Stuff paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Stuff paper - Essay Example Coffee today is one of the most popular beverages in the world. The coffee beans are grinded to form a powder from which the beverage is prepared. It is one of the most popular beverages consumed by more than one third of the world’s total population. One major difference found in its consumption is in the way the drink is consumed around the world. (Kolecki, n.d). People, in general, prefer to consume coffee according to their taste and liking. This includes adding items like milk, creamer, and sugar to the actual coffee to create a particular individualized taste. Therefore, part of the attraction of coffee as a drink is the fact that one can personalize the drink to one’s individual liking. Coffee’s popularity has resulted in a wide demand and increased production throughout the world. The raw materials for coffee are obtained from a fruit’s seed, which is known as the coffee bean. (As You Sow, 2010). These beans are collected from the coffee trees that contain aromatic substances which add up to the taste of the beverage. When the berries are ripened, the beans provide a better taste for the beverage. The coffee trees themselves grow well in a climate of moderate temperature. Apart from the conditions of the climate, the soil too plays a vital role in cultivating the coffee beans. Fertile soil enables better cultivation and production of the coffee beans. A well maintained volcanic soil also helps in the cultivation, as it improves the flavor of the beans. The manufacturing process of coffee does not end up impacting the environment as severely as the manufacturing of other beverages. (Wintgens, 2009). The environmental consequence is certainly varied as the tree is grown in places where the natural soil is at its best. The cultivation does not include any artificial plantation or pesticides and hence it does not create chemical harm to the environment. Another aspect is the social consequences of the object, coffee. Due to the i ncreased production of coffee beans, countries like Brazil and Africa have extensively benefited. Since the country’s economic stability grows through the plantation of coffee beans, the social consequence is obviously beneficial (Wintgens, 2009). However, this does not mean that there are not any environmental consequences within the production of coffee. The actual use of the land to produce coffee is cause for some concern. Coffee is a cash crop, meaning that land is often cleared to grow it, and this can take away from even more sustainable resources. Some type of monitoring program can be implemented to ensure that other resources are not being stripped, or at least stripped beyond their capacity to reproduce themselves. Where the rainforest is involved, this has caused growing concern for many environmentalists, since much of the time the rainforest will be destroyed if profit is involved, and the rainforest is not something humans can recreate. Since many of the countr ies producing coffee are economically poor, they are willing to destroy natural resources in order to take advantage of greater economical gain (Wintgens, 2009). Coffee production can be made more sustainable through the monitoring of the land used in its development. If legislative rules are enacted to regulate the planting of coffee and the way coffee is grown, in order to

