Read short story Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Read short story - Essay Example This side of the valley is symbolic of life and has a seemly association with Jig, while Hemingway links it to her desires to settle down permanently, have the child, and be in a loving relationship. However, the valley’s other side is the opposite. It is sterile, barren, bleak, and a desert landscape that has no life or animation present (Hemingway 12). This side of the valley is representative of abortion and its unwanted and deadly consequences. It is also, perhaps, symbolic of the meaningless and empty nature of the earlier relationships between the couple. In the story, it is as if the author takes the two characters and places them in a landscape, which seems to exemplify the decisions they will have to make, as well as, the major differences that stand between the two of them as individuals. The author deftly and subtly utilizes more than one aspect of the setting in the story to show significant things about what it means, which, in this case, is the valley and its two contrasting

Quality Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words - 1

Quality - Research Paper Example The report discusses the quality of something related to business that has fitness for purpose. Quality can be conditional, perpetual or subjective with respect to different businesses and different people. The concept quality is seen differently by different people and different businesses. Quality is also judged differently by different departments within the businesses (Reeves & Bednar, 1994). Quality is judged differently by customers of the business so the business also has to look at the customer’s perspective of perceiving quality. Like we can say the quality for the producer of the products is differently perceived and is measured based on the conformance of quality or may also be judged based on the degree to which the service or product has been produced in a correct way (Lee, Strong, Kahn & Wang, 2002). The report further dwells on the analysis of the term quality within the context of five aspects and has a conclusion based on the overall analysis. In this competitive business world the term quality in terms of business can be defined as meeting the expectations and needs of the customers and consumers of the service and products. Quality in business is the relation between the business, its product and customer. Through continuous assessment, analysis and by meeting all needs of customer, process, business and its employees, this relation is maintained. Quality may include several aspects in business terms but there is no specific definition in which quality can be defined. The term business is dynamic and cannot be summarized in single area of working (Huxtable, 1994). Quality in business can be defined in various ways. One way is to define quality in terms of the relationship which business shares with its product and customers. The other way of defining quality in terms of business can be through customer’s perception of how they value the product. The human factor and process cannot

The Media During Communal Riots

The Media During Communal Riots Communalism is a pervasive phenomenon in the public life of India and communal riots are the ugliest expression (Krishna, 1985). Communal riots have become an integral part of communalism in India. An event can be classified as a communal riot on two grounds. Firstly, if there is violence. Secondly, if two or more communally identified groups confront each other or the members of the other group, at some point during the violence (Varshney, 2002). The reason behind such communal riots can be superficial and trivial; though deep within there are political reasons behind such events (Varshney, 2002). India is not new to communal riots; the first recorded riots were in the year 1714, 1715, 1716 and 1750 in Ahmedabad (Rajeshwari, 2004). Bipin Chandra in his book Communalism in Modern India writes that the maximum communal riots in India took place during 1923-26. Communal riots in India are not spontaneous and are rarely due to any religious animosity. They usually arise due to conflicting political interests, which are often linked to economic interests (Rajeshwari, 2004). During the 1960s till the late 1980s, the local political and economic factors played a significant role in instigating the riots in major parts of India (Engineer, 2002). However, since then the emergence of Hindtuva1 politics has been the major cause of communal riots (Engineer, 2002). The role of news media in reportage of communal riots in India is a major area of concern. Everything is reported in the media, so are communal riots. The role of the news media has grown in recent years, perhaps because of the centrality of the news media in communal violence and conflicts (Wolfsfeld, 2007). Even the most casual of observers wont deny the increasing significance of news media under such crisis situations. The influence of the news media in peace processes is more subtle, in part because what is not reported in the media is in some ways more important than what is reported. This paper would look at the way Indian media covered and reported the two most horrific incidents of communal violence in India the 1984 Sikh riots and the 2002 Gujarat (Godhra) riots. On both occasions the media drew criticisms. The paper would discuss if the media has been objective in covering both riots and also as to what should be medias role in coverage of such future communal riots in India, if any. The Changing Face of News Media The global media sphere is changing with each passing second. New communications technologies such as camera enabled mobile phones and laptop computers are giving journalists an opportunity to gather and disseminate information with normal ease. This digitization of the news industry has led to compression of time and space and thus enabled us to see news and images of conflicts as and when they happen. The images broadcasted in our living rooms are not only informing the global audience of the horrific happenings but might also instigate further violence in an existing violent situation. As a result, the medias reporting of a conflict situation has become as central to the unfolding of the conflict itself. With the evolution in technology the tyranny of distance might have reduced but various hidden realities and factors still affect the reporting of conflicts. This is proved by a study done by Virgil Hawkings, who explains that the conflict in Africa which has been in the post-Cold war world responsible for nearly 90% of the worlds war deaths suffered a complete media blackout. Similarly, the coverage of the massive war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which resulted in over one million deaths in the year 2000, was almost insignificant (Hawkins, 2008). Since the media has a powerful ability to reach large number of people. It ignites the opinion building process and impacts the political decisions and audience reactions in the society. This eventually shapes the course of prevalent crises and conflicts (Ballantine, 2003). The Media, Religion and Politics With the planes hitting the Twin Towers on 11 September, 2001 the relationship between media and religion changed forever. Karim (2003) suggested that religion would become an important topic for the media and the way media covers events would be influenced by the religious undertones. It is arguable if the world and its religions have changed or not, but the media coverage of the same surely has. Within India, religion has a large impact on the personal lives of millions of people. The country practices almost every other religion known to the world and this is one of the most important facets of the country, so is politics. The politicians play on the religious issues every now and then, and media is used as the platform. The politicians communicate with the common mass through the mass media. The way in which we know and find about our politicians is through the media. It is the media that serves as the main channel of communication between the politicians and the public. Religion is one of the subjects in India which the politicians intelligently use to their advantage. Academic literature has covered the representation of conflict in religion as well as media and religion but not much has been researched on media, religion and conflict situations in context with each other, especially within an environment like India. It would be difficult to understand the relationship between religion, its construction, presentation and conflict situations covered in the media, without some reference to the broader political context within which it takes place, because in a nation like India, religion is certainly driven by political motives. In order to understand the role media plays and should play during communal clashes in India, let us analyze the two worst communal riots India has ever seen the 1984 Sikh riots and the 2002 Gujarat riots. The 1984 Sikh Riots 4.1 The Events On 31st of October 1984, the Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards. What followed was a complete mayhem and it led to a lethal anti-Sikh riots in New Delhi, India. Sikh homes were systematically singled out in the capital and brutally destroyed (Tatla, 2006). The Sikhs were hounded, tyres were put around their neck, and petrol doused on their faces and bodies set ablaze to brutal death (Mohanka, 2005). More than 3,000 Sikhs were killed in New Delhi itself. Two hundred Gurudwaras, the place where Sikhs worship, were burnt down and many Sikh owned shops were looted (Bedia, 2009). The situation worsened when the newly elected Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the son of Indira Gandhi was quoted, When a big tree falls, the ground beneath is sure to rumble. This gave a sense as if Rajiv Gandhi was giving a boost to the killers who were assassinating hundreds of Sikhs in the streets of New Delhi (Mohanka, 2005). Mrs. Gandhis assassinators were avenging the killings of Sikhs during the Operation Bluestar. In the June of 1984, Mrs. Gandhi, wanted to flush out few terrorists, led by Jamail Singh Bhindranwale, who were hiding in the precincts of the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine for Sikhs in India. On the 3rd of June, 1984 a 36 hour curfew was imposed in the Sikh dominated state of Punjab. All methods of communication and travel were suspended. Electricity supplies were interrupted, a total black out was created and Punjab was cut off from India and rest of the world (Brar, 1992). On the night of 5th of June, the Indian Army under the command of Major Gen. Kuldeep Singh Brar stormed into the Golden Temple. By the morning of the 7th of June the Indian Army had full control of the temple. The militant leaders were killed in the two day battle but along with it a large number of pilgrims, civilians and children also died (Ahmed, 1996). The Sikh community were agitated. Their holiest shrine was turned into a bloody battlefield and innocent lives were lost. Saran Singh, a retired bureaucrat and a famous member of the Sikh community in India quotes It was sacrilege to send troops inside, open fire and in the process kill innocent devotees gathered to observe the martyrdom (Mohanka, 2005). From June to September 1984 most members of the Sikh community nursed a festering wound only to blurt out in Indira Gandhis assassination. 4.2 The Indian Medias Coverage of Operation Bluestar and the Riots Media by its nature plays an extremely important role for any socio-political situation irrespective of the boundary it holds (Mohanka, 2005). The medias role in the riots of 1984 is an interesting case. Scholars believe that media can play a role in focussing on a cause much before it takes an ugly turn. In the case of Punjab in 1984, the local media was not supportive of the Sikh causes. Moreover, since the beginning of the problems in Punjab, the government had a strict control on the media and imposed a heavy censorship. Since independence until the invasion of cable television in India, the electronic media had served as the mouthpiece of the government (Das, 2009). Similar was the role of the electronic media in Punjab during the riots. The Government had such tight control over the media that the foreign correspondents trying to capture the horrific events were not even allowed in the local land. The Indian Government acted as a strict visible gatekeeper and made it impossible to approve journalist visas for foreign correspondents. The events of the 1984 riots thus suffered not only from biased media coverage but also selective coverage which projected one sided selected perspective (Das, 2009). The media blackout during the Operation Bluestar is a prime example of the same. The day before the actual invasion by the Indian Army, the Government ordered all press out of the state and restricted press coverage in Punjab. The press was allowed only a week later on special organised guided tours. The aftermath was later described by the press, as involving a small gang of criminals disliked by the majority of Sikhs and Indians. The press described the militants as petty political agitators, rather than leaders of a movement for a greater Punjab autonomy, as believed by a majority of Sikhs. Similarly, during the reportage of the 1984 riots there were discrepancy between the press release of data and images and the actual severity of the violent situation that prevailed in the streets of New Delhi (Das, 2009). This usage of selective information in the Indian media only contributed to the ambiguous image of Sikhs throughout the nation and failed to bring out their plight in the light. During the Sikh Movement the Government of India had passed the National Secu rity Act (1980), the Punjab Disturbed Areas Ordinance (1983), The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (1983) and the Terrorists Affected Areas (Special Courts Act of 1984). These acts provided the police and army with sweeping powers. They could charge and curtail to the right to life under specific situations. The approach of the media during the crisis had been partisan to take into account all types of multidimensional problem, historical, political, socio-economic and ideological. The media only focussed on special restricted information and ignored a careful examination of all the issues and processes that had led to the mayhem, the riots. During 1984, Indian leaders were free to make up non-existent stories and broadcast through Government controlled radio and television channels. Since there was a major restriction on the foreign press, all foreign news correspondents were left with no choice but to take the twister news of the local government controlled media. The United States of America, The House of Representatives had a view point on the same. It said: As a result the outside world receives a