Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath. Essay Example for Free

Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath. Essay The poem Lady Lazarus gives us an insight into the troubled life of the poet Sylvia Plath. She lost her father at an early age. Supported solely by her mother she went through a very rough childhood. In fact, Sylvia Plath escaped a near fatal accident in her childhood and went on to attempt suicide twice in the following years of her life. In the poem, Plath lets her emotions flow and sheds light on her distress. In this poem, Sylvia Plath uses Holocaust imagery extensively. The Holocaust, as is widely known, refers to the inhuman torture and exploitation of the Jews by the Nazis. The first mention of the gruesome Holocaust comes in the form of a comparison between herself and a Nazi lampshade. Unbelievable as it may seem, the Nazis used the skins of the Jews to make lampshades. Plath feels that she has been used in a similar manner. Throughout her life Plath had been in and out of hospital. So much so that she felt like an object on display; a mere, inconsequential living thing on which the doctors happily carried out various experiments. The Nazis used to take away all valuable articles from the Jews, including expensive fabrics like linen. Plath refers to her skin as Jew linen, again indicating that she was used as an object. Plath suffered a nervous breakdown in her childhood. To cure her, doctors had no choice but to use shock treatment, subjecting her to unbearable pain in the process. In the poem, Plath uses the word charge which has a pun on it, referring to the brutal pain inflicted on her by the doctors. In this instance, a parallel can be drawn to the inhuman torture experienced by the Jews. In the poem, Plath refers to herself as a valuable and a pure gold baby, which is again an example of Holocaust imagery. It is widely believed that the Nazis were so cruel that they not only used the Jews to do physical work but also used their bodies to make objects like soap. Their golden teeth were plucked out and melted to make valuables such as wedding rings. Their corpses were then burnt to erase all trace of their existence. The mention of all this in the poem makes us believe that Sylvia Plath considered herself to be stifled, oppressed and exploited, just like the Jews. Finally, a striking similarity is noticed in the manner in which Plath chose to end her life and the methods used to exterminate the Jews. The Jews were killed in gas chambers where poisonous gases devoured their internal organs. Plath committed suicide by putting her head inside an oven, and died as a result of gas poisoning. In my opinion this was perhaps because she felt herself so alike the Jews that she preferred to end her life in the very same manner. Thus, we can safely conclude that Holocaust imagery forms a significant part of Sylvia Plaths poem Lady Lazarus. b) After critically analyzing the poem, the Holocaust imagery which has been used widely, seems fairly effective in conveying the poets message. It is clear from the poem that Sylvia Plath felt she has been driven to suicide by society as a whole. Evidently, she believed that life had been too unfair to her. This feeling stems from her childhood, when she lost her father. This horrific incident left a gaping void in her life. A major part of her moral support had been cruelly snatched from her. To add to this, Plath had a pitiable medical record. She made frequent visits to the hospital throughout her life. The excruciating shock treatment she received shook her completely. Once Plath got married, her personal life suffered even more. Her husband had been unfaithful to her, further aggravating her pitiable condition. Overall, Plaths life was depressing to say the least. Plath was consumed by self-pity throughout her life. In this regard, the Holocaust imagery used by Plath is very effective and appropriate. It reminds us of historys most vicious tale of cruelty. This justifies its use to depict Plaths life. However, in other respects, the Holocaust imagery cannot effectively portray Plaths life. An important reason being that the Jews always had the will to survive. They were members of an affluent community who were stripped off all their possessions by the Nazis. Plath on the other hand had attempted suicide twice. This is a glaring difference between Plaths life and the Holocaust, making it quite ineffective in conveying her message. Another important difference is that the Holocaust was a planned genocide which involved the death of approximately six million people. Plaths comparison seems quite irrelevant in this aspect, as she talks about the death of a single person (herself). Finally, one of the most important differences is that Plath considered death to be a performance. At the end of the poem, Plath says that she was about to rise like a phoenix, referring to her own death. To her, attaining death was like being resurrected, as she would be freed from her troubled life. Plath believed death to be a means of attaining victory over life. She clearly mentions that when she survived her second suicide attempt, it was a theatrical comeback. In comparison, the Holocaust was only about forcing people into giving up their lives. Thus, in my opinion, taking these factors and many more subtle differences onto consideration, the Holocaust imagery is fairly effective in conveying Plaths message.

