Monday, August 24, 2020

Quality management Essay

Exchange 2: Identify two (2) thought pioneers comparative with quality administration. Research each to decide their center thoughts and commitments. Orchestrate your contemplations about each into a one section (per pioneer) that contains significant and important proclamations about each idea head, their commitments, and the pertinence of the commitment today in regards to crafted by venture administrators. Joseph M. Juran Dr. Juran dedicated 70 years to his books, musings, and all consuming purpose reforming the way of thinking of all out quality administration. His created quality administration thoughts work around the quality set of three of Quality Planning, Quality Improvement, and Quality Control. Through the Juran Institute, Dr. Juran has kept up the ability to constantly widen the experiential learning of financial expert, researcher, and designers around his work. Dr. Juran’s lessons and direction center endeavors around the client and their needs, upgrades the item for those people, streamlines the procedures in question, and guarantees that the procedure will really create the item. Dr. Juran comprehended that the human segment (the client, the chief, the researcher, the designer) was a necessary bit of the quality procedure. His exercises added to the ascent of the Japanese economy after his hands on activities with the Union of Japanese Scientist and Engineers. The push of data tod ay has permitted these speculations to prosper. Consumer loyalty is a consistently squeezing position for huge and independent companies. Today’s directors would be unable to comprehend the human factor, if people like Dr. Juran didn't lay the preparation to concentrate endeavors on the human variables. Genichi Taguchi Taguchi was a Japanese Textile Engineer that comprehended the procedures and impacts of little and enormous organizations. He understood there were factors inside management’s control and others that we not. His significant commitments/hypotheses were the accompanying: The Loss Function-a condition to evaluate the decrease of a customer’s saw estimation of an item, as the quality decays; Orthogonal Arrays and Linear Graphs-devices to recognize and seclude the things concerned when managing powerful expenses and time; Robustness-the distinguished course of creating items and procedures that perform consistently paying little mind to the wild powers.

Saturday, August 22, 2020

The Challenges In Paediatric Radiography

The Challenges In Pediatric Radiography In for the most part pediatric radiography is take the radiography picture of youngsters. The reason to take the radiography picture has two purposes which are for the analytic and remedial reason. Demonstrative reason regularly is for assess or see the kids body condition in anatomical and neurotic perspective. In any case, restorative reason basically is for treatment like careful fix the crack, for example, embed plate to join the bone that break. Kids introducing to do radiographic assessment extend from infant (neonates), little children (a year to 2 years of age), young (6 to 8 years of age) and youthful (10 to 13 years of age) Different time of youngsters bunch speaking to the various difficulties to the analytic radiographer on the job. Indicative radiographer have think numerous or distinctive strategy to look at the kids at same must lessen complete portion get by the kids and give top notch picture to radiologist for determination. Pediatric patient will consistently accompany extraordinary or in other word say as an exceptional issue to the radiographer. This circumstance consistently challenges indicative radiographer in both genuinely and intellectually perspective. They need to utilize distinctive approach to impart will pediatric patient. Staff on the radiography division should consistently reaction to the non verbal correspondence of pediatric patient. Since they dislike grown-up persistent which can voice any inconvenience to us. Pediatric Patient Consideration Like what have notice above, Pediatric Patient isn't care for grown-up quiet. At the point when Pediatric Patient present in the office for the demonstrative assessment, not many viewpoint ought to be consider so as to make they fell solace and inviting. Some Pediatric Patient won't comprehend the ordinary word which we use to impart to grown-up quiet, since grown-up persistent simple to convey and they can comprehend the as a radiographer endeavor to state and the degree of comprehension is a lot higher than youngster. In any case, for Pediatric Patient, they cannot comprehend the many word. Pediatric Patient has constrained scope of word or restricted information about the world particularly if the Pediatric Patient is under young or pre-adult patient and they have lower level of comprehension. For young patient and youthful patient they might have the option to impart effectively than other Pediatric Patient. In this way, in correspondence perspective. Radiographer needs to demons trated incredible correspondence ability to all thoughtful Pediatric Patient concurring they age. Radiographer must utilize fitting, simple and basic wording and language to the Pediatric Patient, the manner of speaking must low and benevolent. Dont ever utilizing the high manner of speaking when converse with Pediatric Patient, they may think you (radiographer) is attempt to harming them. Dont ever attempt to discourteous to the Pediatric Patient when they are not comprehend what you (radiographer) endeavor to stating. Continuously watch the non verbal correspondence of the Pediatric Patient. This sort of correspondence consistently gives more data about what Pediatric Patient needs to communicate. Case of non verbal correspondence is outward appearance, body act and other. Staff in the division should consistently permit the Pediatric Patient is organization by parent or gatekeeper during the assessment so as to comfort them. The present of parent or gatekeeper consistently make radiographer work become simple, since present of them can give security factor through the eye or physical contact to the Pediatric Patient. The nearness of relative which remain behind the defensive screen from radiation additionally diminish the dread of the Pediatric Patient School age and pre-adult patient usually is can do the radiography assessment freely. Since the degree of comprehension of them is higher contrast with little children. Dont disregard the pediatric patient in the imaging room. At the point when we disregarded them at the imaging room, they will begin to dread to the more abnormal condition and the dim region. This condition will prompt the some horrible complexity, for example, fast pulse, pediatric patient begin to cry or pediatric patient may ingest or breathe in outside body because of the intriguing. In the event that the confusion is serious and pediatric patient wellbeing condition is basic, at that point the entire division will get in a tough situation. So , to stay away from this undesirable marvels occur in imaging office, if you don't mind dont ever attempt to left only them despite the fact that they are young or youthful on the grounds that they in the scope of the age to investigate to world. Ecological and security factor are additionally should considered ahead of time of the assessment. Check the imaging room temperature whether excessively warm or excessively cold, if the temperatu re isn't reasonable for the specific patient, radiographer can change the room temperature to the proper degree as per the patient size and age. At the point when radiographer removes a few fabrics from they and permit aliens to see their body, attempt to ask they authorization or affirmation from their parent or gatekeeper, since we dont need they feel like disgrace and uncomforted. On the off chance that can, attempt use medical clinic developed to cover their body after departure some their fabrics, this can give them agreeable. Job of the Radiographer before Examination Prior to the assessment, radiographer needs to plan something all together for the entire assessment methodology in convey easily without confronting any issue. In other word, to ensure your (radiographer) work is simple. At the point when you (radiographer) see the imaging demand structure, ensure you (radiographer) know the name of patient, particularly they age and sign. This will help radiographer in part of correspondence, how to talk will them in light of the fact that diverse time of pediatric patient have distinctive degree of comprehension, manner of speaking and how to deal with the pediatric patient will particular sign including elective technique to direct the assessment. Before start assessment, ensure that the physical condition in imaging room is reasonable for the specific pediatric patient including the room temperature and all the office including the appropriate immobilization gadgets is give. This is significant factor to guarantee the work can convey easily. Aft er at that point, present yourself (radiographer) including your age and name or other important data about yourself. Take a stab at asking the pediatric patient name, bringing them stroll around the imaging division, and presenting some staff and the instrument to them to make them natural in new condition to stay away from the sentiment of abnormal and dread from of the pediatric patient. When taking to the pediatric patient, attempt utilize basic and fitting language to give the guidance to them. To guarantee them whether they comprehend or not, you can ask the input from them. In the event that you inability to speak with them, you can disclose the guidance to them parent or gatekeeper. In any case radiographer needs to think other approach to impart. Let the youngster thought about the assessment mean mention to them what will occur previously, during and after the assessment, the entire strategy about the assessment, illuminate them during assessment will have some loud from t he development of table , x beam cylinder and anode turn. When conversing with them, ensure talk at the eye level so as to get the trust and collaboration from them. Attempt to set up the compatibility with them, pose the inquiry from them. Continuously permit the parent and watchman present in imaging space to give better inclination to youngster. Groundwork for the Examination While getting ready for the assessment, radiographer constantly arranged elective approach to play out the assessment. The essential strategy may not be permitted by the imaging room condition, for example, absence of immobilization gadgets, temperature too cold or other factor. Quiet condition likewise one of the factor which make radiographer plan elective approach to perform assessment. They may accompany wheel seat, with streetcar or restricted in development. Some youngster may have incapacity, so have utilize other strategy to do the assessment. Before the pediatric patient go into the imaging room, ahead of time take the picture receptor, immobilization cushions to the imaging room. Spot the picture receptor, immobilization gadgets, x beam cylinder and table on the right situation as indicated by assessment demand. Thus, this activity will can diminish the working commotion like development of the X beam cylinder and table during the assessment. Pick the reasonable introductio n factor like low Mas for assessment as per the part be x beam and patient age and size. Ensure that the introduction factor that select can deliver excellent picture if not the assessment need to rehash, it will give more portion to the pediatric patient. Radiographer likewise can collimate the radiation field to the size of tape and spot the anatomical marker ahead of time, so this will lessen time for the kid in the imaging room. At the point when the phases of readiness are finished, position the pediatric patient exact and permit parent or gatekeeper goes with their kid, and gives the lead developed to them. Immobilization Devices Immobilization gadgets are instrumentation that can found in radiology office. This thoughtful instrumentation in make to cause the radiography assessment to experience all the more effectively. Immobilization gadgets ordinarily have scarcely any significant capacities. The gadgets can hold the patient in position as indicated by the radiography assessment system prerequisite. Radiographer will utilize these gadgets when the longing position of the pediatric patient can't be accomplished. Other than this capacity, immobilization gadgets likewise can forestall development of the pediatric patient because of the state of being. Persistent development during the assessment will cause antique on the picture that produce. Antique impact on the radiography picture will make the radiologist hard to analyze and can't further assess the picture. In the event that the assessment is rehashed because of picture ancient rarity, this will make twofold presentation the pediatric patient. Anot

