How to Take the SAT Test: Study Tips

(reprinted from Career-Opportunities.net)

As with any test, there are strategies you can use on the SAT Reasoning Test to ensure you finish in the allotted time and with the best possible score. Here are a few tips related to the three main areas of the SAT: the writing portion, the critical reading portion, and the mathematics portion.

The writing portion

The essay:

• Use a pencil, because essays written in ink are given a score of zero.
• Your assigned topic will take the form of an issue presented in a passage, so you will not be able to plan out your response beforehand -- but you can practice organizing and outlining arguments.
• Read the entire assignment. The goal is to be thorough, thoughtful and organized, and all of the information given to you can help.
• Organize the essay any way that makes sense to you, as long as you can make a point and convincingly back it up with examples. One option is to follow the 5-paragraph essay style, though the style itself won't earn any points.
• Plan your time well. Spend the first few minutes thinking about your main point and writing a rough outline. Come up with your overall statement and 1-3 supporting points. Organize your thoughts on how you will use each point to support your main idea.
• When writing, stick to your outline, stay focused on your main statement, and take the time to thoroughly explain the points you're making -- but keep an eye on the clock, because you want to save some time for review.
• Spend the last few minutes reviewing what you've written. Make sure it makes sense, and make any changes you need to. If it reads well to you, chances are it will read well to the reviewers.

Multiple choice:

• Read the instructions carefully to make sure you completely understand the question.
• Eliminate the answers you know are wrong first. If you're still not sure, make an educated guess from the remaining ones.

The critical reading portion

Multiple choice:

• Answer the sentence completion questions first, since they are easier than the reading questions. The sentence completions increase in difficulty if you do them in order.
• Read the passages carefully. All the information you need to answer the question is supplied, so don't be fooled by answers that sound right but aren't supported by the reading.
• Don't jump from passage to passage. These questions don't increase in difficulty, so it's better to answer them one passage at a time.
• Mark the questions you skip in your test booklet, so you can go back to them later.
• Leave it blank, don't guess, if you have no idea what the answer is and you can't eliminate any choices. Wrong answers subtract 1/4 of a point, while blank answers don't add or subtract anything.

The mathematics portion

Student-generated (grid-in):

• Do practice problems online.
• Formulas are provided in the test booklet, so you don't have to try to memorize them.
• Read each question carefully, looking for key words that indicate what the problem is asking. Is the answer a percentage? An angle? The complement of an angle?
• Draw a sketch of the problem if you need to, and use the booklet for scratch work.
• All figures are drawn to scale unless otherwise indicated. The test won't try to trick you with inaccurate drawings.

Multiple choice:

• Look at the answer choices before taking the time to figure it out. One might make itself obvious to you right away.
• Eliminate wrong answers by trying them in the question -- but don't do this for every problem, as it takes up time.

(See source article)

Related articles:

How to Take the SAT Test: Overview

How to Take the SAT Test: Sample Questions

How to Take the SAT Test: Dates and Schedule

It's NEVER too late - 94-year-old woman has earned her masters degree

A 94-year-old woman has earned herself a masters degree in medical science from the University of Adelaide.

Great-great-grandmother Phyllis Turner left school at 12 years old to help raise her 9 siblings but always wanted to go back to school.

After marrying and raising her own family she finally took the time to fulfil an ambition at the grand old age of 90.

Cubicle Farms Are Becoming A Thing of The Past

Most people do not like square boxed in particleboard "offices." Thanks to new technologies many career positions no longer need them. However, these remote working arrangements will completely depend on trust between employer and employee. Whether at an office or working from home, if an employee cannot be trusted to get things done without supervision, they do not deserve to have a job. Both employees and companies continue to discover that the web is revolutionizing the work environment.

Most people, myself included, truly believe they are or can be more productive and happier when working from somewhere other than the standard workplace environment. Whether it’s home, Starbucks or Barnes and Noble the increased use of virtual offices is demonstrating the value of losing the micromanagement in exchange for happier and more beneficial employees.

Thanks to the power of the web, anyone can be anything they want to be in life. A hiring manager gives you an opportunity. It’s up to you to capitalize on it and only one thing will define your career, and that’s your track record. Your office cubicle experience (”track record”) in the corporate world will be the deciding factor on rather or not you will make the switch from cubicle employee to virtual worker.

How To Build An Ideal Track Record

Rarely be sick, never be late, always be early and don’t give a disrespectful “why should I” attitude. Don’t abuse your break time or make excuses or waste time on the phone. Avoid arguments but don’t avoid giving your well thought-out suggestions or opinions.

