Education Problem in Indonesia Essay Example For Students

Training Problem in Indonesia Essay This paper donations to give a depiction of the nature of instruction In Indonesia which is in poor circumstance contrasted with some outside nations, The makes that lead low nature of training in Indonesia like issue on viability, effectiveness and normalization of educating. A portion of the arrangements are given so as to determine this issue with the expectation that the nature of training In Indonesia could be better later on and have the option to contend with different nations. Watchwords: Education. Adequacy, productivity, Teacher, Student ABSTRACT Tulsa in berth]Nan unto setting out Cambrian rising characteristics pending did Indonesia yang vehicles torturer debarking dignitary beebread connect with Laura. Suspended inactive yang miscegenation revamped quiet pending did Indonesia specialists miasmal offices, fellness Dan normalizes pentagram. Beebread spirits verb-modifying guan Melanesian miasmal In senior member Hartman characteristics pending did Indonesia inclination defamation recoil inactive Dan mamma bearing dignitary draw in connect with Laura. Kate skunk: Pending, Festivals, Falsies, Guru, Murmur The nature of training In Indonesia is still In exceptionally low degree of rivalry and hoist (Prawns, 2001 ; Kandahar, 2003; Squanto, 2001). Report of the US Nations Development Program (UNDO) in 2005 uncovered that the nature of training In Indonesia possesses position 110 out of 117 nations. As per the study of Political and Economic Risk Consultant (PEER), the nature of instruction in Indonesia was positioned twelfth out of 12 nations in Asia. The situation of Indonesia is under Vietnam. Information gave an account of The World Economic Forum Sweden (2000), Indonesia has a low seriousness, which positions just 37th out of 57 nations reviewed on the planet. But then as per a review by a similar organization predicated Indonesia as a supporter and not as an innovation chief of the 53 nations on the planet. Fix and PEER reports demonstrate that the nature of training in Indonesia is still generally low, It can be seen from numerous approaches (laws and guideline) that should be improved and in term of Implementation that even as of not long ago with less severe oversight. Entering the 21st century instruction in Indonesia is in a state of chaos. It was not brought about by the enormity of the nature of national training however more on familiarity with the rankles brought about by the backwardness of instruction in Indonesia. This is on the grounds that a portion of the essential things. One of them is entering the 21st century wave of globalization is felt solid and open. Advance of innovation and changes bring too acknowledgment Tanat Nationals Is done remaining solitary. Nationals Is In ten most AT another world, the open existence where individuals are allowed to contrast existence with another nation. What we feel currently is the slack in the nature of training. Both formal and casual instruction and the outcomes were acquired after we contrast it and different nations. Instruction has become the help in improving Indonesian HR for country improvement. In this manner, we ought to have had the option to build HR in Indonesia who can contend to HR of different nations. Low nature of instruction in Indonesia was additionally appeared in Data Research and Development (2003) that of 146,052 grade school in Indonesia there was just eight schools that are increased overall acknowledgment in the class of The Primary Years Program (PEP) and out of 20,918 Junior secondary schools in Indonesia there was just eight schools that increased overall acknowledgment in the classification of the Middle Years Program (MAP) and from the 8036 secondary school there was just seven schools that increased overall acknowledgment in the class of the Diploma Program (EDP). The reason for the low nature of training in Indonesia, among others, involves adequacy, effectiveness and normalization of educating. It is as yet an issue of training in Indonesia by and large. Some primary issues that we can discover in training are the absence of physical offices, the low quality and government assistance of educators, the low on understudy accomplishment, the absence of instruction value openings, the low raise of instruction to the requirements, the significant expense of instruction, and so forth. Diabetes EssaySo it is awful in the event that we are over and over again change educational plans which are considered incapably and quickly supplant them with an educational program that we think increasingly powerful, albeit really the upgraded one still firmly associated with the bygone one. The idea of effectiveness will occur if the ideal yield can be created ideally with just a generally fixed info, or if the base information can deliver ideal yield. The idea of proficiency itself comprises of mechanical productivity and financial effectiveness. Innovative productivity applied in accomplishing the physical amount of yield in agreement to a predefined result measures. While monetary proficiency is made if the size of fulfillment scores have been applied to the yield. On the off chance that we need to improve the nature of instruction in Indonesia, we likewise discussed the normalization of encouraging that we take. Obviously, in the wake of experiencing the break to decide the guidelines that will be taken. As we see today, standard and fitness in formal and casual instruction are concentrate just to norms and skills. The nature of instruction is estimated by the norms and capabilities in an assortment of variants, in this manner new establishments are made to execute that normalization and ability like the National Education Standardization Agency (BSP). Additionally, it would be better in the event that we rise question whether the standard of training in Indonesia is fitting or not. On account of I-JAN which is consistently a debate model. We surveyed the assessment framework like I-JAN is adequate, yet we lament about instructive assessment that decides if understudies breeze through the test Is just nine once walkout seeing ten procedure taken Day students Tort quite a long while. Other than that, such an assessment just assesses hardly any regions of study without assessing different territories of study that have been scholarly by students. The reason for the low nature of training in Indonesia isn't just restricted to what we talked about above. Numerous things that cause the low nature of our instruction. Most likely we could discover something like this in the event that we delve further into the base of the issue. Also, ideally in the event that we discover it, we can improve the nature of training in Indonesia. The arrangement that can be given towards the issues above is by changing social frameworks that identified with the instruction framework. The instruction framework in Indonesia today depends on the monetary arrangement of private enterprise, a principled that limiting the job and obligations of the state in open undertakings, including training subsidizing. Other arrangement manages specialized issues that legitimately identified with training like instructor quality improvement and understudy accomplishment. The arrangement on low common people of instructors, for instance, other than given them appropriate wages, government ought to likewise give support for the educators to seek after advanced education, and gives an assortment of preparing to improve instructor quality. While for the low understudy accomplishment, the arrangement is to improve the quality and amount of learning materials, improve showing helps and training offices, etc. The world improvement in a globalizes period requests numerous progressions to a superior arrangement of national instruction that can contend decently in all fields. One way that ought to be done to abstain from being abandoned by different countries is by improving the common people of training first.