The Issue of Happiness in Gooseberries Essay example -- Gooseberries E

The Issue of Happiness in Gooseberries One who seeks their own happiness through life will fail to do much good for others. A preoccupation with achieving this "ideal" state of happiness will certainly lead to an inconsiderate view of the world. Anton Chekhov's story Gooseberries portrays a man who has come to this realization. He has seen the consequences of pure unadulterated happiness, and describes his subsequent emotions as "melancholy". Why should an educated man, a veterinary surgeon none the less, have such issues with human happiness? This paper seeks to understand the question and relate it to the motives of the author, Anton Chekhov. It is important, first of all, to ascertain the meaning of the word happiness in the context which it is used in the story. This would be a good time to give the Webster's Dictionary definition of the word happiness. But is that really necessary? Who is Webster anyway to attempt to define a human emotion!? Instead, it would be more accurate definition if you simply think of your own happiness. What makes you happy? What do you do in order to attain happiness? Only after you answer these questions will you be able to understand the word in the way that Chekhov intended. Wouldn't it be difficult to suppress happiness? If you don't think so, just ask Bertha from Bliss. In the first paragraph of Gooseberries, the last line reads, "On this still day, when the whole of nature seemed kindly and pensive, Ivan Ivanich and Burkin felt a surge of love for this plain, and thought how vast and beautiful their country was". If beauty and love don't afford happiness, what does? It becomes apparent after reading and re-reading the story, what Chekhov means by the word happiness. T... ...easants at his home without fee. Chekhov also worked in clinics during times of famine and epidemic. Thus, Chekhov was exposed to all of "...the terrible things in life that are played out behind the scenes". Although Chekhov performed many good deeds throughout his life, it is likely that he felt as if he had not done enough. One reason why he might have felt this way was his long and painful battle with tuberculosis. As he writes near the end of the story: "I am old and unfit for the struggle, I am even incapable of feeling hatred. I can only suffer inwardly, and give way to irritation and annoyances, at night my head burns from the rush of thoughts, and I am unable to sleep...Oh, if only I were young!" Anton Chekhov was by no means old when he died from tuberculosis. But how it must make a man feel old knowing that his days are numbered.

Morrison and the Intersections of my Life Essay

When I was younger I recall the haunting yet beautiful music of the Doors, led by Jim Morrison. I would feel connected to the music that I heard, but barely took the time to pause in my effort to understand the man behind the music. It was only when I was older and I began to contemplate serious matters of life, such as death and the legacy we leave for our families if we are so lucky to grow to an old age, that I began to look into the life of this man. He was unlucky to have lived a relatively short life, his music however and the way that he playfully dismissed conventions were his most important skills that he passed down to people like me, who are interested in the genius of men like him. The more I looked into Morrison’s work, the more I saw parts of myself. I think that sometimes people look unto others to find such a spark, something that reminds us that life is short, sometimes to a tragic degree. But what we do with our lives and what we leave behind are what we must focus on from time to time to be sure that we have lived life to the fullest and expanded our minds to as far as we could, until there was just nothing left to do. Morrison still maintains his position in our lives even in his death. He remains an elusive figure, complicated and suffering in the world due to his intelligence. His high IQ was likely more of a burden to him, an alienating source of frustration when he could not find other like-minded people to share his thoughts with. It is a likely thought for the religious people in the world that he is in a place that is better for him now with the writers and philosophers that he loved to read. This is something that I so deeply understand and connect with, the feeling of wanting to connect with others but having a barrier there between myself and others. Whether it is because of intelligence, chosen discipline, ethnicity, etc†¦ I believe everyone feels disconnected with others, at times. For some, this disconnect may bring upon a search for something that makes sense, an interconnectedness with others. Some may find religion, or music, or others on the same path. For me, I found a sense of enlightenment on discovering Morrison and his journey. He seemed to embrace his disconnectedness and turn it into an art. Although Morrison did feel a sense of disconnect with those around him, there are aspects of his life that can be connected when