, it is advisable to seek confirmation from the professor. The following are some of the elements that formulate the formatting structure of your English essay: Double spaced work throughout the paper Margins should be adjusted to one inch on all sides Stick to a 12-point font (Times New Roman is a preferable choice) No detached title page The top left corner should contain information about the student and course credentials. Page numbers placed at the top right corner Separate page In an instance where you are required to cite particular information, you should use quotation marks to frame the citation, with the authors name put in brackets. When referencing is done, including the authors last name and page number (If accessible). Altogether, if your citation comes from an in folio source, online journal or article with a page with page numbers, make sure you include the page number as you reference your work. You will notice that no punctuation marks are used in between the last name and the page number. For instance, (Muithya 10). The preserved punctuation will be used when referencing the citation at the end of your work. Keep in mind that your Page should have the authors name, the title of cited work, the city it was published and the name of the publishing company. It is advisable to also include any more information available (page numbers, online or print, and so on). Create a Captivating Conclusion At this point, you have already come up with the body paragraphs and detailed them accordingly. For the conclusion part, you should convey a summary of your work which is to leave a good impression to any reader of your work. In short, you are to restate your main ideas that you discussed in your body paragraphs and provide proof of the validity of the thesis statement you provided. However, in regard to an English essay, you may need to put more effort when working on the conclusion of your work. For any piece of creative essay, the suspense is an important element. This helps in your body paragraphs to make the reader anticipate that the conclusion is about to be addressed. The following ideas will ensure that you come up with an impressive conclusion of your work: Evaluate the information you have made available to your readers. Offer a proposal for more research relating to the subject. Give a brief description of the significance of your paper. Revision of Your Work The conclusion work is not the final stage of your work. You need to revise your work appropriately and below are some of the aspects you should remember while you are at this stage: Take Your Time Give yourself time to rest and be fresh again to read through your work. You need to identify and correct any form of spelling, punctuation, grammatical of structuring errors. You should plan for at least one or two days for the revision of your work. Begin with the Content. Spelling Comes After As you proofread your paper, avoid focusing first on the spelling errors or combining this practice with the editing of your content.   This will lead to loss of time.   Start with editing your content and consider the following questions: How clear are your arguments? Do the transitions used to provide a logical flow of ideas? Do all of your ideas relate to the thesis statement you presented? Is your wording within the acceptable academic requirements? Inquire Assistance from One of Your Friends It’s more prudent if a different person read through your paper as they will easily point out issues that you can correct in the long run.

Principles of Microeconomics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Principles of Microeconomics - Essay Example Various distinctive skills brought by the partners can be availed which assist in advancing the progressions of the business. Further, the numerous responsibilities of the business can be efficiently carried out by distributing them among partners. (Hobday I.) Apart from numerous benefits there are some disadvantages faced by the partners. In this type of organization the partners do not possess limited liability and are therefore liable for to repay debts owed by the business. Most importantly, the profits generated are to be shared among the partners, leading to minimized profits per partner. Additionally, disagreements are likely to occur in the business due to the existence of different decisions taken by all partners. Significantly, the life of partnership depends upon the life of its owners. This means that the retirement or death of any one of the partners results in the partnership being ended. The type of management is decentralized of this business which is ensures that the business is not maintained after it is sold off. (Alfred M., 1920) Corporation has numerous pros and cons. The most vital advantage of it is the limited liability enjoyed by the stockholders as the stockholders are a separate legal unit from the corporation which protects them from the liabilities and debts of the business. Additionally, the life of the corporation is independent of the life of its owners. Consequently, the business will keep on working even if any of its owners die or are retired. Moreover, in this type of business the retirement and insurance plans are easy to establish. In addition to this, it is very easy to raise large sums of capital for this type of business by selling stocks. This business involves centralized management which ensures that the business is maintained even after it is sold off. Further, the ownership of this type of organization is convenient and easy to either sell or transfer by selling or transferring stocks. (Alfred M., 1920) On the contr ary, the significant disadvantage of corporation is the probability of taxes being charged twice. This means that the profits generated in a corporation are firstly taxed as income of the corporation and then secondly as income of the shareholder. The formation of corporation is very expensive and complex as several legal formalities are involved in the establishment of a corporation. (Alfred M., 1920) b. The three figure that with Moe's management experience, Larry's salesmanship and Curly's vast fortune, they have the makings for a successful business. Moe and Larry would run the day to day operations and manage the business, while Curly would supply the capital and stay out of management. Further, Curly wants to limit his personal liability to the amount he will invest in the company and does not really care what the tax consequences are. Based on these facts, which form of organization would be best for these guys and why? Ans: The best type of business organization for these gu ys can be limited partnership. This is due to the fact that Curly wishes to enjoy limited liability therefore, being limited partner he can invest large sums of capital into the business and thus protecting himself from paying debts of the business. While the other two partners, Moe and Larry being ordinary partners will invest in the business but will be liable to repay any debts owed by the business. Along with this they will be

A Knowledge Management Framework for Expert Decision Making Essay

A Knowledge Management Framework for Expert Decision Making - Essay Example tructured analytics provides a repository of structured data in the form of presentable reports and charts which facilitates easy decision making .Off late organizations use variety of tools and methods to perform analysis on structured data as per their requirements in various fields like finance , supply chain management , forecasting etc Data is available for an organization from various unstructured sources like emails, web sites, news articles, government notices, pre existing company records etc. Though data available from these sources are useful they are haphazardly organized and hence it becomes very difficult for various stake holders to understand and take a well informed decision. In order to organize the available unorganized data organizations make use of Information Technology for data structuring which can be defined as ‘As a specialized format for organizing and storing data. General data structure types include the array, the file, the record, the table, the tree, and so on. Any data structure is designed to organize data to suit a specific purpose so that it can be accessed and worked with in appropriate ways. In computer programming, a data structure may be selected or designed to store data for the purpose of working on it with various algorithms’. Data once structured are used for creating reports and charts through IT applications / tools which mine the available structured data as per user’s requirement. These IT applications / tools are very user friendly and customizable. In modern day’s business, structured analytics is utilized in building domain specific tools which applies domain specific formulas and calculations over voluminous data which is either pre existing or acquired over runtime. Some of the prominent and generic analytics tools used are stock trend charts, web site hit ratio analytics, foreign exchange charts etc. These tools provide customized looks ups, charts, statistical forecasts, etc. The core development of