Joining the Navy Essay Example for Free

Joining the Navy Essay It was a blustery, moist morning on Wednesday, October 8, 2008, a day I would always remember. I turned over smoothly and acknowledged it was 4:30am, time to get up. It was the enormous day. Every one of these musings were dashing through my head. What's going on with I? Am I certain this is directly for me? Will I prevail in this? I was tentative, energized, and vacillated all simultaneously. It was the day Id never again be a non military personnel. Two months from that day Id be considering myself a United States Navvy Sailor. As I woke up and began to prepare, I could feel goose pimples Jitter up my spine. What consumed my psyche was the idea of leaving my family. I was the last kid despite everything living at home. My siblings were at that point gone. Would my folks have the option to adapt? I realize my pooches would miss me appallingly. The time had come to leave to the enlisting office. From that point, NCI Valencia needed to drive me to the Military Entrance Processing Station. That day felt like a dreamlike haze. NCI Valencia would offer me guidance with a major smile all over, and I would hear him, yet not tune in. My nerves were overwhelming my body and I couldnt oversee them. I then confined the entire day in a structure finishing every one of these tests to ensure I was healthy and powerful to leave. That day was the longest day of my life. Glancing around, I felt quiet. The various volunteers were giving out a similar non-verbal communication I was giving. We were all inclination similar sentiments and thinking similar considerations. I wasnt alone. It was the ideal opportunity for the Oath of Enlistment Ceremony. A couple of men in mariner regalia brought all the enlisted people into a stay with an assortment of banners. My family was the main family that went to take photos of the enormous occasion. I at that point raised my correct hand, hile remaining in the situation of consideration, and repeated after Chief, l, Amanda Lazcos, do gravely swear (or certify) that I will bolster and protect the Constitution of the United States of America and Using my fringe vision, I saw my mom crying. Keeping my feelings unblemished was amazingly exhausting. Consider this: I was setting out on another Journey and leaving the two most notable individuals throughout my life at 19 years old. This was the first occasion when I would be away from my folks for an extensive stretch of time. It was an actual existence extremely important occasion. The occasion had found some conclusion. It was presently time to state my goodbyes. Now, it was almost difficult to try and look at my family. Seeing them would cause me to acknowledge the amount they intend to me. I attempted to make it brisk and basic so I wouldnt shed a surge of tears. The keep going fragrance I thought back on my mom was her Sunflowers aroma. She venerated (and still does) that fragrance. My dad had this genuinely wonderful look in his eyes. I realized he was so enchanted to see me accomplishing something positive towards my future. Simultaneously, I realized he was going to miss me a ton. In a moment, I was on the transport, and off to the air terminal alongside 37 different enlisted people.

Defining Diversity: the Evolution of Diversity

Characterizing DIVERSITY: THE EVOLUTION OF DIVERSITY by Camille Kapoor 1. Presentation: WHAT IS DIVERSITY? The idea of assorted variety envelops acknowledgment and regard. It implies understanding that every individual is one of a kind, and perceiving our individual contrasts. These can be along the components of race, ethnicity, sex, sexual direction, financial status, age, physical capacity, strict convictions, political convictions, or other ideologies.It is the investigation of these distinctions in a sheltered, positive, and sustaining condition. It is tied in with seeing one another and moving past straightforward resistance to grasping and praising the rich components of assorted variety inside every person (refered to from http://gladstone. uoregon. edu/~asuomca/diversityinit/definition. html). 2. Motivation behind THE PAPER This exploration paper was directed to see the development of assorted variety definition over the business, explicitly in cordiality industry.This subje ctive research use Diversity Task Force study which led in 2001 to affirm the meaning of decent variety, whereby assorted variety can be finished up as â€Å"all attributes and encounters that characterize every one of us as individuals† (Kapoor, 2011). In addition, the reason for this examination is: †¢ to outline the development of decent variety idea into the executives conversations, †¢ to talk about how the meaning of assorted variety has widened after some time to turn out to be increasingly comprehensive, †¢ to give momentum concerns a wide based assorted variety definition, †¢ to advance researcher’s own meaning of assorted variety (Kapoor, 2011) . Conversation ON FINDINGS 3. 1 The Emergence of Diversity Concept into Management Discussions Based on the researcher’s discoveries, the passageway of decent variety idea into the executives conversations was followed as right on time as 1978 dependent on Supreme Court Case of Regents of Uni versiy of California v. Bakke. In 1987, report by Hudson Institute known as Workforce 2000 expressed that ladies, blacks, Hispanics and foreigners would make up 85 percent of new position searchers constantly 2000.In expansion, this investigation likewise brought up, â€Å"more and more people are probably going to work with individuals who are demographically not quite the same as them regarding age, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity†. The definition of 1964 Civil Rights Acts, Executive Order 11246 and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 1965 made it unlawful for organizations to segregate in the recruiting or overseeing workers based on race, shading, religion, sex or national origin.It is likewise expects association to make certifiable move to defeat past examples of separation. In the next year, the ensured classes extended to incorporate white ladies, veterans, individuals beyond 40 years old and individuals with physical or mental inabilities. In 199 0’s, specialists started advancing the â€Å"business case† for assorted variety; as a component of the response of perception that progressively differing workforce can improve the general business.Then, overseeing decent variety become one of the monetary intrigue and organizations were cautioned that an inability to successfully deal with their various workforce would prompt terrible showing or even spot the company’s picture in danger. In late 1990s, the acknowledgment that decent variety is a reality can be seen and that a company’s triumphs depend on their capacity to successfully deal with their workforce assorted variety. Overseeing decent variety centers around understanding individuals as people, as opposed to making suppositions about the necessities and capability of people dependent on whether that individual is of a particular sexual orientation or ethnic group.Managing assorted variety could likewise be comprehended as a balance methodology since it professed to have the option to perceive employee’s contrasts, while guaranteeing â€Å"that arrangements and techniques didn't treat them inequitably†. The above rise on decent variety idea further affirmed by Hanappi-Egger and Ukur (2011) in beneath outline table of National types of assorted variety the executives. This exploration sums up the advancement or evolvement of assorted variety the executives cross the world.Table 1: National Forms of Diversity Management |Mobility of decent variety the executives across outskirts | |Concept |Affirmative activity |Equal Employment |Diversity the board |Business case for decent variety | |Opportunities | |management | |Year of Inception Mid 1960s and mid 1980s |Mid 1970s to mid 1990s |1983 to 1990s |1990 | |Countries that received |USA 1961 |USA, Canada, UK, Australia, |1983-1990 in the US |1990-USA | |South Africa 1998 |South Africa |1997 in the UK |2004-Australia | |Kenya 2007 | |1998 in the South Africa | |199 9 in Australia | |2000 in Europe | |2003 in Asia | |Intended recipients |Blacks, ladies, Hispanics, |Women, racial minorities, |White physically fit guys, |Corporate associations | |native Americans, Asians |persons with inabilities, |also non-customary | |aboriginal individuals |employees | |Focus |Numerical portrayal, |Barrier disposal, |Learning about others I. |Business and key | |hiring consistence |numerical portrayal, |those who are diverse |advantage | |reporting | |Cultural esteem |Remedy past wrongs |Egalitarianism, meritocracy |Inclusiveness, regard for |Business advantage | |difference | |Intended esteem |Representative workforce at |Fair business strategies and|Awareness of contrast; |Business benefits | |all levels; access to |practices; improved |improved relational and | |employment for disadvantaged|representation; strong |intergroup correspondence; | |groups |climate |human relations, aptitudes; | |attitude change | |Source: Adopted from Hanappi-Egger and Ukur (201 1); information acquired halfway from Kelly/Dobbin (1998) and Agocs/Burr (1996) 3. 2 How the Definition of Diversity Broadened Over Time According to this exploration, there were two general ways to deal with comprehend workforce decent variety being created in mid-2000s as underneath: †¢ Narrow View †characterize assorted variety just as it identified with equivalent business opportunity and governmental policy regarding minorities in society; concentrating on enrolling and recruiting a gathering of individuals of specific races, sexes or societies. †¢ Broad View †characterize assorted variety as an idea which remembers each route for which individuals can contrast; endeavors to amplifying the capability of all representatives in direct advantage to the organization.However, the above meaning of decent variety further extended when Diversity Task Force led an examination in 2001 which stress on: †¢ The significance of including auxiliary elements of a perso n into the decent variety definition, for example, correspondence style, work style, authoritative job/level, financial status, and geographic starting point; other than just concentrating on essential measurements, for example, race, ethnicity, sex, age, religion, inability and sexual direction. †¢ The attention on individuals with non-obvious contrasts, for example, sexual direction. Be that as it may, the attention is more on how their reasoning styles, critical thinking draws near, encounters, skills, work propensities, and the board style can add to assorted variety advancement. †¢ The significance to incorporate assorted variety measurements which pertinent to work environment, for example, instructive foundation, work understanding, work status, residency, learning style, and character type. †¢ The distinctions even inside the specific group.All the above advancement in assorted variety definition further upheld and extended in The Four Layers of Diversity meas urements by Gardenswartz and Rowe (2003). Contrasted with Narrow View and Board View moved toward built up in mid-2000s to characterize assorted variety, The Four Layers of Diversity clarified beneath measurements in characterizing decent variety: †¢ Personality †manages the steady arrangement of attributes that builds up ones personality †¢ Internal Dimension †speaks to qualities that firmly impact people’s disposition, observation and desires for other people. These incorporate factors, for example, age, sex, race, sexual direction, or ethnicity †¢ External Dimension †speaks to individual characteristics that we can apply control or impact over.They incorporate factors, for example, salary, individual and recreational propensities, religion, instruction, work understanding, appearance, conjugal status and topographical area †¢ Organizational Dimension †speaks to factors relating to the association itself and incorporates work field, d ivision or unit, position, association connection, the executives status and practical level. (Hanappi-Egger and Ukur, 2011) 3. 3 Current Concerns With a Broad-based Diversity Definition This exploration likewise features a few concerns relating to expansive based assorted variety definition in current condition: †¢ Difficulty to execute decent variety activities lead to disappointment among representatives in the association. Expansive meanings of decent variety can â€Å"obscure issues of intergroup inequality† on the grounds that the administration put more spotlight on â€Å"managing singular contrasts that may defile intergroup relations. †¢ Promotions on decent variety programs is yet to demonstrate its adequacy; particularly in assorted variety training.The aftereffect of the exploration led before were as yet equivocal in its decisions. †¢ Initial goal of the administration to embrace an all the more extensively characterized way to deal with decent va riety the executives become an issue when worker see it as the executives is managing singular contrasts as opposed to value. †¢ The â€Å"upbeat naivety† of the assorted variety worldview may neglect to recognize past separation and accordingly may keep associations from forestalling future segregation and prejudice expressed that the association ought to recognize the social and social decent variety of where the association exists; with the goal that the administration ready to create legitimate and reasonable decent variety activities. 4.Researcher’s Own Definition of Diversity as Conclusion Based on the investigation co