looking at his biography. The connections made with his experiences and his behavior can be further expanded to experiences in my own life. His childhood, for example, was cold and unfulfilling. His father was a U. S. Navy Admiral, which caused their family to move frequently (Kirjasto, 2000). There was never a healthy relationship developed between him and his father. When his father was as home he had an authoritative way of parenting, which likely led Jim to later have issues with authority figures and laws. Morrison most likely played the role of an underachiever as a young man, because his parents would not allow him to make his own decisions. Therefore, he left home and hitchhiked to California to follow the career that was forbidden by his parents, filmmaking (Cristafulli, 2000). After this he was shunned from his father and begun his lifetime of freedom amongst uncertainty and mystery. By looking at the restrictions placed upon Morrison and the rift between him and his family, many young people would likely see similarities to this in their own life. I, too, felt a distance between myself and my parents and begun to question my intentions in life in terms of the reasoning for what I was doing. When I began to wonder about whether or not I was following my own path or my parents’ ideal, I began to feel a sense of restlessness stirring inside. I wanted to rebel and do less than my best just to spite them. I hated certainty and the implications of securing a certain future with a life that had been set up for me. But, I did not go to Jim’s extremes of going against my family totally, though I did move away for college. I kept everything inside until I moved, thinking that everything would be different, that I would be different. But, I saw and realized that authority is authority, regardless of if it is parents or teachers or whomever. So, freedom is different than it may seem when you are young, it is scary and lonely, because when we are free to be ourselves, we are alone. We don’t feel free collectively, it is different for everyone. Morrison tried to do his best, however, to free people from the tensions and constraints they felt in the volatile era in which he performed. When I feel lonely and understand that I am going through a fundamental change in life, to become a higher functioning person that is not constrained by my past or any other chains that might bind my mind, I think of how it might have felt to go to one of the Doors concerts. I picture people, who are deep in their own thoughts of how to climb up to a more aesthetic purpose all together and it is comforting. Though I have went to many concerts of current musicians, there is some allure and pull back to the past when life was different and people were different. From this I try to remember that it is not only a journey we all must take to understand our individual past and how we arrived to our current mode of thinking, but also we must learn about the culture of our ancestors to see how we, as people, have arrived to this time and place. Jim Morrison was completely obsessed, one might say, with his perfect ideal of freedom, just as he was occupied with thoughts of a distant past. He, like most students of life, attempted to reconcile this past with his future. Though his life was most interesting as it was tragic in the way in which he attempted to blot out his present. He told his fans and those close to him that he was trying to expand his thinking while many believe that he was using drugs and alcohol as an escape. Regardless of why he was using substances, it is important for every young adult to question their quest for knowledge, as to why one is questioning their lives and the world at large. Even if we do not use drugs, as I do not, the exhilaration of finding out elusive secrets of life may be an intoxicating experience in itself. It is so much easier to look toward other people and other topics than to look inward at yourself. Morrison lived his life this way in the extremes of life’s possibilities. He turned to a much distant and disconnected past, though he believed that there was a sense of spirituality in what he described. It is likely that Jim suppressed his more mediocre thoughts in his past to invite in other more exciting thoughts to create a persona that would be remembered far beyond his own death. He would rather talk about experiences that could not be proven by any method and explore topics that were uncomfortable for others to deal with while encompassing them in music that was comfortable to listen to. His extreme positions taken in his poems were compounded in his sometimes irrational and incomprehensible behavior. These extremes were staggering in there visibility to others and Morrison seemed to revel in the controversy that he created. It was quite possible that he thrived on the attention while he also wanted for peace and calm. These two vying states of being along with his unresolved tensions in his past and future led to an explosive life. This makes me think of the importance of balance between the extremes of