The Betrayal of Anne Frank Essay Example for Free

The Betrayal of Anne Frank Essay For decades, historians around the world have been reviewing facts about the betrayal of Anne Frank. On August 4th, 1944, the Gestapo captured Anne Frank and the other residents of the ‘Secret Annex’. Months of torture were ahead of them in three different concentration camps. The camps got the best of seven out of eight people from the ‘Annex’. Otto Frank, Anne’s father, was the only survivor of the Holocaust. The betrayer of Anne Frank and her family needs to be found, they all deserve it. Until now, no one has known who made the fatal phone call to the Secret Police. Anton Tony Ahlers is the infamous betrayer of Anne Frank. Tony Ahlers son said, â€Å"Your suspicions of my dad possibly betraying the Franks is wrong. He DID betray them.† Ahlers was also a known betrayer. Lana Hartog told one of the Frank family helpers that she knew Jews were hiding and could not just sit back and let it continue. Although investigated after the war, she was not found guilty. This proves Lana’s innocence; therefore, she is not guilty. Ahlers is a clear suspect who hated Jews, and Otto and his family were Jews. Ahlers was a worker for the DNP (Dutch National Party- Nazis) and had a hand in dozens of betrayals. Ahlers half sister, Margaret Block, says that Tony bragged about turning in the Franks; however, because everyone in their family was terrified of him and what he could do to them, they never turned him in. If Ahlers had betrayed many other Jews and had turned them in, what would stop him from doing it again? That question leaves historians at a stop sign, at which they are paused momentarily. Tony Ahlers was the only person in the investigation of the betrayal of the Frank family that had a motive; he desperately needed money. With his business bankrupt, he truly had nothing else to lose. Otto was of no use to him any longer in the aspect of business. Otto Frank did business with the German Army, and Ahlers found a letter stating Otto believed the Germans would lose the war. Ahlers used the letter to blackmail Otto. Tony desperately needed money, and his last resort was Otto Frank. Tony Ahlers is still the #1 suspect in the betrayal of Anne Frank. The events of Annes betrayal and the Holocaust happened many decades ago. Certain things are fresh in the minds of historians everywhere; after all, Tony Ahlers has always been the prime suspect of the infamous betrayal. His sons confession, his job, and the only one with a motive, the arrow points right to him. His name needs to be brought to the table, so the Annexs residents can rest in peace. â€Å"In Spite Of Everything, I Believe That People Are Good At Heart.†

College Admissions Essay: Man of the Year :: College Admissions Essays

Man of the Year "You have just been named the 2015 Man/Woman of the Year. For what achievement are you being honored, and how did your college education help you reach your goal?" A well-dressed sell-out crowd fills the enormous auditorium: an auditorium with gigantic spotlights that rival the energy and luminosity of the sun. My eyes follow the lights to the well-dressed host on the stage as he exclaims: "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 2015 Man of the Year Awards!" The audience erupts into an applause that shakes the walls of the building, and I add a few whistles and hollers of my own. As the roar dwindles into silence, we take our seats and the host presents last year's winner, who will in turn present this year's award to the Man of the Year. My eyes dart around the room spotting celebrities, professional athletes, CEOs, and other overqualified applicants, and previous winners, but my envious search ends as the host passes on the microphone to last year's winner. "Ladies and Gentleman," begins the speaker, "here is the moment you've all been waiting for." The speaker takes a step back, responding to the force of the innumerable silent eyes now turned on him. He begins opening the envelope... "This year's winner is..." a final tear, and out comes the coveted document, "Sam Cosby!" Like the silence before a sneeze, a hush falls over the crowd before a riotous cheer fills the air. I stand up and my legs begin to carry me toward the stage as the announcer continues, "Many of you may not know Mr. Cosby, but he has made remarkable advances in the realm of biotechnology. He has received this award for his development of a revolutionary prosthetic limb repair system that can replace not only a lost appendage, but synthesize the lost nerves, creating a new fully functional arm or leg." I completed my journey to the stage and shook the speaker's hand before taking my place at the microphone. "I would like to thank my family for all of their support," I began, kicking myself for my lack of originality, but I continued, "and all of my teachers. I never would have made it this far had I not been pressured to continue in my studies by my professors.

