The Mysterious Moons of Pluto

The Mysterious Moons of Pluto Planet Pluto continues to tell a fascinating story as scientists pore over the data taken by the New Horizons mission in 2015. Long before the tiny spacecraft passed through the system, the science team knew there were five moons out there, worlds that were distant and mysterious. They were hoping to get a closer look at as many of these places as possible in an effort to understand more about them and how they came to exist. As the spacecraft whizzed past, it captured close-up images of Charon - Plutos largest moon, and glimpses of the smaller ones. These were named Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra. The four smaller moons orbit in circular paths, with Pluto and Charon orbiting together like the bulls-eye of a target. Planetary scientists suspect that Plutos moons formed in the aftermath of a titanic collision between at least two objects that occurred in the distant past. Pluto and Charon settled into a locked orbit with each other, while the other moons scattered out to more distant orbits. Charon Plutos largest moon, Charon, was first discovered in 1978, when an observer at the Naval Observatory captured an image of what looked almost like a bump growing out the side of Pluto. Its about half the size of Pluto, and its surface is mostly grayish with mottled areas of reddish material near one pole. That polar material is made up of a substance called tholin, which is made up of methane or ethane molecules, sometimes combined with nitrogen ices, and reddened by constant exposure to solar ultraviolet light. The ices form as gases from Pluto transfer from and get deposited onto Charon (which lies only about 12,000 miles away). Pluto and Charon are locked in an orbit that takes 6.3 days and they keep the same face toward each other all the time. At one time, scientists considered calling these a binary planet, and there is some consensus that Charon itself could be a dwarf planet. Even though Charons surface is frigid and icy, it turns out to more than 50 percent rock in its interior. Pluto itself is more rocky, and covered with an icy shell. Charons icy covering is mostly water ice, with patches of other material from Pluto, or coming from under the surface by cryovolcanoes. New Horizons  got close enough, no one was sure what to expect about Charons surface. So, it was fascinating to see the greyish ice, colored in spots with the tholins. At least one large canyon splits the landscape, and there are more craters in the north than the south. This suggests that something happened to resurface Charon and cover many old craters. The name Charon comes from the Greek legends of the underworld (Hades). He was the boatman sent to ferry the souls of the deceased over the river Styx. In deference to the discoverer of Charon, who referenced his wifes name for the world, its spelled Charon, but pronounced SHARE-on.   The Smaller Moons of Pluto Styx, Nyx, Hydra and Kerberos are tiny worlds that orbit between two and four times the distance that Charon does from Pluto. Theyre oddly shaped, which lends credence to the idea that they formed as part of a collision in Plutos past. Styx was discovered in 2012 as astronomers were using Hubble Space Telescope to search the system for moons and rings around Pluto. It appears to have an elongated shape, and is about 3 by 4.3 miles. Nyx orbits out beyond Styx, and was found in 2006 along with distant Hydra. Its about 33 by 25 by 22 miles across, making it somewhat oddly shaped, and it takes nearly 25 days to make one orbit of Pluto. It may have some of the same tholins as Charon spread across its surface, but New Horizons didnt get close enough to get many details. Hydra is the most distant of Plutos five moons, and New Horizons  was able to get a fairly good image of it as the spacecraft went by. There appear to be a few craters on its lumpy surface. Hydra measures about 34 by 25 miles and takes about 39 days to make one orbit around Pluto. The most mysterious-looking moon is Kerberos, which looks lumpy and misshapen in the New Horizons mission image. It appears to be a double-lobed world about 11 12 x 3 miles across. It takes just over 5 days to make one trip around Pluto. Not much else is known about Kerberos, which was discovered in 2011 by astronomers using Hubble Space Telescope. How Did Plutos Moons Get Their Names? Pluto is named for the god of the underworld in Greek mythology. So, when astronomers wanted to name the moons in orbit with it, they looked to the same classical mythology. Styx is the river that dead souls were supposed to cross to get to Hades, while Nix is the Greek goddess of darkness. Hydra is a many-headed serpent thought to have battled with the Greek hero Heracles. Kerberos is an alternate spelling for Cereberus, the so-called hound of Hades who guarded the gates to the underworld in mythology. Now that New Horizons is well beyond Pluto, its next target is a small dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt. It will pass by that one on January 1, 2019. Its first reconnaissance of this distant region taught much about the Pluto system and the next one promises to be equally interesting as it reveals more about the solar system and its distant worlds.