Sunday, July 19, 2020

Understanding the Chew and Spit Eating Disorder

Understanding the Chew and Spit Eating Disorder Eating Disorders Diagnosis Print Understanding the Chew and Spit Eating Disorder By Lauren Muhlheim, PsyD, CEDS facebook twitter linkedin Lauren Muhlheim, PsyD, is a certified eating disorders expert and clinical psychologist who provides cognitive behavioral psychotherapy. Learn about our editorial policy Lauren Muhlheim, PsyD, CEDS Medically reviewed by Medically reviewed by Steven Gans, MD on January 13, 2017 Steven Gans, MD is board-certified in psychiatry and is an active supervisor, teacher, and mentor at Massachusetts General Hospital. Learn about our Medical Review Board Steven Gans, MD Updated on August 17, 2019 TerryJ/Getty Images More in Eating Disorders Diagnosis Symptoms Treatment Awareness and Prevention In This Article Table of Contents Expand Chewing and Spitting Research A Patient's View Medical Consequences Assessing and Treating Advice for Family Members View All Back To Top Among the lesser-known and less-studied eating disorder behaviors is that known as chewing and spitting. This activity consists of chewing food, usually food that is highly enjoyable and energy-dense, and spitting it out before swallowing.?? The intent of the behavior is to enjoy food’s taste while preventing the ingestion of calories. Chewing and spitting has some similarities to bingeing in that it involves consuming larger amounts of high-calorie foods than intended, but is also similar to restrictive eating in that the food is not actually ingested. Chewing and Spitting in the DSM-5 Initially, spitting was thought to be just an alternative to vomiting, so was studied primarily in women with bulimia nervosa. In the prior version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV), chewing and spitting was listed as a potential symptom of eating disorder not otherwise specified (EDNOS), which in the DSM-5 has been replaced with the category of other specified feeding and eating disorder (OSFED). However, the DSM-5 does not list chewing and spitting under any single disorder because it is now recognized that the behavior can occur across all eating disorder diagnoses.?? Chewing and spitting may be exhibited by patients diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or other specified eating disorder. It has further been noted to occur in elevated rates amongst individuals who have undergone bariatric surgery, a growing population. Research on Chewing and Spitting One of the first published case reports (De Zwaan, 1997) of the behavior described a 19-year-old woman with anorexia accompanied by chewing and spitting.?? She either spent hours in the bathroom or spit the food into carrier bags, both at home and while walking on the streets. The chewing and spitting out took up to 6 hours every day, preventing her from studying and from social contacts. Her mother insisted on family meals every day. As in her anorectic days, she was successful in hiding the food from her plate in her pockets and under the table without her parents noticing it. She was very much ashamed of her behavior and at first refused even to talk about it, either in individual or in group therapy. Research on chewing and spitting is sparse. Chewing and spitting is more commonly associated with other restrictive eating disorder behaviors (such as diet pill abuse, dietary restriction, and excessive exercise) than with binge/purge behaviors.?? The behavior may be frequent and it may be associated with greater psychopathology. Eating Disorder Behaviors Chewing and spitting is also associated with more severe eating disorder symptoms and suicidal ideation. Individuals who chew and spit, relative to other patients with eating disorders who do not chew and spit, have higher scores on measures of body image concerns, preoccupation with shape and weight, depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive behavior. Among eating disorder patients admitted to a behavioral, inpatient, and partial hospitalization program for eating disorders that consented to participate in a study by Guarda and colleagues, 34 percent admitted to at least one episode of chewing and spitting in the month prior to admission, and 19 percent reported being regular chewers/spitters who engaged in the behavior several times a week.?? In their paper, Guarda and colleagues report The behavior is described as driven and compelling and is sometimes associated with feelings of loss of control. As with most eating disorder behaviors, its escalation can lead to social exclusion, severe food obsession, self-loathing, guilt, and remorse. For individuals who chew and spit large amounts of food daily, financial difficulties can be a further consequence.” In a study of Korean patients with eating disorders, 25 percent engaged in chewing and spitting. The prevalence of chewing and spitting out food has been estimated to be about 31 percent of patients post-bariatric surgery.?? A Patients View A review of studies of chewing and spitting indicate that the behavior is used as a weight-control method and “was often associated with negative emotions such as self-disgust, remorse, and shame, but may have been less distressing than binging and purging.?? In online communities, patients who chew and spit report a great deal of shame about the behavior.?? It is also described as a behavior that becomes driven and compulsive and very hard to stop. There is often great secrecy around the behavior and those who engage in chewing and spitting may become isolative as they try to conceal it. Medical Consequences While it may seem like a relatively benign symptom, especially as compared to vomiting, the consequences of chewing and spitting may be quite serious. Symptoms of chewing and spitting are similar to those found with vomiting in bulimia nervosa and can include:Visibly swollen salivary glandsStomach ulcersDental problems such as cavities and tooth decayHormonal imbalances Addressing these medical symptoms requires stopping the behavior.?? Warm compresses and tart candies can help provide relief for swollen salivary glands. Patients should see a medical doctor and a dentist to discuss potential treatment options for gastrointestinal, hormonal, and dental issues. Assessing and Treating Chewing and Spitting Chewing and spitting is not commonly assessed by professionals, and clients may be reluctant to report it due to shame about the behavior. Little in the treatment literature specifically address chewing and spitting.  Psychotherapy and nutrition therapy for patients with eating disorders who chew and spit should address the normalization of eating behaviors through the adoption of regular meals.?? Cognitive-behavioral strategies helpful in addressing chewing and spitting include acknowledgment of feelings of shame, challenging of dietary rules, management of emotional distress, and practice of increased flexibility. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Eating Disorders Advice for Family Members If your family member is displaying signs of an eating disorder, you may want to watch for signs of chewing and spitting.?? Specific signs of chewing and spitting may include: Traces of chewed but undigested food in their room, in the bathroom, or in the trashEating in private or out of the houseSecretive behavior at mealsShame around eating If you (or someone you know) is chewing and spitting, it is important to seek help from a professional who is well-versed in eating disorders.   Tips for Difficult-to-Break Habits Related to Eating Disorders

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Malcolm Xs Life and Accomplishments - 628 Words

Malcolm X, Born name Malcolm Little, was born in Omaha, Nebraska on May 19, 1925. His mother was Louise Norton, which had eight children including Malcolm. His father’s name was Earl Little, who was a Baptist preacher and strong supporter of the Black Nationalist leader Marcus Garvey. Before Malcolm’s fourth birthday, the family was forced twice to relocate due to death threats from the white supremacist organization, Black Legion. Despite their efforts to get away from them in 1929, the Legion burned their home down to ashes. After two years, Earl was killed and found laying on the trolley tracks in the town. The police ruled these events as accidents, the Little family was sure that the Black Legion were the people responsible for killing their father and husband. After this, Louise was put into a mental institution because of her emotional breakdown years after the death of her husband. Growing up, Malcolm was a smart and focused student. He lost his interest in studies from school, when his favorite junior high teacher told him that trying to become a lawyer was â€Å"not a realistic life goal for a nigger†. He later dropped out of school and spent time in Boston, MA, and Harlem, New York. He worked odd jobs and committed petty crimes. Malcolm began putting together multiple narcotics, prostitution, and gambling rings. Later in life when he was determined for striving for greatness, he said, â€Å"early in life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make someShow MoreRelatedMalcolm Xs Life and Accomplishments1407 Words   |  6 Pages Malcolm X was an African American minister and civil rights leader. Unlike many activists of his time, he took a different approach on the movement. In his lifetime, from 1925 to 1965, he was known as an advocate for the rights of blacks, and has been named one of the greatest and most influential men in hi story. Early Life Malcolm was born on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska to Louise and Earl Little. His Father, Earl, was a Baptist minister and an active member of the Universal Negro ImprovementRead MoreThe Death Before Disunity : Malcolm X, Civil Rights Activist And Muslim Leader1173 Words   |  5 PagesDeath before Disunity Malcolm X, Civil Rights activist and Muslim leader, was an advocate of unity by all means necessary. Throughout history, people have often pondered what X intended to obtain before his tragic death at the hands of Talmadge Hayer, Norman 3X Butler, and Thomas 15X Johnson (â€Å"Biography†). Several people downplay X’s achievements in comparison to the accomplishments of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Majority of activists such as Mohandas Gandhi, Rosa Parks, and Cesar Chavez are notoriousRead MoreAfrican Americans And The Civil Rights Movement1624 Words   |  7 Pagespolitical movements also arose as a result of the assassinations of some of the most influential leaders in America. Malcolm X changed the way Americans viewed oppression and discrimination of African Americans. The movie Malcolm X is an accurate depiction or a product of its time. It showcased many of the problems that lead up to the civil rights movement within the life of Malcolm X as well as what proceeded after he became a prominant civil rights leader.What’s interesting about this movie is thatRead MoreMalcolm X Essay855 Words   |  4 PagesMalcolm X was one of the most prominent and controversial leaders during the civil rights era of the 1950’s and 1960’s. By the early 1960’s he had grown frustrated with the non violent, integrated struggle for civil rights and worried that blacks would ultimately lose control of their own movement. Malcolm X was a key spokesman for the nation of Islam, epitomized the â€Å"Black Power† philosophy. Malcolm became an influential leader of the nation of islam, which combined Islam with black nationalismRead MoreMalcolm X : A Influential Figure Of The Nation Of Islam1497 Words   |  6 Pagesleader, Malcolm X fough t for equal rights for African Americans. He viewed civil rights differently than most civil rights activists; this is why when he is talked about, there are mixed emotions. Many know of Martin Luther King Junior’s standpoints and highlighted moments, but less know of the many accomplishments that Malcolm X had as well. He sometimes came off harsh to the public, because non-violence was the tactic used for other advocates. Also a former member of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X developedRead MoreMalcolm X And The Civil Rights Movement1180 Words   |  5 Pagesby Negros. With racial injustice at its hand, America was blessed to receive civil rights activists Malcolm X. In order to understand Malcolm X’s philosophies, one must look back and examine his past, paying attention to key events which led him to become the black nationalist he is known as today. Born in a little town in Omaha Nebraska on May 19, 1935, Malcolm Little, soon to be known as Malcolm X, was born to Louise and Earl Little. His mother was a homemaker while his father was a preacher andRead MoreAnalysis Of Malcolm X By William F. Martin Luther King Jr.975 Words   |  4 Pagesmillions who had never heard it before. His name was Malcolm X. As the title of the book suggests, The Autobiography of Malcolm X tells the life story of Malcolm Little from his childhood in Lancing, Michigan, up to his assassination (told in the epilogue) in 1965. His childhood was rough, his father was killed by a racist mob, and his mother was committed to a mental home when he was young. After moving to Boston to live with his sister, Malcolm fell in with the various â€Å"hustlers† in the city involvedRead MorePhysical Appearance Says What Words Cannot: Comparing Gandhi and Malcolm X831 Words   |  4 PagesThroughout their lives, both Malcolm X and Gandhi had similar and contrasting physical traits. In many ways, how they appeared on the outside shaped the people they were on the inside. Clothing became a device of nonverbal communication. Whether they recognized that themselves or not, that’s how it was. Had they not been colored, they would not have had advocated for justice. Though their personal philosophies drove th em in different ways to resolve oppression; one with violence and the otherRead MoreMalcolm X Education Essay1560 Words   |  7 PagesMalcolm X once said â€Å"education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today†. From adolescence to adulthood almost every person is put through schooling. As one gets older in age, the education they obtain becomes more rigorous in order to stretch their minds far beyond two plus two or what color the sky is. The strategies of critically thinking and being able to analyze/decipher information in front is them is reinforced routinely in the educational systemRead MoreMalcom X s Experiences Inspired His Autobiography1223 Words   |  5 PagesMalcom X’s Experiences inspired his Autobiography Considered as one of the greatest and influential in African Americans in history, Malcon Little was born on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska, and murder on February 21, 1965 in New York by three Nation of Islam members. Best known as Malcon X, he was also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, an American Muslim minister and a human rights activist. Malcon X was a fervent advocate the separation of black and white Americans, and rejected the civil rights