life to achieve understanding and happiness, but also to have a freedom to explore the extreme nature of our lives. I believe that people like Jim Morrison are necessary to understand, as it would be unhealthy in many ways to live his type of lifestyle. While many of us seek to achieve a limitless understanding of ourselves and our world, we must constantly evaluate and reevaluate our lives with the limits that we find along the way. We are, for example, slaves to our own limits of intelligence, we can only know so much. Jim had a high IQ, stated to be 149 (Kirjasto, 2000). He seemed to possess a wide understanding in what he read in books and studied in college, but he concentrated much of his life to pursuits that could not be studied, proven, or disproved. Many would say this was a waste of time. But, can we really understand how such an intelligent person could live in a world were things seemed so simple to them but not to us? What one person may think is rational and simple another person may see as irrational and difficult. In this way, we are stuck to the limits of what we can prove about our existence and what we can agree upon with others. What may seem to one person as disagreeable in another, may simply be a person using their intelligence in ways which we cannot understand. It may be a universal truth, then that what we can all agree on is that we will disagree. To see someone like Morrison, who constantly clashed with authority and fought the conventions of society, reminds us that we must agree that we will not always see things the same way as others. If we can grasp this concept fully in another person’s life, we can surely grasp it in our own. We can value others for their struggle to be who they are and to stand for something. We can appreciate conformity through seeing nonconformity and we can appreciate silence by listening to music. Sometimes we can learn more about things from looking at the extremes and opposites of what we have and what we do not have. For Jim life was a constant struggle to reconcile living with dying. His poems and songs are wrought with themes of death and destruction of madness and sanity. It may be stated that he wished to appreciate his life more by understanding death and he wished to appreciate his mind and his intelligence by studying themes of insanity and inducing drug and alcoholic states of numbness. There is a lesson to life in this behavior, as well. It is like the phrase that many of our elders like to teach to us, that we want what we do not or cannot have. This is especially important to college students, as many of us are confused in what to study and what to be once we are graduated. It is this fear that prevents all success in life. We are afraid that if we chose a career path that we might want to change our minds, so we tend to make hasty decisions just to get to over with, so to speak. The rumination over choices that present themselves as black and white, right or wrong type of thinking can hinder our growth. There is that gray area in between all things that we must explore. Though we do limit ourselves and become somewhat constrained once we do make a choice, the discovery of what we decide to do is an amazing journey and we must appreciate that. The journey of an entire life, the biography of another, interesting person is something that is important for all of us to look at. When we become mired in our thinking, unable to be creative or objective, we can take a step back and see how another person survived their struggle and then how they died from it or in spite of it. In this case, Morrison decided that he would taunt and tease his worst fears and he died from the excesses of this struggle. Morrison explained, â€Å"expose yourself to your deepest fear, after that fear has no power and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes† (Crisafulli, 2000). I believe that if we understand our fears then, indeed, we can overcome them. But if we constantly expose ourselves to our fears and the negative thoughts that arise from combating the deepest and darkest corners of the imagination then we are inviting chaos into our lives. Though Jim seemed to be a master of harnessing his inner chaos into his art, we must all of us, understand that we have limits on what we can make out of our turmoil. If we are seeking a simple understanding and a sense of finality to our fears and not making art with our deep imaginations, then we must be careful to not live to hard to fast and to wait patiently for understanding to emerge in our lives. I believe that for some, patience is a near to impossible state of being. We may feel that we have to rush our lives to complete everything there is to do and that there are not enough hours in the day. We may miss true beauty and opportunity if we think this way. Jim lived a hard and fast life, though he paused to make beautiful music and poetry. It may be, though, for the conflicted artist, that he had no choice but to create his work. Many interesting people feel this way, that they have no choice in there lives and that they