The Lululemon marketing plan for 2010 Essay Example for Free

The Lululemon marketing plan for 2010 Essay Introduction The Lululemon marketing plan for 2010 includes recommendations and goals for the Lululemon brand, as well as goals for the newly proposed male brand Outer Muscle. Main objectives include: âž ¢Introduce Male Brand Outer Muscle oTarget â€Å"Educated Physically Active Male† oPrice male brand similarly to Lululemon brand, using more-for-more pricing. oPositioned as high-price Yoga/Exercise Apparel oIncreased advertising at beginning of Life cycle, reducing advertising with age. âž ¢Continue with Current Lululemon Strategy oRetain exclusivity of brand oContinue use of Prestige Pricing oLittle to no promotion oVery little advertising oPersist with current marketing strategy for tween brand Ivivva âž ¢Increase Brand Awareness o2% increase in advertising budget oSponsorship of events, increased Philanthropy work, and outreach within community Target Market Lululemon’s current primary target market is the â€Å"Active Young-thinking Woman†. Women who are appearance-conscious, physically fit/active, well educated, aged 16-45, in the upper to middle class and residing in North America. Lululemon is using a niche marketing strategy, going after a very narrowly defined market segment, in which they have had great success. This niche market will remain the primary target market in 2010 however; Lululemon will also begin to target the â€Å"Pre-teen girl† market with the Ivivva brand, and the male market with the Outer Muscle brand. Lululemon already has a male clothing line, and has been trying to gain a part of the male-workout market for a while now. In 2010 Lululemon will use product development, introducing â€Å"Outer Muscle† as a new male clothing brand, made with the same commitment to quality as Lululemon. This new brand will cater to a male target market similar to Lululemon’s female â€Å"Active Young-thinking Woman†. This target market will be the â€Å"Educated Physically Active Male† will target educated males, who are appearance-conscious, physically fit/active, aged 16-45, residing in North America. This multi-brands branding strategy will allow Lululemon to market to pre-teen girls who may not be able to identify with the more-mature Lululemon brand, as well as to male consumers who would not be prone to shop at Lululemon, due to it’s over-positioned reputation as a female clothing company. Pricing strategy will continue to be a more-for-more value proposition within all brands of the company. Each constituent of the marketing strategy serves to ensure that Lululemon’s position in the mind of the consumer is not changed, while they venture into new target markets. Positioning Lululemon is currently positioned as a high quality, exclusive, yoga and sporting apparel company. In many ways Lululemon is over-positioned as a strictly female company, which is why in 2010 they will use multi-branding to address the male market. In using the proposed promotion strategy and advertisements, Lululemon will not change their current position significantly, but instead further differentiate themselves from competition in already established values. It would be a mistake for Lululemon to try to adopt lower prices having traditionally differentiated their products using more-for-more differentiation. By continuing to position them self as high-quality, high-price clothing, Lululemon can gain more customer loyalty, and ensure that they do not lose their image of superior quality. Lululemon will continue to uphold the highest quality standards for it’s products and position the male brand as high-priced, high quality clothing. Both brands will differentiate themselves from their main competition by catering to the yoga/exercise market, as compared to competitors addressing the daily-life fashion market, and the sporting apparel market. Pricing Strategy Value Added Pricing – Lululemon uses this pricing strategy when creating their apparel. Rather than cutting costs and making a lower quality product, they add extra features such as adjustable straps and women’s pockets to differentiate themselves from their competitors as well as help their target market justify spending more money on their products. Prestige Pricing – Even though Lululemon clothing is not comparable to a Rolex or Louis Vuitton purse, it is prestigious and exclusive in its product category. This is what Lulu’s target market loves about their brand. Its high quality not found in every city and mall, fashion forward and represents a healthy, well off lifestyle. These approaches to pricing are visibly successful in today’s economy. Even throughout the recent recession Lulu managed to maintain a profitable company, expanding their store count while creating expensive, high-end workout apparel. Changing their target market to accommodate the middle class to lower income demographic could be detrimental to Lulu’s  success. Creating a cheaper line of clothing or marking down products to sales items would lessen the exclusivity of Lululemon, which could then effect the current target markets perception of the brand. Recommendations for the pricing of the men’s brand we suggested earlier, is to keep prices relatively high but yet great quality and options for different features and different size options. This will follow the common theme Lulu has instilled in their customers and will help differentiate themselves from other competitors such as Nike and Adidas who thrive in the men’s athletic wear market. Distribution Strategy Lululemon stores are not situated on every street corner in every metropolitan area or large city. They base their distribution strategy more along the lines of exclusive opposed to intensive distribution, therefore stores can be found in cities across Canada and the United States where the desired target market is represented by similar and correlating demographics. Lululemon stores have a very welcoming atmosphere full of friendly faces and have an earthy feel too them. Saskatoon’s store is located downtown where all the great shopping lies which makes it a one stop shopping trip for Lulu customers, who can do it all once entering Saskatoon’s downtown area. Its location provides great convenience for their target market, which includes working, high-class women and young university students who live active lifestyles. Specialty store – Lululemon carries yoga inspired apparel for healthy lifestyles, which could be categorized as a narrow product line. However, within this line is a deep assortment of active wear that can be used for many sports and activities, for all shapes and sizes. Franchise – In Saskatoon the Lululemon is privately owned. This creates the opportunity for the franchisee to do the hiring and management of his or her employees to the best of their ability. For instance, the franchisee for Saskatoon’s Lululemon puts on an annual sale that is not administered by the franchisor. It allows Lulu customers from all over to merge in Regina for a three day sale of extremely marked down product from previous seasons. Recommendations for the men’s brand would be to open new stores beside the existing Lululemons. This would offer a separate entrance and atmosphere for men to enter in hope that it will eliminate the stereotype men have with Lululemon stores. Product Strategy Many of the components of Lululemon’s product and branding strategy are well suited for the target market of the company and will be maintained. Others will be altered in 2010 to increase product differentiation and brand awareness. Lululemon has a wide product line. This product line is available in a wide range of colors, designs, and patterns that stand out and are updated often. This allows Lululemon to remain attractive to their target market of fashionable women. These women want to stand out as trendy and unique, and because of this, the company will continue to regularly create many different styles to cater to them. The company will focus more attention on men’s clothing, but under a new brand. This strategy will be explained further under branding strategies. The current product mix will be modified. Currently it is very broad with few focal points. In 2010, Lululemon will not be offering bags, such as luggage, and backpacks, or work-out accessories. This strategy will give them the ability to focus more on the men’s brand. The tween brand, Ivivva, was implemented in fall 2009. This brand will offer products for those from the ages 6-12. Lululemon will continue to promote and develop this brand but in addition, new products will be developed including attire for activities such as dancing and ballet, figure skating, and swimming. Lululemon will maintain their current packaging tactics involving the use of shopping bags and price tags. The bags are reusable, stylish, and inspirational. The tags that are found on each item are very informative, containing the directions and uses of the product. Both methods are useful and are appropriate for their well-educated target market. Since this packaging approach fits the need of the current target market so well, Lululemon should continue with this strategy. Currently, the services of Lululemon include free alterations. Lululemon will continue to offer this courtesy. The company will also be offering various classes such as yoga and pilates. Branding Strategy Lululemon is currently branded as a high quality and prestigious brand. The company should still be positioned as such, but will become much more distinct. Currently, Hoopla is a competitor; especially since the clothing styles and branding are so similar. To differentiate itself, Lululemon will alter the logo that they place on their clothing. The waistband or the hem of the clothing will feature a small inspirational message plus the Lululemon logo. Some of these messages include â€Å"dance, sing, floss, and travel† and â€Å"breathe deeply†. This characteristic will make Lululemon stand out, as well as add a unique component to each item. This uniqueness will appeal to the target market. In addition, a new brand will be implemented under Lululemon in 2010 for men’s wear. The name of this brand is Outer Muscle. The logo is derived from the lower case Greek symbol theta, which will coincide nicely with the Greek Lululemon logo omega. Theta represents a mathematical tool associate with angle, so Outer Muscle’s slogan will be â€Å"Get the perfect angle on your work-out†. This brand will be targeting educated and active men in the same age category as Lululemon’s target market. Outer Muscle will also be positioned as high priced, high quality, and trendy. The branding strategy used is multi-branding because a new brand is being developed with existing products. Now, the men’s wear and women’s wear will be separated. Advertising and Promotion Strategy (IMC) Lululemon’s advertising and promotion strategy will mostly be maintained, with a few modifications. Currently, Lululemon advertises through their reusable bags, through word of mouth, and through a few events. Also, their  logo is found on each product and they are advertised in a one page spread in the University of Saskatchewan handbook. Their strategy of involving very little integrated and marketing communications (IMC) makes Lululemon an exclusive and prestigious brand. Having few sales or promotions adds to the exclusivity and value of the brand. Since this strategy is appropriate for the target market that wants to appear distinct, and privileged, it will be maintained. One alteration is the addition of more public relations by being involved in more events. By sponsoring athletic events and events at the University, the company will not only be noticed by their target market, but be seen as an ethical and respectable company. The company will also be sponsoring events such as the Breast Cancer Walk and Relay For Life, which will also help the company’s image. Due to the upcoming Olympics, Lululemon will be sponsoring the athletes with swag bags that include water bottles, headbands, workout gear, and lounge gear. An incentive will be added for shoppers in 2010. An events card will be distributed to customers. This card is a punch card. After purchasing $500 of merchandise, the consumer will be able to attend a free athletic class that is offered by Lululemon. By offering events instead of discounts or bonuses as rewards, the company will still be seen as highly prestigious. To promote the new brand, Outer Muscle, the IMC budget will be increased from approximately 1% of total profits to 3%. Strategies such as sponsoring athletic teams, online advertising, and advertising in athletic magazines will be executed. Once Outer Muscle occupies 25% of the market share for men’s athletic yoga/exercise apparel and has been established as a competitor to brands such as Under Armour, the IMC budget will be reduced back to 1%. It will be reduced to become an exclusive and prestigious brand like Lululemon. Conclusion In conclusion to achieve our main goals: âž ¢Addressing the male market âž ¢Preserving â€Å"exclusivity† of Lululemon âž ¢Increasing Brand Awareness Lululemon will make use of multi-branding introducing the new brand Outer Muscle targeted towards the male market. They will continue the use of more-for-more prestige pricing to retain their exclusive image. Finally they will increase their budget for advertising/promotions, with a heavy emphasis on philanthropy and community outreach, to further increase brand awareness and distinguish Lululemon from competitors.

