Poeple who are addicted to social sites, read this...
Life without facebook and twitter etc. etc. might be fatal... hehe...
http://rage.com.my/writeups/story.asp?file=/2009/10/29/experiment/20091028174749&sec=experiment
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
How to brainstorm for SATwriting
“OK, now you can start your essay.” Madam Ong.
Straight away I will be squeezing my brain hard so that I can get some “juice’, BUT UNFORTUNATELY, I can’t get any “juice”. Then I share my problem with my roommate, so called “chicken”. Then, he gave me some tips on how to start brainstorming examples. After he shared his approach with me, I started to google for tips on brainstorming examples. And here are some:
1. Read the newspaper and keep a list of all the major stories. Stories that can imply something are most useful as you can use the story to illustrate some moral values or facts. The current health care debate, for example, might get you pondering the reasons opposing sides have such a hard time compromising. But, Madam Ong’s advice is that avoid using latest politics issues as one of the examples. So, pick some stories or issues that are relevant.
2. List out all the novels and story books that you have read. Then, make some notes of the novel’s or stories’ themes and moral values in the list. For example, you have read Harry Potter, and then you can include Harry Potter in your list and also note the themes in the novel, like friendship, determination and many more. With that particular list, you can refer what you have read and which one you can use in your essay.
3. Jot down all of your significant life experiences. Don’t censor yourself and only write the “serious” events. Remember, SAT writing is creative writing and not a very “academic” or serious writing.
Try to make this activity as stress free as possible: don’t start your lists the night before the test and stay up until 4 AM brainstorming. Rather, begin writing a couple weeks early and add to the list whenever something pops into your head. Review your ideas the night before the test, and don’t be surprised when three or four great examples come to you as soon as you see your essay prompt. We bet it will feel great to be the one scribbling furiously while everyone else is still staring at the blank page.
Straight away I will be squeezing my brain hard so that I can get some “juice’, BUT UNFORTUNATELY, I can’t get any “juice”. Then I share my problem with my roommate, so called “chicken”. Then, he gave me some tips on how to start brainstorming examples. After he shared his approach with me, I started to google for tips on brainstorming examples. And here are some:
1. Read the newspaper and keep a list of all the major stories. Stories that can imply something are most useful as you can use the story to illustrate some moral values or facts. The current health care debate, for example, might get you pondering the reasons opposing sides have such a hard time compromising. But, Madam Ong’s advice is that avoid using latest politics issues as one of the examples. So, pick some stories or issues that are relevant.
2. List out all the novels and story books that you have read. Then, make some notes of the novel’s or stories’ themes and moral values in the list. For example, you have read Harry Potter, and then you can include Harry Potter in your list and also note the themes in the novel, like friendship, determination and many more. With that particular list, you can refer what you have read and which one you can use in your essay.
3. Jot down all of your significant life experiences. Don’t censor yourself and only write the “serious” events. Remember, SAT writing is creative writing and not a very “academic” or serious writing.
Try to make this activity as stress free as possible: don’t start your lists the night before the test and stay up until 4 AM brainstorming. Rather, begin writing a couple weeks early and add to the list whenever something pops into your head. Review your ideas the night before the test, and don’t be surprised when three or four great examples come to you as soon as you see your essay prompt. We bet it will feel great to be the one scribbling furiously while everyone else is still staring at the blank page.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
SAT Reading Passages: Answering Tone and Attitude Questions
1. Figure out if the author is positive, negative, or neutral toward the subject. As you read the passage, look for descriptive words that give away the author’s attitude (you might even want to underline these words as you read). In a literary analysis passage, if the play being discussed is referred to as “witty and ground-breaking,” you know the author feels positively about the subject. If it’s described as “dull and derivative,” then the author’s attitude is negative. If the passage is devoid of words casting judgment, but simply sticks to the facts of when the play was produced and how it was perceived by the public, then the author’s tone is neutral.
2. Eliminate answers that disagree with your assessment. Each of the answer choices will convey some kind of feeling; for example, let’s say your choices are a) amazed, b) admiring, c) skeptical, d) bemused, e) angry. If you have decided the author has a positive attitude toward the play, you can eliminate c, d, and e.
3. Be skeptical about answer choices with strong emotional connotations. There are usually a couple of answer choices that differ only slightly; finding the correct answer among them can be hard. To find the right answer, you'll need to determine the intensity of the emotion being conveyed in the passage. In the example above, “amazed” is the more emotional word than “admiring.” If, like many reading passages, the passage is filled with academic language and technical terms, you would hardly consider it a piece of emotional writing. In this case, you would eliminate the answers that express stronger feeling and go with “admiring.”
source:http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/2009/10/20/sat-reading-passages-answering-tone-and-attitude-questions
2. Eliminate answers that disagree with your assessment. Each of the answer choices will convey some kind of feeling; for example, let’s say your choices are a) amazed, b) admiring, c) skeptical, d) bemused, e) angry. If you have decided the author has a positive attitude toward the play, you can eliminate c, d, and e.
3. Be skeptical about answer choices with strong emotional connotations. There are usually a couple of answer choices that differ only slightly; finding the correct answer among them can be hard. To find the right answer, you'll need to determine the intensity of the emotion being conveyed in the passage. In the example above, “amazed” is the more emotional word than “admiring.” If, like many reading passages, the passage is filled with academic language and technical terms, you would hardly consider it a piece of emotional writing. In this case, you would eliminate the answers that express stronger feeling and go with “admiring.”
source:http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/2009/10/20/sat-reading-passages-answering-tone-and-attitude-questions
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