Macro and Micro Economics Free Essays

Micro Economics:- Microeconomics is a branch of economics that analyzes the market behavior of individual consumers and firms in an attempt to understand the decision-making process of firms and households. It is concerned with the interaction between individual buyers and sellers and the factors that influence the choices made by buyers and sellers. In particular, microeconomics focuses on patterns of supply and demand and the determination of price and output in individual markets (e. We will write a custom essay sample on Macro and Micro Economics or any similar topic only for you Order Now g. coffee industry). Areas microeconomics covers: Supply and demand ?Competition ?Monopolies ?Profit and loss ?Opportunity cost Elasticity †¢Rigid laws:- Businesses may be doomed to be non starters due to restrictive business environment which may take the form of rigid government laws ( no polluting industry can ever be located in around 50 Km radius of the Taj) , state of competition ( Car manufacturing capacity presently in the country is far in excess of demand) etc. †¢Environment impact:- The present and future viability of an enterprise is impacted by the environment For eg no TV manufacturer can be expected to survive by making only BW television sets when consumer preference has clearly shifted to color television sets. Key Inputs:- The availability of all key inputs like skilled labor , trained managers, raw materials, electricity, transportation, fuel etc are a factor of the business environment. †¢Public awareness:- Increasing public awareness of the negati ve aspects of certain industries like hand woven carpets (use of child labor ) , pesticides (damage to environment in the form of chemical residues in groundwater), plastic bags (choking of sewer lines) have resulted in the slow decline of some industries. †¢The Market:- Organizations closely monitor their customer markets in order to adjust to changing tastes and preferences. A market is people or organizations with wants to satisfy, money to spend, and the willingness to spend it. Each target market has distinct needs, which need to be monitored. It is imperative for an organization to know their customers, how to reach them and when customers’ needs change in order to adjust its marketing efforts accordingly. The market is the focal point for all marketing decisions in an organization. †¢Marketing Intermediaries:- Physical distribution firms help the organization to stock and move products from their points of origin to their destinations. Warehouses store and protect the goods before they move to the next destination. Marketing service agencies help the organization target and promote its products and include marketing research firms, advertising agencies, and media firms. Financial intermediaries help finance transactions and insure against risks and include banks, credit unions, and insurance companies. Macro Economics:- Macroeconomics is a branch of economics dealing with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of the entire economy. This includes a national, regional, or global economy. Macroeconomists study aggregated indicators such as GDP, unemployment rates, and price indices to understand how the whole economy functions. In Macroeconomics there are two areas of research that are emblematic of the discipline: the attempt to understand the causes and consequences of short-run fluctuations in national income (the business cycle), and the attempt to understand the determinants of long-run economic growth (increases in national income). Areas of macroeconomics covers: ?Money supply ?Interest rates ?Fiscal and monetary policy ?Unemployment ?Growth ?Inflation ?Inflation:- In recent years, a confluence of macroeconomic and industry-specific factors has led to record-high prices and unprecedented volatility in the global agricultural commodity markets. Specifically, simultaneous increases in demand and production costs along with intensifying supply-side pressures have led many experts to forecast extended periods of higher-than-average prices for many commodities. Farm-based commodities have recently experienced unprecedented growth in demand from both traditional and non-traditional sources. Traditional demand has increased primarily via worldwide population growth. The world’s population currently exceeds 6. 5 billion, is projected to reach nearly 9. 5 billion by 2050. Increases in demand have also been driven by global industrialization’s positive effect on disposable income in emerging economies like China and India. As a result, citizens of these countries have begun to shift away from the grain-centric diet of developing countries to the protein-rich diet common to countries with higher per capita GDP. Because, on average, one pound of protein requires nearly seven pounds of grain to produce, the increase in demand for meat has a large multiplier effect on the demand for grain. Moreover, increased globalization, free trade, and currency exchange considerations have increased agriculture-based exports from producing countries like the U. S. Canada, and Australia, as well as Europe and South America, which has increased competition and intensified demand on a global scale. In addition to traditional food-related demand, coarse grains such as corn, sorghum, barley, oats, and rye and edible oils and edible oil products have experienced exponential demand growth due to the rapidly expanding biofuels initiative in the United States, Brazil, and the European Union. The World Bank estimated that nearly all of the increase in global corn production between 2004-2007 was used for biofuels production in the United States. Moreover, as evidenced by Congress’s recent mandate to increase domestic ethanol production nearly five-fold by 2022, the biofuels component of agricultural commodity demand is not likely to decline in the near, or even intermediate, future. Most agricultural commodities are also experiencing significant supply-side pressure from a variety of sources. Recently, the global supply of agricultural commodities has been severely affected by unfavorable weather conditions (e. g. , droughts, flooding, and freezes) in several regions, including the U. S. , Europe, Canada, Argentina, Ukraine, and Russia. As a result, global stockpiles of agricultural commodities have fallen to their lowest levels in many years. At the same time, increased competition for productive crop land and the reconfiguration of planting decisions to maximize returns from biofuels-related plantings (e. g. , corn and soybeans) have drastically affected the supplies of most agriculture commodities. Significant increases in production costs, led by record oil and fertilizer prices, and increasing scarcity of productive farmland and sufficient and accessible water supplies have further contributed to limits on worldwide production capacity. Finally, political unrest in producing countries has slowed or stopped production on otherwise physically productive land, further tightening supplies. Unlike many other commodities, agricultural commodities are crucial to the survival of nations. In a recent study, researchers concluded that nearly 60 percent of all global conflicts over the past two decades have been primarily driven by disputes related to food, land, or water. Recent spikes in food prices have lead to food smuggling in some countries and riots in others. Because of the universal necessity for food and the irreplaceable role that agricultural commodities have in worldwide food production, market analysts, including the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) predict that â€Å"when commodity supplies eventually recover and prices moderate from current high levels, the new equilibrium prices will be significantly higher than has traditionally been observed during periods of market balance. † As summarized in the table below, even when the volatility is removed from short-term prices, long-run ommodity price projections forecast equilibrium prices for most major crops that are 19 to 110 percent higher than their recent five-year average. The preceding analysis suggests agribusiness and agricultural-related firms may present interesting investment opportunities. Companies with operations and/or substantial investments in one or more key grain producing nations, such as the U. S. , Canada, Europe, Russia, Brazil, an d China, may be favorable over countries operating primarily in resource poor nations. Companies with significant command over their supply chain are likely to display significant operating advantages, but because of the capital-intensive nature of the industry, especially for companies with significant supply chain investment, firms with low debt, good credit rating, and/or relatively easy access to credit markets are preferred in light of current global economic conditions. Moreover, any company with significant supply chain investment should be providing logistical synergies and optimizing efficient operation of all its assets. In particular, companies that invest in technology to produce more robust, more efficient farmland and crops may provide unique opportunities for investment in the short- and intermediate-term. In summary, although current prices and volatility may not be sustainable in the long term, the long-term factors affecting agricultural commodities will most likely result in an extended period of high, although not necessarily record, prices. As a result, investments in agriculturally-oriented firms appear to be promising over intermediate- and long-term horizons. How to cite Macro and Micro Economics, Essay examples