Be dependable, trustworthy, and don’t loiter around the water cooler or kitchen gossiping. Follows company rules, policies, and protocols and give the extra ten percent by working past office hours occasionally.

Don’t get tipsy at office parties, don’t over shmooze your way into a power clique and don’t succumb to vicious rumors. In other words hold on to your ethics but realize office politics will help a career move forward.

Always strive to be the first team member project managers want to recruit for projects. Have the ability to communicate with everyone from the president of the company to the janitor of the company. The best managers and executive associates never disqualify an idea or opinion based on someone’s job title.

• Learn to listen, listen to learn and be an active member of the organization without becoming a drone.

As we’ve seen time and time again, the companies that adopt will lead the way to tomorrow, everyone else will only follow. Too many companies believe that employees should not be trained to be entrepreneurs for fear of losing them. However, retention rates can increase if employees do not feel the need to leave a company that provides them with an inner company entrepreneur ownership state of mind in relation to the work they do. On the other hand, employee must develop a solid track record and demonstrate they can be trusted working with no supervision.

For the employees who desire nothing more than entrepreneurship starting a business is no longer a risky dream. Employees wishing to make the transition from salaried employee to self employed can develop a business on the side as long as you don’t go after the same clients as your day job. This will only burn bridges and future networking resources and opportunities.

Conversely this will require an education. An education is invaluable to the success of your career. However, too many graduates depend on the illusion that what they learned in college or at a trade school learning foundation is exactly what they will do in the corporate world; it’s not. It is not something that prepares you one hundred percent for your career; it gives you the training you need to step into your career. The development of your career is solely up to you.

Experience (track record) results will speak for themselves when it comes time to seek the virtual office in exchange for the cubicle. Build slowly, listen, learn, take some chances so you can learn from both your success of risks and your mistakes from risks.

Soon you will be presented or you will be able to confidently ask for what you want. You may not conquer the universe, but you might have enough to live the comfortably, which is really the goal after all.

Cyber Tracker - Rhinoceros or Natual Disasters?

Soma Girls tv: Clean & pretty because girls never get dirty!

For every guy zine that does well, a new chick rag is born endorsing their site as a re-instilling of self-esteem and positive girl images -- while selling cosmetics and skin care at the same time. Soma Management LLC. is a digital media and entertainment company that has just given the world Somagirls.tv which focuses on (not so) original lifestyle content for young girls and women.

It has a fresh and clean look versus the loud obnoxious glitter and brat look that I’ve seen way too often. Not all girls are into loud, obnoxious and gaudy, so my first impression was that it deserved a thorough look see and read through; until you click into the Model Dairies. Thankfully the categories are filled with pod casts because you know us girls just ca ant ummm cant read none well.

Model Diary’s video cast shows the same stereotypical very thin women at a modeling shoot and shows just how easy being a model is.

• Stand there


• Lie there


• Turn your head


• Smile


• Don’t smile

The pod casts than moves into a model that talks about her photo shoot in Hawaii and just how much fun it was as she strips off her bikini top. In my best little girl voice “Opps it fell, silly me.”

Health Tips shows a group of thin model like young women doing yoga on a beach with the beautiful ocean waves behind. Sadly, this was the best thing about the website. Nowhere did I find the pretty girl size 18 nor did I find the geeky girl blog who lists her height as 5’4 with interests that doesn’t include yoga, working out or makeovers.

Where are the career category, the sports category and definitely where the heck is the college and finance category? Oh wait that’s right, girls are meant to be pretty, fashionable, healthy size 3 and we lounge around in our pretty clothes reading the latest advice on How to Snag A Man.

Somagirls.tv promotes themselves as a venue offering young women a diverse site of interests but instead all it offers is a luxury spas looking website aimed at the majority of young girls anxieties of I don’t have enough money, I’m not thin and I’m not pretty enough.

As a form of important news offerings I got to read (yea, I actuly gots to reed) about how
(from the website) “Pop star KELLY CLARKSON was staggered when a sexist music executive let her know he wasn't a fan of women writing songs.”

OMG! Life is over as we know it! Hand over the chocolates and give me a credit card I can’t handle this!

Come on! Where are the news stories about women like Anne Sweeney the Co-Chair of Disney Media Networks who was named one of Fortune’s 50 most powerful women in business? How about talking about Summer Williams, the Houston Texans cheerleader and aerospace engineer for NASA. Why are there no stories about the next generation of entrepreneur women who decided to make they’re own rules?