Domestic Grounding in 19th Century Female American Literature - Literature Essay Samples

Jane Tompkins writes on how nineteenth century domestic novels characterise ‘a monumental effort to reorganize culture from the womans point of view†¦in certain cases, it offers a critique of American society far more devastating than any delivered by better-known critics such as Hawthorne and Melville’ . Indeed, both Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Awakening seem to adhere to this tradition, though on differing tangents of realism and sentimentalism. I will be scrutinizing these texts as branches of the domestic tradition, and will be assessing their respective effectiveness in terms of social discourse. I will be investigating how affect theory applies to the use of emotion in female writing, and how that provided a new dimension to social criticism in American literature through its acknowledgment that emotions are vital to moral judgment. Due to its mass popularity and emotive style there have ever been connotations of domestic female writing with non-literary, indulgent, passive consumption. Tompkins corroborates this, speaking of how popularity is often equated with degradation, emotion with ineptitude and domesticity with insignificance . These female writers are thought to have used ‘false stereotypes, dishing out weak-minded pap to nourish the prejudices of an ill-educated and underemployed female readership’ . The idea of stereotyping is certainly true of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, yet such a claim is problematized with the example of the more elliptical writing style in The Awakening. This is where the tradition divides into realism and sentimentalism; though using different styles both use emotion and include the theme of the primacy of human connection and emotion in moral judgment, valorising the concept of affectional experience. Certainly, the Deleuzian concept of affect distinguishes how such a tradition offers a new dimension to social criticism. Affects are states of mind and body related to feelings and emotion s, made up of pleasure or joy, pain or sorrow and desire or appetite . This non-cognitive reaction arguably determines a certain moral coding. Thus, art that has this effect can discover new truths otherwise lost in rigid logic. Undeniably, social issues including slavery and female oppression can only truly be dealt with in relation to moral judgments determined by emotional experience. Shaun Nichols writes about emotivism, the idea of expressing rather than reporting one’s feelings . He claims that ‘sentimental accounts are supposed to give a more accurate rendering of moral judgment on the ground, as opposed to the disconnected, emaciated characterization of moral judgment promoted by some in the rationalist tradition’ . Indeed, this emotive reflection on human morals seems to bring additional degrees of empathy and therefore affect for the reader. This affect is exploited in varied ways in the realist and sentimentalist traditions, being affecting to differen t readerships and effective in different ways. Uncle Tom’s Cabin deals with the ways in which women can be political actors through their capacity for expression and compassion; in fact, the writing of the book was a political act in itself. Meanwhile, The Awakening is about the self-expression and liberation of women on a personal level. To this extent, they are respectively apt for realism/sentimentalism as they act on different scales. Contemporary reaction to The Awakening saw much critical hostility. Certainly, at a time when one could not openly express such deviances from the patriarchal structure and sexual inclinations, this naturalistic representation resonated deeply with its readers. Moreover, there is evidence to suggest that much of Edna’s story stems from Chopin’s own thoughts on female liberation and independence, as she read much feminist writing and wrote in her diaries of her resentment towards various social obligations she held as a woman . This is portrayed when Edna gets up in the middle of the night and ‘she could not have told why she was crying’ . The unembellished depiction of a woman’s unarticulated and unheard strife provides significant potential for affect in the reader, speaking to the supressed voice of women and giving them agency to express themselves by depicting how they are not alone, that Edna too ‘had all her life long been accustomed to harbour thoughts and emotions which never voiced themselves.’ Lawrence Thornton refers to the novel as a ‘political romance’ . Indeed, Chopin chapters Edna’s liberation not just socio-politically, on a literal level, but emotionally, on a sentimental level. In other words, the hybridity of realism and sentimentality creates a new category of social commentary; there is a move from observational realism to the realism of embodied desire. Being influenced by Darwinist thinking, Chopin uses The Awakening to portray th e dominance of humans’ natural instincts, and thus providing a study of the fundamental truth that humans cannot repress their sexual desires, despite social constrictions. In the process, critiques of the institution of marriage, motherhood and Christianity are implicitly explored with this view of emotional liberation. Sandra Gilbert writes that ‘Edna’s ‘awakenings’ become increasingly fantastic and poetic, stirrings of the imagination’s desire for ‘amplitude and awe’ rather than protests of the reason against unreasonable constraint’ . It is evident that such an emotive category of expression was needed during this period of oppression. She goes on to says that the passage in which Edna learns to swim is symbolic not just of her move towards liberation and independence, but of the novel itself from a realist text into ‘a distinctively female fantasy of paradisal fulfilment’ . Certainly, it is evident that t he observational, literal and descriptive style of the novel changes to one of philosophical pondering, metaphorical imagery and erotic implications, marking Chopin’s rejection of the male-dominated style of realism and ultimately the male-dominated society. Notwithstanding the novel retains its naturalistic plot, thus preserving credibility and resonance. The sentimental aspects, for instance when she refers to the night of her first ‘awakening’ as ‘like a night in a dream’ and goes on to remark that ‘there must be spirits abroad tonight’ , despite being dramatized, draws on realistic sentiment, making it therefore more naturalistic in its affect. The fantastical imagery provided of Edna’s dinner party and her feeling like a ‘regal woman, the one who rules’ seems adverse to the realistic tone of the novel, yet it touches on realistic emotion and the real fantasy of empowerment. Furthermore, when she asks how many yea rs she slept in Madame Antoine’s bed, it provides almost a fairy tale image, but reflects feelings of passion that are the reality of female existence. Finally, the symbolism and ceremony of her martyrdom may seem theatricalised, but it is not unthinkable to consider such a situation to be true, and such suicidal sentiments are tangible to a subordinated audience. Sentimental novels are often seen as being inherently false in sentiment, or as James Baldwin puts it, ‘fantasies, connecting nowhere with reality, sentimental’ . Yet this may be contested, as Beecher Stowe does draw on own experience of the loss of a child and personal feelings of attachment and empathy. She seems to appropriate such emotions to the large-scale issue of slavery; indeed, separation and loss were true factors of the slave trade, meaning the novel does not consist of ‘fantasies connecting nowhere with reality’, but with actual emotional ramifications of the industry. Incident s and injustices in Uncle Tom’s Cabin are not exaggerated in themselves, but the superficial stock characters and situations are dramatised, which could be seen as inauthentic and potentially less sympathetic. Certainly, Baldwin remarks that sentimentalism adheres to ‘the formula created by the necessity to find a lie more palatable than the truth’ . The unnaturalistic portrayal does makes the story more palatable, yet it may also be viewed as more sympathetic to those who had not considered the humanity of the black characters, meaning exaggeration is needed in order to explicitly subvert dominant prejudices. In other words, it needs to be made palatable to a wide audience that would be adverse to such claims as the humanity of slaves; these theatrical clichà ©s provide an accessible comprehension, universality and plausibility for mass readership. Dobson corroborates this, noting ‘an emphasis on accessible language, a clear prose style, and familiar lyri c and narrative patterns defines an aesthetic whose primary quality of transparency is generated by a valorisation of connection, an impulse toward communication with as wide an audience as possible’ . For example the lack of subtlety that describes Eva’s death, and the clichà ©d gesture of the Senator and his wife giving away their dead child’s clothes easily and simply conveys the theme of empathy, denoting the striving for affect in the reader. This differs in The Awakening in which metaphors are more commonly used than direct narrative guidance.Furthermore, the episode with the Senator and his wife depicts the effectiveness and resonance of sentimentalism. Mr. Bird’s decision to help is completely understandable to the reader as they have already established sympathy with Eliza and her child. Mrs. Bird unequivocally sums up the moral of this passage: ‘Your heart is better than your head, in this case, John.’ Thus, she draws attention to the significance of emotion in political judgment. George Orwell corroborates the effects of this clichà ©/truth dichotomy, claiming that ‘it is an unintentionally ludicrous book, full of preposterous melodramatic incidents; it is also deeply moving and essentially true’ . Ultimately, because of the sub-human status of African-Americans during this time, it could be seen that such hyper-sentimentality and guided narrative is needed in order to forcibly provoke a new perspective.Together these subgenres make up the domestic tradition, with Beecher Stowe looking at the institution of slavery from the domestic and emotional point of view, while Chopin explores female public standing from the private and psychological point of view. Indeed, contemporary women were placed in the domestic sphere by society, meaning domestic references and familial, emotional ties represent all they held in their agency to explore moral and social issues. These features were nonetheless poig nant and effective in their own right. The use of domestic scenes, for instance the family home and dinner parties, are used as signifiers for the common, making such instances accessible to a wide audience (inclusive of male and female) and more personally affecting than institutional settings. Yet, communal issues have an effect on these domestic issues (for example, family separation in slavery and the oppression of women in marriage and society), thus this presentation of the domestic sheds light on the effects of the communal, depicting how this tradition brought a new way of critiquing society.This new form of social criticism was met with fierce denunciation, with Willa Cather writing about such authors as ‘women of strong and fine intuitions, but without the faculty of observation, comparison, reasoning about things’ . This condemnation of the use of emotions rather than rationale to explore fundamental truths and moral issues may be contested with the argument that with realism in The Awakening Chopin observes, compares and reasons with female emotion as Edna begins to recognise ‘her position in the universe as a human being, and†¦her relation as an individual to the world within and about her’ , while Uncle Tom’s Cabin draws on true sentiment and judgment, although presented in a hyper-emotive style. Furthermore, Dobson claims that sentimental texts ‘do not wallow in excessive emotionality; rather, they represent an essential reality and must be treated with heightened feeling’ . Although true of both texts, Uncle Tom’s Cabin may be seen to ‘wallow’ in its emotion, but this merely denotes a need for even more heightened feeling, as it is dealing with an industrial issue rather than a personal one. Ultimately, the use of domesticity and emotion shed a new light on the state of American society, being able to affect readers in a different way. As Dobson writes: ‘in a world of mortality, of absolute and certain loss†¦a body of literature giving primacy to affectional connections and responsibilities still reflects the dilemmas, anxieties, and tragedies of individual lives’ . To this extent, this tradition was able to appropriate such sentiments to national social issues, suggesting an adoption of emotional investment in the formation of moral judgment. Their respective positions in the canon of American literature proves their worth in terms of the development of the nation using the domestic style.Bibliography:Bakhtin, Mikhail, Mikhail Bakhtin: Creations of a Prosaics, ed.s Gary Saul Morson, Emerson, Cary, (California: Stanford University Press, 1990).Baldwin, James, ‘Everybody’s Protest Novel’ in Collected Essays, (The Library of America, 1998).Beecher Stowe, Harriet, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, (London: Wordsworth Classics, 1999).Cather, Willa, Pittsburgh Leader, 8 July 1899, Margo Culley, ed., The Awakening, (New York: W. W. Norton Company, 1994 [1899]), p. 170.Chopin, Kate, The Awakening and Selected Stories, (New York and London: Penguin, 2003).Deleuze, Gilles, ‘Part III, Proposition 56: Spinoza, Benedictus de’, Ethics. Trans. by W.H. White and A.H. Stirling, (London: Wordsworth, 2001 [1677]). Dobson, Joanne, ‘Reclaiming Sentimental Literature’ in American Literature, volume 69, Number 2, (Duke University Press, June 1997).Gilbert, Sandra M., ‘Introduction: The Second Coming of Aphrodite’ in The Awakening and Selected Stories, ed. Sandra M. Gilbert, (New York and London: Penguin, 2003).Nichols, Shaun, ‘Sentimentalism Naturalised’ in The Psychology and Biology of Morality ed. W. Sinnott-Armstrong, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004).Orwell, George, ‘Good Bad Books’ in Tribune, (London, November 1945).Thornton, Lawrence, ‘The Awakening: A Political Romance’ in American Literature, (Montana: Duke University Press, 1980).Tompki ns, Jane, Sentimental Power: Uncle Toms Cabin and the Politics of Literary History in Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860, (New York: Oxford U P, 1985).