Increasing Organizational Productivity Essay

There is a great challenge in increasing the productivity of organizations particularly to the managers who properly have turned to be experts in their specific fields. Basing on an organizational challenge that is tending to ubiquity, the productivity of the organization is the ratio that evaluates the efficiency of the resources used in the production of services. Production refers to the ratio between outputs and inputs. There are some particular companies that manage to produce more after using less as compared to other companies even when the conditions for productions are quite the same. Two companies may happen to be working in the same industry, deal with the same suppliers and resources, and work in similar business environment and after all, show some differences in organizational productivity. It means therefore the greatest challenge for managers of specific organizations is to have ideas on how to increase productivity. This is one of the manager’s responsibilities that lead to increasing the market share of an organization as well as maintaining profit (Smith, 1995). Goal setting A manager of an organization has to clarify the goals of the organizations, device processes so as to achieve them and in addition control the processes. A Service oriented organization basically shares the same goals with the peer organizations. The goals include developing a service that seems superior as compared to those offered in the marketplace. The second goal involves increasing the market share for the organizations. Sustain the profits and at the same time increase sales volume should be included. Moreover, offering suitable return on investment and using the available technology to increase productivity are also included. The goals also include eliminating waste, fostering the morale of the employees, reaching the best level of functioning efficiency and enhancing the image of the organization. It should be noted that the goals are related to each other and more importantly, their major intention is to increase the productivity of an organization. In all organizations the efforts of the employees basically determine the effectiveness of the organization. Generally, productivity happens in correlation to the interest and concern employees portray to a specific input component. Thus the human resource manager should be actively involved in developing and putting into practice practices and policies which encourage employees’ productivity (Maanen, 1998). Coping with factors that affect production There are some factors that have a great effect on productivity in service oriented companies. These are organization factors, environment factors, factors related to employee and management factors. The management of an organization have the obligation of examining the factors correctively to find out how one factor affects the other. This is because failure to examine a particular factor may lead to lowering of productivity. Since nobody can have a control on the environmental factors, the organization must always strive to be flexible so as to adapt to them. The structure of the organization is influenced by the environment it operates on and the environment has a significant impact on the employees. It is obvious that the style of the management establishes the effectiveness of the organization simply because it affects the reaction and attitude of the employee. Considering the relationship that exists among the factors have an ultimate effect on the productivity of an organization (Smith, 1995). The changing conditions in the economy have intense effect on the productivity of an organization and hence the degree of the stability of the company in terms of economy has effects on decisions concerning growth and staffing. As a result the labour union may change the benefits, wages and work rules and therefore the human resource department have to be cautious of the changes in the labour market conditions. An organization ought to be in a position that it can adapt easily to changing work environment. The organization factors which include structure, climate and technology also affect the profitability, efficiency and more particularly productivity (Smith, 1995). The application of management approaches of economy, efficiency as well as effectiveness as productivity measurement in a service oriented company have been noted not to increase productivity significantly (Bass& Avolio, 1998). There is need to incorporate the use of ethical approaches such as empathy and evaluation to increase the production of the organizations to a greater extent. There are limits that seem practical in the level of formalization and specialization of an organization. It may be national, privately owned or publicly owned and to increase productivity, the human practices and policies must match with the complexity and size of an organization. The makeup as well as size of the Human Resource department ought to echo with the organization’s structure. Another thing to consider is the degree of specialization or in other words technology. This involves the technical level of the processes in an organization. To sustain market viability, there is need for a particular scope of development and research. Employees should have the necessary skills basing on varying degrees. An organization ought to focus on whether it wishes to be employee-centred hence encourage employees to attain results. It must bear in mind its reward systems, communicating information, decision making and offering a positive climate for all employees. The Human Resource professionals ought to involve themselves in determining the climate of the organization. If it happens that they do not get involved, it means they lack the power to command a position that seems strong to lead to the implementation of policies created by the climate. Each organization has a basic management style that may be naturally evolved or consciously adopted. Whether democratic, task-oriented, authoritarian, laissez-faire, whether it strives to be reactive or chooses to be proactive or innovative, the managerial style for a particular organization has intense effect on the ability of the HR department in developing and implementing procedures and policies as well as on the employees. The function of the Human Resource is also highly affected by the manner in which resources are attained and used, the question regarding who makes decisions and sets the goals, how communication is communicated and the style of motivation used (Warrwick Organizational Behaviour Staff,2001). Employee attitude is another factor that has effect on the productivity of an organization. It is through the employees that the goals of an organization are attained and as a result they drive the failure or success of the organization. It is important to have employees with the proper educational levels or knowledge and skill concerning the job. Moreover, the employees’ motivation and abilities are also important factors to consider. The organization should avoid setting practices and policies that intensify negatively the employees’ social, personal, religious and political factors since this is likely to affect the workers’ effectiveness hence influencing productivity (Warrwick Organizational Behaviour Staff, 2001) What matters most? Productivity is concerned with what can be derived from the organizations’ resources and hence it is important to clearly list the most significant resource. For example in labour-intensive industries, the major input could be total number of hours worked by an individual and in steel plants could be the equipment. To increase productivity it is good to benchmark the operations in an organization to avoid being left behind in competition. An organization should invest in resources and this does not imply that there is need to use large sums of money. Investment could entail training employees on skills, operations as well as procedures. Training employees help impact in them vital skills that would help them to avoid making mistakes in customer service and manufacturing. For example, investing in technology may assist the organization to speed up in production and reduce the head count hence leading to less wastage. Paying the employees for work done would not bring the best for an organization. There are so many factors that affect the employees’ behavior. The organization needs to carry out an analysis and determine what has been missing in the list of motivating employees. To set things straight, there is need for a balanced approach and studies have revealed that doing away with pilferage of efforts could result to increased productivity (Warrwick Organizational Behaviour Staff, 2001). Best practices Increasing revenues and lowering costs are the major fundamental goals for service oriented organizations. At the same time as a businesses strives to attain its goals and objectives, IT organizations are pushed forward to accomplishing more with less. IT organizations have an added obligation of assisting other organizations comply with the regulatory requirements. Apparently, in the past years, reducing risk in organizations has assumed a different meaning and has become the most significant goal for organizations. For an organization to succeed in increasing productivity, it needs to examine the other perspective of reducing risks. This means that the need to manage and reduce risks is intertwined to increasing productivity. Managing risks involves reliability, compliance and security (Kelly, 2005). From the compliance point of view, development organizations ought to make sure that business processes as well as applications data consistently adhere to the regulatory guidelines and requirements. Failure to do this may imply that many IT departments could be exposing the organization to regulatory and legal risks. Organizations need to meet the requirement of the SOX-type reporting and hence organizations need to perfectly ensure that any alterations in their applications do not interfere but rather meet with other regulations including those of SOX. Basing on the reliability perspective, it is better that organizations continue with the attempts of increasing availability and reliability of the internal and facing customers’ applications. The key component to ensuring reliability is testing. However, many organizations fail in the procedure as they test what they perceive as important since they have little testing time at their disposal. This means that the organization leaves what is most important in real sense. Therefore, to become a bit more efficient and effective, organizations are required to perfect their effectiveness in the testing process and this means that testing should including testing the most important aspects or components and not the easiest components. From a security point of view, this is the real meaning of business in organizations. A breach in the application raises the risks involved in the organizations and therefore there should be a good thought on matters to do with reducing possibility attacks and this henceforth reduce risks linked to data access and applications (Kelly, 2005). The issue linked to managing risks is developer productivity. There is a lot of pressure on service oriented organizations to execute more while utilizing less. There is more job security if there is consequent greater effectiveness and developer’s productivity. It does not count much if organizations purpose to increase productivity without the proper tools as this will not show the practicability of the set goals. This is like purposing to work smarter but not harder. To increase organizations’ productivity, developers ought to come up with new ways of minimizing the time that is not utilized in benefiting the business value. For instance, the time utilized in testing does not particularly give business its value, but instead gives support on the release of an application that is complete which focus on a business need. Looking for ways to effectively and efficiently test will lead to an increase in productivity hence affect positively the delivering of the business value. The best way for efficient testing is creating a good level for best practices and not waste time in rebuilding standards from the grassroots (Kelly, 2005). Nothing comes easy and therefore if in an organization there will be addressing of challenges and risks, more effort and may be more time will be used. This implies that more money will be needed for executing the process. There is no way an organization can increase quality without having to increase time and cost. Organizations need to think on the best manner of reaching quality in the current world in the available time in a manner that is cost effective. This is the challenge that organizations face today. The best practices assist organizations to have a good improvement in the performance and efficiency of the organizations (Kelly, 2005). In the past years organizations considered the top down approach as the best in increasing productivity. However, this can also be achieved by using the bottoms up approach and this helps organizations to define, capture and apply the best practices in particular portions of the cycle of development. For instance, a particular organization may put into practice a limited performance of code of review for specific forms of services or applications. On the other hand, the organization may apply development tools and automated testing that streamline the identification of errors and also educate developers on the appropriate modes of solving errors as well as accomplishing a given job.