biased one side view of what goes on in Punjab because the Indian Government has control over most of the domestic media. This contributes to the stereotype that all Sikhs are extremist radicals who are terrorising the predominantly Hindu nation and that is just not the fact. If the Indian Government has nothing to hide it should remove the news blackout and permit outsiders into Punjab. The free flow of information is essential to the prevention of rights and liberties in a democratic society and India claims to be the worlds largest democracy. So, they should act as the worlds largest democracy. This is the foundation for a democratic nation and is not too much to ask of India to respect the rights of all its people and not just the Hindu majority. It is not right for any government to deny 16 million of its own people the basic political and civil rights. India has a moral obligation to protect the Sikh community.2 The national newspapers reporting on the Sikhs made no distinction between a regional political party, a handful of militants, and the entire Sikh community. Even the senior editors and columnists of the national newspapers considered all Sikhs accountable for the assassination of Indira Gandhi and provided no sympathy to the community during the riots. Through the critical years of political crisis in Punjab before the horrific riots, the national dailies had not help resolve the issue. The Times of India, one of the leading national dailies and The Hindustan Times did more to incite hostility between Hindus and Sikhs than perhaps any other national English language newspaper (Das, 2009). The media was a part of the misinformation carried out in the public. The best example of the same would be when a national newspaper carried out an article reporting that huge quantities of heroin and drugs had been recovered within the Golden Temple complex and the same had been used by the militants to illegally fund their operations. Since, the foreign press was banned in Punjab; they picked up the story based on the 14th June Press Trust of India (PTI) news report from the government sources. This news was carried out in the major international newspapers. One week into the incident, the government retracted the official report on the grounds that the drugs had been recovered from the India-Pakistan border and not the Golden Temple complex. This retraction by the government was not picked up by most international news agencies and the damage done by the initial report falsely remained amongst the mass.3 Many scholars believed that the Indian media forgot to prioritize issues and failed to act upon them. Senior Indian journalist, Manoj Mitta along with H. S. Phoolka in the book When a Tree Shook Delhi writes that the media focussed on the assassination of Indira Gandhi and did not care enough about the Sikh murders during the riots. Mitta says: The media by and large went by the official line on the carnage. It focused on the happenings at Teen Murti Bhawan, where Indira Gandhis body lay in state and where from people around the world had come to pay respect. So photographers were flocking to that place and the killings that were simultaneously going on in the capital did not get recorded at all. Its bizarre but true. Not all were pleased by the Indian medias coverage of the 1984 Sikh riots. The 2002 Gujarat Riots The Events On the 27th of February 2002, the Ahmedabad bound Sabarmati Express train reached a small town in Gujarat named Godhra (Yeolekar, 2002). Instead of the usual stoppage for 5 minutes the train stopped for 25 minutes and then moved out of the platform. Before the train could run at its normal speed, the alarm chain was pulled to stop the train at Signal Falia, a Muslim inhabited locality. No one clearly knows what really happened but after few minutes the compartment S-6 was on flames. 58 passengers including 26 women and 12 children were burnt to death (Yeolekar, 2002). Among the passengers were the Kar Sevaks5 travelling from Ayodhya. There have been different theories believing that Muslims were behind this barbaric act. If this wasnt barbaric enough, what followed in the days to come shook the entire secular nation of India. During the next three days, from the 28th of February to 2nd of March, 2002 Muslims were butchered, massacred and burnt alive. Out of the 24 districts in Gujarat, 16 were entangled by organized mob attacks in which over 2,000 Muslims were killed, 200 mosques and religious and cultural monuments were sent to rumbles (Sawant et al, 2002). The Muslim community of Gujarat suffered an enormous economic blow with an overall loss of Rs 35 billion. 5.2 The Indian Medias Coverage of the Riots 5.2.1 The Television Coverage For the first time in the history of communal clashes in India, violence was carried live on television (Ninan, 2002) as the cameras brought across the horrific images to viewers home in Gujarat and elsewhere. There was no live coverage of the attacks against the Sikhs back in 1984 or during the Babri Masjid fiasco in 1992. Those were the era of print media and television was limited to Doordarshan, a state owned channel. It was only in 1996 when, Rupert Murdoch ventured into India with the STAR network and STAR News happened Indias first 24 hour news channel (Page Crawley, 2001). This addition to the television spectrum of India added a new visual dimension to politics, violence and public sphere in India. In 2005, the television newscape had turned dense with a large number of players entering the market; several 24 hour news channels were launched. This led to intense competitive brand of journalism, which was evident during the Gujarat riots. There were a large consortium of jo urnalists and television crews from various channels on the streets in Gujarat, each trying to outdo each other. When the Gujarat violence happened, the private television in India had been broadcasting for about 8 years and was easily accessible by 40 million amongst the 81.6 million Indians who owned television sets4. This option offered by the private television gave the Indian viewers unprecedented access to independent broadcasting. When the first pictures of Gujarat riots were telecast on Indian screens on 27 February, the three major news networks in India Star News, Aaj Tak and Zee News did not follow the guidelines formulated by the Press Council of India, a quasi-judicial watchdog organization (Mehta, 2006). The guidelines mentioned not to reveal the identity of victims or attackers in the news reports but all the news networks carried blaring headlines about the killing of the Kar Sevaks. The guidelines were against the mentioning of victims or attackers as Hindus or Muslims because they feared it could inflame passions and lead to revenge attacks. The television news networks with its striking visual images made this guideline redundant. While covering the riots in Gujarat, the television journalists openly identified the victims and the attackers. Varadarajan argues for the naming of communities. He states that not naming the communities increases a sense of suspicion and anxiety amongst the ordinary citizens not only in the riot affected area but throughout the nation. Then people tend to assume that the victims are their own while attackers are the other (Varadarajan, 1999). Famous Indian journalists, Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt of STAR News justified their stand of naming the communities. Barkha Dutt stated, Naming the community under siege in Gujarat was moot of the story. In fact it was the story, revealing as it did a prejudice administrative and political system that was happy to just stand by and watch. (Mehta, 2006). The bold and independent media coverage by the television media during the riots invited flak from the political actors in powers who were shown in bad light. Criticizing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Hindutva approach in the riots got STAR News and English newspapers like The Times of India and Indian Express bad press (Sonwalkar, 2006). The BJP was in power in the state of Gujarat and at the centre in New Delhi. After the initial violence, when the news coverage of the attacks against the Muslims in Gujarat started to reflect badly on the state and central government, the leaders came down heavily on the journalists and media personnel. The Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee addressed the nation a day after the attacks, regretting the disgraceful violence. He later on added that the news media were presenting an exaggerated account of the situation in Gujarat6. The BJP and the state government under Narendra Modi singled out STAR News and banned cable operators from showing the channel in the state. The viewers in Ahmedabad, one of the worst affected regions in the riots, were left with blank television screens, unaware from the reality happening on the streets (Mehta, 2006). Cable operators received calls from local officials in Ahmedabad and other cities to completely black out STAR News, Zee News, CNN and Aaj Tak6. Dossiers and hitlists on journalists were reportedly prepared while the channels which dared to reveal the truth and were critical of the Chief Minister and his plan of actions were not invited to the press conferences and hence were denied the basic right to information by the state itself (Sardesai 2004). The main complaint of the BJP and its allies were that the news media did not cover and criticize those who were responsible for the Godhra train tragedy in which 58 Kar Sevaks were victims. This however remains untrue as the every news channels and major newspaper had covered the Godhra train tragedy exclusively, but the follow ups did not remain as the story of the day because the Union Budget followed on 28 February. The budget coverage was pushed aside when the mass killings and large scale retaliation against Muslims started in various parts of the state (Sonwalkar, 2006). Another criticism was that, the national media inflamed communal passions by providing graphic television coverage of the dreadful events. The journalists and the news professional came out against the criticism and said that the level of violence would have been much worse if only the news media brought out the real picture by the graphic images. The BJP and its allies also christened the media as Marxist-Mullah combine and the Secular Taliban for criticising the attacks against the Muslims. Members of the Editors Guild of India visited the affected regions in Gujarat and were told by a group of Hindutva supporters that the Hindu community has been defamed with the coverage only being from the Muslim perspective: They only listen to Muslims and ignore the Hindus (Patel et al, 2002). Sardesai explains the predicament faced by journalists in covering the riots: (If ) any reporter, whether print of television, sees large-scale violence being committed, is the journalist to ignore the hard reality and merely present the facts as seen through the government binoculars? If the Chief Minister says that the situation is returning to normal even while reports are streaming in of continuing violence in several parts of the state, are not the lies to be exposed? And if the government insists that the army is out on the street when the fact is that the army has been kept on stand-by and is waiting for transport trucks, whose version is to be broadcast? (Sardesai, 2002) 5.2.2 The Press Coverage If the graphic coverage by the television channels hit the headlines and raised criticisms, the nature of the press coverage also came under the hammer. The coverage by the print media makes an interesting study. There were two different approaches followed by the local and the national media. The local section of the press, including the Gujarati dailies Sandesh and Gujarat Samachar, covered the events from a pro-Hindutva stand and justified the killings of hundreds of Muslims. While the national media, including The Times of India and the Indian Express, were overtly critical of the channelized attacks against the Muslims (Sonwalkar, 2006). The team of Editors Guild of India met several journalists, correspondents, editors, Chief Minister Narendra Modi and others to conclude that the English-language national press played an exemplary role in coverage of the riots. BJPs allegations of media playing an aggravating role in coverage of the riots have been dismissed by many scholars. Patel argues that the allegation was specious, self-serving and must be dismissed (Patel et al. 2002). The Editors Guild of Indias team observed that: Our finding is that the prompt and extensive portrayal by the national media of the untold horrors visited on innocent people in the wake of the Godhra carnage was a saving grace. The exposure of the supine is not complicit attitude of the State and manifest outpourings of communal hatred, stirred the conscience of the nation, compelled remedial action, howsoever defensively and belatedlyHowever, the role of the sections of the Gujarat media, specially the Gujarat Samachar and more notably Sandesh, was provocative, irresponsible and blatantly violative of all accepted norms of media ethics. This cannot be lightly passed over. (Patel et al, 2002) Gujarat Samachar is the largest selling daily in Gujarat with a circulation of nearly 810,000 followed by Sandesh with 705,000 (Sonwalkar, 2006). These two newspapers have a large readership and dominate the print market in Gujarat. A study by PUCL in 2002 found that there were several instances of distorted and false reporting in these two newspapers and also the circulation of Sandesh rose by 150,000 due to its pro-Hindutva stand. The coverage analysis found that when Muslims were at fault, their names were clearly mentioned and the perpetrators identified. However, when the Muslims were the victims of murders, loots, arsons, and other heinous crimes the attackers were unnamed. The study concluded: No sources were quoted for headlines, even when they were simply lifted from speeches by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (one of the Hindutva polical parties in the state). Headlines were also misleading, and often followed up by reports that did not substantiate, and even negated the headlines completelyThe anti-minority stand was obvious in the slant in news reporting. (PUCL, 2002) Sandesh was extremely provocative in its reporting. PUCL states Sandeshs usage of headlines was to provoke, communalize and terrorise people (PUCL 2002). On the 28th of Februrary, Sandesh carried a headline saying, 70 Hindus Burnt Alive in Godhra. Another report on the front page read, Avenge Blood with Blood, which was a quote from a statement made by one of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders, but the newspaper used the words as a headline without mentioning the leader (Sonwalkar, 2006). On the 6th of March, the headline read, Hindus Beware: Haj Pilgrims return with a Deadly Conspiracy, when the fact remains that hundreds of Haj pilgrims were terrified by the happenings in the state and had retuned under police protection. PUCL emphasized in its study that most news in Sandesh post-Godhra violence began with the sentence, In continuing spiral of communal rioting that broke out as a reaction to the demonic/barbaric, etc Godhra incident. The comminatory adjectives used in describing the Godhra incident were strikingly absent when covering the post Godhra Muslim annihilation (PUCL, 2002). One of the reports mentioned that the breasts of two Hindu women had been chopped off by Muslim mobs during the crisis. This report turned out be false and the editor countered by saying that the information had been provided by the police. The papers editor told that it was against the policy of the newspaper to carry out corrections and clarifications for previously published articles (Patel et al, 2002). The Press Council of India later censured the newspaper for the fault (Prerna, 2003). Gujarat Samachar also heightened the tension through its pro-Hindutva stand in coverage of the events. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi openly praised Sandesh for its work, which was publishing false and rumoured reports with a pronounced pro-Hindutva and an anti-Muslim stance. In a letter to the newspapers editor, Modi writes: The newspapers of the state played a decisive role as a link between the people and the government. You have served humanity in a big way. It is the state governments primary duty to restore peace and security. It is noteworthy that the newspapers of Gujarat gave their full support to the state government in undertaking this difficult task.I am grateful to you. (Varadarajan, 2002: 286) The one regional newspaper that stood out amidst the Hindutva ideology was the Gujarat Today, notably started by few liberal Muslims in the state. The report suggested Gujarat Today regularly carried out positive news items highlighting interdependence of the communities involved (PUCL 2002). The two English-language national newspapers in India, The Times of India and the Indian Express were critical of the state government in their articles. However, these two newspapers also publish editions from Gujarat and a clear divide was evident between the two English-language dailies and the two regional editions (Sonwalkar, 2006). While the English-language version was sharp in its criticisms of Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his policies, the two Gujarati dailies propagated the need of Hindutva. Desai, an Ahmedabad-based correspondent of the Indian Express writes: Today, all the people who once used to look at me with respect question me and abuse me. They do this because I represented a publication whose medium is English and because I reported human misery in its right perspective.A friend said: All of you from the English language media have tarnished the image of Gujarat. Today, the common man in Gujarat hates the English language media. Even a section of the English language media hates the English language media. (Desai, 2004: 228) We find that there was a demarcation between the coverage of the national media and a section of the regional press. The national media did a commendable job but were criticised by a few. The Role of the Media during Communal Riots: The Road Ahead The result of multiple and complex interests of regions, states and/or various types of groups within them leads to economic, social and political conflicts. Such conflicts are difficult to handle and requires negotiations between the parties involved and in this amorphous age of media the governments are finding extremely difficult to handle such situations (Terzis, 2008). Despite the increased importance of communication, very few governments can speak about successful communication during conflicts because they fail to take into consideration the perception of the conflict in the minds of the common mass, the scientific analysis of the causable factors, the agendas of the parties involved and the changing nature of the conflict itself (Ballantine, 2003). The role of mass media in covering and resolving conflicts, especially those involving religious differences that leads to frequent communal riots in India, is extremely crucial. We are in the age where the basic principles of reportage of facts are sacred, comment free, get both sides of the story, double check your facts before writing, are not enough in reporting communal riots. There are enough challenges faced by a journalist and media personnel in such a situation. The guidelines for a reporter in covering communal riots should be to lookout for detailed background information, not continue with the stereotyping of communities, find residents who deal with both the communities, talk to victims from both sides, corroborate victims as well as polices accounts, discover the role of the police, the politicians and the media

Teaching Philosophy :: Education Teaching Teachers Essays

Teaching Philosophy Since elementary school I have wanted to be a teacher. My mom is a teacher and my dad taught school for three years. I have been involved in school functions with them for as long as I can remember. I enjoyed going to various activities and helping to do whatever I was allowed. The only decision I had to make was whether I want to be: an elementary teacher or a secondary teacher. Since I love sports, I have decided to be a Physical Education and Health teacher. I would also like to be a coach since I have been in sports since middle school. The nature of each student is different. There are no two students the same and therefore, you have to teach each as an individual. Some students will catch on to a concept easily, while another student will have trouble. Some students are in school to get an education and do wellfor themselves, while others are in school because it's the law they have to attend until they are16 years old. The students that want to be in school will not cause as much trouble as the onesthat are there because they have to be there. Some students will always have their homework, while others won't do it at all. Some students need to know that someone cares about them enough to "push" them to do better. Many students today experience some type of family problem that they bring to school with them. The purpose of public education is to prepare students for the rest of their life. Education should help mold a child's life and show them opportunities for the future. Sports, tests, and papers are a few tools that help prepare students to become better people. Parents don't take time to teach their children things they should, so it's up to the school to do the job of both family and schools. As a teacher I will be a progressivism and social reconstructions type teacher. I will let the students have a say in what goes on in the classroom. My classroom will be an active classroom so all students can participate. Students that do not participate do not learn.

Rethinking Anthropology – E. R. Leach

RETHINKING ANTHROPOLOGY LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS MONOGRAPHS ON SOCLL ANTHROPOLOGY Managing Editor: Anthony For^e The Monographs in on Social Anthropology were established modem The by 1940 and aim to publish results of anthropological research of primary interest to specialists. continuation of the series was made possible from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and more recently by a further grant from the Governors of the London a grant in aid School of Economics and Political Science. re under the direction of an Board associated with the Department of Anthropology of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Editorial The Monographs LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS MONOGRAPHS ON SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY No. 22 Rethinking Anthropology by E. R. LEACH UNIVERSITY OF LONDON THE ATHLONE PRESS NEW YORK: HUMANITIES PRESS INC Published by THE ATHLONE PRESS UNIVERSITY OF LONDON at 2 Gotcer Street, Distributed by Tiptree London wci Book Services Ltd Tiptree, Essex F irst edition, 1961 First paperback edition with corrections, 1966 Reprinted, 1968, 1971 E. R. Leach, 1961, 1971 U. K. U. K. sB N o 485 19522 4 cloth sB N B o 485 19622 o paperback U. S. A. s N 391 00146 9 paperback First printed in 1961 by ROBERT CUNNINGHAM AND SONS LTD ALVA Reprinted by photo-litho by JOHN DICKENS & CO LTD NORTHAMPTON 4- M75†² Preface The title of this collection properly belongs only to the first essay. On 3 December 1959 1 had the honour to deliver the first Malinovvski Memorial Lecture at the London School of Economics. The Editorial Board of the London School of Economics Monographs in Social Anthropology enerously offered to publish the text of my lecture but added the flattering suggestion that I should reprint a number of my other essays at the same time. I have accordingly appropriated the title of my Malinowski lecture for the whole collection. I do not pretend wholly consistent with that The essays extend over a period of fifteen years and is that th e viewpoint of the latest (Chapter i) of the earliest (Chapter 2) but there is, I think, a certain continuity of theme and method in all of them. When they were first written all these essays were attempts to ‘rethink anthropology'.All are concerned with problems of others, I ‘theory' and are based on ethnographic facts recorded by my own contribution being primarily that of analyst. In each case have tried to reassess the known facts in the light of unorthodox assumpSuch heresy seems to me to have merit for its own sake. Unconventional arguments often turn out to be wrong but provided they provoke discussion they may still have lasting value. By that criterion each of the essays in this book is a possible candidate for attention. tions. Among social anthropologists the is game f building new theories on the ruins of old ones almost an occupational disease. Contemporary arguments in social anthropology are built out of formulae concocted by Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown an d Levi-Strauss who in turn were only ‘rethinking' Rivers, Durkheim and Mauss, who borrowed from Morgan, McLennan and Robertson- Smith the total outcome of all — and so on. Sceptics may think that despite all this ratiocination adds up to very little; our pedagogical subtleties, the diversities of human custom remain as bewildering as ever. But that we admit.The contemporary social anthropologist is all too well aware that he knows much less than Frazer imagined that he knew for certain. But that perhaps is the point. The contributions to anthropological pedantry collected in this book add little to the sum of human knowledge but if they provoke some readers to doubt their sense of certainty then they will have served their purpose. A note on the interconnections between the different papers draft of Chapter 2 may prove still helpful. The first was written in 1943 while I was on VI PREFACE and still in direct contact with Jinghpaw speakers. ppeared in the 1945 volume of the J. R. A. I, this was not actually published until 1950. These details of dating are relevant because they explain why my paper contains no reference to Chapters 15 and i6 of Levi-Strauss, Les structures elementaires de la parente (1949) and reciprocally why the latter work ignores the new information provided by my paper. Chapter 3, which was originally a Curl Prize Essay, was completed in the spring of 195 1 and seems to have been the first English language commentar)' on Levi-Strauss's magnum opus though, presumably, my paper and J.P. B. de Josselin de Jong's monograph Levi-Strauss's Theory on Kinship and Marriage (1952) were going through the press at the same time. Although I here criticized Levi-Strauss on the grounds of ethnographical inaccuracy my sympathy with his general theoretical point of view is very great. Professor Levi-Strauss has himself noted the similarity between the view of ‘social structure' implicit in my first Jinghpaw paper (Chapter 2) and his own (Levi-Strauss, 1953, p. 525 n), and in all my subsequent publications my debt to Levi-Strauss is obvious.The relationship of Chapter 4 to earlier literature will be apparent from the references in the text. Although it was not intended to be controversial it provoked Dr Kathleen Gough into a vigorous reply (Gough, 1959). The crucial part of my argument here is that I emphasize the need to distinguish between affinity regarded as an alliance between corporate kin groups and those individual affinal ties which bind a particular wife to a particular husband. This theme recurs in Chapter 5 and again in active military service t Although Chapter i. Chapter 5, as indicated in the text, is linked with a long correspondence which appeared in the pages of Man in 1953 and 1954 but the response which it evoked from my close academic colleagues is only marginally connected with this earlier discussion. Dr Goody has denounced my whole argument as grounded in fundamental error (Goody, 1959, p. 86 ) and Professor Fortes has taken up most of two issues of Man to expound my fallacies and confusions (Fortes, 1959b).Both these explosions of academic wrath were provoked by a single sentence in my essay, namely ‘Thus Fortes, while recognizing that ties of affinity have comparable importance to ties of descent, disguises the former under his expression â€Å"complementary filiation† (see below p. 122). The exact sense in which this statement is an ‘error' is still not clear to me for in the course of his denunciation Fortes reaffirms his view that ‘complementary filiation is a function of affinal relations' (Fortes, 1959b, p. 209) which is precisely the argument I sought to controvert. ^ Professor Fortes has called his article *a rejoinder to Leach', and — readers of Chapter i of this book need to appreciate that ‘a among other things in it is intended as rejoinder to Fortes'. Reference to a short note Man (i960. Art. 6) will perhaps help to mak e this clear. The two short papers on time symbolism reprinted in Chapter 6 do PREFACE influence of Professor Levi-Strauss Vll not form a series with the other chapters of the book though again the is pronounced. Although my ‘Cronus and Chronos' appeared in print in 1953 while Levi-Strauss's ‘The Structural Study of Myth' was only published in 1956, I had in fact already heard Professor Levi-Strauss's lecture on this topic before I wrote my essay.Explorations, the Toronto University publication in which my Chapter 6 was originally published, carried on its fly leaf the statement that it was ‘designed, not as a permanent reference journal that embalms truth for posterity, but as a publication that explores and searches and questions' and both my papers are correspondingly brief and tentative. Nevertheless a number of my friends have suggested that the arguments they contain are of more than ephemeral interest; hence the reissue here^ Chapter i contains a considerabl e amount of matter which was not included in the spoken text of my Malinowski lecture. The other essays^ appear as originally printed, except for the correction of misprints, and one or two very minor alterations intended to clarify the argument. The Introductory Notes at the beginning of Chapters 2-6 are new. Acknowledgements I am indebted to the Council of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland for permission to reprint the essays published here as Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5 and to Professor E. S. Carpenter and the University of Toronto for permission to reprint the two short essays included in Chapter 6.I am indebted to a personal grant in aid from the Behavioral Sciences Division of the Ford Foundation for facilities employed while preparing } * j] : -^ these papers for publication. E. R. L. Contents 1. RETHINKING ANTHROPOLOGY I 2. JINGHPAW KINSHIP TERMINOLOGY THE STRUCTURAL IMPLICATIONS OF MATRILATERAL CROSS-COUSIN MARRIAGE 28 3. 