Motivation at Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola

Statement of Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify motivational techniques that are being used in different organizations. The three organizations that will be analyzed are Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola that are named in the top Fortune 500 companies. These companies build on the principle that individuals act in ways to take full advantage of the value of exchange with the organization. Research and theory building in goal setting, reward systems, leadership, and job design have advanced our understanding of organizational behavior. Introduction Motivating employees to excel in any business is a topic of great practical concern to employers, and of great theoretical concern to researchers. Education and continued†¦show more content†¦True leaders concentrate on improving the quality of work life for their people. They do this by, first, driving out fear. (Expectancy Theory) In his famous fourteen points of advice to management, W. Edwards Deming states: The economic loss from fear is appalling. The fear to speak out, the fear to be upbraided, the fear to be fired, cause the employee to withdraw into his cocoon of noninvolvement... His mind is numbed, his creative juices stop flowing, and the company is the big loser. Leaders recognize that a certain amount of drudgery and boredom is inevitable in assembly-line operations, both in manufacturing and business processes. (Bhote 2001) They attempt to inject a degree of job excitement by facilitating both horizontal and vertical job enrichment, creating teamwork, and givi ng powerful tools to the workers so that they experience the thrills of solving problems by themselves, and by making each employee a manager in her own area. The result is an atmosphere of joy in the workplace that even a casual visitor can sense. (Bhote 2001) Motivational Methods Dell has defined their strategy in the following excerpt from their web site. Dells winning culture and comprehensive diversity initiatives create a corporate environment based on a meritocracy (Expectancy), personal achievement (Needs) and equal access to all available opportunities (Equity). We focus on cultivating and promoting best practices among ourShow MoreRelatedThe Marketing Strategy Of Lenovo Brand3494 Words   |  14 Pagesdistributers as it’s harder to drive up prices. Competitive Rivalry: Lenovo is the third biggest PC vendor in the world, being up against Dell and Hewlett Packard, there is little differentiation between all three competitors in terms of product quality and features. However PC world notes that Lenovo isn’t just another Android vendor and that its acquisition of Motorola sets it up very nicely for head-to-head battles with Samsung in the American Android Market (Brad Reed, 2014). Buyer power: Lenovo’sRead More7s Model Samsung5308 Words   |  22 PagesKim, Hanna Earl OECD Journal: General Papers; 2008, Vol. 8 Issue 4, p109-155, 47p, 34 Charts, 20 Graphs This includes the strategy of the organisation, the innovation strategy, the culture in the organisation towards risk-taking and change, the motivation of employees, cross functional learning, knowledge management and the use of internal and external networks. â€Å"Employees’ willingness to take risks very much depends on the existence of a †noblame† culture. 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We had very strong incentives to succeed together.† This document is authorized for use only by

Two Different Perspectives of Life Experiences with Indians

Mary Rowlandson’s â€Å"A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson† and Benjamin Franklin’s â€Å"Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America† are two different perspectives based on unique experiences the narrators had with â€Å"savages.† Benjamin Franklin’s â€Å"Remarks Concerning the Savages†¦Ã¢â‚¬  is a comparison between the ways of the Indians and the ways of the Englishmen along with Franklin’s reason why the Indians should not be defined as savages. â€Å"A Narrative of the Captivity†¦Ã¢â‚¬  is a written test of faith about a brutally traumatic experience that a woman faced alone while being held captive by Indians. Mary Rowlandson views the Indians in a negative light due to the traumatizing and inhumane experiences she went through†¦show more content†¦Henwood argues that Mary Rowlandson is well aware of the â€Å"complexities and contradictions of Biblical voices† (Henwood 171) and is only using those biblical references to express the anger and frustration she is feeling while she is in captivity. Henwood referred to Kathryn Deuronian’s â€Å"Puritan Orthodoxy And the Survivor Syndrome In Mary Rowlandsons Indian Captivity Narrative,† by stating that Deuronian is right when she said that â€Å"self-expression is crucial to Psychological survival of her ordeal,† (Deuronian 91). Deuronian’s article analyzed why Mary Rowlandson acted the way that she did when she is in captivity and why she constantly writes about the glory of God and how grateful she is for it. Deuronian states that Rowlandson had gone into a sense of psychological numbness to any type of pain, which explains why she is so held together and very sane in the beginning of her captivity. Rowlandson had fallen â€Å"into a state of shock that helped to numb against the physical, emotional and spiritual dislocation† (Deuronian 87) which eventually wore off. Rowlandson is going through emotional denial, she had not fully accepted the fact that she is away from her family and that she is captured by people who are a threat to her life. But in the end, she managed to get back to them leading her to share her experiences with the world. Each of the narrators has a unique experience with the Indians which gave a clear explanation to why they feel the wayShow MoreRelatedMary Rowlandson Vs Mary Jemison Essay1019 Words   |  5 Pagesa unique perspective toward to people? I believe that there are many ways for us to have many different viewpoints to something or some people. 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The Package free essay sample