Free Essays - Animal Farm :: Animal Farm

ANIMAL FARM   About 80 per-cent of all the animals on Animal Farm completely followed the seven commandments.   The other 20 per-cent of the animals would rarely follow all the rules and they were often treated like a piece of dirt.   All the animals on Animal Farm were treated differently according to their social status, where in today’s society everyone should treat everyone equally.   The characters in Animal Farm had many diverse characteristics, some of the animals were powerful, stupid, and sneaky.   First of all, Napoleon is a huge Berkshire boar and he clearly is the most powerful of all the animals.   He was able to take complete leadership of the farm because he secretly trained the dogs to attack Snowball.   George Orwell writes, â€Å" ‘Never mind the milk, comrades!’ cried Napoleon, placing himself in front of the buckets.   ‘That will be attended to, the harvest is more important’ (817).   Napoleon is quite demanding none of the animal’s even question his authority because they know that he has more control than any other animal.   Throughout the novel Orwell has many quotes that describe Napoleon as a leader, â€Å" ‘long live Comrade Napoleon’ † (846).   All the animals on the farm (no matter what Napoleon did to them) would treat him as a powerful leader and whatever he said they would do.   Often Orwell stirs up controversy about the rebellion, â€Å" ‘forward in the name of the rebellion.à ‚   ‘Long live Animal farm!’ ‘Long live Comrade Napoleon!’ ‘Napoleon is always right.’ Those were his very last words, comrades’ † (849).   Squealer’s letting everyone know that no matter what happens to Animal Farm, just remember that Napoleon was an outstanding leader most of the time.   Napoleon was an outstanding leader and contributor to Animal Farm without his power the farm would have collapsed earlier.   Also, basically all the animals on Animal Farm were pretty dumb, they could not read or write.   After Old Major’s death, just three days after presenting his vision to the animals, Snowball and Napoleon quickly become the leaders in planning for the Rebellion because they were the only animals that were smart enough.   Besides from Napoleon and Snowball all the animals did many stupid things on the farm.   The characters in Animal Farm said a lot of stupid things throughout the whole story, â€Å" ‘He is dead, said Boxer sorrowfully.   ‘I had no intention of doing that.   I forgot that I was wearing iron shoes’ † (822).