Animal Adjectives

Animal Adjectives Animal Adjectives Animal Adjectives By Maeve Maddox Most writers are familiar with the animal adjectives canine and feline used to refer to dogs and cats, but they may not be aware of numerous others they could use in writing about both animals and people. Here are some examples that use leonine, taurine, bovine, and feline: Concluding with remarks about Toscanini’s technique, Saminsky again contrasted his â€Å"leonine manner† with Nikisch’s â€Å"carefully restrained movements† Toscanini in Britain, Christopher Dyment, p. 18. Porta asserts, that such men resemble bulls in anger, as is expressed by the wide nostrils; and, in the strength expressed by the dense neck. I have seen many stout athletic men with taurine aspects, and have always observed such to have taurine dispositions likewise. â€Å"History of Physiognomy,† The Gentleman’s Magazine, and Historical Chronicle, Vol. 69, Part 1, 1799. He was a plump little guy with thinning gray hair over a pink scalp, big brown bovine eyes and dewlaps hanging on either side of his chin. Peril is My Pay, Stephen Marlowe. Although it was rare for Bat to be clearly depicted in painting or sculpture, some notable artifacts [] include depictions of the goddess in bovine form. †Bat (goddess),† Wikipedia. eartha kitt: the feline femme fatale headline, Marie Claire, online magazine. (The original headline is all in lowercase.) Here’s a list of animals with their corresponding adjectives. ant: formicine ass: asinine bear: ursine bird: avian bull: taurine crow: corvine dog: canine dove: columbine elephant: elephantine fish: piscine fox: vulpine hornet/wasp: vespine horse: equine lion: leonine peacock: pavonine pig: porcine seal: phocine serpent: serpentine sheep: ovine swan: cygnine tiger: tigrine tortoise: testudine wolf: lupine viper: viperine In addition to using animal adjectives literally and figuratively to describe animals and people, writers can build character names from them. For example, one of the characters in the novel Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz is a huge, bearlike servant named Ursus. A character called Corvin could have something to do with death; Pavonna could suggest beauty and pride, and Vespicia could be a sharp-tongued woman. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Wether, Weather, WhetherOne Fell SwoopGlimpse and Glance: Same or Different?

Personal code of ethics for the IT Professional Research Paper

Personal code of ethics for the IT Professional - Research Paper Example This code of ethics should guide one as a professional in the field to do the right thing and deliver quality services. Ethics is a term used to refer to a standard of telling apart right from wrong and applying the result, or the distinction consciously and unconsciously. In information technology, the issue of privacy is crucial to the provision of service, where one needs to ensure utmost discretion (Mingers and Walsham, 2010). This is concerning the relationship between the professional and the client, where the privacy of the client should be preserved at great lengths as is the case done with transactions in banks. In banks, information technology experts ensure privacy by encrypting the data transacted by the banks’ clients to servers and do not leak the information they may have access to. As a result, clients can rest assured that there is no cause for concern in their details on personal information getting out to the world. This is in addition to having their inform ation used for personal gain by the professionals as they have access to all the information that the bank has. As a result, of this, it is important to inculcate privacy concerns in ethics, where as a professional one should not poke their noses where they do not belong. Another moral to consider and include in the code of ethics is involvement in cybercrime, which works hand in hand with the privacy concerns. This is such that cybercrime works towards violating privacy rights of clients, where one can easily use the information to which they have access for fraudulent means such as hacking of accounts. With the penetration rates of information technology, protecting the needs of clients and clients themselves from cybercrime is an important thing that a professional should do. As such, a professional should not use his or her skills for personal gain through fraudulent means, which cybercrime entails. This is as seen in cases of stealing intellectual property using one’s kn owledge and skills in the field; thus, leading to loss of revenue to the actual owners. With this in mind, cybercrime involves hacking and plagiarizing intellectual property, which an information technologist should stay away from. In addition, following the use of information technology to bring down other people’s abilities and services should not be done, as it is also malicious use of skills and knowledge. For this reason, it is only ethical to combat cybercrime with relevant authorities and refraining from engaging from such activities. Cybercrime also covers spread of illegal and inappropriate content over networks and through digital media, which IT professionals are prone and vulnerable to doing. Taking responsibility in these issues should be a high order priority to prevent such occurrences, especially in unintentional spreads of infections through network infrastructure (Taddeo and Vaccaro, 2011). With this in mind, responsibility for one’s actions duties sh ould be practiced as it ensures reliability and accountability on the side of clients towards professionals. Therefore, being responsible should, be included amongst one of the contents in the code of ethics. Accountability as part of ethics also ensures that quality work is done for clients and that the professional is satisfied with what he or she has done; thus deserves the pay received. It is because of this that development in the field is achieved and quality is assured provided accountability is