were born to do certain things in their lives. Some are luckier than others to be enlightened to their life’s purpose early on. Others, like myself, must wait patiently for that moment of understanding and the sense of serenity and purpose that comes with our life’s work being laid out in front of us. I think that many people are rushed to get to that moment of knowing what to do with our lives and we may be so eager that we miss the moment. There is also another distinct possibility for all of us, who are patiently or not so patiently waiting for our purpose to present itself. This may be as it may have been for Jim, that our purpose in life is to deal with the extreme nature of the human condition. This is a certain fear for me, as I know it is for others. We may have to go down a path of misery. What then? Will we manage to do this in a way of sobriety? There are so many questions and the more we know about others and our world, the more we question ourselves. We may feel ready to tackle our own selves and our own fears, but what if we fear ourselves and our ability to carry out the plans that the most confusing universe has set out in front of us? I believe that Jim Morrison was made more confused in his life by the more he learned and that we must not be afraid of the questions. I think that even more, we must not be afraid of the answers. What we must do is realize that there will come a time before our own deaths to relax and that is when we are satisfied that we did ask all the right questions and that we did our due diligence to find all the answers. I must close by saying that reviewing the life of Jim Morrison has been interesting and personally fulfilling. Any intelligent and creative person’s life is useful to explore, especially a life that is cut short by an untimely death. What we could have become in our own lives is magnified by what others could have been if they had lives to see it. In this way, it is essential to live life to the fullest and act as if we are constantly writing our own biography. We must be careful in what we do and we must be patient, but we cannot be so careful as to miss out on the joy of pushing the limits of our own lives and of our surroundings. We must all trust ourselves enough to do this and we will be most surprised once we do and we begin to trust and respect all those that came before us and all those that will pass behind us in our lives. Works Cited C Cristafulli, The Doors When The Music’s Over: The Stories Behind Every Song, 2000, New York, NY: Thunder’s Mouth. Kirijasto, â€Å"James Douglas ’Jim’ Morrison†, 2000, Accessible Online http://kirjasto. sci. fi/morrison. htm, last accessed 2 March, 2009.

Global Communications Worksheet Essay

Transcribe the following welcome message for the employees from each country: I wanted to welcome you ASAP to our little family here in the States. It’s high time we shook hands in person and not just across the sea. I’m pleased as punch about getting to know you all, and I for one will do my level best to sell you on America. Complete the table below with your transcribed welcome messages. Also indicate whether each of the countries are more individualistic or relationship focused. Country Transcribe Welcome Message Brazil We wanted to welcome you to our family here in the States and thought it high time we shook hands in person and I am excited to get to know all of you and will do my best to sell you on America. Brazil’s culture is generally group-oriented and asserting individual preferences may be viewed as less important than conforming to a groups norms. Building lasting and trusting personal relationships is therefore critically important with Brazilians who generally wish to close any deals with someone with whom they have a strong bond. Russia I want to welcome you as quickly as possible to our little family here in the States. I think it is high time we met in person and not continue business across the sea. I look forward to getting to know all of you, and I will do my best to sell you on America. Those within the Russian culture have long been dominated by like the tsars and the Communist Party leaders. Because of this, many Russians do not have individual freedom and maintain a collectivist set of values. India I wanted to welcome you to our family here in the States and thought it was the right time to shake hands in person rather than do business across the sea. I look forward to getting to know you, and allowing you the opportunity to know us as well, and will do my best at selling you on America. Indian society is that of the collectivism view and it promotes social cohesion as well as interdependence. China I wanted to take a moment and welcome you as part of our family here in the States. I think the time for us to meet and shake hands in person has been long overdue. I look forward to getting to know one another and will do my best at selling you on America. In China, there is a collectivist approach in where the upholding of a stable and â€Å"in-sync† harmonious society is is seen to be the most important part of ethics.