School Kills Creativity †Ken Robinson

1. I agree with this statement, my explanation is that everybody got an education since they was born. First, you have to define the word â€Å"education†. In my opinion education is same as imitation because everyone learns by imitate from what people have done. Students learn mathematic by the method that ancient people made, baby or kids learn everything from what they have seen. You can see that when we were young, we imitated the way we speak from our parents, and we drew the picture from what we see. In that time, we enjoyed that moment.So, we can say that education is in our instinct. 2. 3. What he say happen to us because we have been taught to live in the same pattern, we have to do something in the same way, we have to do something in the same pattern, to make mistake is prohibited. If you learn from history, many things come from the mistaken; Alfred Nobel found Dynamite when he tries to make other thing. Another reason why I agree with his word is that we’re all taught by the same way, so after graduated, we’ll be something like a textbook that you can find it easily.Creativity is the thing that can’t be taught. It has in everyone but education system obstruct it. School kills creativity – Ken Robinson In his speech at the TED conference in February 2006, Sir Ken Robinson claims for a reformation of the current creativity retarding worldwide education system. His point of departure is that children are born with huge talents, wasted by the contemporary education system. While children are not afraid of being wrong, school and the ecological system eliminate this attitude. Read also  How Powerful Do You Find Atticus Finch’s Closing Speech?Robinson thinks that this, making mistakes, is the only way to develop new ideas, although getting on in life means not making mistakes. People, especially children, should have more space to be wrong, accordingly to possibilities of creating something new. Being developed in the 19th century, the education system is focused on providing the requirements for a job in the industry and academic ability. The orator points out that the hierarchy of subjects around the world is the same: first comes math and languages, followed by humanities and concluded by the arts, especially usic and art, after that drama and dance. In Robinson’s opinion this is the right order of priorities for a scientific career, but not for people of the future which have to solute the world problems in a more creative way. Talented people do not get the sense of achievement, because things they are good at are not valued at school; hence, their high creative potentials are wasted. Furthermore Sir Ken Robinson mentions an â€Å"academic inflation† around the world, since conditions for job entrance referring to one’s academic degree are raised.Intelligence is diversely based on visual, tonal, kinesthetically, dynamic and abstract influences as a result it is the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things. That is why the whole body has to be educated to use the whole spectrum of human capacity. Therefore fundamental principles of the education system have to be changed in order to send the next generation into a better future. In my personal experience, around two years ago when I was in high school, I lost all of my confidence and didn’t know what I have to do. My score were lower than other students in the class.The teachers used to ignore me and treated me as a troublemaker. After finishing some internship in America, I’ve realized that I was not that kind. Peopl e who I had met in America, especially my boss and my co-worker, encourage me to do what I really want to do. And finally I have a confidence that I can do everything if I want to. Good morning. How are you? It's been great, hasn't it? I've been blown away by the whole thing. In fact, I'm leaving. (Laughter)  There have been three themes, haven't there,  running through the conference, which are relevant  to what I want to talk about.One is the extraordinary evidence of human creativity  in all of the presentations that we've had  and in all of the people here. Just the variety of it  and the range of it. The second is that  it's put us in a place where we have no idea what's going to happen,  idea how I have an interest in education —  actually, what I find is everybody has an interest in education. Don't you? I find this very interesting. say you  actually, you're not often at dinner parties, frankly, if you work in education. (Laughter) You're not asked . And you're never asked back, curiously. That's strange to me.But if you are, and you say to somebody,  you know, they say, â€Å"What do you do? †Ã‚  and you say you work in education,  you can see the blood run from their face. They're like,  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Oh my God,† you know, â€Å"Why me? My one night out all week. † (Laughter)  But if you ask about their education,  they pin you to the wall. Because it's one of those things  that goes deep with people, am I right? Like religion, and money and other things. I have a big interest in education, and I think we all do. We have a huge vested interest in it,  partly because it's education that's meant to  take us into this future that we can't grasp.If you think of it, children starting school this year  will be retiring in 2065. Nobody has a clue –despite all the expertise that's been on parade for the past four days —  what the world will look like  in five years' time. And yet we'r e meant  to be educating them for it. So the unpredictability, I think,  is extraordinary. And the third part of this is that  we've all agreed, nonetheless, on the  really extraordinary capacities that children have —  their capacities for innovation. I mean, Sirena last night was a marvel,  wasn't she?Just seeing what she could do. And she's exceptional, but I think she's not, so to speak,  exceptional in the whole of childhood. What you have there is a person of extraordinary dedication  who found a talent. And my contention is,  all kids have tremendous talents. And we squander them, pretty ruthlessly. So I want to talk about education and  I want to talk about creativity. My contention is that  creativity now is as important in education as literacy,  and we should treat it with the same status. (Applause) Thank you. That was it, by the way. left.Well I heard a great story recently — I love telling it —  of a little girl who was in a drawing lesson. She was six  and she was at the back, drawing,  and the teacher said this little girl hardly ever  paid attention, and in this drawing lesson she did. The teacher was fascinated and she went over to her  and she said, â€Å"What are you drawing? †Ã‚  And the girl said, â€Å"I'm drawing a picture of God. †Ã‚  And the teacher said, â€Å"But nobody knows what God looks like. †Ã‚  And the girl said, â€Å"They will in a minute. †Ã‚  (Laughter) When my son was four in England —  actually he was four everywhere, to be honest. Laughter)  If we're being strict about it, wherever he went, he was four that year. He was in the Nativity play. Do you remember the story? No, it was big. It was a big story. Mel Gibson did the sequel. You may have seen it: â€Å"Nativity II. † But James got the part of Joseph,  which we were thrilled about. We considered this to be one of the lead parts. We had the place crammed full of ag ents in T-shirts:  Ã¢â‚¬Å"James Robinson IS Joseph! † (Laughter)He didn't have to speak, but you know the bit  where the three kings come in. They come in bearing gifts,  and they bring gold, frankincense and myrhh.This really happened. We were sitting there  and I think they just went out of sequence,  because we talked to the little boy afterward and we said,  Ã¢â‚¬Å"You OK with that? † And he said, â€Å"Yeah, why? Was that wrong? â€Å"They just switched, that was it. Anyway, the three boys came in —  four-year-olds with tea towels on their heads —  and they put these boxes down,  and the first boy said, â€Å"I bring you gold. †Ã‚  And the second boy said, â€Å"I bring you myrhh. †Ã‚  And the third boy said, â€Å"Frank sent this. † (Laughter) What these things have in common is that kids will take a chance. If they don't know, they'll have a go.Am I right? They're not frightened of being wrong. Now, I don't me an to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is,  if you're not prepared to be wrong,  you'll never come up with anything original —  if you're not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults,  most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. way. We  where mistakes  And the result is that we are educating people out of  their creative capacities. Picasso once said this —  he said that all children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.I believe this passionately,  that we don't grow into creativity,  we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out if it. So why is this? I lived in Stratford-on-Avon until about five years ago. In fact, we moved from Stratford to Los Angeles. So you can imagine what a seamless transition that was. Actually, we  just outside Stratford, which is where  Shakespeare's father was born. Are you struck by a ne w thought? I was. You don't think of Shakespeare having a father, do you? Do you? Because you don't think of  Shakespeare being a child, do you? Shakespeare being seven? I never thought of it.I mean, he was  seven at some point. He was in  somebody's English class, wasn't he? How annoying would that be? (Laughter) â€Å"Must try harder. † Being sent to bed by his dad, you know,  to Shakespeare, â€Å"Go to bed, now,†Ã‚  to William Shakespeare, â€Å"and put the pencil down. And stop speaking like that. It's confusing everybody. †Ã‚  (Laughter) Anyway, we moved from Stratford to Los Angeles,  and I just want to say a word about the transition, actually. My son didn't want to come. I've got two kids. He's 21 now; my daughter's 16. He didn't want to come to Los Angeles. He loved it,  but he had a girlfriend in England.This was the love of his life, Sarah. He'd known her for a month. Mind you, they'd had their fourth anniversary,  because it's a long t ime when you're 16. Anyway, he was really upset on the plane,  and he said, â€Å"I'll never find another girl like Sarah. †Ã‚  And we were rather pleased about that, frankly,  because she was the main reason we were leaving the country. (Laughter) But something strikes you when you move to America  and when you travel around the world:  