Industrial Relations Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Industrial Relations Law - Essay Example A central problem in attempts to test empirically generalized models of an industrial relations system mirrors those encountered in the application of generalized theories of the capitalist state. The process of particularization sustains structural mechanisms within an industrial relations system that reproduce limitations in the institutional structure of a particular state. Hence, patterns of regulation legitimize the centralized power of the capitalist class yet are likely to operate in potentially contradictory manner. Partial access to the state through a voluntary system of industrial relations has, in the UK, sustained the historically embedded yet short-term interest of many employers. However, collective laissez-faire and voluntarism have positioned trade unions and collective bargaining as easy targets in proximate explanations of poor post-war economic performance. Collective laissez-faire appeared functional – it helped secured post-war recovery - yet contradictor y; in the context of full employment, it appeared inflationary. More significantly, collective laissez-faire is functional because it is an institutional an embodiment of the process of particularization in the UK state.The extent of industrial action: In the UK, official statistics on the use of industrial sanctions relate only to strikes. They measure three dimension of strike activity – their number (how frequent they are), their size (number of workers involved) and their duration (the number of working days lost). ... state. Hence, patterns of regulation legitimize the centralized power of the capitalist class yet are likely to operate in potentially contradictory manner. Partial access to the state through a voluntary system of industrial relations has, in the UK, sustained the historically embedded yet short-term interest of many employers. However, collective laissez faire and voluntarism has positioned trade unions and collective bargaining as easy targets in proximate explanations of poor post-war economic performance. Collective laissez faire appeared functional - it helped secured post-war recovery - yet contradictory; in the context of full employment it appeared inflationary. More significantly, collective laissez faire is functional because it is an institutional embodiment of the process of particularization in the UK state. The extent of industrial action: In the UK, official statistics on the use of industrial sanctions relate only to strikes. They measure three dimension of strike activity - their number (how frequent they are), their size (number of workers involved) and their duration (the number of working days lost). This last measure is often distorted by a few big strikes. For example, in 1979 an engineering industry- wide strike accounted for 55 percent of the 29.5 million working days lost in that year. In 2000 the number of working days lost in the UK was 499,00. However, disputes still happen - for example, the series of one day stoppages in 2002 on the railways over the widening of pay differentials between drivers, who were in short supply, and other railway employees. The dearth of drivers meant that the

Since “The Big Twist” Essay Example for Free

Since â€Å"The Big Twist† Essay Since â€Å"The Big Twist† failure that killed multiple people, an investigation of the wheel and rail deviations from the derailed car has been carried out in order to determine what course of action should be taken to prevent similar catastrophes from occurring. In order to achieve safety, the rails of the newly designed car were supposed to be composed of 4130 steel. A heat treatment process involving a water quench and tempering was also required to modify the rail to a desired balance between ductility and hardness. The final Rockwell C-scale hardness was supposed to be 35-40. The failed rail was found to have a Rockwell C hardness of only 4. 8. In our own reference experiment, we were able to produce specimens similar to the failed specimen, with a Rockwell C hardness of 3. 7. Our similar sample was austenized and air cooled, which leads to the conclusion that the failed rail was not quenched or tempered at all, but merely annealed and left to cool. The resulting pearlite crystal structure of the material was soft and ductile, bending easily under stress and causing the car to derail and plummet to the ground. Introduction A new roller coaster in Florida called â€Å"The Big Twist† killed four people when one of the cars separated from the track and fell to the ground 120 feet below. It was discovered that the outer left wheel assembly was bent more than 30 degrees from its normal vertical orientation due to twisting of the support beam that connected the wheels to the car. Our research was performed to discover why the rail was weak enough to bend. The characteristics of steel can be greatly modified by changing the phase (or crystal structure). The first step in heat treating steel is the process of annealing and austenizing. When the steel is heated to a high enough temperature (annealing), carbon is dissolved into the metal solution (austenizing) by fitting into the interstitial vacancies in the high temperature-induced face-centered cubic structure of iron (austenite). The next step in heat treating is to quench the steel in water or oil, quickly cooling the steel to room temperature in order to trap the carbon in the crystal structure (even at the reduced temperature). This new phase is called martensite, intermediate to the face-centered and body-centered cubic structures. The internal stress caused by the distorted crystal structure causes the metal to be extremely hard and brittle. Finally, the heat treating is completed by heating the material once again (tempering) to gain a balance between strength and ductility. During tempering, nucleation of cementite occurs along with a growth in grain size, both reducing internal stress and restoring ductility. The resulting metal can be both harder and stronger than it can be without treatment. Essentially, if the metal contains too much pearlite (it is only annealed or tempered too long or hot), it will be too ductile and soft to withstand the forces on the rail of the roller-coaster car, for example. Conversely, if the metal contains too much untempered martensite (it is only annealed and quenched without a tempering), it will be extremely hard but utterly brittle. Experimental Procedures and Results Using seven samples of 4130 steel as references, it was possible to determine what was wrong with the received sample of roller coaster rail with comparative analysis. Seven reference specimens were placed in an austenitizing furnace at 844 °C for one hour. After austenitizing, six of the samples were immediately quenched in water at room temperature and four of them were placed in tempering furnaces at 205 °C, 370 °C, 482 °C, and 677 °C for one hour. The other two were left at room temperature. The samples were next sanded with abrasive paper to remove surface discoloration and tested for Rockwell C-scale hardness, with three tests each to be averaged. After the hardness tests were completed, Charpy Impact Tests were performed on each specimen. A table of results can be seen below. Obviously the crashed car rail was not tempered correctly, if at all, since its properties are almost identical to the austenized, air-cooled sample of 4130 steel. Also, a crashed car rail specimen was prepared and examined under the microscope to study the microstructure. The preparation included cutting, hot mounting, rough and fine grinding, and polishing of the specimen. After the specimen was cut into two pieces of appropriate sizes, hot mounting was carried out using a press which molded a thermoplastic around the samples on three sides. Rough and fine grinding involved using a silicon carbide abrasive on a belt sander with 120, 240, 400, and 600 grit papers. Polishing was performed with rotating wheels covered by polishing cloths soaked in alumina slurrys (1mm, . 3? m, and . 05? m alumina respectively). Finally, the samples were chemically etched with nitric acid, one for 8 and one for 15 seconds. The samples were examined under a microscope at 400x, the images of which are shown below.