54 4. POLYANDRY, INHERITAN CE AND THE DEFINITION OF marriage: with PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO SINHALESE CUSTOMARY LAW ASPECTS OF BRIDEWEALTH AND MARRIAGE STABILITY IO5 5. AMONG THE KACHIN AND LAKHER 6. II4 TWOESSAYS CONCERNING THE SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION OF TIME (i) 124 Cronus and Chronos, 124 (ii) Time and False Noses, 132 Rethinking Anthropology my arrogant title. Since 1930 British Anthropology has embodied a well defined set of ideas and -^objectives which derive directly from the teaching of Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown this unity of aim is summed up in the statement that British social anthropology is functionalist and concerned with the comparative analysis of social structures. But during the last year or so it has begun to look as if this particular aim had worked itself out.Most of my colleagues are giving up the attempt to make comparative generalizations instead they have begun to write impeccably detailed historical ethno- tET Social me begin by explaining — graphies of particular peoples. I regret this new tendency for I still believe that the findings of anthro- pologists have general as well as particular implications, but functionalist doctrine ceased to carry conviction? why has the understand what is happening in social anthropology I believe we need to go right back to the beginning and rethink basic issues really elementary matters such as To — hat we mean by marriage or descent or the unity of difficult siblings, and that is — for basic concepts are basic; The the ideas one has about them are deeply entrenched and firmly held. One bias of the things we need to recognize is the strength of the empirical which Malinowski introduced into social anthropology and which essential core of social anthropology has stayed with us ever since. is understanding of the way of life of a single particular people. This fieldwork is an extremely personal traumatic kind of experience and the personal involvement of the anthropologist in his work is reflected in wh at he produces.When we read Malinowski we get the impression that he is stating something which is of general importance. Yet how can this be? He is simply writing about Trobriand Islanders. Somehow he has so assimilated himself into the Trobriand situation that he is able to make the Trobriands fieldwork a microcosm of the whole primitive world. successors; for Firth, Primitive citizen of —the And the same is true of his is Man is a Tikopian, for Fortes, he a Ghana. The existence of this prejudice has long been recognized / but we have paid inadequate attention to its consequences.The difficulty of achieving comparative generalizations is directly linked with the problem of escaping from ethnocentric bias. 2 RETHINKING ANTHROPOLOGY As is appropriate to an occasion I when we honour the memory of Bronislaw MaUnowski, am going to be thoroughly egotistical. I shall imply there my own is merit by condemning the work of in my closest friends. But purpose is to distinguish between two rather similar varieties of comparative generalization, both of which turn up from time to time in contemporary British social anthropology.One of these, which I dislike, derives from the work of Radcliffe-Brown; the other, which I admire, derives from the work of Levi-Strauss. It is important that the differences between these two approaches be properly understood, so I shall draw my illustrations in sharp contrast, all black and all white. In this harsh and exaggerated form Professor Levi-Strauss method my malice. My might well repudiate the authorship of the ideas which I am trying to convey. Hence my egotism; let the blame be wholly mine. My problem is simple.How can a modern social anthropologist, with all the work of Malinowski and Radcliffc-Brown and their successors at his elbow, embark upon generalization with any hope of arriving at a satisfying conclusion? My answer is quite simple too; it is this: By thinking of the organizational ideas that are present in any societ y as constituting a mathematical pattern. The rest of what I have to say that is simply an elaboration of this cryptic statement. concern is with generalization, not with maintained that the objective of social anthropology was the ‘comparison of social structures'.In explaining this he asserted that when we distinguish and compare different types of social structure we are doing the same kind of thing as when we distinguish different kinds of sea shell according to their structural type (RadcliffeBrown, 1953, p. 109). Generalization is quite a different kind of mental First let me emphasize my comparison. Radcliffe-Brown operation. Let me illustrate this point. two points can be joined by a straight line and you can represent this straight line mathematically by a sm^G. first order algebraic equation.Any three points can be joined by a circle and you can represent this circle by a quadratic or second order algebraic equation. It would be a generalization to go straight on fro m there and say any : Any n points in a plane can be joined by a curve which can be represented by an equation of order n-i. This would be just a guess, but it would be true, and it is a kind of truth which no amount of comparison can ever reveal. Comparison and generalization are both forms of scientific activity, but different. Comparison is a matter of butterfly collecting —of classification, of the rrangement of things according to their types and subtypes. The followers of Radcliffe-Brown are anthropological butterfly collectors and their approach to their data has certain consequences. For example, according to RadclifTe- Brown's principles we ought to think of Trobriand society : RETHINKING ANTHROPOLOGY as 3 classification a society of a particular structural type. The might proceed thus: Main Type Sub-type: Sub-sub-type : societies societies societies composed of unilineal descent groups. composed of matrilineal descent groups. composed of matrilineal descent groups i n which he married males of the matrilineage live together in one place and apart from the females of the matrilineage, and so on. In this procedure each class preceding it is a sub-type of the class immediately in the tabulation. its uses, but it has very serious has no logical limits. Ultimately discriminated in this way as a sub-type Now I every just agree that analysis of this kind has is limitations. One major defect known society can be that it from any other, and since anthropologists are notably vague about what they mean by ‘a society', this will lead them to distinguish more and more ocieties, almost ad infinitum. This is not just hypothesis. My colleague Dr Goody has gone to great pains to distinguish as types two adjacent societies in the Northern Gold Coast which he calls LoWiili and LoDagaba. A careful reader of Dr Goody's works will discover, however, that these two ‘societies' are distinct simply the way that field Dr Goody notes from two has chosen to de scribe the fact that his neighbouring communities show some curious discrepancies. If limit Dr Goody's methods of analysis were pushed to the we should be able to show that every village community throughout is he world constitutes a distinct society which distinguishable as a type from any other (Goody, 1956b). Another serious objection is that the typology makers never explain why they choose one frame of reference rather than another. RadcliffeBrovsTi's instructions were simply that ‘it is necessary to compare societies the economic system, the with reference to one particular aspect . . . political system, or the kinship system' . . . this is equivalent to saying that you can arrange your butterflies according to their colour, or their size, or the shape of their wings according to the him of the moment, but no matter what you do this will be science. Well perhaps, in a sense, it is; but you must realize that your prior arrangement creates an initial bias from which it is later extremely difficult to escape (Radcliffe-Brown, 1940, p. xii). Social anthropology is packed with frustrations of it this kind. An obvious Ever since example is the category opposition patrilineal/matrilineal. has been customary for anthropologists to distinguish unilineal from non-unilineal descent systems, and writing of the Iroquois, Morgan began among that it the former to distinguish patrilineal societies from atrilineal societies. is These categories now seem to us so rudimentary and obvious extremely difficult to break out of the straitjacket of thought which the categories themselves impose. 4 RETHINKING ANTHROPOLOGY Yet if our approach is to be genuinely unbiased we must be prepared to consider the possibihty that these type categories have no sociological significance whatsoever. It may be that to create a class labelled matrtis as irrelevant for our understanding of social structure as the creation of a class blue butterflies is irrelevant for the understanding of t he anatomical structure of lepidoptera.I don't say it is so, but it may be; it is lineal societies time that we considered the possibility. J I warn you, the rethinking of basic category assumptions can be very disconcerting. But Let me cite a case. Dr Audrey Richards's well-known contribution to African Systems of Kinship and Marriage is an essay in Radcliffe-Brownian typology making which is rightly regarded as one of the ‘musts' of undergraduate reading (Richards, 1950). In this essay Dr Richards asserts that societies is ‘the problem' of matrilineal the difficulty of combining recognition of descent through the oman with the rule of exogamous marriage, and she classifies a variety of matrilineal societies according to the way this ‘problem' is solved. In effect her classification turns on the fact that a woman's husband the two men. jointly possess rights in the woman's brother and a woman's children but that matrilineal systems differ in the way these rights a re allocated between is the prior category assumptions. Men have kinds of society, so why should it be assumed from the start that brothers-in-law in matrilineal societies have special ‘prob- What I object to in this ll brothers-in-law in lems' which are absent in patrilineal or bilateral structures? really What has lay a matrilineal society, she has decided to restrict her comparative obser-ations to matrilineal systems. Then, having selected a group of societies which have nothing in common except that they are matrilineal, she is naturally led to conclude that matrilineal descent is the major factor to which all the other items of cultural behaviour which she happened here with the Bemba, is that, because Dr Richards's own special knowledge describes are functionally adjusted.Her argument I am afraid is a tautology; her system of classification already implies the truth of what she claims to be demonstrating. This illustrates how Radcliffe-Brown's taxonomic assumptions fit in with the ethnocentric bias which I mentioned earlier. Because the typefinding social anthropologist conducts his whole argument in terms of tempted particular instances rather than of generalized patterns, he is constantly to attach exaggerated significance to those features of social organization which happen to be prominent in the societies of which he himself has first hand experience. The ase of Professor Fortes illustrates this is same point in rather a different way. His quest not so much for types as for prototypes. It so happens that the two societies of which he has made a close study have certain similarities of structural pattern for, while the Tallensi are patri- RETHINKING ANTHROPOLOGY lineal 5 and the Ashanti matrilineal, both Tallensi and Ashanti come unfiliation', usually close to having a system of double unilineal descent. Professor Fortes has devised a special concept, ‘complementary w^hich helps him to describe this double unilineal element in the Tallen si/Ashanti pattern w^hile rejecting the notion that these societies actually possess double unilineal systems (Fortes, 1953, p. 33; 1959b). It is interesting to note the circumstances which led to the development of this concept. From one point of view ‘complementary filiation' is simply an inverse form of Malinowski's notion of ‘sociological paternity' as applied in the matrilineal context of Trobriand society. But Fortes has done more than invent a new name for an old idea; he has made it the corner stone of a substantial body of theory and this theory arises logically special circumstances of his own field experience.In his earlier writings the Tallensi are often represented as having a somewhat extreme form of patrilineal ideology. Later, in contrast to from the Rattray, Fortes placed an unambiguously matrilineal label upon the Ashanti. view, is The that merit of ‘complementary it is filiation', from Fortes's point of a concept which applies equally well to bot h of these contrasted societies but does not conflict with his thesis that both the Tallensi and the Ashanti have systems of unilineal descent. The concept ecame necessary to him precisely because he had decided at the start that the more familiar and more obvious notion of double unilineal descent was inappropriate. In retrospect Fortes seems to have decided that double unilineal descent is a special development of ‘complementary filiation', the latter being a feature of all unilineal descent structures. That such category distinctions are contrived rather than natural is evident from Goody's additional discrimination. Goody asserts that the LoWiili have ‘complementary descent rather than a dual descent system'.Since the concept of ‘complementary filiation' was first introduced so as to help in the distinction between ‘filiation' and ‘descent' and since the adjective ‘complementary' cannot here be given meaning except by reference to the word â⠂¬Ëœdescent', the total argument is clearly tautologous (Fortes, 