He starts to watch sponge again when Jon walks in with what is obviously a dead body wrapped in a yellow sheet. Oh my god! Terry looks in a panic. Jon drops the package down on the floor, face up. Terry rushes out from behind the (louder)Oh my god! Panic. Jon is calmly glaring at terry. Oh! This is bad! This is very bad! (annoyed)What? I cant do this! Theres Just no way! (angry)Why not? Just look at it! Its a mess! (pointing at various points on the package) The wrapping material is COMPLETELY wrong! I dont see anything wrong with it. Sir, Im a professional.I can tell by Just looking at it hat its not water resistant Look! Its practically falling off as we speak! (shaking head) Theres no proper stabilization. .. No handles And these! (bending down and grabbing on large breasts) Theyre all over the place! It might get caught in one of the conveyor belts! This is Just unacceptable! Terry gets up and circles the body, I dont even see an adequate place to stick the label! (pointing to place near bloodstain)What about there? (bends down and feels the stained area with two fingers) What is that, blood? (moving eyes suspiciously) think it might be. We will write a custom essay sample on The Package or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Oh no! No! The anticoagulants in blood make it impossible for any adhesive to stabilize. The label will come right off goodness-where and well have to do the whole thing over again. (getting up) No! I cant send this off without implementing a few creative packaging techniques. No question! Creative packaging? Whats that? Creative packaging is a science devoted to discovering the most space-efficient, aerodynamic, cost-effective, environmentally-friendly, attractive and practical modes of computing a collection of subroutines with related functionality. Jesus! How long is this going to take? Fine.Just go ahead and do what you have to do. I Just need to get out of here. Terry goes to the back and grabs a roll of tape, scissors and a box of materials. Jon is fumbling in his pocket, takes out a passport. Going on a trip? You could say that. Terry puts his equipment down and grabs for the body. Ill Just get the sheet off and NO! Terry stops. But No! (beat) Youre Just going to have to do what you do In the sheet. Yes. In the sheet. O. K. Alright. Terry stares at the package for a beat. Well, Ill Just put a layer of wrap on it and tape it up a bit Just to stabilize it. Thats fine.Terry puts it in a large plastic bag. It doesnt quite fit and so he spends time bending and fumbling with it. He finally gets it in and then begins taping. In the process of taping, he drops the head on the ground and it makes a cracking sound. Itll cost extra, but I think youll want some bubble wrap. Bubble wrap? Yes. Some of it seems to be a bit Fragile. Jon looks at the item, sullen. Fragile? Yeah. You could say that. Terry gets the bubble wrap and tapes. (mumbling to self and staring at the body) Fragile You better believe it! She was so bucking fragile I felt like I was walking on eggshells my whole bucking life!Jon turns away from the body and lights a cigarette while Terry fumbles with the body and bubble wrap. Jon looks into the audience and begins a soliloquy, of sorts. Do you know what its like. .. Not to be able to say a word or do anything without having someone tell you how stupid and horrible you are? As Terry fumbles with the wrap, the body suddenly begins choking Terry and they wrestle. Throughout the rest of Sons speech, Terry struggles with the body and bubble wrap. I could come home and say that I Just made a million dollars on some real estate deal and You know what Id get? Outs up his hands like a puppet and talking in a whiny voice) Any! Any! Any! Why did you do this? Why did you do that? Youre so bucking stupid! (beat) Yeah! Im stupid! Im stupid for putting up with that sit for almost twenty years! Terry is on top the body but it is choking him. Terry grabs a large bag of Styrofoam The body eventually goes limp. Again. Terry gets up, hair and clothes now disheveled. Peanuts? (Turning around, looking at Terry) What? (grabbing the bag of peanuts) Styrofoam peanuts. To prevent it from moving in the box. Look, forget the box. Just slap a label on it and throw it n the truck, K?Are you sure? I cant guarantee that it wont get damaged in transit. I dont think its possible to damage it any more than it already is. Well all right. Terry goes behind the counter and grabs sheets of paper and a pencil. Wheres it going to? Have you got the address? You said you deliver anywhere? Anytime. Anywhere. I dont know the address. .. You said its international, right? Wait! Ill get the book. Terry grabs a large book and begins flipping. O. K.. . Nevada Del Uric. Hem. Is that a resort? (shaking head) A volcano. Terry stops flipping and looks up. (outraged) We cant do that!