To His Coy Mistress Essay: The Carpe Diem Motif -- His Coy Mistress Es

The Carpe Diem Motif in To His Coy Mistress "Seize the day." For cavalier poets, there seemed to be little else they found nearly as interesting write about than the carpe diem concept. The form of carpe diem poetry is generally consistent, almost to the point of being predictable. Though Andrew Marvell worked with the same concepts, his modifications to them were well-considered. In "To His Coy Mistress," Marvell makes use of allusion, metaphor, and grand imagery in order to convey a mood of majestic endurance and innovatively explicate the carpe diem motif. Previous carpe diem poems (such as those written by Robert Herrick at the same time period) often took an apostrophic form and style which stressed the temporality of youth. The logical extension was to urge the recipient of the poem to take advantage of that youth to further her relationship with the narrator. They were often dark and melancholy in theme, underneath a light exterior of euphony and springtime images (perhaps to urge consideration of the winter to come). Marvell chooses not to employ many of these techniques in the opening of "To His Coy Mistress." Instead, his images and tools stress how he wishes his love to be- tranquil and drawn out. Rather than beginning with a focus on the concept of death, he opens the poem with the lines, "Had we but world enough, and time / This coyness, lady, were no crime" (ll. 1-2) He will later take on the trappings of the carpe diem poem, but his focus will then be on the grandeur and passion of love, rather than its instability. To begin to slow the passage of time in his poem, Marvell makes reference to past and future events on a grand scale. His allusions to religious scriptur... ...it becomes easy to say "death is coming, so we should love" without any particular impact behind the thought. Now, by contrasting the alternative to love caught in time, Marvell demonifies time to be a tyrant, slowly killing us all. He then states that an escape from and method of fighting against time is to love with a passion and defy his aging effect (ll. 40-46). By rethinking the carpe diem theme, Andrew Marvell makes his point more effectively than many other poets working with the same ideas. Using the methods described above, he makes the ideal scene of timelessness more concrete, so that when it is swept away the alternative seems all the more frightening and imperative. In this way he recreates a feature of real life- death is imperative, but trivialities can often make it seem distant. Invariably, however, it will greet us all.

The Teacher That Taught Me the Most

What Teacher Got Me Hooked on Learning? I’ve gone through a bunch of teachers that have helped me learn. There is only one though, that woman has gone through so much stress in her life. Her name is Mrs. Jackson. She was my Eighth Grade Advanced Language Arts teacher. She really made me want to learn. Mrs. Jackson really tried hard to get kids to learn but she would not make any kid do a thing. She taught me how to be more independent on my work and that I have to take things like my class work and not just be handed things already done.Mrs. Jackson made me take things into my own hands with my learning. She made things to where you had to do thing son your own, and showed me the way of doing independent work. Like giving us an essay project, telling us to do it then just giving us a prompt and just letting our creative minds roam free. Her criticism let there still have room for our idea to still be there but nevertheless have it portrayed in a professional way. I remember th at if there was a fragment in my essay she would give it back and say there’s a fragment fix it.I loved that she would tell me where it is but didn’t tell me how to fix it, giving me room to learn and grow from my mistake. If you asked her if we had to do something she would say no but if you want to pass my class I suggest you do. Her humor was there but she was still stern. I think she is didactic; she gave me that vibe of that already known respect that she didn’t have to ask for it was just already there. It was a given in her class what she wanted and that made me feel more respect for her, he leadership made me respect her more. She would only respect you if you respected her that was just how it was.I always had the utmost respect for her and that is still there even though I don’t have her class anymore. To be totally honest I’m using some of her techniques to write this essay at the moment. She taught things that stuck for me. She always r eminded us to not repeat so many words in our essay, sometimes it is really noticeable. She really helped with my whole view on English, my reading and everything in that area. Everything was so much easier after her class. The books we read in her class were marvelous. I loved her class and she really got me into learning.