Personal Metaphors Essay

If I were a building, I would be a Skyscraper. The reason is that skyscrapers are tall, strong, and unique. I am tall, strong and unique. I am not only strong physically, but also emotionally, which means that when im having a bad day, I don’t cry about it, I suck it up and go on with my day. So, if I were to be a building, I would be one of the amazing skyscrapers. Song â€Å"Skyscraper,† a song by Demi Lovato, is so empowering and it helps young people to stand up to bullies. I love to help people overcome their fears and issues. I also like to see young people who are strong and empowering. A few lyrics from the song are; â€Å"Go on and try to tear me down, I will be rising from the ground, like a skyscraper, like a skyscraper†¦Ã¢â‚¬  So if you’re trying to put me down, it’s going to be a long shot for you because I am going to stand tall like a skyscraper. Animal If I were an animal, I would be a skyscraper. A lioness is brave, wise, strong and daring. I’m not scared of anything or anyone but God. I also stand up to people when they are being rude, which makes me brave. Strength doesn’t mean your physical abilities. I am not only physical but emotionally strong. I also take risks and I am never afraid to tell you what I feel. Wouldn’t I be a great lioness? Cartoon Character If I were a cartoon character, I would be Dora the Explorer. Dora is helpful, honest, intelligent, kind, smart, caring, social, and creative and she loves going on adventures. I love helping people making me helpful. I don’t tell lies because one lie leads to another lie. I like making new friends and caring for them. When I go to new places, I put a star on the place I visit on the world map. When I help my family, friends, and even people that I don’t know, it makes me happy. I think that I make a great Dora. Day of the week I would be Sunday if I were a day of the week. Sunday is a day that most people look forward to. It’s a day of relaxation, worshipping, and for kids, just having some fun. I like relaxing and just having some time for myself. God is the reason that I am here and I think that I owe him some time to express my appreciation and gratefulness. I’m a teenager and I love having fun. Fun is the number one way to go through a person’s childhood. I think that Sunday would be the best day for me to be.