Oda Nobunagas Biography

The oda of Omwari Oda Nobunaga was born Oda Kipposhi on June 23rd 1534 and was a second son of Oda Nobuhinde who by then was a minor lord and whose family was servant to Shiba Shugo. Oda Kipposhi’s father was a very knowledgeable warrior who used much of his time in battles as a Samurai to Mikawa and Mino. At home, Oda kipposhi’s father, later Oda Nobunaga, was involved in power rivalry with his extended family over the control of Omwari province (Seal par 5).Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on Oda Nobunaga’s Biography specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The Oda family was divided into two warring branches. The Nobuhide’s branch was stationed at kiyosu and was run by three elders; the second branch of the family was housed at Iwakura castle in the north of Omwari province. At the time of his birth, Japan was a divided country as Opposed to what it used to be in earlier years before the terrible civil war of 1460s. The country was divided into more than sixty provinces each under the rule of a Daimyo. However, Daimyo were always at war with each other during which time numerous farms and villages would be burned. Oda Nobunaga was brought up in a castle in Nagoya where his father was among the chiefs from his Oda family that ruled Omwari at the time. During his youthful years, Oda was a handsome and unusually graceful man and his father had hired tutors to teach his son the arts of war and other Chinese classics. Oda however proved to be a nuisance to his tutors because of his arrogance and irrelevance. One of his trainers, Kiyohide committed kanshi after writing up a letter urging Nobunaga to take up his studies more seriously. This death made Nobunaga change some bit and honored Hirashi Kiyohide by building the Seisyu-ji in Omwari (Seal par 4). Oda Nobunaga was strange in his mode of dressing wearing odd colored short sleeve and knickknacks hanging from his wa ist. His moods were also unpredictable making people think him crazy. It was rumored that Oda acted in this manner to fool his older cousins from seeing him a rival for the power. Physically, Nobunaga had a prominent nose and a scarce beard and was of unruly behavior. At the age of fourteen, Oda Nobunaga married a daughter of the lord of Mino province. This was a politically instigated marriage based on convenience not loves. The rise of Oda Nobunaga Following Oda Nobuhinde’s death, Oda Nobunaga built a small force of not more than a thousand men and successfully built an army that later repulsed two attacks by relatives and by a rival province. He later killed his chief rival in the family and a brother who challenged his leadership.Advertising Looking for research paper on asian? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Oda Nobunaga rose to become a minor warlord and only held a small piece of land in Omwari province. Like mos t other Daimyo of his time, Oda rose to power following military encounters and by the age of 25 years, he controlled a large part of Omwari province by ruthlessly taking over territories from his neighbors. By 1558, Nobunaga had successfully united his family (Morton 47). His rule was only secure in 1560 when he defeated Totomi family from the Ingawa province which was matching through his province on their way to conquering Kyoto. Following this defeat to the largest army in Japan, Nobunaga suddenly became a national figure and as a result many other Daimyos met him in a bid to build alliances (Saito 25). Like other Daimyos of the Sengoku era, Oda Nobunaga took the advantage of convenience marriages to create alliances and strengthen his leadership. To begin with, Nobunaga married his daughter to the lord of Mikawa province Tokugawa Leyasu’s son. This alliance lasted for twenty years . O-ichi, Oda Nobunaga’s sister was also married to Asai who was the lord of Omi pro vince. These alliances helped Nobunaga became the leader of a very strong and powerful coalition. This however was only a start of what Oda Nobunaga aspired to do. It was only the beginning of an empire that he intended to build (Saito 27).He multiplied his army into more than ten times. He even recruited farmer to be foot soldiers who carried spears and lances while whoever showed talent was promoted through ranks (Saito 29). His military prowess and leadership skill were again proved when in 1565 he marched into Kyoto and helped drive out a local warlord who had killed a shogun and instead installed a three year old as the new shogun. Nobunaga replaced the child shogun with Yoshiaki, the brother of the murdered shogun. He also helped rebuild the badly damaged palace and gave money to the emperor who had invited him to Kyoto. Following the rise in power of Minamoto no Yoritomo appointed in 1192, as a shogun, most emperors lost their power, the remaining shoguns too lost their power although they still could appoint judges and other administrators. Nobunaga used Shogun Yoshiaki as a puppet and even obtained rights to sign document without his consent. This period saw Nobunaga become the most powerful leaders in Japan owing to his political and military might (Morton 47). Resistance The developments at Kyoto agitated a daimyo that lived outside the influence of Nobunaga. He saw Nobunaga as a force that would lead to his destruction. To him, Nobunaga could not be compared to many other warlords like Hosokama Sumimoto and Miyoshi Motonaga who were only concerned only about personal gain and prestige. Nobunaga’s gain however seemed to surpass that of the two warlords and could not be filled.Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on Oda Nobunaga’s Biography specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More He knew that Nobunaga’s aim was to rule the whole of Japan. Four other warlords durin g Nobunaga’s rule: Mori Motonari, Takeda Shingen, Uesugi Kenshin and hojo Ujiasu had no say in the capital as they had been removed by Nobunaga. Their movement was also curtailed by Nobunaga who occupied a strategic location. Taking Kyoto only made things better for him as he was now positioned in the middle of Japan. Nobunaga’s power was based on the point of the sword with the use of diplomacy waning as he put additional territories under his rule. Nobunaga crushed his enemies completely especially those troublesome to him (Morton 49). Real trouble The first real trouble came when Asakura Yoshikage turned down an invitation by Yoshiaki who was ordered by Nobunaga to invite all local daimyos to a banquet at Kyoto. Nobunaga took this as a symbol of disloyal to both shogun Yoshiaki and the emperor. Using this as an excuse, Nobunaga raised an army to attack Echizen which was ruled by Asakura. He made good his threat and was approaching Echizen capital, Ichijo-no-Tani, wh en he received news that his brother-in-law , Asai Namagasa, husband to his sister O-ichi had shifted bases and was fighting on Asakura’s side. He later moved back to Kyoto and attacked the combined forces of Asai and Asakura but the winner of this battle was no other but Nobunaga. This win propelled Nobunaga to the highest point in his military and political career (Hooker par 1). He now was a force to reckon with in the larger Japan. However, Asai and Asakura had killed Nobunaga’s own brother, Nobuharu and sought the assistance of the monks of Mt. Hiei. The fall of Monasteries In 1570, Nobunaga’s army under the command of Hideyoshi defeated his brother-in-law, Asai, who had defected from his camp to join that of his rival, Asakura. However, both Asai and Asakura could not be captured as they escaped and sought refuge in Mt. Hiei which was a home to Enryakuji, one of the oldest and holiest Tendai Buddhist monasteries at the time. It is important to know that in middle of the second millennia, Buddhist monks were not as saintly as we know them today, but were rather armed, very political and held a lot of wealth. This resulted into a lot of resentment from Nobunaga who coveted the extensive land holding they held and their use of religion to disguise their power pursuit. When he failed to annihilate Asai and Asakura, Nobunaga pleaded with the monks of Eryakuji to either maintain neutrality or face his wrath.Advertising Looking for research paper on asian? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The monks too were in bad terms with Oda Nobunaga who took some of their lands and had threatened to tax them. They too could not understand how anyone could take the action Nobunaga was intending to fulfill of burning their eight century old monastery. In the mean time, Asai and Asakura took the opportunity to escape as the armed monks engaged in skirmishes with Nobunaga’s men. In October 1571, in the mid of a very windy night, Nobunaga’s revenge was terrible as his soldiers surrounded Mt. Hiei and set it on fire. As enormous flames engulfed the mountain city, thousands of warrior monks, women and children were consumed by the fire that reduced the Eryakuji monastery into ashes. Close to three thousand homes, schools, temples and libraries were destroyed in this fire. The whole of Japan shuddered at what Nobunaga had ruthlessly done. To this day, at the mention of Nobunaga, Japanese first thing in the mind is the burning of the Eryakuji monastery. This act of burning the monastery had the impact that Nobunaga intended as many Japanese monks were terrified and stopped maintaining armies, cease to be political and also accepted their loss of land without a word. In 1574, one of remaining defiant Buddhist sect went up in flames while a second one was suppressed with gun fire in the following year. Only the Honganji monastery on Osaka bay remained defiant as it enjoyed naval support from some western Daimyos, however, in 1580, Nobunaga’s marines in seven warrior ships destroyed close to six hundred war boats. This brought to an end the defiance of the Honganji monastery. Most other Buddhists had however lost their power by 1573. In that same year, Asai and Asakura committed suicide and Nabunaga had their skulls gold and silver plated and used them as drinking cups. As a result of asai’s death, his widow O-ichi, returned to his brother Nobunaga with three daughters and an infant son who was executed. O-ichi, with her striking beauty, wa s married off to a top general in his army, Shibata Katsue. Christian Missionaries and the Gun Powder Oda Nobunaga first interaction with the westerners was recorded by a Portuguese missionary named Louis Frois in 1569. Louis described Nobunaga as a tall man who was greatly addicted to military exercise and who scorned both Buddha and the Kami tradition medicine and who neither believed in life after death nor the immortality of the soul. Nobunaga welcomed Jesuits missionary whom he liked and from whom he received gifts such as maps, tiger skins, magnifying glasses, improved guns and who also shared his contempt for Buddhism. In 1543, three Portuguese traders sold matchlocks to the Japanese at the island of Tanega south of Kyushu. These guns were copied by the local lord’s blacksmith’s but these guns failed to function due the gunpowder failing to explode. Later, a Portuguese blacksmith settled down and began teaching the Japanese finer points of gun making. Within no time, the Japanese were making guns at a very