Sunday, April 26, 2020

Scarlet Letter By Hawthorne Appreciation Essays -

Scarlet Letter By Hawthorne Appreciation The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is considered to be one of the greatest examples of true American literature. Its excellency of topic, characterization, and description has made it a permanent part of our history. Set in Salem, Massachusetts in the 1600s, it describes the life of Hester Prynne, a Puritan woman whose existence is marred by sin. The real genius of the book is found in its description. Hawthorne makes allusion, symbolism, and romanticism work toward one effect, making the reader feel as if she was there, watching it all happen, living through Hester's struggle. The story opens as a woman, Hester Prynne, is leaving a jail and heading toward a large scaffold in the middle of Salem town, where she, along with her newborn child, Pearl, is put on display as an example to all the people, to discourage them from committing such a sin as adultery. The sentence is given by a number of priests who feel compassion for her because her husband had been thought dead for so many years. She is ordered to wear a scarlet letter, "A" for adultery, on her breast for the duration of her stay in Salem. She is perversely unwilling to leave the place of her shame and outcast when she could easily have sailed away to England or to anywhere else on earth and been rid of her "mark of Cain." At the scaffold, she sees her husband, just arrived from Indian imprisonment, standing in the crowd. He, naturally, is enraged by news of her unfaithfulness to him and to his memory, but carries it too far when he renames himself Roger Chillingworth and begins slowly to dismantle the sanity of her lover, the Reverend Mr. Arthur Dimmesdale. Disguised as an apothecary, Chillingworth dwells with Dimmesdale, supposedly to maintain his health, but really to sap his strength and to serve as a reminder of the young reverend's sin. During the seven-year duration of the book, Hester becomes steadily stronger because of her mark, while Dimmesdale, forced to bear his brand internally, becomes very much incapacitated, both mentally and physically. The face he puts on for public approval and the one he wears while he is alone are so completely different that they nearly drive him insane. He is harder on himself for committing the sin than many a court of the time would have been, and it tears him apart. One day, he meets Hester and Pearl while walking through the woods and, after talking for a short while, they decide to leave Salem, to find a new life in the more cultured, less ridged society of the Old World. The day before they are to leave, Dimmesdale makes his last speech to his congregation. After the speech, as the people are walking away from the meeting house in a parade, Arthur turns to look at the scaffold, where he sees Hester and Pearl standing. He beckons them toward him and then he asks her to assist him up to the scaffold. She does so and there he announces his sin to all the town, there he rips off his shirt front so they can see imagination's and emotion's brand on his chest, there he collapses into Hester's arms, and there he dies. Hawthorne goes on to tell, in short, the story of the rest of Hester's life, tough most of it appears to be based on rumor. Chillingworth dies within a year of Dimmesdale, the object of his hatred and his motivation for living being gone, leaving his fortune to Pearl. She and Hester travel to Europe, where Pearl marries a member of the nobility, but then returns to her old house to live and counsel others in their times of pressing sorrow, and to bear the mark of the scarlet letter until she dies. She is laid to rest in death where she had been kept for the first seven years of Pearl's life, next to Arthur, yet unable to touch him, kept at a distance so their dusts wouldn't mingle. One of the best aspects of this book is its lack of superfluous events. Rather than tell the reader about every chance meeting between Hester and Arthur, he chooses only a few, well-spaced events to portray their entire relationship. The most vivid description in the book is one of these chance meetings. Hester and Pearl chance to meet Arthur at the scaffold late at night. He talks of how it is not possible for them

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Khan Academy SAT Will Never Be Enough †Heres Why