Supercharge your resume in 30 minutes or less

Supercharge your resume in 30 minutes or less Okay, so you already know you should spend lots of quality time honing your resume, lovingly crafting the masterpiece that will get you your next job. Resumes benefit from time and editing. But reality doesn’t always give us the time we’d like, and sometimes you need to produce a great resume on short notice. Maybe it’s been a while since you updated and an awesome new job opening has popped up, or maybe someone in your network has mentioned that hey, there’s this new job that would be perfect for you- can you submit you resume today? Whatever the time crunch is, it means you have to produce something solid without much notice. So what do you do when you want to spruce up your resume but you don’t have much time at all? Don’t panic†¦it’s doable! Let’s walk through some of the best things you can do to supercharge your resume in no time flat.Choose a format- and stick to it.If you had more time, you could play with different formats and see what works best for your skills and experience. No time for that today, so choose your path quickly.If you have a lot of work experience in your field: Go with the traditional reverse-chronological format, where you put your work experience section prominently up front and work backwards through your jobs.Here’s an example of how your resume can look if you want your experience to be the most prominent feature:Jenny Smith21 Jump StreetEvanston, IL 12121JSmith45@emaildomain.comExperienced Store ManagerQUALIFICATIONS SUMMARYStore manager with more than 10 years experience.Creative, innovative team leader with proven results.Exceeded sales goals by more than 15%, three years in a row.WORK EXPERIENCEBig Box Store ‘R Us, 2013 – presentStore ManagerManage a busy Chicago branch of a national department store chain.Lead a team of 60+ employees.Improved in-store sales by 10% in 2017, 9% in 2016, and 8.5% in 2015.In this example, Jenny goes straight for t he emphasis on her work history, and her results.If you are inexperienced, or just starting out in the field: Go with a skills-based format, where you lead right into a skills summary that relates directly to the job you’re applying for.Here’s an example of how your resume can look if you want your experience to be the most prominent feature:Kai Burns1 Main StreetLos Angeles, CA 12312KaiBurns@emaildomain.comDisciplined, enthusiastic recent grad seeking a marketing role at X Corp.SKILLS SUMMARYSocial media expertise (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook)Demonstrated leadership on team projectsStrong written and verbal communication skillsIn this example, Kai leads with her skills, because she’s a recent grad and doesn’t yet have a ton of work experience or concrete professional results she can call out.Don’t reinvent the wheel.You’ve only got 30 minutes, so unless you’re really attached to the idea of creating a resume from scratch at breaknec k speed, work with something that already exists. That may be your current resume, but if it’s really outdated or not great then there are lots of pre-existing templates where you can drop in your information and go from there. Using a resume library template can be a major time-saver, especially when you’ve only got a few minutes.Focus on the short, sweet elements.You don’t have a lot of time to pore over your experience bullets, but you can spend your time making sure that some of the shorter, punchier parts of the resume are in good shape. For example, make sure you have an effective, attention-grabbing headline. Your headline helps you set the narrative yourself. And this is where having less time can work in your favor: you want to focus on the most important, relevant parts of yourself as an applicant for this particular job, without overthinking it too much.Similarly, a good summary can help you really focus on your most important strengths as a candidate and what you want to say in your resume.Use bold action words.You want your supercharged resume to be potent, not wordy, so it’s all about the word choice. Instead of using long bullet points to develop a point, use a targeted action verb to get the point across faster. It’s not only more effective, but also cuts down on your writing and editing time. Some examples of strong action verbs that look good on your resume:ChairedCoordinatedExecutedHeadedImplementedMaximizedOperatedOrchestratedOrganizedOutperformedOverhauledOversawPlannedProducedRedesignedStreamlinedSaying more by taking up less space is something you can do pretty quickly that has a big impact on the quality of your resume. You’re using your limited time to make sure that parts of your resume pop instead of using the same old verbs that pass unnoticed as a reader skims your resume.For more on how to punch up your verbs:5 Action Verbs That Will Energize