Marley is warning Scrooge Essay

Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in October 1843. It was the voice of the poor in London at that period. There was a great divide between the classes, Dickens wrote a Christmas Carol so that his readers could learn about the class divide and the suffering of the poor in London; Dickens shows the contrast very well in A Christmas Carol. Dickens came from a family who experienced debt. Charles’ younger years where evidently very hard, although he quoted that himself and his family ‘loved Christmas and celebrated it with a smile’, even thought he family lived on a low wage. When Dickens started to write A Christmas Carol he often walked the streets of London gathering ideas and looking at the poor people living in their slums. There is no doubt that Dickens’ life encouraged him to write A Christmas Carol, his father was thrown in prison for being in debt and Charles had to work at a boot blackening factory on the banks of the Thames. In A Christmas Carol we meet Scrooge ‘a tight fisted’ and very rich man, who lived life on as little as possible so not to ‘waste his well earned money’. In a Christmas carol he is a caricature – the worst possible person anyone could have met. Dickens lists negatives in the story to display the kind of man he is; Scrooge was a â€Å"squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner† Dickens also uses similes to describe him through out the book, it begins on a simile as ‘dead as a door nail’ this is a clichi d simile – a simile that is constantly used in common vocabulary. Dickens used a clichi because the poor and uneducated would have recognised and enjoyed his language, and the wealthy would realize the unarguable nature of the fact. He also uses then to describe Scrooge he was â€Å"as solitary as an oyster† he refuses to speak with anyone long terms at the start of the book, Dickens writes that â€Å"even blind mans dogs even hide form him†, backing up that scrooge was a caricature. Scrooge plays the part of the upper classes in London, not noticing the divide in society. The upper classes believed that the poor where too lazy to work. Therefore the Victorians created workhouses – a place where the poor worked for a bed and food for them self and their families. These places were help slightly by the work of the philanthropists. Scrooge also does not like philanthropists – people who want to collect money to help the poor â€Å"are there no prisons? † asked Scrooge. â€Å"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then? † said Scrooge. â€Å"Both very busy, sir. † This show that Scrooge considers money over human welfare, and that he does not want to learn about the plight of the poor; this reflects the views of many wealthy businessmen of the day. â€Å"I’m very glad to hear it† answers Scrooge to help the philanthropists regarding the workhouse. â€Å"Many can’t go there; and many would rather die. † This depicts the truly callous side to the class division. â€Å"If they would rather die,† said Scrooge, â€Å"they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population†. The poor law was the only way of collecting money for the poor, and this tax was so very little that it hardly helped any of the poor or needy. The first ghost Scrooge is haunted by is that of his old business partner Jacob Marley. He warns of three other ghosts that will haunt Scrooge in the coming night. Jacob and Scrooge ran the business of loan agents their aim was to target the poor people of London lending them large amounts of money, money these people could ill afford and when the deadline came to pay him back; and may couldn’t they where thrown into prison and their belongings sold. Marley wore chains â€Å"I wear the chain I forged in life,† said Marley â€Å"I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it†. Marley wore the chains because of every bad thing he did in his lifetime another link was added to the chain. This shows us that Marley was not a kind person. â€Å"Is its pattern strange to you? † The ghost questions Scrooge. Marley is warning Scrooge that when he dies he shall have a chain of his own due to all his bad deeds. Marley states that making money was his business â€Å"mankind was my business† At one o’clock, the ghost appears, the features of the ghost were ever changing an old man a young child. This portrays the two ages that would suffer the most at Christmas time; it also shows the in fluctuation between past – Scrooges youth and the present -Scrooge nowadays.

Khan Academy SAT Will Never Be Enough †Heres Why

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

Yo Ho, A Writers Life for Me Professor Ramos Blog

Yo Ho, A Writers Life for Me Act one, scene one. Interior, Heim family room, night. Fade in on a family of four about to press play on the DVD menu of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. A mom, Erin, and a dad, Rich, are talking to a young girl, Sammy. â€Å"We’ll tell you when there’s a scary part so you can close your eyes,† says Erin. Sammy is in first grade and about seven years younger than the suggested PG-13 rating, but she watches every second of the high-budget, large production pirate film and a buccaneer is born that night. Sammy, of course, is me. I had begged and begged my parents to let me watch the movie and after watching it first, they approved it for six-year-old me to try. They told me when I should shut my eyes and I ignored them so I wouldn’t miss a second of the adventure. I always needed to know what was going to happen next. My dad even tried to cover my eyes with his hand to protect me from particularly scary moments, but I would duck and dodge him every time, and instead of nightmares, I was given inspiration. I had never been a kid who showed more than mild interest in any one thing. I enjoyed princesses and cartoons and puppies as much as any other first grade girl, but I loved pirates. I thought they were the coolest. I wanted to be a pirate for Halloween every year, I carried a plastic sword around Disneyland instead of a princess wand, and wore my favorite hat everyday, a pink baseball cap with Jack Sparrow on it. If that hat still fit me today, I would probably be wearing it . However, the effect that the movie had on me was more than just a passion for the pirates themselves. I became interested in stories about or with pirates and I wanted to start telling my own. The first piece of fiction I ever wrote was about a young female pirate captain who gets marooned on an island of cannibals and has to blend in with the natives. I was in second grade and eagerly awaiting the second film of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and learning everything about it before it came out. I learned from the trailers that in this movie, Dead Man’s Chest, Captain Sparrow has a run-in with a tribe of cannibals, which is where I drew the inspiration. It wasn’t the violence that resonated with me, it was the promise of an exciting adventure. Pirates showed me everything a good story needed: suspense, action, romance, and a diverse cast of characters. I hadn’t quite reached an age yet where I could understand that the on-screen romanticization of pirates wasn’t a historically accurate portrayal. I didn’t care that pirates hurt people and stole things because that’s not what those movies were about. In the last century, pi rates, especially those of ‘the golden age of piracy’, have become symbols of freedom, adventure, and strength. My core values as a person are still centered around those things today, fifteen years since the first time I was immersed in the fantastic world of Disney pirates. Every year, a new film in the franchise was released, I loyally saw every single one right away- even as critics and mainstream audiences fell out of love with them. I’m the first to admit that the later films in the franchise are not cinematic masterpieces like the original, but I could never stop loving these movies. They have always served and will always serve as inspiration for my writing. Over the years, I continued to write stories of pirate girls which eventually evolved into fanfiction directly related to the films, and it was through fan sites dedicated to the movies that I started sharing my work with other people. There were people out there who were just as into Pirates as I was and they gave me a platform to share my writing and grow as a storyteller. About ten years after the original film was released, I took my first screenwriting class in my freshman year of high school. On our very first day, my teacher, Ms. Levine, passed around a few pages of a script that she said was a great introduction to the basics of screenwriting. Lo and behold, it was The Curse of the Black Pearl. She explained how the structure of the film could be considered a ‘perfect’ script in that it demonstrated everything she was going to teach us about the foundation of a good screenplay. The act structure, plot pacing, scene writing, and other screenwriting basics were all, in her exact words, â€Å"near flawless.† So imagine how easy it was for me to fall in love with screenwriting. I was already a storyteller, I was immediately taught how to write a script by studying my favorite film, and I was given a new medium to bring my passion to life. In that class, I wrote my first feature-length script about a girl with a proclivity for telling fantastical stories and a longing for adventure who gets swept up in a race for pirate treasure. She learns how to handle a sword, read a map, and sail a vessel, but most importantly she learns that self-confidence will carry her further than any ship can. That’s not the actual logline I used to pitch the movie to my class, but it is the most straightforward way to show how I mirrored my own life and view of myself into my writing- and ‘pirate fantasy’ was the obvious genre choice. Cut to: interior, bedroom, afternooon. Twenty-one-year-old Sammy sits at her desk, Jolly Roger tattoo visible on her shoulder. She’s typing furiously on her laptop. Above her desk is a framed movie poster- Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. She pauses her writing for a moment, scratching her head, and leaning back in her chair. A glance up at the poster, a small smile, and inspiration strikes her again. She continues writing. Fade to black, roll credits.