Every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects. Every one. Doesn't matter where you go. You'd think it would be otherwise, but it isn't.At the top are mathematics and languages,  then the humanities, and the bottom are the arts. Everywhere on Earth. And in pretty much every system too,  there's a hierarchy within the arts. Art and music are normally given a higher status in schools  than drama and dance. There isn't an education system on the planet  that teaches dance everyday to children  the way we teach them mathematics. Why? Why not? I think this is rather important. I think math is very important, b ut so is dance. Children dance all the time if they're allowed to, we all do. We all have bodies, don't we? Did I miss a meeting? Laughter) Truthfully, what happens is,  as children grow up, we start to educate them  progressively from the waist up. And then we focus on their heads. And slightly to one side. If you were to visit education, as an alien,  and say â€Å"What's it for, public education? †Ã‚  I think you'd have to conclude — if you look at the output,  who really succeeds by this,  who does everything that they should,  who gets all the brownie points, who are the winners —  I think you'd have to conclude the whole purpose of public education  throughout the world  is to produce university professors. Isn't it?They're the people who come out the top. And I used to be one, so there. (Laughter)  And I like university professors, but you know,  we shouldn't hold them up as the high-water mark of all human achievement. life, another   them. There’s  not all of them, but typically — they live in their heads. They live up there, and slightly to one side. They're disembodied, you know, in a kind of literal way. They look upon their body  as a form of transport for their heads, don't they? meetings. If  by the way, get yourself along to a residential conference  of senior academics,  and pop into the discotheque on the final night. Laughter) And there you will see it — grown men and women  writhing uncontrollably, off the beat,  waiting until it ends so they can go home and write a paper about it. Now our education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability. And there's a reason. The whole system was invented — around the world, there were  no public systems of education, really, before the 19th century. They all came into being  to meet the needs of industrialism. So the hierarchy is rooted on two ideas. Number one, that the most useful subjects for work  are at the top.So you were probably steered benignly away  from things at school when you were a kid, things you liked,  on the grounds that you would  never get a job doing that. Is that right? Don't do music, you're not going to be a musician;  don't do art, you won't be an artist. Benign advice — now, profoundly mistaken. The whole world  is engulfed in a revolution. And the second is academic ability, which has really come to dominate  our view of intelligence,  because the universities designed the system in their image. If you think of it, the whole system  of public education around the world is a protracted process  of university entrance.And the consequence is that many highly talented,  brilliant, creative people think they're not,  because the thing they were good at school  wasn't valued, or was actually stigmatized. And I think we can't afford to go on that way. In the next 30 years, according to UNESCO,  graduating through  combinati on of  technology and its transformation effect on work, and demography  and the huge explosion in population. Suddenly, degrees aren't worth anything. Isn't that true? When I was a student, if you had a degree, you had a job. If you didn't have a job it's because you didn't want one.And I didn't want one, frankly. (Laughter)  But now kids with degrees are often  heading home to carry on playing video games,  because you need an MA where the previous job required a BA,  other. It’s  And it indicates the whole structure of education  is shifting beneath our feet. We need to radically rethink  our view of intelligence. We know three things about intelligence. One, it's diverse. We think about the world in all the ways  that we experience it. We think visually,  we think in sound, we think kinesthetically. We think in abstract terms, we think in movement.Secondly, intelligence is dynamic. If you look at the interactions of a human brain, as we heard  yest erday from a number of presentations,  intelligence is wonderfully interactive. The brain isn't divided into compartments. In fact, creativity — which I define as the process  of having original ideas that have value —  more often than not comes about through the interaction  of different disciplinary ways of seeing things. The brain is intentionally — by the way,  there's a shaft of nerves that joins the two halves of the brain  called the corpus callosum. It's thicker in women.Following off from Helen yesterday, I think  this is probably why women are better at multi-tasking. Because you are, aren't you? There's a raft of research, but I know it from my personal life. If my wife is cooking a meal at home —  which is not often, thankfully. (Laughter)  But you know, she's doing — no, she's good at some things —  but if she's cooking, you know,  she's dealing with people on the phone,  she's talking to the kids, she's painting the ceiling,  she's doing open-heart surgery over here. If I'm cooking, the door is shut, the kids are out,  the phone's on the hook, if she comes in I get annoyed.I say, â€Å"Terry, please, I'm trying to fry an egg in here. Give me a break. † (Laughter)  Actually, you know that old philosophical thing,  if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it,  did it happen? Remember that old chestnut? I saw a great t-shirt really recently which said, â€Å"If a man speaks his mind  in a forest, and no woman hears him,  is he still wrong? † (Laughter) And the third thing about intelligence is,  it's distinct. I'm doing a new book at the momentcalled â€Å"Epiphany,† which is based on a series of  interviews with people about how they discovered  their talent.I'm fascinated by how people got to be there. It's really prompted by a conversation I had  with a wonderful woman who maybe most people  have never heard of; she's called Gillian Lynne —  have you heard of her? Some have. She's a choreographer  and everybody knows her work. She did â€Å"Cats† and â€Å"Phantom of the Opera. †Ã‚  She's wonderful. I used to be on the board of the Royal Ballet in England,  as you can see. Anyway, Gillian and I had lunch one day and I said,  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Gillian, how'd you get to be a dancer? † And she said  it was interesting; when she was at school,  she was really hopeless.And the school, in the '30s,  wrote to her parents and said, â€Å"We think  Gillian has a learning disorder. † She couldn't concentrate;  she was fidgeting. I think now they'd say  she had ADHD. Wouldn't you? But this was the 1930s,  and ADHD hadn't been invented at this point. It wasn't an available condition. (Laughter)  People weren't aware they could have that. Anyway, she went to see this specialist. So, this oak-paneled room,  and she was there with her mother,  and she was led and sat on this chair at the end,  and she sat on her hands for 20 minutes while  this man talked to her mother about all  the problems Gillian was having at school.And at the end of it —  because she was disturbing people;  her homework was always late; and so on,  little kid of eight — in the end, the doctor went and sat  next to Gillian and said, â€Å"Gillian,  I've listened to all these things that your mother's  told me, and I need to speak to her privately. †Ã‚  He said, â€Å"Wait here. We'll be back; we won't be very long,†Ã‚  and they went and left her. But as they went out the room, he turned on the radio  that was sitting on his desk. And when they  got out the room, he said to her mother,  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Just stand and watch her. † And the minute they left the room,  she said, she was on her feet, moving to the music.And they watched for a few minutes  and he turned to her mother and said,  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn't sick; s he's a dancer. Take her to a dance school. † I said, â€Å"What happened? †Ã‚  She said, â€Å"She did. I can't tell you how wonderful it was. We walked in this room and it was full of  people like me. People who couldn't sit still. People who had to move to think. † Who had to move to think. They did ballet; they did tap; they did jazz;  they did modern; they did contemporary. She was eventually auditioned for the Royal Ballet School;  she became a soloist; she had a wonderful career  at the Royal Ballet.She eventually graduated  from the Royal Ballet School and  founded her own company — the Gillian Lynne Dance Company —  met Andrew Lloyd Weber. She's been responsible forsome of the most successful musical theater  productions in history; she's given pleasure to millions;  and she's a multi-millionaire. Somebody else  might have put her on medication and told her  to calm down. Now, I think †¦ (Applause) What I think it comes to is this:  Al Gore spoke the other nightabout ecology and the revolution that was triggered by Rachel Carson.I believe our only hope for the future  is to adopt a new conception of human ecology,  one in which we start to reconstitute our conception  of the richness of human capacity. Our education system has mined our minds in the way  that we strip-mine the earth: for a particular commodity. And for the future, it won't serve us. We have to rethink the fundamental principles  on which we're educating our children. There was  a wonderful quote by Jonas Salk, who said, â€Å"If all the insects  were to disappear from the earth,  within 50 years all life on Earth would end.If all human beings disappeared from the earth,  within 50 years all forms of life would flourish. â€Å"And he's right. What TED celebrates is the gift of the human imagination. We have to be careful now that we use this gift  wisely and that we avert some of the scenarios  that w e've talked about. And the only way  we'll do it is by seeing our creative capacities  for the richness they are and seeing  our children for the hope that they are. And our task  is to educate their whole being, so they can face this future. By the way — we may not see this future,  but they will. And our job is to help  them make something of it. Thank you very much.