Instead, what somagirls offers is just anther Tween / Teen Happy Meal packed with travel, fashion, beauty and even (gag) anther celebrity category.... Oh yea, that’s whats young girls need, anther (It's fun to spend $200 on a blouse and or get drunk and stupid) celebrity category.


Ahhh I’m not being fair? Okay, the site does have some super fun downloadable games {sarcastic sneer}

• Boom Voyage
• Spot and his Friends
• Blingo!
• Face Card Deluxe, which will come in very handy for the next game
• Runaway: A road Adventure

BleEp!

Where is Final Fantasy and World of Warcraft? Are they kidding me? What is this? A free how to be a Paris Hilton Carbon Copy Look-A-Like training center?

Through the use of interactive online video, somagirls.tv provides young women with enough anxieties to encourage depressing self-images and inspires them to live a life constantly reminded that they’re not good enough physically and life’s main purpose is to be pretty … oh and do yoga looking really cute on a beach.

“Our mission is to deliver a full and meaningful experience that enriches young women’s lives,” said E.C. Morgan, CEO and President, Soma Management.

Target age ranges: girls 12-24.
It's never too early or late to "learn how to transform your old t-shirts in to sexy hot summer tank tops.

High School Girls Reveal Truth of Misleading Advertisements

News Source: (Reuters)

Ribena Juice Maker Is Squeezed Dry After High School Girl Evaluation

Ribena, one of the world's best known fruit juices were fined by a New Zealand court after two high school girls exposed the makers for misleading consumers over vitamin C levels in their Ribena blackcurrant drink.

Sorry, but I just love this story and just have to repeat the collness that it was two high school girls that made the discovery. Ok…moving on.

High school students Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo in 2004 tested the drink against advertising claims that "the blackcurrants in Ribena had four times the vitamin C of oranges." Instead, the pair found the syrup-based drink contained almost no trace of vitamin C.

Ribena Juice made by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) didn’t pay any attention to the results found by Devathasan and Suo until their complaints reached the New Zealand's consumer watchdog Commerce Commission. However, not too long afterwards, the company appeared in an Auckland court on 15 charges of breaching the New Zealand's Fair Trading Act, GSK pleaded guilty and admitted its ads may have left consumers with a wrong impression of the health benefits of Ribena.

The judge fined the company a total $163,700 for misleading advertising.

The Commerce Commission said GSK's behavior was a "massive" breach of trust with the New Zealand public.

"As a multinational company specializing in pharmaceuticals and health products, they should have had robust testing and quality assurance systems in place to ensure its product was delivering what it promised," Commission chair Paula Rebstock said in a statement.

GSK told the court it had not deliberately set out to mislead consumers, and the fault lay with its testing methods.

"The fact that some of our products had incorrect labeling is to us, unacceptable, and we sincerely regret any confusion caused to customers who feel they may have been misled," GSK said in a statement.

The court also ordered the company to place advertisements in major metropolitan New Zealand newspapers to correct its mistakes.

"We're just blown away that anything we could have started as a consumer could have blown up into something so huge," Devathasan told Radio New Zealand.

Congratulations to Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo for work well done!

Inspiring Teenagers

Turning Something Old Into Something New In Advertising

Traditional advertising faces new technological challenges that are employing old techniques back into new revenue. The internet has given birth to many incredible features and has provided a multitude of methods for freedom of expression. All that was exciting and new in internet technology is now unremarkable. Only creative expression is interesting and unfortunately even the availability of original content is rare. So can we be surprised that some of the new trends for advertising and marketing have returned to their roots?

New print material advertising and marketing is making they’re way to consumers. One of the new European trends in Amsterdam from Gratis-Post.nl (Dutch language) will begin offering consumers in April a pack of five envelopes with free stamps that they can use for standard size letters.

The envelopes will carry advertisements on the back of the envelope, and the person requesting them also has to agree to receive advertising by mail or email from the participating companies. This is a completely new concept that is unique in Europe.

So while the internet is still a great place to advertise, advertising and marketing professionals need to put down the mouse and consider picking up every day possibilities.

Product Development

Truck Driving Is A Way of Life

There's more to being a truck driver than just driving and signing shipping forms.If you have what it takes to hit the road, then do not hesitate. Enjoy the pay and the benefits and see America in its finest with your truck driving career.

Truck Driving Is A Way of Life

What is a professional?