The Difference Between Extortion and Blackmail

The Difference Between Extortion and Blackmail The Difference Between Extortion and Blackmail The Difference Between Extortion and Blackmail By Maeve Maddox Two legal terms similar in meaning are extortion and blackmail. Both involve the practice of getting money from victims with threats. Extortion comes from Latin extortionem, a twisting out. The crime involves obtaining something, usually money, from a person by force or wrongful use of authority or power. A former city of Miami police officer charged with extortion is accused of writing a false police report and protecting purportedly stolen property in exchange for payments, authorities said. The term blackmail originated in reference to the protection money demanded by clan chieftains from Scottish farmers in exchange for leaving them alone. The word has always conjured up the image in my mind of a black envelope containing a threat and a demand for money. In fact, the mail part of blackmail derives from Middle English male, rent, tribute. Old English mal meant lawsuit, terms, bargaining, agreement. The black of blackmail refers to association of the color black with evil. In modern usage blackmail differs from extortion in that the money or other valuable object or act is not extorted by threat of direct bodily harm, but by the threat of revealing something presumed to be injurious to the victim. A CBS News producer who blackmailed David Letterman for $2 million [about extra-marital affairs] is going away for six months This difference in meaning between blackmail and extortion obtains in American English, but in cruising the web to prepare this post, I discovered evidence that the original use of blackmail to mean extortion by threat of physical harm may still be current in British English: Blackmailer threatened to nail victims hand to floor: A BLOCK paver who threatened to nail a mans hand to the floor if he did not get the  £1,000 owed to him has been jailed for three years. A BLACKMAILER tried to extort  £40,000 from a businessman by threatening to kill him and dismember his body. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:30 Synonyms for â€Å"Meeting†75 Idioms and Expressions That Include â€Å"Break†January 1 Doesn't Need an "st"

Globalization Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Globalization - Research Paper Example That may be a problem now, but in the future it is likely that labour will become more mobile and more people will come to the U.S. to work. This means that non-citizens may be applying for welfare benefits if they fall on hard times. That could be expensive and raise many peoples hackles. Already, there is criticism of the U.S. foreign aid program which suggests that is nothing but a form of international welfare, money spent with no return or even benefit to those who receive it. However, there are potential benefits to the U.S. from the process of globalization as they relate to social welfare. As the world shrinks in size, we will be able to examine other countries policies for dealing with these kinds of problems. There may well be innovative and successful programs out there that can help us if we adopt them and put them into practice. Globalization means that the world becomes smaller and it becomes easier to share good ideas. Perhaps some good ideas about social welfare will come our way too. Work consulted Barzilai, Gad. (2003). Communities and Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities University of Michigan Press. Dolgoff, R. & Feldstein, D. (2009). Understanding social welfare: A search for social justice (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson, Allyn and Bacon.