Khan Academy SAT Will Never Be Enough - Here's Why SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips With the new 2016 SAT, Khan Academy has partnered with the College Board to create a free SAT prep program. All things considered, Khan Academy's SAT prep program is high quality. It's a great introduction to the test and elevates the bar of free SAT materials. Students unable to afford books or prep programs have a useful resource to train for the test. But it's not complete. There's still a lot missing from the Khan Academy SAT program that can prevent you from getting the highest score possible. In this review, you'll understand what exactly is wrong with the Khan SAT program – and why the partnership with the College Board means these problems will never be fixed. If you plan to use the Khan Academy SAT program, this will show you what you're missing. Introduction Here's a one-sentence summary of my stance: Khan Academy could have built a much better SAT prep program, but it's being handcuffed by the demands of the College Board. To fully understand the weaknesses of Khan Academy's SAT program, you have to understand the nature of the partnership between College Board and Khan Academy. To you, the high school student, the College Board may seem like a monolithic giant bent on ruining your life. But the reality is the College Board is a vulnerable group struggling to justify its existence in a shifting education landscape. This is the entire reason for the 2016 SAT redesign. You'll see how Khan Academy's SAT program is a tool used by College Board to further its own agenda. If you're interested in why the College Board is struggling and its strategy to stay alive, then keep reading this from top to bottom. If you just care about hearing the pros and cons of Khan Academy's SAT program, click here to skip down the page. However, if you plan on using Khan Academy for 20 hours or more of prep, I think this article is well worth the 15 minute read, so you know what you're getting out of your studying. Disclaimers Before we start, let's get two things out of the way. First, these opinions are my own. While I know people who are current/former employees of Khan Academy, I'm not privy to any confidential information and didn't consult them for this article. I draw my own conclusions from my knowledge of the testing and education industries. Therefore, any information that isn't public (like the terms of the contract between Khan Academy and College Board) are purely my opinions about what's going on. Second, I co-founded PrepScholar, an education technology company with our own online SAT and ACT prep programs. I'm clearly going to be biased toward thinking that our approach to the SAT is the right way to prep.Having worked with our thousands of students and seen our score improvements, I'm confident that we're on the right track. So take all of what I say with a grain of salt, and make up your own mind. If you don't agree with what I say below, then that's cool. I wish you the best on your SAT studying and hope you get an awesome score. If instead what I say makes sense to you, then you'd probably also like our SAT prep program. It provides a great SAT prep experience onlinewith leading score improvement results. I believe we have the best SAT prep program available, and you'll see from my thinking below why that is. Of course, you don't need to buy an SAT prep program to do great on the test. On this blog, we've published the best SAT resources availableto support millions of students around the world to prep better. But if you could use help organizing your prep and could benefit from an all-inclusive SAT prep program that's effective and easy to use, then check us out. Let's get started. What's Khan Academy? I'll say it upfront and repeat it throughout - Khan Academy is one of my favorite educational organizations. I have a HUGE amount of respect for them. Years ago when I first saw their product and heard of their vision to provide free education to the world, I was blown away. Their approach seems like such an obvious idea in retrospect, but no one was actually doing it at scale. Khan Academy started as a collection of math video lessons featuring Sal Khan. Since then, they've expanded their content dramatically to cover subjects beyond math to include art, economics, and computer science. They've also developed a more sophisticated program that tracks your progress and gives you practice questions. Khan Academy is now used in schools worldwide to supplement teacher teaching as part of a movement called ‘blended learning.' Given Khan's educational reach and tech platform, they were a natural choice for College Board to partner with. On the surface, the program looks great. It's free, slick, and easy to use. But if you peer under the surface, you'll understand why Khan's prep program has fundamental weaknesses, directly attributable to its partnership with the College Board. The College Board's 3 Giant Problems Remember what I said above, about the College Board trying to justify its own existence? Here's why. For decades, the SAT was the major game in town. If you wanted to get into a top college, you had to take the SAT. The ACT was around, but it wasn't as popular. Fast forward to today. The College Board and the SAT have three big problems that threaten their existence: Problem 1: The SAT Doesn't Strongly Correlate With College Success First and foremost, the purpose of the SAT is to differentiate better students from worse students. The higher the score you get, the more likely you'll succeed in college and career – supposedly. Colleges thus use SAT scores to admit the best students they can. The problem is, colleges run analyses on their students and started finding that SAT score often wasn't the best predictor of success – grades and coursework were. Naturally, schools started thinking, "why do we even need the SAT?" This led to a movement to make the SAT/ACT optional. One of the most famous schools doing this is NYU, which allows you to substitute three AP exam scores in lieu of the SAT. If this isn't problem enough†¦ Problem 2: Richer Students Tend to Do Better on the SAT Income inequality is a hot button topic in this country, especially when it comes to education, which is seen as a universal right. Over the past century, colleges have made a huge push to promote diversity and lower inequality where it can. Unfortunately, the higher your family income, the higher your SAT score tends to be. This sounds bad. The first thing people often think when they hear this is, "richer people can afford better SAT prep." This is true, but in reality this is a much more complicated problem with many factors at play. Income affects the type of parents you have, your environment, the resources you can access, how others treat you, and many more factors that sum up to your academic potential. So it's not all the College Board's fault. Regardless, the correlation with income still sounds really bad. If colleges take students with higher SAT score, one can argue they're just admitting richer students – which is counter to most colleges' mission statements. This makes colleges think – "if the SAT doesn't predict college success well†¦AND it correlates with income†¦why in the world are we still using it?" Strike two. And the kicker†¦ Problem 3: The SAT Is Losing Market Share to ACT For decades, the SAT was far more popular than the ACT. No surprise – it had a head start, with the College Board founded in 1899 and the ACT in 1959. Up until 2008, the SAT had always held at least a 20% lead over the ACT in terms of number of test takers. However, in 2012, the tables turned – for the very first time,the ACT had more test takers than the SAT. And in 2015, the gap widened – the ACT had 1.9 million test takers, compared to SAT's 1.7 million. So why the changing in positions? The ACT has always positioned itself as a test of what you learn in school. In contrast, the SAT has always had more of a reputation as an aptitude test, closer to an IQ test. Partly for this reason, many states adopted the ACT as a state-wide standardized test (like Illinois, Michigan, and Utah). This means 100% of all high school juniors in these states take the ACT before graduation – which also means few of them feel they need to take the SAT. You can tell that these are three HUGEproblems. Not only is the ACT gaining ground, colleges overall are questioning the value of tests like the SAT and ACT. If the College Board didn't do anything, the SAT would be obsolete before long. So it implemented its grand strategy – the 2016 SAT redesign, supported by the Khan Academy SAT prep program. The College Board's Grand Strategy Let's get right to it. Here's how the College Board is attacking all three problems above: Strategy 1: To Improve the Correlation With College Success, They Redesigned the SAT The new SAT supposedly better matches the skills needed for college success. It now emphasizes skills you're likely to use in the future, like algebra and grammar in the context of passages. It got rid of skills panned as irrelevant, like obscure vocabulary and tricky math logic questions. It also closely matches the new Common Core curriculum – no surprise, since a contributor to the Common Core (David Coleman) became president of the College Board in 2012. Desired outcome: If the new SAT can better predict student success, then colleges will continue using the SAT as an admissions factor. The College Board will stay alive. Strategy 2:To Reduce Income Inequality, They Partnered With Khan Academy to Produce a Free SAT Prep Program A common criticism of the SAT is that wealthier people can afford test prep or tutors, and this causes inequality. With Khan Academy's free SAT prep program, students who can't afford books or prep programs can now prep for free. This in itself is a great step forward – don't get me wrong. As I'll explain below, the Khan Academy SAT program has a lot to offer and is a solid program. But make no mistake, the College Board KNOWS how much this helps their marketing to colleges and to the public. With this program, they can now go to colleges and say, "we honestly believe our free SAT program is going to reduce inequality. This means when you choose students with higher SAT scores, you can be confident you're NOT biased by income." While the reality of educational inequality is more complicated, this is great PR for College Board. Desired outcome:Ideally, completely levelout the playing field and solve income inequality. Since this is a tough problem and thus unlikely to happen, plan B is to CONVINCEcolleges that the SAT doesn't bias for income, now that Khan Academy is around. This will get colleges to swallow the SAT more easily. Strategy 3: By Gaining Reputation With Colleges and Broadening Their Reach to Students, the SAT Can Compete With the ACT for Market Share The College Board wants more students to take the SAT. The more students who take the SAT, the more it'll be accepted as a default part of life, and the harder it'll be to get rid of.Furthermore, more SAT test-takers means more students who apply to colleges using the SAT, which means it'll be harder for colleges to get rid of their SAT requirement. This is how the College Board will get more students to take the SAT: Push states to adopt the SAT as state-wide standardized testing. The College Board can argue that the SAT is now Common Core aligned, so it'll test what schools are teaching. Furthermore, now that students have Khan Academy to prep for free, states won't feel as bad requiring all students to take the SAT. This competes directly with the ACT's state partnerships – in fact, Illinois and Colorado have already switched from the ACT to the SAT. This is huge – it takes away major market share from the ACT. Use Khan Academy's reach to convert Khan users to prep for the SAT. Khan Academy has a nationwide reach with millions of student users. A lot of students who might not have taken the SAT otherwise can now learn about the SAT and take it. Furthermore, students who start prepping for the SAT first will be more likely to take the SAT rather than the ACT. Promote the SAT among people who wouldn't normally take the SAT or go to college. Now that it has a great free resource in Khan Academy to promote, it can partner with organizations like Boys Girls Clubs of America to reach millions more students. In the chess game that is business strategy, the College Board made some brilliant moves here. By redesigning the test and offering a high quality free resource (Khan Academy), it has legitimate responses to each of its major problems: correlation to college success, income inequality, and ACT competition. Side note: Despite all these efforts, the New SAT still has really bad inequality data 1 year after its introduction. By ethnicity: the average Asian score is 1181 and the average White score is 1118, while the average African American score is 941. There's a whole standard deviation of difference here, which is huge. By income: students who used a fee waiver scored a 978, while those who didn't 1087. By parent education (which is a good signal of income): kids of parents with graduate degrees scored a 1177, compared to 944 from kids of parents with no high school diploma. Maybe it needs more time to play out - it's only been a year. But I'm very skeptical. I think the New 1600 SAT is going to see pretty much exactly the same inequalities the Old 2400 SAT had, because the inequality problem in education is MUCH broader than test design. Why Does College Board's Strategy Matter for Khan Academy SAT? Now what does this have to do with Khan Academy's weaknesses? The critical point, for the purpose of this article, is that Khan Academy is a tool in College Board's strategy. The partnership exists to further College Board's mission and achieve its goals. As a result, you have to see Khan Academy's SAT program as an extension of the College Board. Because Khan Academy SAT is an integral component of College Board's strategy and presentation to colleges, the College Board needs to control the content and messaging in Khan Academy's program. Imagine if the College Board didn't have tight control. Imagine if Khan Academy ran counter to College Board's stated philosophies, like if Khan Academy said, "the SAT is a test that you can exploit to get a higher score." This would destroy College Board's credibility with the people they're trying to impress - colleges and the American public. College Board can't let this happen. The stakes are too high if something goes wrong. So they need to control the Khan Academy program. Thus, Khan Academy SAT is a reflection of College Board -College Board's vision for themselves, College Board's approach to testing, and College Board's insistence on how YOU should prep for the SAT. This is where we run into major problems, because you shouldn't believe many things that the College Board says about SAT - particularly about what it takes to improve your score. Side note: I don't want to sound cynical here or make you think that the College Board has nefarious motives, like a cartoonish villain. I respect what College Board and Khan Academy are doing to help even the playing field and get more kids to get into college. They have good intentions, and the problems they are working on are hard and important. Still, the College Board has an agenda and a strategy to meet its goals. Just because it wants to help more students get into college doesn't preclude it from pulling its levers to achieve its goals. One of these levers is Khan Academy's SAT program. College Board's Stances Will Hurt You So once again - because College Board is so tightly linked to Khan Academy's SAT program, the prep program will be a reflection of College Board's philosophies to the test. Unfortunately, these philosophies don't reflect the reality of how to prep for the test to get the highest SAT score. Here are the most important problems. First, for most of its 100+ years of existence, the College Board has maintained that you can't prep for the SAT. This goes back to the positioning of the SAT as the "scholastic aptitude test" – where aptitude refers to the innate ability you're born with. It's obviously changed its mind by releasing a program with Khan Academy, but, like a giant ship, an institution as old and big as the College Board can't change its course quickly. Second, the College Board never, ever teaches test strategy. By test strategy, I mean test-taking skills that can raise your score even WITHOUT learning more core content like algebra. An example of a test-taking skill is skipping the hardest questions and focusing your time on the easier questions that you're more likely to get correct. Another is developing a reliable formula for the SAT essaythat will work every single time. Yet another is understanding how to approach Reading passages to balance time and accuracy. We know, from experience with thousands of students, that these strategies work. They raise scores. But you will never see score-boosting strategies like these in any official materials from the College Board. Why? Because it directly contradicts one of their fundamental messages – that the SAT predicts academic achievement and career success. As the College Board says, "The new test is more focused on the skills and knowledge at the heart of education."