Merriam-Webster Dictionary: Professional


1 a: of, relating to, or characteristic of a profession b: engaged in one of the learned professions c (1): characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession (2): exhibiting a courteous, conscientious, and generally businesslike manner in the workplace


Being a professional can mean different things to different people. However, I believe that most people can agree that being a professional means you are confident and responsible. A professional can be trusted and has respect for other professionals and you have taken the time to learn valuable skills and experience in your chosen field. In addition, the best professionals (in my opinion) are the ones that keep an open mind towards the future of new and advancing business concepts and ideas.


In the words of Guy Le Boterf, a French expert on the development of competencies, "A Professional is a person who possesses a personal body of knowledge and of know-how which is recognized and valued by the market.

Is it time for a career over haul?

Economy added 97,000 payroll jobs in February

Reuters

The U.S. economy added a modest 97,000 jobs in February, the smallest gain in two years, but job growth in prior months was stronger than first thought and the unemployment rate dropped, the government said on Friday, easing fears over economic weakness.

Also, the unemployment rate edged down to 4.5 percent from 4.6 percent, helping allay mounting concern that softening was spreading beyond the struggling manufacturing and housing sectors.

Analysts polled by Reuters were expecting the economy to add 100,000 jobs outside of the farming sector in February and for the jobless rate to hold steady at 4.6 percent.

Construction employment fell 62,000 in February, probably prompted by cold and stormy weather in much of the country, the government said.

Manufacturing employment shed 14,000 positions.

Average hourly earnings rose by 6 cents, or 0.4 percent, in February.

A separate report from the Commerce Department showed a narrowing of the trade gap after it set an annual record for the fifth straight year in 2006.

Health care, which accounted for one in six jobs added to U.S. payrolls in the last 12 months, added 33,000 jobs in February, the government said.

Technology Helps Unburden Medical Work Loads

Medical Lab Technicians Help Discover New Medical Advances

Must of use want to know that something we did made a difference in anther's life.

Some people donate to charity or give what we can no longer use to thrift shops to raise funds. Others are speakers or authors. It can be easy to forget the people working directly in the heart of research. They're not in the limelight of the good causes but they're work is essential. The teams that discover new information can consist of several specialists as well as Assistants.

Everything You Do Can Be A "I Win" Conclusion

Part of the "I Win" mindset seeks shared benefits and is designed to be collaborative. The foundation of which is to listen to what the other people say and want and be honest about what you want and agree on a acceptable compromise.

In addition, the "I Win" foundation is also about learning from your mistakes and learning from projects that are less than successful. Notice that the words used are less than successful - not failure.

Top Ten Most Popular Careers for 2007

US Top Ten Most Popular Careers for 2007

• Network Systems Analysts: The development of IT has led to an increase in organizations seeking installation and maintenance of networked communications. Systems analysts solve problems related to networked computer technology.

• Physician's Assistant: Physician assistants are trained to provide diagnostic, therapeutic and preventative healthcare services, as overseen by a physician. Primary healthcare settings include family medicine and pediatrics.

• Medical Assistants: The growing healthcare sector means more administrative and clinical tasks need to be performed. Other medical assistants can help with clinical tasks. Typically, work takes place in the offices of physicians, chiropractors, podiatrists, ophthalmologists and other health practitioners.

• Medical Records and Health Information Technicians: Case and healthcare records are increasingly used for organizational management and ongoing evaluation of healthcare progress. Records might include patient medical history, symptoms, treatments, tests, outcomes, etc. Medical tests and information management are major growth areas.

• Software Engineers: As IT continues to evolve, so does the work of computer software engineers, who design and develop new computer software systems. The engineer analyses users' needs and designs software or programs to meet these needs.

• Physical Therapist Aides: The number of individuals with disabilities or limited physical function is growing, so the number of assistants who provide services to alleviate the difficulties is set to increase.

• Fitness Trainers: Aerobics instructors and fitness trainers lead groups and individuals in a range of exercise activities. More people are spending time and money on their leisure activities, meaning employment opportunities for fitness instructors will grow.

• Database Administrators: Many organizations now depend on the instant availability of data. Database administrators work with the relevant software to retrieve and present data. They need to understand every aspect of an organization's database system, from its performance to security and the platform it runs on.

• Veterinary Technicians: Expectations for leading edge veterinary care are rising as healthcare in general progresses. Veterinary technicians perform tests, and treat and diagnose medical conditions in animals. Work can take place in domestic pet surgeries, livestock management, wildlife medicine, or pharmaceutical sales or biomedical research.

• Dental Hygienists: As our healthcare involves an increasing emphasis on oral health and retention of natural teeth, work opportunities for dental hygienists are set to grow. Hygienists examine patients' gums and teeth, remove deposits, administer x-rays, and more.