1945, pp. 134, 20of; 1950, p. 287; 1953, p. 34; 1959; Goody, 1956b, p. 77). Now I do not claim that Professor Fortes is mistaken, but I think he is misled by his prior suppositions. If making and from enthnocentric science. we are to bias we must let escape both from typology turn to a different kind ofInstead of comparison repeat. Generalization us have generalization; instead of inductive; it butterfly collecting let us have inspired guesswork. Let me is consists in perceiving it is possible general laws in the circumstances of special cases; guesswork, a gamble, you may be wrong or you may be right, but if you happen to be right you have learnt something altogether new. In contrast, arranging butterflies according to their types and sub-types is tautology. It merely reasserts something you know already in a slightly different form. 6 RETHINKING ANTHROPOLOGY But if you are going is o start guessing, you need I to kno w how to guess. . d this wliat I am getting at when say that the form of thinking should be mathematical. Functional ism in a mathematical sense is not concerned with the interconnections between parts of a whole but with the principles of operation of partial systems. There is a direct conflict here with the dogmas of Malinowski and Malinowski's functionalism required us to think of each Society (or Culture, as Malinowski would have put it) as a totality Radcliffe-Brown. of a made up kinds — number of discrete empirical ‘things', of rather diverse institutions', e. g. groups of people, customs. These ‘things' are functionally interconnected to form a delicately balanced mechanism rather like the various parts of a wrist watch. cliff†e- The functionalism of Rad- Brown was equally mechanical though the focus of interest was different. RadclifTe-Brown was concerned, as it were, to distinguish wrist watches clocks, whereas Malinowski was interested in the gener al attributes of clockwork. But hath masters took as their starting point the notion that a culture or a society is an empirical whole made up rom grandfather of a limited two societies number of readily identifiable parts and that when we compare we are concerned to see whether or not the same kinds of is parts are present in both cases. This approach a mechanic but appropriate for a zoologist or for a botanist or for it is not the approach of a mathematician nor of an engineer and, in gineer. my view, the anthropologist has much in common with the en- But that is my private bias. I was originally trained as an engineer. The entities which we call societies are not naturally existing species, neither re they man-made mechanisms. But the analogy of a mechanism has quite as much relevance as the analogy of an organism. This is not the place to discuss the history of the organic analogy as a model for Society, but its arbitrariness is often forgotten. Hobbes, who developed his notion of a social organism in a very systematic way, discusses in his preface whether a mechanical or an organic analogy might be the more appropriate for his purpose. He opts for an organism only because he wants to include in his model a metaphysical prime mover (i. . God Life Force) (Hobbes, 1957, p. 5). In contrast RadcHffe-Brown employed the organic analogy as a matter of dogma rather than of choice (e. g. Radcliffe-Brown, 1957, pp. 82-86; 1940a, pp. 3, lo) and his butterfly collecting followers have accepted the appropriateness of the phrase ‘social organism' without serious discussion. Against this complacency I — must protest. It is certainly the case that social scientists must often resort all to analogy but eternity. we are not committed to one type of model making for Our task societies s to understand and explain what goes on in society, how work. If an engineer tries to explain to you how a digital computer RETHINKING ANTHROPOLOGY bolts. 7 works he doesn't spend his time classifying different kinds of nuts and He concerns himself with principles, not with things. He writes out argument as a mathematical equation of the utmost simplicity, somewhat on the lines of o + i = i i + i = 10. No doubt this example is frivolous; such computers embody their information in a code which is transmitted in positive and negative impulses denoted by the digital symbols o and i.The essential point is that although the information which can be embodied in such codes may be enormously complex, the basic principles on which the computing machines work is very simple. Likewise I would maintain that quite simple mechanical models can have relevance for social anthropology despite the acknowledged fact that the detailed empirical facts of social life display the utmost complexity. I don't want to turn anthropology into a branch of mathematics but I believe we can learn a lot by starting to think about society in a mathehis : ; matical way.Considered mathematicall y society is not an assemblage of things but an assemblage of variables. A good analogy would be with that branch of mathematics known as topology, which may crudely be described as the geometry of elastic rubber sheeting. If I have a piece of rubber sheet and draw a series of lines on it to symbolize the functional interconnections of some set of social phenomena and I then start stretching the rubber about, I can change the manifest shape of my original geometrical figure out of all recognition and yet clearly there is a sense in which it is the same figure all the time.The constancy of pattern is not manifest as an objective empirical fact but it is there as a mathematical generalization. By analogy, generalized structural patterns in anthropology are not restricted to societies of any one manifest structural type. you will tell me that topology is one of those which mere sociologists had best avoid, but I am not in fact proposing anything original. A very good simple account of the nature of topology appears in an article under that title in the current edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.The author himself makes the point that because topology is a non-metrical form of mathematics it deserves especial attention from social scientists. I Now know that a lot of alarming scientific mysteries The fundamental Any closed curve is arc of a circle is ‘the variable in topology ‘the is the degree of connectedness. same as' any other regardless of its shape; the same as' a straight line because each is open ended. Contrariwise, a closed curve has a greater degree of connectedness than an arc. If of pattern case if we apply these ideas to sociology particular relationships e cease to be interested in and concern ourselves instead with the regularities relationships. is among neighbouring In the simplest possible there be a relationship p which intimately associated with another relationship q then in a topological study we shall not concern ourselves 8 RETHINKING ANTHROPOLOGY with the particular characteristics of/) and q but with their mutual characteristics, i. e. with the algebraic ratio p'^q. But it must be understood that the relationships and sets of relationships which are symbolized in this way cannot properly be given specific numerical values.The reader should bear this point in mind when he encounters the specimens of pseudo-mathematics which occur later in this paper. All propositions in topology can also be expressed as propositions in symbolic logic (see Carnap, 1958, chapter G) and it was probably a consideration of this fact which led Nadel to introduce symbolic logic into own view is that while the consideration book (Xadel, 1957). of mathematical and logical models may help the anthropologist to order his last My his theoretical arguments in an all this intelligent way, his actual procedure s should be non-mathematical. The pattern relevance of to my main theme that the saTne structural may turn up in any kind of society patrilineal —a mathematical approach matrilineal makes no prior assumption that from non-unilineal systems or structures. all unilincal systems are basically different structures from the contrary, the principle of parity leads us to discount rigid category distinctions of this kind. On Let me try to illustrate I for the occasion shall take my point with an example. To be my example from Malinowski. Malinowski reported, as a ppropriate Most of you will know that fact of empirical ethnography, that the Trobrianders profess ignorance of the connection between copulation and pregnancy and that this ignorance serves as a rational justification for their system of matrilineal descent. From the Trobriand point of view ‘my father' (tama) is not a blood relative at all but a kind of affine, *my mother's husband' (Malinowski, 1932a, p. 5). However, alongside their dogmatic ignorance of the facts of life, Trobrianders also maintain that every child should resemble its mother's husband (i. . its father) but that no child could ever resemble a member of its own matrilineal kin. Malinowski seems to have thought it paradoxical that Trobrianders should hold both these doctrines at the same time. He was apparently bemused by the same kind of ethnocentric assumptions as later led a Tallensi informant to tell Professor Fortes that ‘both parents transmit their blood to their offspring, as can be seen from the fact that Tallensi children may resemble either parent in looks' (Fortes, 1949, p. 35; my italics). This is mixing up sociology and genetics.We know, and apparently the Tallensi assume, that physical appearance is genetically based, but there is no reason why primitive people in general should associate ideas of genetic inheritance with ideas about physical resemblance between persons. The explanation which the Trobrianders gave to Malinowski was that a father impresses his appearance on his son by cohabiting repeatedly with the mother and ther eby ‘moulding' (kuli) the child in her womb (Malinowski, 1932a, p. 176) which is reminiscent of the Ashanti . RETHINKING ANTHROPOLOGY view that the father shapes the body of his child as might a potter (Rattray, 1929, p. 9). This Trobriand theory is quite consistent with the view that the father is related to the son only as mother's husband that is, an affine and not as a kinsman. There are other Trobriand doctrines which fall into line with this. The father's sister is ‘the prototype of the lawful woman' (Malinowski, 1932a, p. 450) which seems to be more or less the equivalent of saying that — the father (tama) is much the same sort of relation as a brother-in-law.Again, although, as Powell has shown (Powell, 1956, p. 314), marriage with the father's sister's daughter is rare, the Trobrianders constantly assured Malinowski that this was a very right and proper marriage. Evidently in their view the category tama (which includes both father and father's sister's s on) is very close to that of lubou (brother-in-law) (Mal- inowski, 1932a, pp. 86, 451). The similarity is asserted not only in verbal expression but also in the pattern of economic obligation, for the harvest gift (urignbu) paid by a married man is due both to his mother's husband tama) and to his sister's husband (lubou) (Malinowski, 1935, I, pp. 386, 413-18). From my point of view this cluster of Trobriand beliefs and attitudes is a ‘pattern of organizational ideas'— it specifies a series of categories, in a particular relationship and places them with one another as in an was biased by his down to earth empiricism, by European prejudices and by his interest in psycho-analysis, and he refused to accept tlie Trobriand doctrine at its face value. Instead he refurbished his concept of ‘sociological paternity' which he had originalgebraic equation.But Malinowski ally devised to fit a quite different context, that of patrilineal organization among On to the Australia n Aborigines (Malinowski, 19 13, p. 170-83). this earlier occasion Malinowski had used ‘sociological paternity' relations show how between parents and children and between spouses derive from customary rules and not from any universal facts of biology or psychology, but in the later application of these ideas to Trobriand circumstances he shifts his ground and the argument becomes confused by the introduction of naive psychological considerations. On the face of t ‘sociological paternity', as used in The Sexual Life of attitudes Savages, seems to mean that even in a society which, like the Trobriands, sociological still denies the facts of ‘biological paternity', pertain to paternity, as zve understand it, which far, may be found. So so good. But Malinowski goes further than this. Instead of arguing, as in the Australian case, that kinship attitudes have a purely social origin, he now insists that social attitudes to kinship arc facts. rooted in universal psycholog ical The paternal relationship contains elements which are necessarily resent in the father/child relationship of all societies, no matter what the circumstances of custom and social structure confusing. may be. This is all very On the one hand the reader is is told quite plainly that the Trobriand child taught to think of his father as a non-relative, as an lO RETHINKING ANTHROPOLOGY individual with the special non-kinship status of mother's husband. But on the other hand the reader is forced to conclude that this ‘IVobriand mother's husband is related to the mother's child ‘as a sociological father', that is to say by ties of kinship as well as by tics of affinity.The argument, as a whole, is self-contradictory. is You may about. well think that this a yery hairsplitting point to make a fuss How can it possibly make any difference whether I think of a parti- cular male as my father or as is my mother's husband? Well, all I can say that anthropologists do Professor Fort es, Dr Goody and Dr Kathleen Gough on this subject that worry about such things. are so disturbed by my heretical yiews oflF time to try to bruise my owski's argument (Fortes, 1959)-

Frankenstein: The Meaning behind the Words Essay