Environmental Factors Essay

There are many environmental factors that affect the global and domestic marketing strategies of organizations. What is necessary is an assessment of the company’s attempts at positioning its product to meet the needs of an undisclosed market. Environmental factors always affect the domestic and international marketing performance of companies in many environments. What environmental factors do is that they shape and set targets on the entry and operational decisions of Coca Cola Limited. Established in 1886, Coca Cola owns four of the world’s top five nonalcoholic beverages, operates in over two hundred countries and serves over one point five billion consumers locally and international. The environmental factors that Coca Cola has to battle with include the level of competition, cultural attributes, consumer characteristics, political and legal concerns. These factors have an impact on both the potential local and international marketing functions of the company. One factor affecting the marketing decisions of Coca Cola is competition among alcoholic beverages. These competitive factors include pricing, advertising, production innovation and brand and trademark development and protection. Of interest to us is the fact that one of Coca Cola’s major competitors is PepsiCo. The marketing decisions of the company have to be guided strategically because it impacts on the actual sales levels of the firm. Coca Cola continues to maintain a cutting edge in the industry because it continues to uphold its hallmarked values of refresh the world, inspiring moments of optimism and creating value through making a difference. Cultural also has a part to play in the marketing decisions of Coca Cola. Of later, governments across the world have been placing pressure on beverage companies to regulate alcohol content because they affect consumer’s thinking. While Coca Cola does not have to fight up with this cultural implication, it may have to attend to means of re-establishing consumer loyalty. For example, Marketing Coca-Cola in China has been a long and trying road. Firstly opening bottling plants in Shanghai and Tianjin in 1927 and then a third plant opened in Qingdao in 1930, Coca had a fight gaining a solid marketing lead. After a 30-year absence from the country, The Coca-Cola Company re-entered China in 1979, following the re-establishment of relations between China and the United States. Coca-Cola was the first American consumer product to return to China and is doing very well today. Another environmental factor affecting Coca Cola’s development of effective marketing tools and campaigns across the world is legal requirements for entry and set up. All multinational companies are forced to abide by laws requiring high tax entries although maximum profits are to be repatriated. It is Coca Cola’s policy to comply to consumer protection laws, occupational, health and safety acts, and local statues and regulations concerning advertising, transportation, distribution and food and safety laws. Additionally, Coca Cola’s principle challenge was is water resource management which in some countries is bound by legalities. In 2004, the company was forced to take a major step in reducing the potential impact of climatic damage via the use of coolers and vending machines. So that dealing with legal implications enabled Coca Cola to adapt a marketing strategy that considers its social responsibility. The end result of that was Coca Cola, partnering with the United Nations Environment Programme and Greenpeace International as a means of finding natural refrigerants. Explain how technology impacts the organizations marketing decisions. Coca Cola decisions have been affected by the impact of technology. In an interview done by a researcher, he commented that â€Å"as industry leaders it is Coca Cola’s responsibility to invest in the research and development necessary to develop economically viable and commercially available refrigeration solutions to take us toward an HFC-free, climate-friendly future. We hope that other companies will join our commitment to sustainable refrigeration. By working together, we can continue to reduce the impact of commercial equipment on the environment. † It is obvious that Inorder for Coca Cola to remain a leader in the beverage industry there was the need to re-examine its products and production processes; its packaging, design, equipment and quality assurance. Coca Cola attempts to strike a balance between the use of modern and traditional technologies depending on the marketing initiative and project location. Interestingly, with the launch of eKOfreshment, Coca Cola used more than ten different technological options to improve its environmental performance, regulatory compliance and overall price and operational costs. The end result of using technology as a point of reference for marketing is the winning of the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Protection Award for their joint efforts in promoting the development of environmentally friendly commercial refrigeration technology through the creation of the refrigerants naturally coalition. So that as Coca Cola evolves with technology its marketing habits and values change to accommodate consumer characteristics and behaviours. Of great importance to Coca Cola is their social responsibility and ethical considerations of which its management has found to be a contributing factor to the development of a strong marketing campaign globally. In analyzing its importance, we must consider the company’s priority; its marketplace, workplace, environment and community. To us, this is a key side; Coca Cola has opted to have social responsibility as a sub heading to their website. In the marketplace, they take pride in quality, marketing more than 450 brands and over 2,800 beverage products, just still living up to giving our consumers a choice of still or sparking beverages that refresh, hydrate, energize or nourish. Our ethical value is that each of those products must be of the highest quality and must meet consumers’ changing tastes, needs and expectations. In each of the more than 200 countries where we operate, Coca Cola is an active member of the business community, working hand in hand with local individuals, merchants and governments to improve the health and prosperity of the local economy and environment. We know that the continued health and sustainable growth of our business depends on the long-term health of the communities that surround it. After all, we need healthy consumers, communities, environments and economies for our business to thrive. So we encourage human right laws in the workplace as our business ultimately depends on the combined talents, skills, knowledge, experience and passion make Coca Cola who it is. Wherever Coca Cola operates, it seeks to get involved in the work of communities, governmental organizations and NGOs to create and support projects most relevant to them. Marketing is a critical step in the success or failure of a company. For Coca Cola, an international company operating in years of integrity and business sense, today they have stood to repeat the rewards of their actions. Together with many other partners, this company continues to forge it way to be a continued leader in the beverage industry. Reference Blythe, Jim. (2004). Canada. Financial Times – Prentice Hall.