(source)It really wants to push the idea that doing well in school is enough to do well on the SAT, which means the SAT measures your pure academic achievement. So if they EVER suggested that special strategies you DON'T learn in school will improve your score, it will DESTROY this mirage. It will make the test seem like an artificial construct that doesn't predict student success – problem #1 you read about above. Let's say there's a strategy you learn just for the SAT that has no application in the future, in college or in your career as a doctor or as a lawyer or as a writer.It's only really relevant for the SAT and other standardized tests like it. Let's say that strategy improves your score a lot. This would mean your SAT score doesn't accurately predict your future success. This is a BIG problem. This is why College Board will never teach these strategies. And this is also why Khan Academy has none of these strategies. I'll explain this critical weakness below. Before we move on to a full review of the Khan Academy SAT program, I want to share one final unpleasant implication of this partnership. You already know that the College Board is competing with the ACT for market share, and that Khan Academy is a critical tool in this competition.If Khan Academy were to develop a similar free prep program for the ACT, it would be a massive blow to College Board's strategy. That's why Khan Academy will NEVER develop its own ACT program while partnering with College Board.In fact, I suspect College Board contractually prohibitedKhan Academy from developing its own ACT program. To me, this is unfortunate. 1.9 million students took the ACT in 2015, more than the SAT. If Khan Academy created an ACT program, it would double its impact and help a ton of students. But it already signed the deal, and it has its hands tied. Remember what I said above about being cynical? This is one place I'll admit that College Board's strategy builds itself up purely at the expense of students. Because it wants to defeat the ACT, the College Board is willing to place ACT test takers at a disadvantage. And the College Board knows what it's doing – those disadvantaged ACT test takers will switch to the SAT. We've covered a lot. Let's summarize the main points: College Board is fighting irrelevance. Colleges have big problems with the SAT. In response, the College Board implemented a strategy to redesign the SAT and provide a free SAT program with Khan Academy. Because Khan Academy SAT is so important to the strategy, College Board needs to control its content and messaging so it doesn't ruin the strategy. College Board's control means Khan Academy SAT will never be a complete prep program With all that in mind, let's look through the Khan Academy SAT program. Pros and Cons of Khan Academy SAT Program Pros – Where Khan Academy SAT Works As I've said, there's a lot to like about Khan Academy's SAT program, and it's a great start for beginner students. Pro 1: Easy to Use + Clean Design The first thing you'll notice about Khan Academy is how intuitive it is to use, especially compared to most other online prep programs. The onboarding process introduces you to the program and diagnostic, and the features and lessons are laid out simply. It loads quickly and doesn't have obvious bugs. This is a credit to their strong product and design team. Based in Silicon Valley right next to Google headquarters, Khan Academy has access to great talent for building web applications. Tech is a core strength of Khan Academy, and it's safe to say College Board wouldn't be able to build anything close to Khan's SAT program. Pro 2: Organization of Math and Grammar into Skills One of my most important SAT prep philosophies is to dissect the test into individual skills, figure out which skills you're weak in, and drill those skills with practice. This idea is fundamental to the way I designed our SAT program at PrepScholar (read more in my Perfect SAT Score guide). Khan's program uses the same philosophy for the Math section and the grammar section of Writing. Each is split up into individual skills that you can train with practice problems. This makes a giant scary section like Math a lot more approachable. Furthermore, the problems it gives you are customized to your level. Miss more questions, and you'll be dropped a level. Get more questions right, and you'll upgrade your level. We believe in customization at PrepScholar as well, since you grow best when you're challenged at the edge of your ability. Unfortunately, the Khan SAT program doesn't go far enough in its skill division. As of publication date, the Reading section and the rhetorical skills part of Writing are NOT divided into skills. These are important sections, and I'll explain more below. Pro 3: Plugin With PSAT Scores This is the coolest part of Khan Academy's official partnership with the College Board. If you've taken the PSAT, you can connect your College Board account to Khan Academy, which will automatically pull in your test results and customize your prep program. This will add accuracy to your diagnostic and lower the friction to getting started. It's likely that only Khan Academy will have access to this cool feature. College Board doesn't currently allow any other company to connect to their databases and pull student data. Khan Academy has special access because of their official partnership, and giving any other company this access would lessen their competitive advantage. While this feature currently only works with PSAT results, I'm confident in the future Khan Academy will allow you to plug in your SAT results as well. Now, this isn't going to revolutionize your prep or significantly improve the quality of the program. The diagnostic is already mostly good enough. Typically the diagnostic will be even better, as it gives you a broader range of questions and tests your skill right at that moment, not 11 months ago when you took the PSAT. But it still lowers the barrier to people getting started with SAT prep, and that's a good thing. Pro 4: A Lot of Practice Questions, College-Board Approved The last major thing Khan Academy has going for it is a lot of practice questions – over 2,000 as of this writing.As of writing, they have 954 Math questions and 1545 Writing questions, but only 242 Reading questions. So Reading is a major weakness in their content availability right now. Even better, these were reviewed by College Board writers to be accurate. They describe: The College Board works closely with Khan Academy staff at all stages of content creation to ensure that the test questions you see on the Khan Academy website are the same types of questions you will see on the actual SAT. Content writers from Khan Academy collaborate with the writing staff at College Board, who revise multiple drafts of their works." Source Important note: this cuts both ways. Remember what I said about College Board controlling Khan Academy's program? You can see it here: College Board "revises multiple drafts of their works." AKA "doesn't allow anything to get published that they don't like." You'll see why this is a problem below. At PrepScholar, we believe that a lot of practice is important, which is why we're aiming to create 8,000 practice questions for both our SAT and ACT products. To improve our quality, we've also broken down the SATlike I've no other company do (see our UltimateReading, Math, and Writing guides). So far, so good. Khan Academy is easy to use, has a lot of practice questions, and lets you train specific skills in math and grammar. On the surface, this sounds great. But if you dig deeper, you'll notice the major problems with the Khan SAT program as it exists today. Cons – Where Khan Academy SAT Is Weak As I've explained above, the official partnership between College Board and Khan Academy means the College Board has strong control over how the SAT program works. You can imagine College Board telling Khan Academy, "if we're going to put our name on this, it needs to represent how we think, and we need to be able to review everything in the program before it goes out." You can see this right above: "content writers from Khan Academy collaborate with the writing staff at College Board, who revise multiple drafts of their works." This is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that the test questions likely will be higher quality and look close to real SAT questions. The curse is that the content HAS to conform to College Board's philosophy, or it won't get published. This extends to everything in the program – how you should get the right answer, how skills are taught, strategies to get a higher score, and more. The result is that Khan Academy's SAT program is how the COLLEGE BOARD wantsyou to prep. This is NOT usually the best way you should prep to get the highest score possible! This is an important distinction. Remember that the College Board has its own agenda – it wants to prove that the SAT tests what you learn in school and skills that are useful for a career. It doesn't want to teach you the exact ways you can raise your SAT score in ways that don't align with College Board philosophy. This is where the biggest failures arise. I'll explain each in detail next. Even worse, while the partnership lasts, it's unlikely many of these problems will be fixed. Con 1: No SAT Test Strategies This is the major problem with Khan Academy's SAT program. At PrepScholar, we know that test-taking strategy is essential to scoring your highest score possible. Strategies like: Skipping the hardest questions to focus on the easier questions you're more likely to get right How to attack SAT Reading passages most effectively to save time Predicting how the SAT tries to trap you into wrong answer choices Alternative strategies to get the right answer for math questions, even if you don't know how to solve them We teach strategies like this in our SAT prep program. If you're like most students, understanding these strategies will raise your score. We've seen this with thousands of students. You'll never find strategies like these on Khan Academy. The reason is fundamental – these strategies apply primarily in artificial testing environments like the SAT, and these strategies exist primarily to raise your SAT score. They aren't that helpful for success in college and in your future career. If the College Board admitted strategies like these existed, they'd also have to admit that the SAT doesn't test pure academic skill - Problem #1 above. They want to maintain that the SAT is all about testing purely what you learned in school. So they'll never allow teaching of these strategies. This is unfortunate, because I bet Sal Khan and the Khan Academy staff know a bunch of useful test strategies they used themselves to excel on the SAT. But they're not allowed to share them. As one example, here's an example of Sal Khan breaking down a Reading passage. In this video, he reads the passage slowly, breaking it down line by line. He wants to make sure you understand every single sentence and how it fits into the passage. In our testing philosophy at PrepScholar, we believe this is the absolute wrong approach to SAT Reading passages. You don't have to understand every line in a passage in detail, and it's a waste of time to do so. Simply put, the reason is that there are only 11 questions per passage, which leaves a ton of details in the passage you just don't have to understand. In fact, this method of detailed reading is why so many students run out of time in the SAT Reading section – they just spend too much time trying to understand every detail. If a student read the passage like Sal Khan does in this video, she'd be at a serious disadvantage, compared to someone who knows better test taking strategies geared to the SAT. Instead, we advise all our students, especially those scoring below a 700, to skim the passage for light understanding, then use the questions to hone in on parts of the passage that are actually important. College Board would NEVER want to teach a strategy like this, because it's too specific to this test. In your future, when you write an English essay in college or prepare a report in your job, you won't use this strategy – instead, you WILL read the material line by line, extracting every detail and leaving no stone unturned. This is just one of many examples of strategies that Khan Academy is lacking. This is my major gripe with the program, and for the reasons above, I doubt they will ever truly fix this in their program. The College Board is just too strongly tied to the Khan SAT program. Con 2: Insufficient Lessons I believe that when you're weak in a skill, engaging with a detailed lesson helps you learn the fundamental content and strategies in a structured way. If you're weak in algebra equations, for example, it'd help to learn the basics of how to isolate x on one side of the equation, to see a range of real SAT questions, and to learn alternative strategies for solving equations. Here's one of many example lessons we've published for free. Khan Academy SAT doesn't have full-fledged lessons like these. Instead, for most skills they feature just example problems worked out. Here's an example for solving linear equations, where Sal Khan works through a sample question: While it's somewhat helpful to see one question worked out, it doesn't go far enough. Most students won't be able to teach themselves strategies from just one example. It's not that easy to extract the general principles from a single question. It's odd for Khan Academy to ignore this, because the rest of Khan Academy is based on this fundamental skill learning. Check out their main Algebra programas an example. So if they believe these fundamental lessons are useful, why didn't they do it for the SAT? Here are a few plausible reasons: They just didn't have time to make high quality lessons. They felt fundamental skills learning was too distracting from SAT prep. Learning algebra fundamentally might take hours, so maybe it's more effective to just focus on doing practice SAT questions. However, the SAT is supposed to be all about fundamental skills, so this doesn't seem consistent. The College Board controlled Khan Academy's lessons to focus on question solving rather than teaching. Maybe it was too hard to agree on how to teach the fundamental skills, or Khan Academy wanted to teach too much test strategy. If it's the last option, then it's unlikely Khan Academy will ever fix this problem because it's baked into their partnership. This brings us to a related weakness of Khan Academy SAT†¦ Con 3: Doesn't Integrate With the Rest of Khan Academy A natural solution to weak SAT lessons is to integrate the main Khan Academy program, which is excellent and features hundreds (if not thousands) of hours of instruction. For example, for algebra I would love to see them link to the main Khan Academy algebra lesson, which has great fundamental content. They don't, however. Aside from the header at the top of the page, it's hard to tell that any other Khan Academy program exists. There aren't any links from the SAT program to the main Khan Academy program. Once again, it's possible College Board forbade Khan Academy from more tightly integrating the two products. There's too much of a chance the other Khan Academy programs contain messages that the College Board doesn't agree with – and so it's safer just to prohibit it altogether. This is a big loss, since most of Khan Academy is excellent. Granted, it's not focused on the SAT, so it's not likely the most efficient way to study. But it'd still be a big help for someone who wants more detailed help on skills. Then again, it's possible Khan Academy just doesn't think this is a good idea, or it didn't have enough time to implement this. On a variant of Hanlon's razor, I might say, "never assume bad intentions when lack of time is explanation enough." Con 4: Bad Skill Splits for Reading and Writing I mentioned above in the Pros that Khan Academy SAT did a good job splitting up Math into individual skills. This makes training your weaknesses a lot easier. They really missed the mark on the Reading section and the rhetorical skills section of Writing. For