Upon receiving all the books that we had to read during this course, Frankenstein was the one that I was looking most forward to reading. Most horror fiction novels have the same story line with no actual meaning behind the writing, but as I opened this novel and continued to read, I really became interested in the deeper meaning of Frankenstein and I just had to continue reading to find out more. Unlike most horror fiction novels, Frankenstein in my opinion has the ability to keep its readers interested instead of boring them. Mary Shelley used her writing ability to tell a great story that involved the relationship between man and mans creation. A major observation that I made while reading Frankenstein was of all the several themes made throughout the whole entire book. Some themes where obvious, others you really had to think about it. All though many people may think Shelley’s Frankenstein is just another normal horror fiction novel, I believe this novel provides several themes throughout the entire story line because it shows the themes of human injustice towards outsiders, ignorance is bliss, and society’s sexist viewpoints. The main theme that I noticed while reading Frankenstein, was the idea of human injustice towards outsides. All throughout the novel, the monster has to face man’s cruelty to those who are different. Frankenstein’s monster is indeed an outcast and he doesn’t belong in human society. The monster’s alienation from society, his struggle for revenge, and his unfulfilled desire for a companion, are all shared by his creator. I noticed while reading the novel how quickly Victor became similar his creation. Both Victor and his creation live in isolation from society, they both hate their miserable lives, and both Victor and his creation are suffering. Shelly did a very good job showing the relationship with man and his relationship with outsiders, and how cruel society can be when it comes to being different from everyone else. The monster states, â€Å"When I looked around I saw and heard of none like me. Was I, the, a monster, a blot upon the earth from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?† This quote explains itself. The monster was different, and therefore he was alone in the world. This was the easiest theme to recognize, in my opinion, because this theme plays a big role in society. Shelly’s writing shows exactly what people in society that are different go through, by showing it through Victor and his creation. A second theme that really stood out to me was the idea that ignorance is bliss. With the power of human reason, through science and technology, it challenged a lot of concepts about world and man’s relationship with his creator. This was the idea of Shelley’s time. Although this was a big concept, many questioned stressing the limits of human capacity. Shelley uses this theme in her book. She uses the idea in chapter four when Victor warns Walton to not follow in his footsteps stating, â€Å"Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow† (38). During Shelley’s time, including many others, some aspects of nature should never be discovered by man. Shelly used both the new sciences of chemistry and electricity of life to conjure up the bodies of the dead. Victor is a man that clearly wanted to discover and did discover these aspects of nature and he stole the idea of creation from God and used it for his own ill-advised purposes. The third theme that I analyzed while reading Frankenstein, was the indicting towards society for its sexist viewpoints. Throughout Frankenstein, Victor sets the view for women as weak, suffering, non useful human beings who live to serve and depend on the men in their lives. Many people believe Shelly could have experienced these sexist points at one point in her own life, but she may or may not have agreed with it. In Frankenstein, Victor puts the name of a barbarian to the monster because the monster has a very good notion of the opposite sex. The monster, unlike Victor, believes that men and woman are equal and both should be treated equally. The monster, throughout the novel seeks companionship from a female, which does not convey a desire to rule a women or that a woman should have to depend on the men in her life. The monster states, â€Å"I am alone and miserable: man will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create† (129). His desire for companionship just shows the monsters need for equal companionship with someone to share his sufferings. Frankenstein expressed several different themes all throughout the novel. The three themes discussed in this paper really stood out to me and I felt they played the biggest parts in the novel, but many of the other themes expressed in Frankenstein played a big role in making the novel what it is today. Shelly used these themes for her novel Frankenstein, to suggest the monster from the novel is some sort of metaphor of our own culture. Shelly’s way of using actual real world themes in her novel allowed her to show how these themes are actual portrayed in the world. Frankenstein is definitely one of the best horror fiction novels; not just because of the story, but because of the deeper meanings you can get from reading the novel. WORKS CITED Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York: Dover, 1994.

ACT Prep Strategies If You Have a Low Test Score but High GPA

SAT / ACT Prep Strategies If You Have a Low Test Score but High GPA SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Do you have a high GPA, perform well in school, but can’t seem to do well on the SAT / ACT? This is a common pattern, and there are certain strategies that work especially well for you.First, we'll figure out why this is happening to you, and, depending on the reason, suggest ways to improve your SAT / ACT score.Second, we’ll go over what a high GPA but low SAT / ACT score signals to colleges and how to counter that signal. Academic Performance: The Missing Puzzle Piece Between GPA and SAT / ACT Score Many students and parents believe that only SAT / ACT scores and GPA make up a person's academics. After all, college admissions officers often use these two numbers to comprise the whole of high school academics. However, missing from this picture is a hidden variable: academic performance. Academic performance measures how skilled and strong a student is in a fair classroom setting compared to all students in the United States. You can think of academic performance as the percentile that you would get if you were in one huge class with all students in the USA. Unlike GPA, academic performance is a percentile measure, so there's no grade inflation. Because you’re in the same class as the rest of the USA, there is no such thing as an â€Å"easy class† or an â€Å"easy school district.† Unlike SAT / ACT scores, academic performance is not just based on a test. Instead, it’s based on projects, discussions, effort, and everything else that goes into learning. Colleges care about underlying academic performance more than GPA or SAT / ACT scores. Academic performance gets at the core of what colleges want to know: whether you will do well academically when you get to their school. Colleges think GPAs are imperfect because they depend too much on your school district and teachers. They also think SAT / ACT scores are imperfect because academics is not all about tests. However, they can’t measure academic performance directly, so they have to infer it from GPA and SAT/ACT scores. If you are prepping for the SAT / ACT, it's important for you to know your true academic performancebefore you begin applying to colleges. Having an accurate idea of your academic performance will enable you to develop a much more effective test prep plan. For example, if your true academic performance is high, yet your SAT score is low, then you should focus on improving your test-taking strategies because it is likely that a few strategic points are holding you back. However, if your academic performance is low, then focusing on strategy likely won't improve your score. Instead, you want to focus more on content. The point is that your true academic performance is also important for you to know! For most students, the three factors of 1) GPA, 2) academic performance, and 3) SAT / ACT scores move together most of the time. If you’re a student who is smart, studies hard, and knows all the content, this will mean you generally have: A high GPA, since you do well in class and get good grades. Good academic performance, since you’d do well even pooled with all US students. A high SAT / ACT score, since you know the content and have prepped enough. In statistics, we say that these three factors are usually highly correlated, or move together most of the time: Ideally, all three factors move together (with only minor discrepancies) because they are related. In reality, the three may be disconnected, but often not by very much. Therefore, usually both you and colleges can tell true academic performance. If you have a high GPA and high SAT/ACT score, it more than likely means you’re a high performer, and vice versa. There is a problem when your GPA is high, but your SAT / ACT score is low. You have mixed signals. How do colleges, or even you, know whether your true academic performance is high or low? When GPA is higher than SAT / ACT score, it’s important to figure out where your true academic performance lies. In this situation, there are some steps you need to follow to find a solution. First, you need to figure out your true academic performance. Knowing your true academic performance will help you prep in the most effective way. We have guidelines below to help you figure out how well you're performing academically. After you learn your true academic performance and prep for the SAT / ACT, your scores may either go up to match your GPA, or they may still fall short of your GPA. In the latter case, it's important to show colleges that your true performance is high- and we'll tell you how to do that too! How to Tell Where Your Academic Performance Really Is Okay, so you have a high GPA and a low SAT / ACT score. How do you tell where your true academic performance is?A good way is to start with your GPA, which is high. We’ll then examine whether your GPA matches your academic performance or is overstating your academic performance. The Most Common Reasons GPA Overstates Academic Performance The most common reasons a high GPA can overstate academic performance are grade inflation and a weak school district. You should begin by examining these two factors. As illustrated in the diagram below,grade inflation reflects the fact that the average grade has been going up over time. While a B average (3.0 unweighted GPA) may have been way above average several decades ago, today, in many schools, it’s far below average. Therefore, that B average, that 3.0 GPA, may not be as high as you think. I have seen a school where getting a 4.5 weighted GPA put you below the average. (It turns out that, at this school, everyone was taking APs, and the AP teachers gave out almost all A’s regardless of performance.) The Department of Education reports more than a .30 increase in high school GPAs in less than 20 years. To learn if grade inflation is skewing your academic performance, you should examine whether your GPA is relatively high compared to your entire grade.You can introspect on this, or you can just ask your guidance counselor for your rank in your class. If your guidance counselor doesn’t have a rank for you, ask 10 of your friends what their GPA is and compare their answers against yours. Remember, since true academic performance is relative to the other students in the USA, you need make your GPA high relative to other current students' (and not on some internal intuitive scale where 3.0 counts as great)! Using your exact rank above, or by asking your friends, you can get a rough idea of your GPA percentile. If you’re ranked 50 out of 200 people in your grade, then you’re 75th percentile. If you ask 10 friends and 5 are below your GPA, then you are 50th percentile. Is your GPA percentile much lower than you thought? If so, that’s a sign of low academic performance. Likewise, is your GPA percentile around the same range as your low SAT / ACT percentile? If so, again, chances are your academic performance is actually low. The second reason that a high GPA can overstate academic performance, even if your class rank is good, is due to a weak school district. By a weak school district, I mean that the average student in your school district is not academically that strong. Sometimes you have a sense of this - you might realize your school district isn’t particularly renowned in your state. However, one way to be sure is to check your school’s average SAT or ACT scores (you can often find this by Googling â€Å"[Your School Name] Average SAT ACT score† or asking your guidance counselor). If they’re lower than 500 per section for the SAT, or 20 for the ACT, then that’s a sign you’re in a weaker school district. If your school’s average SAT score is below 450, and their ACT score is below 18, then it’s likely that, even if your GPA percentile is good, your academic performance compared to the rest of the US is not strong. High GPA? Use the table below to figure out your academic performance Factor Considered Signs of Low Academic Performance Signs of High Academic Performance GPA Percentile: Compute using your school rank. GPA percentile is lower than you expected. GPA percentile is similar to your low SAT/ACT percentile. GPA Percentile matches what you expected. GPA percentile is much higher (20% or more) than your SAT/ACT percentile. School District Strength: Compute using your district’s average SAT / ACT score. Your district’s average SAT score is lower than 450 per section, or ACT score is lower than 18. The lower the average score, the weaker the district likely is. Your district’s SAT score is higher than 500 per section, or their ACT score is higher than 20. The higher the better. Introspecting Other Factors There are more signs that you can use to learn whether your high GPA is reflecting a high academic performance or whether your high GPA is misrepresenting a low academic performance. The key here is to introspect ona number of other factors, some of which will be similar to those above, and others which will be quite different. Introspecting just means looking at yourself honestly. In order to be honest, you have to be critical and accept the fact that you may have flaws. You must also have confidence that there are certain parts of you that are genuinely strong. Introspecting other factors can also tell you whether your true academic performance is high or not. Since this sort of qualitative introspection is very fuzzy, there is no hard line for whether your academic performance is high or not. Use each of the factors below as a weight. As you look through these lists, think about how you feel when you take the SAT / ACT, and, when you answer questions incorrectly, what the most common causes of those mistakes are. It may help to do some practice problems or review an old exam. It may also help to look at your high school transcript and think about the grades you got, how easy it was to get those grades, and how well you understood the material those classes covered. If you have a high GPA and low SAT / ACT score, these factors suggest HIGHreal academic performance: You find yourself especially anxious or nervous during the test. You find that, when you take the test unofficially in a realistic environment, your top score in a section (e.g. math) across many practice tests is much higher than your math score on a real administration of the SAT / ACT. I don’t mean 50 points better, but 120 points or more (on the SAT scale). This is a sign that your skill is actually high, but, during the actual exam, you run into some test-format trouble. You find that, when you give yourself just 20-30% extra time in an unofficial