IBM's workforce management initiative(WMI) Essay

IBM's workforce management initiative(WMI) - Essay Example ) is basically an approach to the human capital management which would make the company a global integrated enterprise whose operations cut across wide geographical areas and which placed various value creation processes in a worldwide arena that optimized their productivity and efficiency (Boudreau 2010). The idea of WMI actually was developed by the then IBM’s chief human resource officer, Randy MacDonald in 2003 and was later supported by other members of the work force. This idea required a lot of changes to be done in the management. According to the IBM’s management, one of the important moves towards the achievement of its goal was to start a business metaphor for the IBM which would be a basis for what was referred as ‘decision Science’ for talents. The ‘decision science’ is what actually the IBM envisioned. The idea here was to consider the existing employees, applicants, vendor supply and learning as alternative sources of talents supply which were actually based in different geographical areas and within different individuals (Boudreau 2010). It had also to consider some other factors as the language used in such areas as job description; competencies and knowledge, skills and abilities. This is used in describing the resources and also defining and organizing decisions and views towards the resources. There was also need for an expertise taxonomy which would help classify the jobs by identifying things like job roles(JR) and job role skill sets (JRSS) and also identifying coming upon with common descriptors around the tasks executed by different people. By the year 2003, IBM had hundred thousands of full-time employees, over 90,000 contactors and above 40,000 applicants. These were grouped into roles such that by the year 2008, there were around 331 roles needed to define the company’s work force. Each role here represented hundreds of both applicants and contractors and over 1000 employees. There are several impacts associated with the

Brief Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Brief - Assignment Example The plaintiff argued that the defendant negligently injured the recurrent laryngeal nerve. However, the defendant claimed that the laryngeal was not severed. The rule of identifying negligence in this case is through expert opinion. The doctors argued that the method used by the plaintiff was appropriate. The trial court directed verdict on the defendant on specific negligence issue. The plaintiff illustrated the applicability of res ipsa loqoitur doctrine. The defendant claimed that the second foundation fact involving res ipsa loqoitur is absent due to the fact that it doesn’t lie in laymen’s common knowledge. This is in reference to injury occurring during cervical fusion surgery, because of inadequate care. The trial court refused to submit it; there wasn’t basis for the application of res ipsa loqoitur. The defendant claimed that there was adequate evidence on the issue of trespass or battery. She alleges that four vertebrae were fused, together with the defendant’s assurances and inability to warn her on related hazards. However, the defendant claimed that the defendant was given adequate advice on her health problem and the scope of the corrective surgery. The trial court found out that the trespass theory in this case is inadequate to the applicability to the surgery in which the patient did not consent. The trial court maintained the motion of the defendant for directed verdict. The trial court held that there was insufficient evidence to defend jury consideration of the case based on the four pleaded theories. Will the defendant continue the treatment of the patient, given that other medical services providers have refused to accept plaintiff as their patient? Is the refusal by hospitals like Herrick and Alta Bates to offer medical services to the patient amount to refusal to offer emergency medical services? A medical practitioner, who has provided the patient with adequate notice of termination, is not obliged to

Compare two modules Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Compare two modules - Essay Example After this there is a theoretical introduction to the concept of work in sociology, and then of emotion. There follows a broad examination of emotion at work, and then a more focused examination of gendered emotion at work. Finally there is a concluding summary of the ways that emotion and work link together, in theory and in practice, and how this relates to the all-pervasive concept of power in society. Section 1. Power and its conceptualisation. The study of human society invariably involves some consideration of theories of power, whether large scale, longstanding and overarching power such as that of patriarchy or smaller scale power as it operates between two individuals. Sociologists study how power operates in a range of situations from domestic, work and political spheres to any context where people interact with each other, since in a very general sense, it can be said that â€Å"all social relationships are power relationships† (Crossley, 2005, p. 215) We all influe nce each other at a personal level, and are tied up in a network of connections where power flows back and forth in fluctuating ways. Power permeates through society in many different ways, and not only through individual actions. ... Some power is inherited at birth through variables such as gender, race, class or culture and this is very often a hidden type of power, especially to those who wield it themselves. One of the most convincing conceptualisations of power is that of Foucault who writes about â€Å"technologies of power† which discipline and shape people in overt ways, but also in subtle ways, as for example when people internalise certain rules and practices, and adhere unthinkingly to a workplace norm. This hegemonic approach is highly relevant to the administrative systems that pervade the world of work, keeping people in order and ensuring that the goals of the organisation (or state, in the case of public servants) are constantly being advanced. Section 2. Work Human beings operate in society using physical, cognitive and emotional skills and the interplay of these skills within the power structures of their environment and with other human beings is a fruitful area of contemporary research. In the area of work there is in modern times an over-emphasis on rational, cognitive types of behaviour and an under-emphasis on emotion. Above all the workplace seeks to engender conformity on its workers, so that specific tasks can be completed efficiently and fast. The more smoothly workers submit to the dominant norms of the workplace, the more profits can be gathered in by the organisation. Goffman (1967) explains the harmony that generally exists between people in terms of concepts like deference and avoidance of shame or stigma. No workplace can ever monitor its workers 100% of the time, and yet by and large people interact productively and in tune with the needs of the organisation: â€Å"mutual conformity and respect lead to pride and fellow