Your ResumeHow to Create a Resume Packed with A ction WordsPowerful Action Verbs That Will Make Your Resume Look Like a Million BucksDon’t skimp on editing.The final proofread can be the first thing to go when you’re in a rush. It’s done, it needs to be out the door†¦it’s probably fine, right? Not so fast. If you’re only taking half an hour with your resume, make sure you slot five minutes at the end to do a careful read of the final doc before you hit send. Ideally, you’d have someone else look at it to make sure everything reads well and there are no glaring errors, but if you truly don’t have enough time to do that, use your own critical eye. You may only have half an hour to work on your resume, but you don’t want your resume to look like it.Make it look nice.Again, since you don’t have time for the deep resume dive, focus on as many of the aesthetics as you can. Is your layout clean and easy to read? Are there blocks of uninterrupted text that could be broke n into reader-friendly chunks? Is your resume free of odd formatting that might not work on a computer or device screen? A quick pass to make sure your resume looks appealing should be one of the last things you do before you send.Whether you’ve got 30 minutes or 300, you want to put out the best resume possible. After all, it can be your first step to a new job, and you want to make sure you’re presenting yourself in the best possible way. If you’re crunched for time, it’s important to accept that you don’t have time to finesse every detail- but you do have time to pick the most important points and shine them up so the reader never knows you had such a tight timeline.

5 Reasons the New SAT Changes Arent Revolutionary

5 Reasons the New SAT Changes Aren't Revolutionary SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Today the makers of the SAT test announced some changes coming up in the next few years to focus better on academic skills. The changes were supposed to come in 2015 originally, but due to some bugs, they were delayed until at least 2016. Even today, a precise launch date isn't set yet. The purported changes include reducing emphasis on vocabulary, making the essay optional, changing from a 2400 scale to 1600, and eliminating the guessing penalty, and more. What does this mean for you? Aside:Considering taking the new SAT? Check out our guides to deciding, whether you got ahigh scoreor a low one. The short answer is: less than you think. Here's why: 1. New Scoring System or Old Scoring System? One of the major changes is a shift from 2400 points to 1600 total. Seems like a drastic change? Well, the 1600 system used to be the old system until year 2005. This isn't so much a "new change" insomuch as it's a reversion to the old way of doing things. And eliminating a pure writing section to be reading and math again? We saw that before 2005 too! This isn't a surprise to SAT experts. Many colleges have been reluctant to accept the 2400 system. Most colleges downweight the writing section, and some colleges throw away the writing score altogether. The College Board has learned their lesson that cramming a writing score down the mouths of students and colleges isn't the way to go. A turn to the 1600 system isn't so much a major step forward as much a reversion to older times and older strategies. 2. No Guessing Penalty? That makes no difference! The SAT makers announced today that the guessing penalty will be eliminated from the SAT. It turns out that mathematically this makes no real difference on the way you take the test. This isn't mere speculation, but a proven Statistics 101 fact. The intuition behind the proof is that even now there is no real guessing penalty to begin with: even in the current SAT, there is no expected statistical loss if you make a completely random guess! We'll post more about the proof later, and what you can do to take advantage of the new system, but take our words on it there's no change at all to meaningful guessing tactic. 3. Less Vocabulary? This has been the trend already. Did you hear that the new SAT won't be chock full of rare words (esoteric, inscruable, recondite, etc)? While this gives academics a topic to argue about (how important are difficult words in assessing education), it doesn't mean that much for the student. This has been the way the SAT has been trending for years. In fact, most of the power of vocabulary for the SAT was neutralized when the SAT decided to get rid of analogies in 2005. Before 2005, analogies and vocabulary used to dominate the SAT and form the large majority of skill tested in the reading section. The reduction of vocab on the SAT is more symbolic than practical. Practically speaking, rare words have been on the decline for years. And don't pack up your index cards yet: the SAT will still target vocab to some extent, but more towards words that are used in college courses like "synthesis and "empirical". 