setting, your score shoots up by more than 100 points per section. You spend a lot of time during the SAT / ACT on questions that are much too hard for your skill level. Therefore, you end up putting a lot of time into questions you don’t get right anyway. The SAT / ACT is one of the few tests you do poorly in. On other exams, like in-class tests, AP tests, etc., you perform very well. You misread numbers and words a lot on the SAT / ACT, getting questions wrong even though you know the answer. Don’t count this factor if you genuinely are confused about the meaning of the words or numbers. You didn’t study at all for the SAT / ACT (less than 5 hours). You don’t study for the SAT / ACT because you find SAT / ACT study irresistibly boring. If you have a high GPA and low SAT / ACT score, these factors suggest LOWreal academic performance: Your classes give out a lot of A+, A, and A-s. Your school district is a weaker school district and, therefore, gives higher grades relative to objective skill. Your high grades are due to an easy teacher. Your high grades are due to pressuring the school (such as nagging your teacher for re-grades, parent pressure through PTA or Board of Education). You take easy classes to get better grades. The average GPA of your school is high. You are using the â€Å"weighted GPA† that goes as high as 4.33 or 5.00 but comparing it against unweighted GPAs (perfect students get a 4.00). Your GPA looks high compared to your school rank. Your grades / GPA were a lot lower at another school that didn’t have the properties above. You don’t feel more nervous than the average student during the SAT / ACT. Your classroom (non-SAT/ACT) test scores generally reflect your overall grade in a class and how well you understand the material. In other words, you don’t do particularly poorly on tests in class. You get a lot of questions wrong due to not knowing the underlying concept (e.g. what is volume of a three-dimensional shape, what the grammar rules for parallel construction are etc.) After reviewing these two lists, you should have a good idea of whether your academic performance is low or high. If you have qualities from both lists, figure out which list you have more factors in or which factors you feel have the biggest impact. For either case, we have specific advice for you. If you've found that your academic performance is high, start reading the next section. However, if your academic performance is actually low, skip down two sections for advice specifically tailored to you. How to Prep If Your Academic Performance Is Actually High If your academic performance is high, the good news is that you may have an easier time prepping because you only need to focus on test-taking skills, which are relatively fast to learn. You don’t have to worry about learning academic content, which is usually a slow slog. Also, even if you don’t get your SAT / ACT fully up to your GPA, you have many options to truthfully signal that you are actually an academic high-performer, which can convince colleges to place less significance on your SAT / ACT scores. Your SAT / ACT prep, however; will be quite different from that of an average student’s. Most average students are facing issues on all fronts with respect to the ACT / SAT. They need a little bit of work on content, a bit on timing, a bit on carelessness, and a bit on anxiety. However, for you, it is much more likely that there is one or, at most, two non-content issues holding you back. It is important to identify those issues specifically and focus on them. I had one student who was brilliant at math and could explain the most difficult ACT problem to me in person with no problem. But his scores all came back quite low for his skill. He wasn’t nervous about the test. He never ran out of time. It turns out that he was making a ton of careless mistakes. He understood all the problems and could solve them quickly, but he was just sloppy. I tailored a tactic specific to his situation: I asked him to read each question twice, and underline keywords. After trying that, he immediately scored a 35 (out of 36) on the next ACT. The above example likely illustrates the situation you are in.You have a singular non-content issue holding you back, and everything else is good. In these cases, I would absolutely not use a class or a book- these two options are much too one-size-fits-all. I would use a method that can properly identify and solve the issue, such as introspective self-study, a program that customizes to your needs (like PrepScholar Online Prep), or a skilled tutor who can find your one major weakness (like PrepScholar Tutoring). I will help you identify a few common weak spots for high academic performers with low SAT / ACT scores. For each one I’ll tell you how to identify the weak spot and what to do about it. Carelessness Carelessness is knowing the contents of a question, but making an error purely based on a lapse of attention. Misreading â€Å"integer† as â€Å"real number† counts as a careless error, forgetting what â€Å"integer† means is not a careless error. How to Identify:You know the answer to a question but just misread a number or a word. This is frequently overdiagnosed, so I recommend a more rigorous diagnosis method: Imagine answering the question with as much time as you needed and only starting your work after you've read the question three times over. Would you have avoided the mistake you made? If so, it’s a true careless error. Otherwise, this might be a content error that you’re brushing off as careless. Misreading `cat` as `rat’ is a careless error (clearly you know the difference between the two if you thought about it). Mistakingâ€Å"ambivalent† for â€Å"ambiguous† is rarely a careless error (most students actually don’t have the definitions of both words memorized). What causes carelessness? The main causes are reading too quickly and not focusing on the details. This often causes you to misread the question and thus answer it incorrectly. How to Solve:Do a few practice tests where you give yourself double time. Spend this extra time reading each question twice and underlining keywords. Be paranoid that your eyes might be playing tricks on you. Write down more steps of your thought process than you normally would (in algebra avoid bunching multiple operations into a single line). If carelessness is the true issue behind your low scores, you should see your score increasing as you apply these steps. Once these methods become a common habit, you should be able to apply them more quickly and easily. Begin reducing your time by 25% for each practice exam until you can take an entire practice exam in the standard amount of time while still minimizing the number of careless errors you make. For additional help, look at my strategies for carelessness in my article on SAT / ACT prep for high scorers. Running Out of Time How to Identify:During the middle of taking a section, you feel fine. (If you feel panicked during the middle of a section, refer to the section on anxiety below.) However, as time runs out on the section, you feel more rushed, and, when time is finally called, you’re leaving a lot of low-hanging fruit on the table. For example, during a real test you often find you have correct answers that you just didn’t have 20 seconds to bubble in, or there were still really easy questions that you didn’t get to. How to Solve:There are two strategies to try. First, do a practice test with 50% more time than you’re usually allocated, and see how much your score increases over normal. This provides an upper bound for how much your score can possibly increase. Make sure this increase is worthwhile and what you expect. If it is, then you know that learning better time management skills will raise your exam score. There are many ways to improve your timing skills, but the two major tips you should be using are becoming familiar with the exam and learning when to skip questions. The best way to get familiar with the SAT / ACT is to practice. By regularly completing practice tests or quizzes, you’ll become more familiar with the exam format, how questions are worded, and tricks you can use to find the correct answer more quickly. However, this information will only help if you don’t allow yourself to waste time struggling to answer questions you don’t understand. Therefore, you also need to learn to move on if you don’t know how to solve a problem. If you’ve stared at a problem for 30 seconds and have no idea how to solve it, move on and come back to it at the end if you have more time. Struggling with a single challenging question can eat up a lot of time and cause you to not get to other questions you might have been able to answer much more easily. After you have begun using the above tips, try the following strategy. Suppose you’re given 30 minutes to finish a section. Split the 30 minutes into the first 25 minutes and the last 5 minutes. Aim to finish the section in the first 25 minutes. After the first 25 minutes are done, stop your normal progress on the test. Instead, step back and reassess what the lowest-hanging fruit at this point is- bubbling in answers, reviewing that really easy question you made a careless mistake on, or doing one more question later on that you saw was easy. Do NOT try to make standard progress on the test anymore. See how much your score improves using this method. You should understand that the SAT / ACT is a timed test, and you will always feel time pressure (I’ve gotten perfect scores, and I still feel immense time pressure). The only thing you can do is make sure the time pressure is not preventing you from getting the lowest-hanging fruit. Anxiety Anxiety is primarily an emotional response, not a logical response. If you find that you’re not panicked or stressed during large parts of the test, anxiety is probably not the cause. The worst sufferers of anxiety are overcome with emotion just thinking about the exam. A clear sign you have anxiety is if you don’t spend most of the test time thinking about the questions themselves. Instead, you spend all your time thinking about the fact that you’re taking a test. How to Identify: Anxiety is relatively easy to diagnose. Usually, students with test anxiety will score substantially (200 points on SAT, 10 points on the ACT) better if they are asked the questions verbally with no time pressure. To test this, instead of doing a timed test, have someone read the questions to you (while you have a paper copy for reference), so you can think through the problem out loud. How to Solve: Fixing anxiety is relatively hard compared to diagnosing it. In fact, there are entire fields of psychology focused on the issue of anxiety in different contexts. However, there are definite steps that you can take. The first step is physiological: taking control of your body. Try taking deep breaths between each page flip to calm yourself down. Try meditation before the test and a mini-meditation during breaks. Also, if appropriate, check with your primary care doctor to see if you actually have a clinical medical issue with anxiety. I always hate to go from academic performance into medical territory, but I’ve seen students with extreme anxiety issues who perform better after their doctor found it was actually a medical issue and prescribed beta-blockers to eliminate the anxiety. Second, you have to attack the cognitive part of anxiety. A core reason that anxiety exists cognitively is because you are focusing too much on yourself. You are spending too much time thinking about you taking the test or doing badly on the test. You are obsessed with concepts of yourself. Instead, do everything you can to direct attention away from yourself. Pay attention to what the room looks like. Then, pay attention to the question, how it’s typeseton the page. Finally, pay attention to what the question is asking. You need to stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about the question at hand. As part of reducing cognitive anxiety, it may help to try to predict what horrible things will happen if you don’t do well on the test. Write these predictions down on paper. You might say â€Å"parents will be very upset; never want to talk to me again,† or â€Å"my academics are ruined.† Then, if you don’t do well, compare that with what actually happens. Turns out, surprise surprise, parents get over it, and you always have the chance to take the test again. You’ll find that your worst fears are not true at all if you write them down beforehand and compare them to what happens. Finally, a tip for actually taking the test. Definitely do the easiest questions first, and give yourself some time to do them. The easiest questions will build your confidence and let you realize that the test can be done. You may not get all the problems, or even get to all the problems, butthat’s totally fine as long as long as you’re making progress during the exam. If you feel the anxiety is caused by being unfamiliar with the test, you should also try taking a few practice tests under as realistic conditions as possible. For some students, this familiarity and exposure reduce anxiety by a lot. If you suffer from anxiety, there are multiple ways for you to improve your test scores. Lack of Preparation for Standardized Tests How to Identify: This issue is the easiest to identify. If you’ve spent less than five hours studying for the test, then you’ve essentially had no preparation for the SAT / ACT. In fact, taking the actual SAT / ACT probably takes more than five hours if you add in transportation time and waiting for the exam to begin, so if you haven't even spent that much time studying for the test, you really haven't begun studying yet. How to Solve: Fortunately, this is also the easiest issue to fix as well as the item most worth fixing. After all, the first few hours you put into ACT / SAT prep will be the most efficient hours you’ll ever spend getting into college. In no other item on the college app can you just put in 20 to 80 hours and tremendously boost your admission chances. If you want to just tick off the box, gather a couple of practice tests and do them. That will get you past the five-hour minimum mark and get your score up effectively. However, if you want to boost your score by more than just a few points, you’ll want to invest in a real program. There are many valid programs out there, and our own program, PrepScholar, lets you prepare easily online. Lack of Motivation to Prepare for Standardized Tests How to Identify: You have at least tried to prepare, but you’ve found it incredibly daunting. Whenever you begin SAT / ACT prep, you find yourself bored. You make excuses to do anything else instead of SAT / ACT studying. How to Solve: This is a very important issue to overcome. If the student is not internally motivated to do well on the test, he or she will not improve much! (I also am presuming here that you, dear reader, are not personally the student because even