Complete Plan When Should I Start Studying for the SAT

Complete Plan When Should I Start Studying for the SAT SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Before you start thinking about which colleges to apply to or what you want to study in college, you need to take the right steps to get there. For many students, this means taking the SAT. You may be wondering when to start studying for the SAT. If you start too late, you won't get the highest score you're capable of. But if you start too early, you might struggle because you haven’t learned all the necessary content yet, plus you could forget things by the time the test rolls around. So what’s the perfect time to start studying? We will briefly explain the content you need to know for the SAT, and then give you a recommended plan based on your college goals. When Should You Take the SAT? Before you decide when to start studying for the SAT, first you need to figure out when you'll take the SAT. Given the content on the SAT and the college application timeline,you should aim to take your first SAT in the fall of junior year.This gives you time to retake the SAT in spring if you want a higher score. Then if you score well, senior year will be freed up for your college applications. Also,aiming for junior fall means your SAT studying won’t compete with AP or IB exams. You'll have to decide between a more intense study schedule (like ten hours a week for two months) or a more gradual one (four hours a week for five months). Either method can work and help you make huge score increases, so choosing a plan will just depend on your schedule and study style. When Should You Start Studying for the SAT? Working backwards from junior fall, it’s good tostart studying at some point during sophomore yearfor a longer, less intense plan or the summer after sophomore year for a more intense plan. Taking the PSAT (Practice SAT) orPSAT 10as a sophomore is a great way to get introduced to the test in a completely no-pressure situation –you aren’t qualified for the National Merit competitionuntil junior year, so you can just get an introduction to the test and get a sense of where you stand with your current skills. If your school doesn’t offer the PSAT or it's too late to sign up, you can also takea free SAT practice test online. Just remember to time yourself carefully to simulate actual test conditions! By taking a practice SAT or a PSAT, you'll have a baseline score which you'll use to determine how many hours you need to study for the SAT further on in this article. Where Do You Want to Go to College? The length and intensity of your study plan will strongly depend on your college goals. If you’re looking to go a decent in-state school, there is less pressure riding on your score than if you are set on the likes of Harvard, Stanford, or MIT. Use the three plans below to help you come up with your SAT target score. Ivy League/Highly Selective School SAT Study Plan If you’re aiming for highly selective colleges like the Ivy Leagues, Stanford, and MIT,getting a high SAT score is extremely important.Definitely plan to take the PSAT as a sophomore to see how you are shaping up to do on the SAT. You should consider taking a full SAT practice test as well, since the PSAT doesn’t include all of the content tested on the real SAT. You'll need an excellent SAT score to get into MIT! Once you have a starting score, decide whether you want to study during sophomore year at a more gradual pace or use the summer before junior year for a more intensive study schedule. Keep in mindyour target SAT score should be1500 or higher if you are aiming for top schools.This puts you in the higher end of admitted student score ranges for these schools, and thus improves your odds of admission. Next, take the SAT for the first time during junior fall. If you fall short of a 1500 (or whatever you set your target score at), plan to retake the SAT in junior spring and continue to study. (Learn more aboutwhy getting above 1500 is so important for top schools.) Selective School SAT Study Plan We are defining selective schools as schools that take less than half of admitted applicants (in other words, their admissions rate is below 50%). These schools are tough to get into, but not as competitive as the Ivy Leagues, Stanford, and MIT. For selective schools, we also recommend either taking the PSAT as a sophomore to gauge your base score or taking a practice SAT. Next,look up the SAT score ranges for your target colleges.You can find any college’s SAT score ranges by searching for â€Å"[Name of College/University] SAT scores PrepScholar†. Set your target SAT score based on the most selective school you are applying to.This way, if you make your score goal, you can comfortably apply to every school on your list. For example, if the most competitive school you’re applying to is New York University, you shouldset your SAT target score at 1350– the average score of admitted students. Take the SAT junior fall. If you are short of your goal, you can retake it in junior spring. Less Selective School SAT Study Plan Less selective schools are schools that admit more than half of their applicants. This is often the case with large public universities or lesser-known small colleges. Your SAT score here is important, but it likely won’t need to be sky high. Take the PSAT as a sophomore to gauge your starting point. If you seriously struggle – get any score below a 1000 – start doing some prep sophomore year so you can get at least an above-average SAT score. Otherwise, you can wait until after sophomore year is over and prep during the summer.Look up the SAT score ranges at your target schoolsand set your target score based on those ranges. For example, if you’re hoping to get into the University of Kentucky,you should set your target SAT score at 30for the new SAT, which is their average SAT score for admission. Take the SAT junior fall.If your score is way lower than your state school’s ranges, you can retake the test in junior spring. Otherwise, focus on keeping your grades up and devoting time to your extracurriculars. Want to learn more about the SAT but tired of reading blog articles? Then you'll love our free, SAT prep livestreams. Designed and led by PrepScholar SAT experts, these live video events are a great resource for students and parents looking to learn more about the SAT and SAT prep. Click on the button below to register for one of our livestreams today! How Much Do You Need to Study for the SAT? How many hours you need to study for the SAT depends onhow large a point improvement you want to make.You'll determine this by figuring out the difference between the baseline score you got from your practice test and your target score for the schools you want to get accepted to. You can use the following hours per point improvement recommendations as a starting point. 0-50 SAT Composite Point Improvement: 10 hours50-100 Point Improvement: 20 hours100-200 Point Improvement: 40 hours200-300 Point Improvement: 80 hours300-500 Point Improvement: 150 hours+ (For more on scoring, see our post on how the SAT is scored.) As an example,if you get a 1200 on your practice test, and your target score is 1500, then you have 300 points to improve, meaning you should put in about 80 hours.You could space this out (say, three hours per week for six months) or study intensely over the summer (16 hours per week for five weeks). This guideline is just a starting point and exactly how much time you'll need to spend studying heavily depends on how much you've prepped before, your starting skill level, and your ability to learn new concepts quickly. If you're looking for a small improvement, like 50 points,you can do this by optimizing your testing strategy and possibly even just byretaking the test.But for serious improvements, 200 points and above, you likely still need to learn a lot of fundamental content. Little tricks and strategies won't be enough to raise your score - you will need to learn actual material and attack your test-taking weaknesses. Think about it this way: the SAT tests academic skills that you've been learning your entire life, like how numbers work and how to read.As a high school junior, you've completed over 20,000 hours of schooling and homework.An improvement of 200 or more points requires a serious retooling of your knowledge and skills. If you can't devote at least 80 hours to prepping, you will find it very difficult to make huge score improvements. What’s Tested on the SAT? In this section we go over the major topics you'll be tested on in each of three main sections of the SAT. You can use this information to figure out what material you already know and what you still need to learn for the SAT. Reading All questions on the SAT Reading section are based on passages with set topics. There will be one US or world literature passage, two history/social science passages, and two science passages. You will need to be able to read and understand the passages and then answer multiple-choice questions about them. The literature passage can use especially complex language, so you have to be able to break down complex language in a short amount of time five passages (and 52 questions) in 65 minutes, to be precise. The questions require you to define vocabulary based on context, use evidence, understand logical arguments, and even understand some basic scientific concepts. There are even a few questions about data analysis basically, you'll have to break down a graph or table. Finally, there are two-part "evidence support" questions: the first question asks you something about the passage, and the second question asks you where exactly in the passage you find your evidence. Check out this example to see what an evidence support question looks like: Via College Board's Test Specifications for the Redesigned SAT. Doing well on SAT Reading will require you to read difficult passages from different subjects quickly and break down their meaning. Essentially, the more advanced of a reader you are, and the more English, science, and social science classes you have taken, the better prepared you will be for this section. Having two years of high school English completed by the time you take the test junior fall will give you a sufficient base to study with. High school English classes both broaden your vocabulary and teach you to approach increasingly difficult texts. In addition, social science or science classes you take will further prepare you to tackle the social science and science passages. Any advanced reading you can do outside of class – either in terms of books or magazines like The New Yorker or Wired – will also be helpful. Read a detailed breakdown of the Reading section here. Math SAT Math tests the following math concepts: Numbers and Operations Algebra and Functions Geometry and Measurement Data Analysis, Statistics, and Probability Trigonometry (You can read a full breakdown of how these concepts are tested here.) This means that once you have taken Geometry and Algebra II, you will have learned all the content you need for the SAT Math section. You don’t need to worry about pre-calculus or calculus concepts on the SAT. However, SAT Math will require you to work through story problems and real-life scenarios, with some science and social science concepts thrown in as well. This is why extra studying for the SAT Math section is very important. Definitely don’t attempt the SAT or a serious study regimen before you’ve completed geometry. But most students should be ready to tackle the SAT with the math they have learned before junior year. (If you want to read more about what it would be like to take the SAT without geometry, see our post on the subject.) Writing and Language The writing section of the SAT tests your ability to understand and apply grammar rules and English language conventions to both sentences and paragraphs. For this section, you will be asked to improve sentences (in terms of grammar and structure), identify errors in sentences (grammar and usage) and to improve paragraphs (organization and revision), all in the context of long passages. You can read a complete breakdown of this section here. The more familiar you are with English grammar rules, the easier this section will be for you. Additionally, the more experience you have writing and revising, the easier it will be for you to tackle these questions quickly. Again, two years of high school English should be sufficient preparation for most students, but reading and writing outside of class will help you get ahead. Also, you should definitely take the time to study the grammar rules that will be tested on SAT Writing. The Bottom Line: When to Start Studying for the SAT We recommend you take the PSAT (or an SAT practice test) sophomore year to get your base SAT score. Then, figure out your target SAT score based on the most competitive school you’re applying to. Finally, begin to study either during sophomore year or the following summer, and take the SAT junior fall. The intensity of your studying will vary by how selective the schools you want to get into are, your starting score, and how much you need to improve. But if you start during sophomore year by taking the PSAT or an SAT practice test, you will be on track to get your best possible score during junior year. This will free up your senior year for college applications. What’s Next? Are you aiming for a perfect or close-to-perfect score? Get tips from our resident full-scorer about how to get there. Learn what a good/bad/excellent SAT score is, and read about good scores for the Ivy League. Curious about how the PSAT qualifies you for the National Merit Competition? Learn how to qualify here. Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points?We have the industry's leading SAT prep program. 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Roman Gladiators, Their Arms, and Armor