Modern Philosophy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Modern Philosophy - Essay Example Leibnitz seeks to avoid the pure isolation of the mind from the body as in the case of Descartes. Monads are established as the most simple substance of which there are no parts or extensions (paragraphs 1 and 2). In paragraph 6 "monads have no windows" and hence are self-existing in a way. Leibnitz must explain what he means. Monads are different from each other because it is impossible for there to be the same thing in nature or else one thing would not be "discernible form another", things or monads must have an "internal difference" (p. 9). These differences are created from internal causes (p. 11). It is these internal causes which can make something that is itself, different or cause it to change and appear different. We are aware of our perceptions of these things, or of the thing that is undergoing change. Descartes was mistaken not to treat perception as a way of giving us what a thing and its changes are. Hence Descartes was left with the mind and or consciousness standing by itself. Leibnitz explains that perception represents "a multiplicity in the unit" of the simple substance. This is his way of saying that the mind cannot be separated from consciousness of the body. At paragraph 17, Leibnitz says that "...perception and that which depends upon it are inexplicable on mechanical grounds." That which recognizes substance and its various attributes cannot be based on the "figures and motions", or logic. Leibnitz in 15 has explained that it is Appetition or desire which is able to move from one perception to its wholeness or to new perceptions. If one were to move from the mind to the body, it would take not mere thought, but "Appetition or desire" to place these two together as a collective unit. Monads, as simple substances, are immaterial and have no extension. Yet they have their own perspective and something gives them extension and purpose. They have a certain self-sufficiency based on their internal activities. In paragraph 19 Leibnitz says tha t perception could allow simple substances to have souls, but that this is not possible unless perception is accompanied by memory. Mind gives monads or simple substances extension, purpose and identity. Whereas Descartes would say there is mind without body, Liebnitz would argue that there can be no mind without body. Mind and body are both monads, but the point is that it is the mind which is able to recognize the perception of the body or a rock outside the body with extension and secondary qualities such as color and taste. Humans are able to think empirically, such that there will be "daylight tomorrow." This is evidence the rational ability that humans have, and the knowledge of necessary and eternal truths that give us Reason and distinguishes us from animals (p. 29). Truth derives from the two great principles of contradiction (p. 31), and of sufficient reason (p. 32). These both refer to the two kinds of truths, reasoning is based on the principle of contradiction, and deal s with necessary truths that are found by analysis, such as in mathematics. The principle of sufficient reason allows for contingent truths, or truths based on fact (p. 36). By establishing the concept of simple substances first, Liebnitz is able to move the concept of self-identity as a truth. There cannot be substance with the mind's perception of it. Even the mind has

Compare two modules Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Compare two modules - Essay Example After this there is a theoretical introduction to the concept of work in sociology, and then of emotion. There follows a broad examination of emotion at work, and then a more focused examination of gendered emotion at work. Finally there is a concluding summary of the ways that emotion and work link together, in theory and in practice, and how this relates to the all-pervasive concept of power in society. Section 1. Power and its conceptualisation. The study of human society invariably involves some consideration of theories of power, whether large scale, longstanding and overarching power such as that of patriarchy or smaller scale power as it operates between two individuals. Sociologists study how power operates in a range of situations from domestic, work and political spheres to any context where people interact with each other, since in a very general sense, it can be said that â€Å"all social relationships are power relationships† (Crossley, 2005, p. 215) We all influe nce each other at a personal level, and are tied up in a network of connections where power flows back and forth in fluctuating ways. Power permeates through society in many different ways, and not only through individual actions. ... Some power is inherited at birth through variables such as gender, race, class or culture and this is very often a hidden type of power, especially to those who wield it themselves. One of the most convincing conceptualisations of power is that of Foucault who writes about â€Å"technologies of power† which discipline and shape people in overt ways, but also in subtle ways, as for example when people internalise certain rules and practices, and adhere unthinkingly to a workplace norm. This hegemonic approach is highly relevant to the administrative systems that pervade the world of work, keeping people in order and ensuring that the goals of the organisation (or state, in the case of public servants) are constantly being advanced. Section 2. Work Human beings operate in society using physical, cognitive and emotional skills and the interplay of these skills within the power structures of their environment and with other human beings is a fruitful area of contemporary research. In the area of work there is in modern times an over-emphasis on rational, cognitive types of behaviour and an under-emphasis on emotion. Above all the workplace seeks to engender conformity on its workers, so that specific tasks can be completed efficiently and fast. The more smoothly workers submit to the dominant norms of the workplace, the more profits can be gathered in by the organisation. Goffman (1967) explains the harmony that generally exists between people in terms of concepts like deference and avoidance of shame or stigma. No workplace can ever monitor its workers 100% of the time, and yet by and large people interact productively and in tune with the needs of the organisation: â€Å"mutual conformity and respect lead to pride and fellow