reading this far into this article shows some baseline motivation.) In this case, examine what has motivated the student in the past. Beating his classmates? Making her parents proud? Getting a monetary reward? The best motivation is if the student wants to go to a good college or get scholarships. However, at this point, anything is fair game. Think about the ways the student has been motivated before and if these same motivators can be used to convince him to prepare more for the SAT / ACT. Talk to him about the ways a high test score can personally benefit him (can get into a better college which can lead to better job prospects, potentially avoid tens of thousands of dollars of student debt etc.) If this doesn’t work, you may want to consider hiring a tutor so the student is interacting regularly with someone who has experience with this issue and can hold him accountable. How to Solve All of These Issues In order to solve any of these above issues, you need to correctly identify it. It’s important that you go through a diagnostic phase first and figure out exactly what your weakness is. Getting treatment for the wrong problem won’t help you at all. Worse, it can hurt you when you don’t see your score improve and get discouraged. The tips above will help you identify the issues and find the right solution. However, if you'd like the solution found automatically, you can look into our Online Prep program where we leverage the data we collected through helping tens of thousands of students succeed on standardized tests. We automatically find your area of weakness and drill it away, which is especially useful if there are only one or two strategic areas you are weak in, like test anxiety or carelessness. How to Prep if Your Academic Performance Is Low If your academic performance is low, the bad news is that improving on the SAT / ACT will be more difficult. However, the good news is that the advice and steps you need to follow for the SAT / ACT are more standard for you. In this case, you don’t have any special weakness with the SAT / ACT. You don’t likely have many anxiety or test format issues that you’ll need special prep to overcome. For one reason or another, your GPA appears higher than it would for other students in the same ACT / SAT position as you. Your high GPA doesn’t make your study plan any different from that of an average student with a low SAT / ACT score. Thus, you should follow the standard guide for students with low SAT / ACT scores. We have many great guides for those with lower SAT / ACT scores who want to go higher, and I’d strongly recommend going through all of them: For the SAT, we have a general guide for raising your SAT score 160+ points, as well as guides for getting at least a 600 on each of the three main sections: Math, Reading, and Writing and Language. Similarly, for the ACT, we have a guide for raising your composite score 4+ points and guides for the Math, Science, Reading, and English sections. One thing you should make sure you do is complete some rigorous SAT / ACT prep. If your GPA is high and your SAT / ACT score is low, then it’s best to prevent the latter from marring colleges’ interpretations of your application. Time and time again, we’ve seen that SAT / ACT scores improve the fastest in the first 40 or so hours. Therefore, I would recommend at least studying that much for the SAT / ACT. Even if your academic performance is moderate, you can still improve your SAT / ACT scores through study, which will make your application look much stronger. Of course, if you’ve put 40, 100 hours, or more into SAT / ACT prep and your SAT / ACT score is still low, then the fact that you’ve diagnosed yourself as a low academic performer tells you exactly what to do: improve on your baseline content and academics. You can do this in many ways: General Strategies: Use an SAT / ACT program with a lot of content focus. Our PrepScholar Online SAT / ACT program devotes more than 50% of lesson time to baseline content and academics. Get a good tutor to teach you the underlying topics. Set aside a certain number of hours a week to improve your baseline content. Having a set schedule will make it easier and more likely for you to complete your studying. Math/Science Strategies: Review your math textbook, and ask for extra help if needed. Ensure that you’ve covered all the math topics on the SAT / ACT. Usually, these tests don’t cover very difficult topics like calculus or matrices, so choose classes that overlap with what the SAT / ACT covers. Focus part of your studying specifically on graphs, what information they provide, and how to interpret them. You can use examples specifically for test prep or study graphs you’ve used or seen in class. If you’re taking the ACT, brush up on geometry as well as algebra, since the ACT tests geometry much more than the SAT does. If you’re taking the SAT, it will still benefit you to know some geometry, but the majority of math problems will be on algebra, so focus most of your studying there. Reading/English/Writing Strategies: Develop your reading skills by reading often and using concepts like theme, tone, etc. to analyze the text. If you’re more comfortable with fiction or narrative writing, broaden your skills by reading more scientific passages, and vice versa. Learn the major grammar rules the SAT / ACT tests so you can nail those questions on the exam. Review some vocabulary lists so you’re more likely to be familiar with words you come across on the exam. Ask your English teacher for feedback on essays you’ve written and ways you can improve. To summarize, if you find that your true academic performance is low, then your SAT / ACT prep process is very standard. Use our numerous guides to help yourself improve. You should also look into our PrepScholar Online Prep program How to Apply to College With a High GPA but Low Test Score The above advice examined why you had low SAT / ACT scores but a high GPA. By using the missing puzzle piece of academic performance, we gave you different advice depending on your situation. Now, hopefully, after following the advice above, your ACT / SAT score will have risen to par with your GPA. After all, the best way to solve this situation is not to find excuses, but to actually improve your SAT / ACT score, so that will always be the best option.However, in case your SAT / ACT score still hasn’t increased as much as you want, this section gives you advice on how to apply to college. This section is also useful to read even before you begin SAT / ACT prep to see how an improved test score can bypass this problem entirely. Having a high GPA but low SAT / ACT score at least is better than a low GPA and low SAT / ACT score. Of course, it’s not as good as having both a high GPA and high SAT / ACT score. For colleges, a high GPA but low SAT / ACT score sends mixed signals - one indicates that your academic performance is high while the other indicates your academic performance is low. Just like above, where we explained how to figure out your true academic performance, colleges will also be seeking your true academic performance.The major difference in this situation is, regardless of your internal assessment, it is always more favorable for you to signal higher academic performance. Conversely, you want to avoid mistakenly signalinglow academic performance. On one hand, colleges hope that you’re truthfully a high academic performer, just not good on the ACT / SAT. Maybe you just dislike tests or don’t do well on â€Å"aptitude tests† like the SAT (versus content tests like the APs). Maybe the SAT / ACT stresses you out. The more you can emphasize this picture, the better you will do. On the other hand, colleges are afraid that you might, at the core, be a mediocre academic performer - that your SAT / ACT score is telling the truth, and your GPA is the one that’s fibbing. After all, GPAs are very difficult to compare across different classes, different teachers, and different schools. The entire reason colleges rely on ACT / SAT scores in the first place is to have a uniform way to measure students across all their environmental variation. Colleges are thus afraid that the high GPA is due to it being goosed up through one or more of so many possibilities: taking easy classes, getting in the teacher's’ good graces, being from an easy school district, or dozens of other ways that GPAs can be artificially raised. The more you can deemphasize this picture, the better you’ll do. To emphasize that your SAT / ACT scores don’t represent your true ability, and your GPA isn’t artificially high, here are some tips: Take classes with standardized tests and curriculum. The IB (International Baccalaureate)or similar program is the best. The grading is not all test based, yet it is standardized, so doing well on this really tells colleges that your high GPA is legitimate. Take other standardized tests, like the AP tests, or competitions like AMC. If you do well on these they definitely are effective at taking the sting off low standardized test scores. However, be aware that, on these tests you may likely suffer from the same issues that caused your low ACT / SAT scores. Have teachers vouch for your top performance, emphasizing that your performance is excellent relative to classmates, that your school is a high performing school, and most importantly, your performance is high relative to students at strongschools the teacher has taught at. Take classes at your local college.The better you can do in a college class relative to the college’s difficulty, the better you’ll be able to prove your skills are high. Perform in nationwide competitions to show that, face-to-face, you rank high. (If the following is somewhat true for you): Emphasize in your essay that your school is a difficult one, it’s ranked highly in the state, and that you have a high rank in the school. Take classes at highly-ranked neighboring high schools and show high grades in these classes. Consider preparing especially for the interview and essay portion of the college application. These items have a large impact on college admissions, and many students who are not especially strong on tests tend to do stellar on these. How will your signaling change if you’re actually a high academic performer versus a low academic performer? Well for one, high academic performers will have a much easier time doing the tasks above because they’ll be able to use their underlying skill to achieve it. However, since the abovesignalingis beneficial, everyone should attempt it whether they classify themselves as a high or low performer.In fact, you can even say that your ability to accomplish the above (e.g. IB classes) in some ways partially makes you a high performer. Your Real Performance and Overplacing Into Colleges What sort of college should you apply toif you have a high GPA but low SAT / ACT scores? The answer is that your competitiveness level will be about halfway between your GPA level and SAT / ACT level. After all, many colleges weigh GPA and SAT/ACT by similar amounts in admissions. For example, if your GPA puts you at the median of a US News rank 10 school, but your ACT puts you in the middle of a US News rank 70 school, you would be competitive at a rank 40 school or so. Note, however, that you’ll have a wider spread, a wider variability to which schools accept you. Some higher ranked schools (especially progressive private schools) might forgive the low ACT score, while other lower ranked schools (especially public state schools) may be quite strict. Finally, you might be wondering about overplacement. Suppose you’re a low academic performer, but using our stellar techniques above, you are able to achieve a school leaps beyond what you would otherwise be able to. Would it be a mistake to go to a school beyond where you otherwise could have gone? On an ethical front, you need to make sure what you say above is true. Not lying in your application, not saying your school is difficult when it is easy, is not only the ethical thing to do, it’s also the operationally smart thing to do because college admissions officers have a ton of data at their disposal. For the best experience for yourself, it is important not to overplace into one particular type of college: the difficult, grind-you-down sort of college. In these colleges, if you get there, and you don’t belong, you run a huge risk of flunking your classes, feeling bad, and not learning. Fortunately, it’s easy to tell which colleges are bad to overplace into: look at the graduation rate of the colleges. Any overall graduation rate under 90% is a huge red flag - these are schools that will chew you up and spit you out if you don’t meet their academic rigor. Do not overplace into these. Conversely, schools with graduation rates above 95% will likely baby you through - these colleges tend to tolerateoverplacement a lot better. Time for a personal story: many of my friends went to theUniversity of Chicago, a notoriously difficult university. I saw them pull all-nighters, recount stories of classmates being expelled for failing, and havepeople generally being pushed to their academic limit. Even the average student was having a hardtime meeting academic goals; I can only imagine an under-qualified student completely floundering in a school as punishing as UChicago. Now, I went to Harvard College, and the mythical motto there (with a huge dollop of truth) is that it’s hard to get in, but once you do, anyone can graduate. With an overall graduation rate of above 97% recently, this is completely true. Classmate didn’t fulfill a few requirements? I saw my college drop these requirements like flies. Flunking Algebraic Topology? Take â€Å"Magic with Numbers† instead. If you overplaced into Harvard, chances are you’d have a decent time all around, and you’d benefit from the educa tion and degree. The point is, you should focus on the overall graduation rate if you fear the consequences of overplacing. Parting Thoughts Just to reemphasize one final time, the strategies in the previous sections for applying with a low SAT / ACT score are only a band-aid for the underlying problem. If you have a fire in your house, the above tells you how to minimize damage. It’s much better to not have a fire in your house in the first place. Likewise, If you’re high in GPA but low in SAT / ACT, the absolute best solution is to bring up your SAT / ACT score. If you haven’t prepared at all - putting in 40 hours either by yourself or with a highly rated program is the first thing you should do right now! What's Next? Wondering how to start studying?Read aboutthe pros and cons of each type of test prep and learn which method is the best for you. Want to learnwhat your current test score is?Take a practice test! Checkout our official SAT practice tests and official ACT practice tests. Looking for some quick ways to boost your score?Check out ourguides to learn 15 tips forraising your SAT score and your ACT score.