4. Optional Essay? Optional if you don't want to impress colleges. Supposedly the new essays are going to be optional. Some people have even called this "dropping the essay from the SAT." This is far from true if the past is any indicator. In reality, the colleges that students apply to will decide what's optional and what's not. What's technically optional optional paper may not be optional in reality. For example, back in 2005, not only were essays optional, the entire writing section was optional! You know what happened? A large number of universities requested the writing section anyway. In the end, all students had to take the "optional" writing section in order to have a shot at these universities. Sure, so go ahead and make the essay optional. But until colleges stop requesting them, new students will still do well by studying for an essay. 5. Real Changes? Look at history. This isn't the first time the makers of the SAT said they were going revolutionize the SAT. Did you know major changes were announced in 2005, 1994, and regularly before that even? Of course, some of the smaller details and strategies will change, and the ecosystem, including us at PrepScholar will adapt to that. To hail this as fundamentally revolutional would be to take these announcements too far though. How do you prepare for this new test? We at PrepScholar Online SAT Prep are always keeping abrest of the latest changes, and in the next few months we'll be talking about some tactical and strategy changes that students will have to make for the SAT. If you're interested subscribe to our blog to the right to keep updated! Other Posts You May Like: Should you take the new SAT or old SAT? A Breakdown of the New SAT - the Complete Guide Want to Improve your SAT score?

History of The Australian Aboriginal People Essay

History of The Australian Aboriginal People - Essay Example However, what appears to be clear is that the first Aboriginal settlers colonized what is now Australia between 30,000 and 80,000 years ago via what is now Papua New Guinea or what is now Indonesia (Australian Aboriginal History, 2002; Siasoco, 2006). In 2001 the population of aborigines and Torres Straits Islanders was 366,429, approximately 1.9% of the Australian population as a whole and slightly more than the estimated aboriginal population of 350,000 at the time of European colonization in the late 18th century. At the time of the European invasion, there were 500-600 distinct groups of aborigines speaking about 200 different languages or dialects [at least 50 of which are now extinct] (Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 2006). Although culturally diverse, these groups were not political and economic entities and lacked class hierarchies and chiefs. These aboriginal people were hunter-gatherers who lived in small family groups of 15or 30, called bands. Bands were the basic residential and economic unit (Siasoco, 2006; Arrernte Culture, 2006). Despite their variety and differences, the aboriginal people possess several unifying factors. ... People within these social networks frequently co-operated to exploit abundant resources during good seasons or to share scarce resources during drought or flood (Siasoco, 2006). The aboriginal people are a culturally and religiously rich people. Their social structure, family ties and classification system is almost as complex as the people. However, spiritually, unlike other religions, aboriginal belief does not place the human species apart from or on a higher level than nature. Their spirituality involves a close relationship between humans and nature. Aborigines believe some of their Ancestors metamorphosed into nature (as in rock formations or rivers), where they remain spiritually alive. In the oral tradition of storytelling, aborigines refer to the beginning of the world as "Dreaming," or "Dreamtime. In the "Dreaming", or the Alchera of the Aranda, the aborigines believed that their ancestors who rose from below the earth wandered on a featureless world and gave the world its present shape and form; they believe that their ancestors metamorphosed to form different various parts of nature including animal species, bodies of water, and the sky (Arrernte Culture, 2006; Australian Aboriginal History, 2002). The aborigines have an intricate classification system that defines kinship relations and regulates marriages. The Kariera, for example, are divided into hordes, or local groups of about 30 people, which are divided into four classes, or sections. Membership in a section determines ritual and territorial claims. In half of the hordes the men are divided among the Karimera and Burung sections; in the other half they are divided among the Palyeri and Banaka sections. These sections are exogamous, and rules of marriage, descent, and residence