Reading, for example, they separate the training by the subject matter of the passage: I find this a completely unhelpful classification. You don't approach literature passages differently from history passages. In fact, they contain very similar types of questions. At PrepScholar, we use a more useful classification of Reading skills: Big Picture Reading Closely Inferences Words and Phrases in Context Citing Textual Evidence Perspective Analyzing Word Choice Analyzing Text Structure Analyzing Multiple Texts Analyzing Quantitative Information These skills are defined by the type of question and the actual reasoning you would use to answer it. Just like how a geometry question should be approached differently from an algebra question, an Inferences question is very different from a "Words in Context" question. Similarly, for Writing, some of their non-grammatical skills - what the SAT calls "expression of ideas" and what we call "rhetorical skills" - are divided poorly. This is a problem because rhetorical skills make up the majority (55%) of the Writing section. Here, Khan Academy breaks down into the type of passage once again: At PrepScholar, we classify them like this: Logical sequence Focus Proposition Support Transitions Because the College Board defines individual skills themselves, I imagine this problem is mainly a time limitation. It's possible Khan Academy will fix this in the future. Con 5: Weak, Unhelpful Question Explanations In our experience, when a student misses a question, they need coaching from "first principle" – what is EVERY logical step from when you first read the question to the last step of getting the right answer? In contrast, most test prep companies use simple answer explanations. They'll explain why each answer choice is correct or incorrect, but they won't explain the logical steps starting from when you first read the question and make sense of it. Unfortunately, Khan Academy uses the simple answer explanation for most of their questions. They'll explain why a correct answer choice is correct and a wrong answer choice is wrong, but often this isn't helpful to figuring out where you actually made the mistake. Here's an example question from Khan Academy: This explanation is super unhelpful to someone who misses the question. Answers A-C, which are all incorrect, are all explained in an unhelpful way. Each of the answer explanations can be paraphrased as, "the author doesn't say this," which is another way of saying, "the answer is wrong because it's wrong." If you missed this question, these answer explanations wouldn't help you get to the right answer. Answer D, which is correct, has an explanation that basically paraphrases the answer choice. In other words, it's saying "the answer choice is correct because it's correct." If you actually missed this question, these answer choices don't really help you figure out WHY you missed the question and HOW to repair this in the future. In contrast, at PrepScholar we believe inattacking explanations from first principle. Here's an example explanation for this question: The question is asking for the central claim of the passage, so we're looking for the author's main point. As you've read before in our strategies, you should come up with an answer in your mind before reading the answer choices and getting biased. As you skim the passage, you should get a sense of Ben Franklin's main points. Here's the main point of each paragraph: people tend to think they're infallible, or perfectly right in their beliefs. I'm old and I know better. even though the Constitution is flawed, we need to pass it because this country needs one. We won't be able to make a better one because we all have our own opinions. I don't believe we can come up with a better Constitution, and promoting the faults of the Constitution is going to weaken our nation. We all need to approve this unanimously, go back to our constituents, and promote the Constitution in solidarity. So, without looking at the answer choices, the central claim is something like, "we need to pass the Constitution now because we can't create a better one, and we need to be unified." With that in mind, let's go through the answer choices and see what we can eliminate and why. A. "the Constitution will have to suffice until it is proven to be inadequate." This is negative in tone and implies that the Constitution may fail at some point. Franklin nevergoes this far into the future. He's focused on the now – the Constitution can't be improved any further now, and we need to pass it. This is incorrect. B. "the objections to the Constitution are trivial and should be disregarded by the Assembly." The key problem here is "trivial," or unimportant. Franklin never dismisses the objections of his colleagues to be unimportant. In fact, he has his own objections: "I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such" (lines 19-20). His key point is that DESPITE the faults, the Constitution is as good as it will be, and they need to pass it. Thus B is incorrect and a classic example of an answer choice being wrong because of a single word – in this case, "trivial." C. "the objections to the Constitution can be dismissed unless they are unanimous." This seems tempting because it uses an important word from the passage: "unanimous." This is a classic wrong answer trap for students who don't read closely and grasp for answer choices that seem familiar. But in the passage, Franklin uses unanimous to assert that the Assembly should be united. He doesn't say that objections can still apply if they are unanimous. He doesn't suggest any situation in which the Constitution should be dismissed at all – he wants to push this thing through, today. So C is incorrect. D. "the Constitution is adequate and should be passed without objection." We've ruled out A-C up to this point, so hopefully D fits. And it does – it matches our central claim when reading the passage. Franklin strongly states that he doubts "whether any other Convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution" (lines 27-28). He then suggests, "we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution" (lines 52-53). This is the best answer choice. If you got this question wrong, compare your thought process to this explanation. Where did you go wrong? Did you misinterpret the passage? Did you get tricked by one of the wrong answer choices? Did you mistakenly find something wrong with choice D? Step through your reasoning to find where you can improve for the future. In our opinion, this is a complete explanation. It guides the student step-by-step through solving the question. It discusses what the question is expecting from first reading, what kind of answer the student should be formulating, whether to rule each answer choice in or out, and settling on a final answer. Importantly, it also tells the student specifically why a wrong answer choice is wrong, and how it fits into a pattern of wrong answer choices. It then steps the student through analyzing her own mistakes to learn for the future. Granted, it's a lot more expensive for us to produce, since it takes a lot of time to write and we hire only people who have truly mastered the test. But we view every question as a learning opportunity. If you miss a question, you NEED to understand how to solve the question from first reading. Khan Academy doesn't have full explanations. It's possible College Board requested that they write simple, dumbed-down explanations – after all, their official SAT Study guide worked exactly like this. But it's also possible Khan Academy doesn't have the time to write better explanations. Con 6: No Essay Feedback This is a simple drawback – with Khan Academy, you can't submit your essays for grading. They'll ask you to score your own essay using the standard rubric. There are two reasons for this: Automated computer graders are bad. The worst ones use simple algorithms based on easy-to-cheat metrics like sentence length and word size. You can get a high score for writing a gibberish essay. It's possible to build a better automated grader based on machine learning, and Khan Academy is well equipped to do this, but it's not easy and will take time to get it right. Human graders are expensive. Since Khan Academy SAT is a free program, they can't afford to hire human graders to grade thousands of essays each month. To improve your essay score, it's important to understand your weaknesses and practice writing to overcome them. You can certainly teach this to yourself, using guides like ours. At PrepScholar we've built in expert essay grading as part of our program. You'll get customized feedback on how your essay can improve with examples to follow. We've had a lot of success improving essay scores with this model. It's more expensive for us to provide, we believe in the results. Con 7: A Host of Smaller Problems In using Khan Academy, there are a bunch of other problems that make the experience unpleasant or ineffective. To prevent this guide from getting even longer, I won't write a detailed section for each, but here are the gists: Most Sections Are Untimed In Khan Academy SAT, most of the quizzes are untimed. You have an infinite amount of time to work on each question or passage. The only exceptions are preset timed quizzes and full-length practice tests. I get what they're doing – they want you to focus on building your fundamental skills first, then get faster as you get more competent. Personally, I don't agree with this approach. Timing is a constant threat in the SAT. While building fundamental skills is important, by giving yourself infinite time all the time, you develop bad habits. In fact, time management is one of the biggest and most common problems facing SAT test takers. Take the Reading section as an example. There are 65 minutes, 5 passages, and 52 questions. This roughly means you need to get through 1 passage and its 10-11 questions within 12 minutes. We recommend that students spend no more than 5 minutes skimming the passage to get a brief understanding, then taking 40-60 seconds per question. Without time pressure, you might practice taking 10 minutes to read the passage, as Sal Khan does in his training videos. On the real test, this would leave you with barely any time to answer the questions. The result, I'm afraid, is that many students will be surprised by the time pressures of the test and have no idea how to deal with it – because due to Con #1, College Board will NOT support test-taking strategies on time management. Can't Review Previous Questions When I finished a quiz or a set of questions, I couldn't find a way to review those questions after exiting. I'd like a way to see my previously missed questions to review them and learn from my mistakes. It Erroneously Emphasizes All Skills Equally On Khan Academy, all skills are more or less treated equally. For example, all 40+ skills in the Math section have about 20 questions associated with them, so you'd spend equal time working on all the skills. We know, however, there are MASSIVEimbalancesin how important skills are. At the extreme, "solving single variable equations" takes up 12.5% of the test, and "function notation" takes up just 0.43% of the test. This is a massive 30x difference in importance, but you wouldn't know it from Khan Academy. This can mean students using Khan Academy emphasize the wrong skills and waste a lot of time studying things that aren't important. But College Board is unlikely to change this, since it would appear too much as "teaching to the test" rather than learning important fundamental skills. Con 8: Khan Academy Is Spread Thin Here's the final con, which isn't strictly a problem with the program but does suggest problems about its growth moving forward. Khan Academy is a really important organization with a big impact. It has dozens of subjects to teach like computer programming, is building partnerships with institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and has an exciting vision to provide free education worldwide. The SAT is just a small component of what Khan Academy does. As a result, I doubt they have enough manpower to build the product to its full potential. This means problems will take longer to resolve, and even possibly that the product loses steam if the partnership fades. Furthermore, given that Khan Academy relies primarily on donors to fund itself, I wouldn't be surprised if they downplayed the SAT product's importance in their organizational reports. Standardized testing has gotten more controversial (see College Board's 3 Big Problems above), and it'd be odd for Khan Academy to come out in favor of more testing. Otherwise donors might think, "wait, I'm giving you millions of dollars so you can help College Board perpetuate standardized testing" I Wish Things Were Different All told, I really admireKhan's mission to provide free education, and I respect College Board for taking a step in the right direction. It's an improvement over the old situation, where you had to buy a $25 book just to get access to 10 practice tests. However, this product is not enough to achieve College Board's goals. The way the program works now, students who seek better prep programs will be able to achieve higher scores. There will still be an achievement gap between people who prep for the test intelligently, and people who don't. In this partnership, I think Khan Academy got the short end of the stick. College Board needed Khan Academy more than Khan Academy needed College Board. Without Khan Academy, College Board wouldn't be able to put out a good product. They just don't have the technical talent to build something good. And without a good free product, College Board's strategy would be crippled. But in my opinion, Khan Academy didn't need College Board all that much. Khan Academy already had a strong school presence because of its main program. If they'd produced an SAT program independently, they would have a ton of eager users. Moreover, without the College Board partnership, they could have built an ACT program and reached double the students. They'd also have much more control over how the SAT program works, which means more test strategy and better content. This is unfortunate because Khan Academy is all about social impact, and I believe they reduced their impact dramatically through this partnership. I wonder if they feel the same way. In case you want to review any part of this article, here's a set of quick links: What is Khan Academy? College Board's 3 Giant Problems The College Board's Grand Strategy Why Does the Strategy Matter for Khan Academy SAT? College Board's Stances Will Hurt You Pros and Cons of Khan Academy SAT Con #1: No SAT Test Strategies Con #2: Insufficient Lessons Con #3: Doesn't Integrate with the Rest of Khan Academy Con #4: Bad Skill Splits for Reading and Writing Con #5: Weak, Unhelpful Question Explanations Con #6: No Essay Feedback Con #7: A Host of Smaller Problems Con #8: Khan Academy is Spread Thin What Does All This Mean For You? I know we've covered a lot. We've discussed the College Board's major problems, its strategy involving Khan Academy, and the major strengths and weaknesses of Khan Academy's SAT program. So should you use Khan Academy SAT to study? I think it's great for a few types of students: if you're new to the SAT and want an introduction to the test if you plan to study around 10 hours for the SAT, and aren't that interested in improving your scoreto its fullest potential if you're a self-motivated studier, and all you need are math and grammar questions split up by skill In contrast, if you care a lot about your score, are willing to work hard, and want to improve your SAT score to the highest possible, then Khan Academy won't be enough for you. If you just trust Khan Academy to do all the work for you, you'll be at a huge disadvantage compared to other test takers. So whatshould you do? First, it helps to know what you're missing. If you liked this article, you'll enjoy some of our best guides: How to Get a Perfect SAT Score, by a Perfect Scorer How to Get an 800 in: SAT Reading SAT Math SAT Writing What's a Good SAT Score? If you do decide to use Khan Academy, we have a guide specifically focused on exactly which of its resources to use to get the most out of your SAT prep. Next, you need to decide how you're going to study. As I always say, you do NOT need an SAT prep program to do well on the test. If you're self motivated and love studying by books, check out my recommendation for Best SAT Prep Books. But if you want an all-in-one program that customizes to your learning, teaches you test strategy, and packages everything into a great learning experience, I still believe PrepScholar is the best prep program available. Check us out here:

Monday, March 2, 2020

Creative Writing Activities for College Students

Creative Writing Activities for College Students In their academic career, every student will need to employ creative writing at one point or another. Creative writing, by definition, is any writing that is not academic or technical. Essentially, everything that is considered literature, in the narrow sense, is creative writing – even nonfiction. Though you might not be planning to become a professional writer, creative writing is an important skill to hone if youre planning to have any occupation that requires you to think – which is pretty much all of them. Its a muscle that can and should be developed with the right exercises. Going to the gym, as we all know, is no fun, but creative writing doesn’t have to be a chore – treat it as an opportunity to show off your creativity and inventiveness. So with that said, lets delve into some writing exercises that are sure to get those creative juices flowing. 1. Write a Personal Essay When you‘re just starting to develop as a writer, you’re faced with a tough choice: what do you want to write? Will it be a novel? A screenplay? A poem? Well, novels are a little too much even for experienced writers, so try writing something short to start off. An essay, for instance. Essays are a great place to start, since, in terms of literary genre, they are essentially â€Å"everything that’s not something else†, so the pressure is off to adhere to some vague standard of form, structure, etc. Try writing a personal essay. Everyone, as they say, has a story to tell. Why not mine your life for writing material? You’re sure to have experienced or witnessed something worth writing about. If you’re still miffed, try writing about a â€Å"first time†. First kiss, first time you went on an airplane, first time you were disappointed at a gift and had to pretend you liked it in front of your family; they all make for great stories. If you’re worried about being boring, don’t be – every story can be a good story if it’s told well. 2. Take a Short Story and Turn It Into a Screenplay Is there a particular short story that you’ve read in the past and loved? A great writing exercise is turning one form of literature into another, and the short story into screenplay is one of the easiest conversions. The screenplay doesn’t have to be very long to be a â€Å"proper screenplay† and since you’re a beginner who doesn’t have to show the work to anyone, you can ditch the standard formatting and stick to writing what you want. One thing to remember about screenplays is that they’re not meant to be read, they’re meant to be performed. This frame of mind will be useful to any upstart writer, since it forces you to think how it will sound, and don’t be afraid of sounding it out yourself. In fact, get up and perform to an empty room if you have to, it’ll make your characters sound all the more real. For an extra challenge, think about how your characters talk and whether it matches their personality. Accents and affectations are obvious, but would a princess actually talk like that? What does a waitress say after she’s been stiffed on a tip? How does she say it? 3. Go To a Public Place and Listen To Conversations There’s nothing like listening to real people talk to inspire characters. Go into a park or a bar, somewhere you’re sure to overhear someone’s conversations, and write down snippets from it. You don’t have to listen from start to end, just write down whatever strikes you as interesting. After collecting a few (pages of) notes, go home and review them. Pick one that strikes your fancy, and write a dialogue around it – treat it either as a beginning or something in the middle. Here’s the important part, though: the dialogue shouldn’t be aimless, and that goes for all your writing. Every character, at all times, must want something – that’s what compels them to action and what moves the story further. So when you’re inventing that dialogue, try to envision characters that both want something from each other. What do they want? That’s up to you to decide. With this exercise, try and establish the following for both characters in a single dialogue: what they want, why they want it, what they’re willing to do to get it, their relationship to each other. It must have a beginning, middle and end, have stakes, motivation, and, finally, conflict. If it seems like a lot of work, it’s because it is. Any good writer knows to include all of these seamlessly. Let’s hope you will one day, too.

Saturday, February 15, 2020

Theory of Knowledge Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Theory of Knowledge - Essay Example An inference to the proven theory is necessary, as it can be used for rectifying the problems in future. Existing knowledge pertains to the unique characteristics of the logic. Knowledge has various instances using which they can be developed. Mathematics and Science are two fields which require proper explanation. Still there exists a doubt whether mathematics is invented or discovered. This needs clear description of mathematical concepts. Discovery is the introduction of a concept which already exists. Invention is finding a theory that does not exist. Bringing a particular concept into existence is known as invention. Mathematical concepts do not depend on a person's belief. It is composed of pure logic and its definition. Each statement needs a proof to make others believe.(Parker 1996). As mathematics is mostly based on theorems, each of them requires a separate logic to prove that the theorem is true. There are specific ideas behind every invention. The process of implying these ideas in the real world concepts play a vital role. Some people believe that mathematics is a discovery. They rely on this by means of Plato. It is a theory that says structures are used to build mathematics. Mathematicians find out the sol ution by using the internal logic. Mathematics comprises statements which are either true or false. Hence this value helps in the further development. The state of mathematics depends on people's perception. Some people think it as an abstraction of the people who derive the formula and its usage. Mathematics is composed of formula using which each concept is described. Each of these concepts has its own theorems and methods to solve a given problem. The aspect defines logic and its evolution. The concepts have some connection with physics. As physics is composed of equations, mathematics helps in solving them. (Piscopo 2009). Mathematics was already in existence. Mathematicians discovered it and its components. There are different qualities which make up mathematics. The person working on it should possess the ability to make use of the existing qualities to find a solution. In the beginning, mathematics was not represented properly. After some decades, numbers were used to represent them. With the use of special symbols the process was made easier, as people found it suitable to be implemented. This seemed to be efficient than the methods that was followed earlier. Humans invented the way to use mathematics and his abilities to improve it took it to a great extent. Mathematics is considered to be tool, using which the calculations are described. It depends on the mathematicians, people believed whatever a mathematician discovered. It is seen as a model, in some case, where this model is used as a base for other concepts to be created. (Faitonah 2008). The debate of whether mathematics was invented or discovered is still going on. Mathematicians have been trying to find an answer for this. There are certain ways to know whether it was invented or discovered. Perception is an important way which differs from person to person. Based on one's perception, the impact of mathematics differs. One person may think mathematics might have been invented, another may think it is discovered. They come to this conclusion, based on their own views and ideas. The way they look at mathematics is different. Here perception acts as a foundation that helps in deciding.