ACT Tutor for You

How to Find the Most Effective SAT/ACT Tutor for You SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Tutors are an investment in both time and money. Just because someone calls themselves a â€Å"SAT tutoring expert† doesn’t automatically confer the skills of that title upon them. (If it did, I would have become a master dinosaur expert by age 4.) Bad or ineffective tutors can actually hurt you and your potential SAT/ACT test score in two ways: 1) Financially: bad tutoring takes away from your budget and limits the resources you can spend to recoup your loss. 2) Time-wise: the time you spend on ineffective tutoring takes away from the time you could be spending better elsewhere. So what makes a tutor effective? In this article, I’ll go over the key qualities of the best SAT/ACT tutors. Top image: SAD_Hortons_Kids 8 by US Department of Education, used under CC BY 2.0/Cropped from original. 1: The Most Effective Tutors Have Taken The Test†¦And Aced It. It may seem obvious, but one of the most important things to look for in a tutor is someone who has aced the test you are studying for, whether it is the ACT or SAT. A tutor who has read up on the SAT/ACT is not the same as a tutor who has taken the test and gotten a 99th percentile score. This is true regardless of your own level – a tutor who scored a 2400 (or 1600 on the new SAT) or a 36 on the SAT or ACT is almost always better than a tutor who got a 2000 (or a 1300 on the new SAT) or a 30, even if you yourself have a target score of 1500 or 21. Scoring in the 99th percentile on the SAT/ACT takes more than just being smart and knowing the material – you have to know the tricks of the test. In fact, the reason test prep is necessary is that the tests AREN’T just testing knowledge or aptitude – they’re testing how good you are at taking the test. If you don’t realize this, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, how good you are at math, critical reading, writing, or science – you can still get tripped up by the test. making bunny ears by woodleywonderworks, used under CC BY 2.0/Cropped from original. If only test prep were this easy. An example of a little known strategy that can make a big difference: if you’re a 600 scorer on the SAT, you should skip the hardest 25% of questions and only answer the easier ones (for more tips like this, click here). Knowing about and using this strategy has nothing to do with being inherently smart – it has to do with knowing the way the SAT is constructed. In general, the best proof that a tutor truly knows the test is if they've gotten a perfect or near-perfect score on it. But this alone isn't enough... 2: The Most Effective Tutors Are Experts At Teaching The Material Just because someone is an effective tutor in other areas does not necessarily mean they will be an effective SAT/ACT tutor. Why? Because you need familiarity with teaching the specific test material in order to be able to explain the way the tests will try to trick you and strategies you can use to counteract that. Just because a tutor knows what the tricks are doesn’t necessarily mean that he can explain it well. This aspect of tutoring is so important, we've divided it up further into the specifics of what expert tutors provide. Tutoringthat's completely customized to your weaknesses The best tutors know how to tailor their teaching approach to each student’s needs, especially when it comes to teaching people who don’t think about things the way they do. At PrepScholar, this involves using the Socratic method, where the tutors are working WITH, not teaching AT, students. Take the following sample ACT Math question: A bad tutor might approach the problem this way: "Here’s how you solve the question. It’s an isoceles right triangle, so you know the most reduced Pythagorean triplet you’re going to use is 1, 1, √2. Since the two sides that are equal are 10 ft long, the hypotenuse must be 10√2 feet long. Does this make sense?" If you're the student, you're going to feel pressured to answer â€Å"yes,† even if you doesn’t fully understand. The tutor isn’t assessing your understanding at each step, which prevents him from understanding where you need help. Here's an example of what a GOODtutor would do, illustrated by a series of questions: "What answer did you choose? Why did you do this?" "What is the question asking for?" "What information does the question give you? What more information do you need to get to the answer?" "Great - so you know that in an isosceles right triangle, the sides are the same. How would you figure out the length of AC?" "Let's review the new points that we learned just now." Notice that a good tutor examines the student's thinking at every step and makes no assumptions about how the student's thinking about the problem. This process is critical to good teaching: two students who miss this question may miss it for entirely different reasons. One student might have forgotten what an isosceles right triangle means. Another might have known this, but forgotten the Pythagorean theorem. A good tutor will identify the exact weaknesses of his student and create custom strategies to overcome these weaknesses. When you interview a tutor, you should figure out whether the tutor is capable of this style of teaching (more tips on vetting tutors here). Effective use of tutoring time