Roman Gladiators, Their Arms, and Armor Much like todays football players or WWF wrestlers, Roman gladiators could win renown and fortune in the arenas. Modern sportsmen sign contracts; ancient ones made oaths. Injuries were common, and the life of a player was generally short. Unlike modern sports figures, however, gladiators were usually slaves or criminals: They were not expected to fight in wars or battles, but instead fought one-on-one (usually) as entertainment, in an arena. As a gladiator, a man could potentially raise his status and wealth if he was both popular and successful. Gladiators and Their Weapons Gladiators were often criminals and slaves, hired to provide entertainment in the Roman Circus or another arena.  There were many different types of gladiators, based on their clothing and weapons.  Weapons used by some gladiators included knives and swords, shields, and helmets.The use of the weapons was taught at a professional school called a ludus. Both the men and the weapons were owned (and rented out) by the head of the school.   Schools and Standing of the Gladiators Gladiators did not fight in the Roman army, but after the Spartacus revolt in 73 BCE, some were professionally trained to perform in the arena. Training schools (called ludus gladiatorius) taught prospective gladiators. The schools- and the gladiators themselves- were owned by a lanista, who would lease the men out for upcoming gladiatorial events. If a gladiator was killed during the battle, the lease would convert to a sale and the price might be as high as 50 times the rent. There were many types of gladiators in ancient Rome, and they were trained at the ludus by a specialist (doctores or magistrii) skilled in that form of fighting. Each type of gladiator had his own set of traditional weapons and armor. Some gladiators- like the Samnites- were named for opponents of the Romans; other types of gladiators, like the Provacator and Secutor, took their names from their functions: challenger and pursuer. Often, certain types of gladiators fought only specific foes, because the best type of entertainment was thought to be an evenly matched pair with contrasting fighting styles. Weapons and Armor of the Roman Gladiators Most of the information about Roman gladiators comes from Roman historians, as well as mosaics and tombstones. One source is the Oneirocritica of Artemidorus, a professional diviner of the second century CE Rome. Artemidorus interpreted dreams for Roman citizens, and a chapter of his book discusses what a mans dream of fighting with a specific gladiator type implies about the wife he is going to marry. There were four principal classes of Roman gladiator: Samnites, Thraex, Myrmillo, and Retiarius. Samnite The Samnites were named after the great Samnite warriors that Rome defeated in the early years of the republic, and they are most heavily armed of the four main types. After the Samnites became Roman allies, the name was dropped, likely changed to the secutor (pursuer) although that is somewhat debated. Their weapon and armor included: Scutum: a large oblong shield made from three sheets of wood, glued together and topped with a leather or canvas coating.Galea: plumed helmet with a visor and small eye holesGladius: short sword called divides the throat, one of several words for a sword, used primarily by Roman foot soldiers but also by gladiators; probably a celtic word from which the term gladiator comesManicae: leather elbow or wristbandsGreaves: leg armor that went from ankle to just below the knee. Traex (plural Thraces) The Thraces were named after another enemy of Rome, and they usually fought in pairs against the Mirmillones. Artemidorus warned that if a man dreamed he was fighting a Traex, his wife would be rich (because the Traexs body was completely covered by armor); crafty (because he carries a curved scimitar); and fond of being first (because of a Traexs advancing techniques). Armor used by the Thraces included: Small rectangular shieldSica: curved scimitar-shaped dagger designed for slicing attacks on an opponentGaleaManicaeGreaves Mirmillo (spelled Myrmillo, Murmillo and plural Murmillones) A mumillo stands triumphant, in a 4th century CE mosiac from Torrenova. Corbis / Getty Images Murmillones were the fish men, who wore a large helmet with a fish on its crest, armor with leather or metal scales, and a straight Greek-styled sword. He was heavily armored, with a massive helmet with tiny eye slits and he was often paired with the Retiarii. The Murmillones carried: Cassis crista, a heavy bronze helmet used to protect the faceGaleaManicae  but made of mailOcrea: shin guards Retiarius (plural Retiarii) Retiarius fights and wins against another, in this Roman mosiac from Torrenova. Corbis via Getty Images / Getty Images The Retiarii or net men usually fought with weapons modeled on the tools of a fisherman. They only wore armor on the arm and shoulder, leaving legs and head exposed. They most commonly fought the secutor and murmillo  or one another. The Roman satirist Juvenal describes a disgraced nobleman named Gracchus who trained as a retiarius because he was too proud to wear defensive armor or use offensive weapons and refused to wear a helmet that would have hidden his shame. Artemidorus  said that men who dreamed of battles with the retiarii were sure to find a wife who was poor and wanton, roaming about for any man who wanted her. The Retiarii carried: Retes: a weighted net used to entangle the opponentFascina: long, three-pronged trident which was thrown like a harpoonGalerus: (metal shoulder piece)Short quilted tunics Secutor Engraving of Ancient Roman Gladiators Fighting, Retiarius vs. Secutor.    Secutors were armed almost exactly like a murmillo, except that they had a smooth helmet that wouldnt get entangled with the nets of the retiarii. Aremidorus reports that the man who dreamed of fighting with a secutor was sure to get a woman who was attractive and rich, but proud and disdainful of her husband. The armor of the Secutors included: Loincloth with a leather beltDistinctive simple helmetGaleaManicaeOcrea Provacator (pl. Provacatores) Provacator battles a retiarii, mosaic from the 3rd century CE. Print Collector/Getty Images / Getty Images A Provacator (or challenger) was dressed as a legionnaire during the Republic era but later stripped down in elegance. The Provacatores starred in what were considered the best battles, and they mostly fought each other. The Roman dream analyst said that dreams of fighting this man meant you would get a wife who is attractive and graceful, but also flirtatious and wanton. Provacatores were armed with: GaleaRound top helmet with circular eye grates and feather plumages on either side of the headHighly decorated square scutum (shield)Cardiophylax: small breastplate, usually rectangular or crescent-shaped.ManicaeGreaves Eques (pl. Equites) Equites fought on horseback, they were essentially gladiator cavalrymen, who were lightly armed and only fought one another. Artemidorus said that dreaming of battle with an eques meant you would have a bride who was rich and noble but of limited intelligence. Equites carried or wore: Sword or a spearMedium sized shieldBrimmed helmet with two decorative feathers and no crest Gladiators of Lesser Fame The dimachaerii (two-knife men) were armed with two short scimitar blades (siccae) designed for slicing attacks on an opponent. Reports of the armor they carry range from nothing but a loincloth or a belt to a wide variety of armor including chain mail.The essadarii (chariot men) fought with a spear or gladius from war chariots in the fashion of the Celts, introduced by Julius Caesar when he got back from GaulThe hoplomachii (armored fighters) wore a helmet and basic arm and leg protection, a small round shield called a parmula, a gladius, a short dagger known as a pugio, and a gladius graecus, a leaf-shaped sword used only by them.The laquearii (lasso men) used a noose or a lasso.Velites or skirmishers hurled missiles and fought on foot.A scissor fought with a specialized short knife with two blades in the shape of an open pair of scissors without the hinge.Catervarii battled each other in groups, rather than one-on-one.Cestus fought with their fists, which were wrapped in leather w rappings studded with spikes. Crupellarii were trainee slaves who wore heavy armor of iron making it hard for them to fight, rapidly exhausted and easily dispatched.Noxii were criminals who fought animals or each other: They were not really armed and so not really gladiators.Anadabatae wore helmets without eyeholes. Sources Barton, Carlin A. The Scandal of the Arena. Representations 27 (1989): 1–36. Print.Carter, Michael. Artemidorus and the á ¼Ë†Ã ÃŽ ²ÃŽ ®ÃŽ »ÃŽ ±Ãâ€º Gladiator. Zeitschrift fur  Papyrologie und Epigraphik 134 (2001): 109–15. Print.Carter, M. J. Gladiatorial Combat: The Rules of Engagement. The Classical Journal 102.2 (2006): 97–114. Print.Neubauer, Wolfgang, et al. The Discovery of the School of Gladiators at Carnuntum, Austria. Antiquity 88 (2014): 173–90. Print.Oliver, James Henry. Symmachi, Homo Felix. Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 25 (1957): 7–15. Print.Reid, Heather L. Was the Roman Gladiator an Athlete? Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 33.1 (2006): 37–49. Print.