fast rate. Sooner, the port of Okai, on Osaka bay became a major gun manufacturing center in Japan. Until 1569, this very prosperous town was under the rule of merchants but in that year, it fell under Nobunaga’s direct rule. Nobunaga’s Administrative Skills It is recorded that Nobunaga was a very skilful administrator and a good warrior. He promoted trade by minting standardized currency and also standardized weights and measures giving merchants an easy time in the process. ‘Marotoriums’ were also abolished as they exempted the dictatorial warlords from paying debts. In his attempts to further improve trade conditions in Japan, he abolished all toll barriers and guild monopolies in his territory and in major cities. The more Nobunaga expanded his territorial borders by conquering neighboring provinces, the more it became easier for merchants as trade areas increased. Nobunaga modernized his armies and in fact bought tens of thousands of guns that were used by his armies in practicing. The soldiers were trained to fast load the gun powders and to shoot and were also trained on arrangement in the battlefront especially formation of alternating rows. In this arrangement, as the first row bent to reload, the second row would shoot while the third row would be aiming. This ensured a continuous bombardment that was devastating to the rival army. He too armed peasants who at times massacred thousands of samurai swordsmen (Weston 144). Shogun Yoshiaki who too was in communication with Asai, Asakura, monks at the Eryakuji monastery and the daimyo of Akai province was too expelled from Kyoto. Nobunaga imposed taxes on the wealthy city dwellers and those who resisted had their wealth burned. This scared others who hastily complied. Yoshiaki’s life was spared and he was left to wander in Japan for close to thirty years. During this time, Kyoto stayed without a shogun with the emperor failing to persuade Nobunaga to take up the position. Nobunaga had no interest in titles and chose to remain a warrior but demanded obedience from all those ha subdued. He even requested for obedience from his general Shibata Katsue whom he warned never to have any evil thought towards him. The Azuchi Castle In 1570s, Japan was enjoying a peaceful period following the rule of Nobunaga. Oda Nobunaga decided to build himself a seven storey castle on a hill in Azuchi province. This was a magnificent palace build forty miles north of Kyoto and was completed in 1579. The Azuchi castle had very beautiful rooms and were painted by top artists of the time especially Kano Eitoku who was the finest. Each room was unique and was painted in a different theme including falcons, horses, trees, Chinese scholars and even Buddha and his disciples. His tea room was painted in leaf gold and it was in this room that he held tea ceremonies. Nobunaga was a great tea lover and collected rare tea utensils and gav e them to his great generals as gifts. The castle at Azuchi underwent various changes. It was during this time that modern Japanese castles were born (Weston 145). Azuchi castle revolutionized castle building in Japan. It was among the first Hiramayajiro castles that were build on a flat topped mountain and on low hills. The hills chosen were on a plain enabling large numbers of troops to be positioned here. Other features of the Azuchi castle included a bigger and higher tenshu allowing a greater view of the plains, Masugata, multiple maru and an ishigaki at the centre of the castle. There were also secret floors within the tenshu. The Azuchi castle not only served for the defensive purposes but was also a show of power for Nobunaga. Nobunaga’s castle was later copied by other leaders who came after him such as Nagahama and Himeji castles build by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the Sakamoto and Tanbakameyama castles that were build by Akechi Mitsumide. Nobunaga’s Major Achiev ements Military Nobunaga revolutionized the way wars were fought in Japan. His army was one of the most organized in the world during his time. He made many inventions and innovations that helped properly arm his forces (Murray 125). The most notable implementations were use of long pikes, advanced fire arms, ironclad ships and fortifications of castle to boost security. He also started a warrior class in which positions were assigned based on merit and not by name, tribe, rank or the size of land that one owned. Retainers were rewarded on the basis of the amount of rise that a rice farm produced not on the size of the farm. This measures ensured equality and fairness and helped reduce any complaints from his army. This system of army organization was later copied by his rivals such as Tokugawa Leyasu during the formation of the Tokugawa Shogunate that was based at Edo (Murray 128). Trade Nobunaga was a very keen businessman who understood and practiced the principles of macro and m icroeconomics. He was pivotal in the modernization of both agricultural and manufacturing industries. Service bases and castle towns were established as the centers of trade and local economics. To further improve trade and ease the movement of his large army between cities, Nobunaga improved roads. He opened up Japan beyond china and the Korean peninsula to the larger Asian countries such as Philippines, Siam and Indonesia. Trade with Europe especially with Portuguese and Spain was also expanded. As a way to improve and promote trade and industry, Nobunaga instituted the Rakuizi-rakuza policies. Under this policy, Nobunaga’s goal was to abolish and prohibit monopolies and helped open up suppressed unions, associations and guilds. He established a proper tax system and exemptions and instituted laws that governed borrowing (Weston 142). Fine art With the rise of Nobunaga as a national leader, he amassed a large amount of wealth that he used to support major causes most notabl y the fine art. Nobunaga had a liking for the art and later used it to display his power and prestige. His many gardens and castles bore great artistic features with the Azuchi castle being one this great art works. In later years, Nobunaga became a devout Christian and used this as a basis for terrorizing the Buddhist Ikko monks (Peterson 85). His tea master, Sen no Rikkyu helped him established the tea ceremonies which Nobunaga used for politics and business. The westernization of Japan Nobunaga eagerly embraced the western religions especially Christianity and welcomed the Jesuits missionaries with open hands. As a result of his conversion, he became among the first Japanese leader to appear in the European histories. He also imported the western technology like the firearms into Japan. This technology coupled with offensive and defensive mechanisms imported from Europe contributed to the modernization of his forces. His armies were always retrained to cope up with new imported t actics and in addition, massive stone forts were constructed that would defy modern gun fire. He also improved his warships by iron cladding them which resulted into nearly unbeatable models (Weston 145). The Death of Nobunaga Nobunaga’s glory came to its highest point in Kyoto, august of 1581, during this day; Nobunaga had gathered nearly twenty thousand horsemen all brilliantly dressed who flew in full gallop in front of the emperor and half of the Kyoto population. Hideyoshi, one of his top brass general was not in this parade as he was on a mission to conquer the Harima province. The story was that since 1577, Harima province had put up a strong defense following the unification of all western Daimyos under the leadership of the Mori family, who were allies of the Ikko-ikki clan. This province had a united army with as many soldiers and complex gun power as Nobunaga making the war drag for years (Peterson 87). In 1582, the Mori troops were making advancement towards the c astle in Bitchu province and were overwhelming to the Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s army. Hideyoshi asked for reinforcement from Nobunaga who at once decided to head west himself. In the process, Nobunaga commanded his top Generals to join him in this worthy course. He however took a two night’s stop at a temple in Kyoto in order to make the final arrangement for a battle that never took place. June 21, 1582, Akechi Mitsuhide, the general appointed by Nobunaga to lead some ten thousand soldiers to attack Harima province chose to attack Nobunaga instead. This took Nobunaga at a sheer surprise as he was entertaining guests at a Homno temple. Nobunaga had less than a hundred board guards making escape out of question. For the first time, Nobunaga took part in a battle but was wounded by either an arrow or a spear. He decided to retreat into a room and locked himself from where he committed Seppuku, a ritual suicide (Peterson 89). The temple was then burned down and no remains of N obunaga’s body were ever recovered. His eldest son was also killed in this battle and his Azuchi castle looted and then burned down by the mob. It is not known up to today what caused Mitsuhide turn against his master and he never had time to explain as he was hunted by Toyotomi Hideyoshi who took his head. At his death, Nobunaga was forty six years and ruled Japan’s thirty one out of sixty six provinces. His aim was to conquer many more and bring them under one rule. Conclusion Oda Nobunaga was truly one of the Japan’s most influential men and women and is remembered for his attempt to form a united Japan. He had a modern outlook for Japan and helped modernize warfare in Japan, broke the power of the monks, improved trade and industry, westernized Japan, gave equal opportunities to all especially the peasant and surprisingly ignored titles (Berry 35). It is however ironical that this fierce warrior who had the heart to burn thousands of innocent children and wo men was attributed to have brought peace to Japan which by the time was racked by a two hundred years of war. This peace he brought fearfully and was based on one man who ruled Japan with an iron hand. It is no surprise that his allies were also relieved following his death. But the question many ask is ‘to what length Nobunaga would have gone had his life not been cut short?’ By the time of his death, Nobunaga changed Japan forever (Berry 35). Works Cited Berry M. Elizabeth. Hideyoshi. Havard: Havard University Asia center, 1989. Hooker, Richard. â€Å"World civilizations: Odo Nobunaga.† Washington State University, 1996. Web. Morton, M. Scott, and Olenik, J. Kenneth. Japan: Its History and Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional, 2005. Murray, David. The Story of Japan. UK: G.P. Putnam’s sons, 1894. Paterson, Paterson. Oda Nobunaga: The Battle of Okehazama. New York: Jetlag press, 2008. Saito, Hisho. A history of Japan. Tokyo: Forgotten books, 1990. Seal, F. W. â€Å"Oda Nobunaga.† Samurai, Mar 5 2011.  http://www.samurai-archives.com/nobunaga.html Weston, Mark. Giants of Japan: the Lives of Japan’s Most Influential Men and Women. New York: Kodansha America, 2002. This research paper on Oda Nobunaga’s Biography was written and submitted by user Purple Wasp to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

How to Improve Your ACT Reading Score 8 Expert Tips

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