Most tutors will waste your time and money. Someone who just sits there watching you do practice tests isn’t a tutor – that's basically nothing more than a babysitter, or a source of radiant heat. During the session, this is deceiving because it seems like you're learning a lot, but the reality is that the tutor is missing major weaknesses. In contrast, a good tutor will accurately diagnose your weaknesses and prioritize the biggest gains to your score. Excelling on tests like the SAT and ACT requires mastery of skills at different levels: Behavior: are you motivated to study for the test? Do you review your mistakes correctly? Do you have the right attitude toward the test? Test Strategy:do you know how to budget your time in each section? Do you understand the best skipping strategy for your goals? Do you know how to attack each type of question? Test Content:where are your weaknesses in all the different subjects on the test? How do we make sure you have the right resources to improve these weaknesses? A great tutor will constantly be assessing these weaknesses and structuring tutoring sessions around where you can make the biggest point gains. This type of teaching requires mastery of the test as well as deep insight into student weaknesses. That's why as part of PrepScholar tutoring, we equip our tutors with technology to analyzestudent weaknesses across the entire test. Your tutor will have access to every homework problem completed before the session, so the tutor will come prepared with lesson plans designed to improve your score fastest. Comprehensive test prep guidance Good tutors know it’s not just about what you do in the tutoring session. For every hour you meet with a tutor, you might spend 10 hours on your homework. Therefore,a good tutor's influence is not limited to just the teaching session - it extends across your entire prep program. The best tutors will do much more than answer your questions during tutoring sessions. They'll help you stay motivated to study. They'llshow you the most effective way to review missed questions, and they'll increase the effectiveness of your study time outside of tutoring session. When you work with a tutor, your tutor should be able to plan a complete study program and assign specific sets of homework. The tutor should be able to justify exactly why that homework is assigned, and why that's the best thing for the student to improve the score. unicycles doughnuts by Robert Couse-Baker, used under CC BY 2.0/Cropped from original. Not a PrepScholar Tutors-recommended use of study time. 3. The Most Effective Tutors Come Recommended by Trustworthy Sources But wait, just because someone says they have experience teaching and aced the test doesn’t mean it’s true! This is where quality control and recommendations come in. For tutors, this often comes via word of mouth: you hear about people you know who had good (or bad) experiences with a tutor or tutoring service. Another way to prescreen for quality tutoring is by going through an organization with a reputation for excellence in SAT/ACT tutoring. Quick plug: check out the PrepScholar tutoring site for a great example of tutors who are pre-screened to be effective teachers. So How Do I Find An Effective Tutor? When you’re looking for a tutor, you need to approach it like a job interview...except YOU are the interviewer. Why? Because you are making sure the tutor is the right person for the job of tutoring you to reach your maximum potential. It’s easy to be intimidated by potential tutors because they seem so knowledgeable, charismatic, or authoritative. Just because they will be teaching you, though, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be able to ask them questions and make sure they are the best tutor possible for you. In fact, it makes it all the more important that you find an effective, expert, and reputable tutor. The most recent analogy in my own life was at the beginning of grad school, when I was trying to decide on the right composition teacher. I was a little (okay, a lot) in awe of how much each of the three teachers I was choosing between knew, but I ultimately had to make sure that the professor I chose was going to be able to teach me what I needed to learn to be a better composer. To help you out in your quest for the right tutor, we’ve come up with this handy worksheet, containing a list of questions to ask any potential tutor (and space for you to write in the tutors’ answers). Click here to download it, or click the image below. The Bottom Line To sum it all up, here are the main attributes to look for in a tutor: They’ve taken the test and scored in the 99th percentile, so they know how to ace the SAT/ACT. They have expertise in tutoring effectively for the SAT/ACT. They have references from reputable sources. I hope these guidelines were clear and informative. You are now ready to go forth and shop for the right tutor for you! Shopping Cart by SunKing2, used under Public Domain. What’s Next? Find out more on how to find the best tutor for YOU here. Interested in online tutoring? We offer a variety of online tutoring packages right here at PrepScholar. If you want to read more about what each package entails, co-founder Fred Zhang goes into detail about each option in this article. Questions about our tutoring programs? Contact us through our website.