The Importance of Project Management Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Importance of Project Management - Coursework Example The time spent in socializing too had a use in her project: Rachel must have got to know about some of the mistakes others may have made earlier so that she did not repeat them. She could be herself making some mistakes and realized this after talking to other IS managers. News within the organization about others would give her a break from work so that she does not get bored and allow her to focus better when she sits down at her desk next. A majority portion of Rachel’s work was spent in communication whether that was with the client, her boss or her team. Judging from the breakup, I estimate that this activity took up almost 75% of her day and included a variety of forms of communication including one hot-headed discussion with a senior marketing manager. The time she spent during the day waiting on others exemplifies the true professional environment where one cannot immediately get in touch with another person bringing about natural communication barriers. However, Rache l’s determination and the ability to shuffle tasks around saw her being able to handle all the aspects of communication she intended to do so within her day. I think Rachel made effective use of her day because I saw her communicating all along the day and keeping all parties updated on the latest findings. Her meeting with her team saw her getting the task of speaking to John to clarify some promises. As soon as she spoke to John, she went to see Mary and soon after getting done with her, she updated her team on the findings. This, I believe was a collective act that I would rate as being amongst the ones that raised the utilization of her day. This is because communication in one of the main tenets of project management and Rachel ensured that all teams and people connected to the project or having a stake in it knew about what was going on in it (Lock, 2007). Rachel also made use of the well-known tools and techniques used by project managers. Her what-if analysis on MS Pr oject was an example of applying structure to a thought process to assess the possible implications of possible scenarios. I think that Rachel’s day was spent effectively because she managed to check on all her pending tasks, emails, phone calls and was able to make a to-do list for the next day based on the day’s happenings. This I believe was the icing on the cake in addition to the way she handled her role throughout the day by getting help where needed and promising to help where she could. Question 2 Project management is a mix of technical and managerial expertise which has several aspects of communication, management and technical expertise knitted together. Being a project manager thus requires elements like patience, the ability to listen to people, make decisions with constraints and manage people and their motivation. Rachel’s example in the case study shows one of the many aspects of being a project manager and how it is important to be able to manag e 360 degrees of your work life. The case also tells me that project management is a mix of art and structured tool analysis where the former is applicable to the people aspect of project management and the latter to the task management section. I also get the feeling that communication is by far the most important job of a project manager and to manage a project well a project manager should be able to fight when required, stay patient when required and always keep them informed so that accurate