What Half Life Means for Evolution

What Half Life Means for Evolution Perhaps the most widely used evidence for the theory of evolution through natural selection is the fossil record. The fossil record may be incomplete and may never fully completed, but there are still many clues to evolution and how it happens within the fossil record. One way that helps scientists place fossils into the correct era on the geologic time scale is by using radiometric dating. Also called absolute dating, scientists use the decay of radioactive elements within the fossils or the rocks around the fossils to determine the age of the organism that was preserved. This technique relies on the property of half-life. What Is Half-Life? Half-life is defined as the time it takes for one-half of a radioactive element to decay into a daughter isotope. As radioactive isotopes of elements decay, they lose their radioactivity and become a brand new element known as a daughter isotope. By measuring the ratio of the amount of the original radioactive element to the daughter isotope, scientists can determine how many half-lives the element has undergone and from there can figure out the absolute age of the sample. The half-lives of several radioactive isotopes are known and are used often to figure out the age of newly found fossils. Different isotopes have different half-lives and sometimes more than one present isotope can be used to get an even more specific age of a fossil. Below is a chart of commonly used radiometric isotopes, their half-lives, and the daughter isotopes they decay into. Example of How to Use Half-Life Lets say you found a fossil you think to be a human skeleton. The best radioactive element to use to date human fossils is Carbon-14. There are several reasons why, but the main reasons is that Carbon-14 is a naturally occurring isotope in all forms of life and its half-life is about 5730 years, so we are able to use it to date more recent forms of life relative to the geologic time scale. You would need to have access to scientific instruments at this point that could measure the amount of radioactivity in the sample, so off to the lab we go! After you prepare your sample and put it into the machine, your readout says you have approximately 75% Nitrogen-14 and 25% Carbon-14. Now it is time to put those math skills to good use. At one half-life, you would have approximately 50% Carbon-14 and 50% Nitrogen-14. In other words, half (50%) of the Carbon-14 you started with has decayed into the daughter isotope Nitrogen-14. However, your readout from your radioactivity measuring instrument says you have only 25% Carbon-14 and 75% Nitrogen-14, so your fossil must have been through more than one half-life. After two half-lives, another half of your leftover Carbon-14 would have decayed into Nitrogen-14. Half of 50% is 25%, so you would have 25% Carbon-14 and 75% Nitrogen-14. This is what your readout said, so your fossil has undergone two half-lives. Now that you know how many half-lives have passed for your fossil, you need to multiply your number of half-lives by how many years are in one half-life. This gives you an age of 2 x 5730 11,460 years. Your fossil is of an organism (maybe human) that died 11,460 years ago. Commonly Used Radioactive Isotopes Parent Isotope Half-Life Daughter Isotope Carbon-14 5730 yrs. Nitrogen-14 Potassium-40 1.26 billion yrs. Argon-40 Thorium-230 75,000 yrs. Radium-226 Uranium-235 700,000 million yrs. Lead-207 Uranium-238 4.5 billion yrs. Lead-206

People Resourcing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 2

People Resourcing - Essay Example Ensuring better employee relations is as important in public sector companies as for any other organisation. However, it is generally observed that most employees in the public sector organisations suffer from stress (Health and Safety Executive, 2002). Mersytravel is the operating name for Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive; which oversees the provision of public transport on Merseyside. It was initially observed that the employee morale was low and they used to get tensed. The company identified that as per Frederick Herzberg two factor hygiene and motivation theory, some factors like job security, salary, and status etc., that are the provided by public sector organisations do not motivate employees and don not contribute in ensuring employee well being. Instead, if these factors are not present, this may lead to employee dissatisfaction. In contrast, as per the theory, employees will feel motivated if they are provided growth and advancement opportunities, and are recognised for their achievements (Accel Team, 2006). In order to improve employees' morale and to enhance employees' knowledge, the company established a learning and development strategy in consultation with its employees in 2003. A scheme called Merseylearn was developed that focuses on providing learning and development opportunities for hard to reach learners such as shift workers. They can use this system 24 hours a day to develop their skill sets. This has also enabled the staff to undertake courses at home (Investors in People, 2006). A wide range of other learning and development programmes have also been developed that have helped staff to undertake language and literacy training within workplace. The company gained myriad of benefits from this approach. Employees' turn over rate has sharply declined; sickness days, which were quite high previously, dropped by an average 3 days between 2003 and 2006; staff promotions have increased by 10% as a result of training programmes; staff participation in work related participation schemes has also risen by 50% per cent (Investors in People, 2006). This steady increase in employees' productivity indicate that the training programmes add to the employee well being by improving employees' skills, knowledge and behavior towards

Political science Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 3

Political science - Essay Example Already the liberal wing of his own party is into abandoning the new tax deal and the Republicans are much on their way into scrutinizing every fiber of it. Economists analyzed that savings is indispensable for the government at this point to keep the deficit at its minimum of 3% by 2015 to make it sustainable for the gross domestic product. This is a way to balance off the more productive year to the previous shortage from the previous one. This calculation, developed by Alan Auerbach and William Gale was a substantial attempt to alleviate national debt in a plausible manner (Leonhardt, par.2-4). This actually takes into consideration the prospective effect of the Boomers on the budget of the Federal government by 2030. This emphasizes the importance of the next 20 years in the budget woes of the United States that is in dire need of a solution before things go way out of control to be remedied beyond repair. The proposed tax cut deal provides for further tax cuts favoring the middle class over high end tax cuts as supported by Republicans. Here, it could be seen that it provides for a year’s worth of payroll tax cut for workers as wells as a year and a month’s lengthening of aid for the jobless to help boost the ailing economy. This poses a problem as it is inimical to the $900 billion in deficit that it will bring about (Herszenhorn and Gaystolberg, par.5-7). The deal as perceived in both Houses is deemed to be rough around the edges if not totally unviable. New York Democrat Anthony Weiner even went candidly by saying, â€Å"I don’t think the president should count on Democratic votes to get this deal passed† (par. 9). While the Republicans are also clamoring on their side on the supposed merits of the proposal. Obama stands on firm conviction on the need to protect the interest of middle class Americans that make up majority of the population as legislator s raise concern