History, Culture and Self Discovery in Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club Essay

History, Culture and Self Discovery in Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the novel The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, the relationship between history, culture and identity is illustrated through the narrations of seven women. In these stories the women discuss events of their past and the reader is able to see how it affects them later in life. In addition, they also discuss how they have been shaped by cultural expectations. These two things affect both the mothers and daughters in the novel.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The best example of how personal history affects the development or loss of an identity is through the stories of Ying-Ying St. Clair. The events in Ying-Ying’s early life foreshadow ones that happen later in her life. For example, when Ying-Ying was a small child she fell overboard a boat and was lost in the water. Even her name means "clear reflection" which foreshadows her future loss of identity (Tan). Later, she immigrated to the United States and ended up being stuck on Angel Island Immigration Station for three weeks, "lost in a sea of immigration categories"(Tan 107). Throughout her life she was able to see things before they happened, but this did not allow her to prevent the loss of her sense of self.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   During Ying-Ying’s first marriage she plays the role of an obedient wife so well that she becomes one and puts it above everything else. Later in the book when she looks back on it she states, "I became a stranger to myself"(Tan 280). After all this the man is unfaithful to her and leaves her for an opera singer. It is to this event that she attributes the loss of the golden side of her tiger sprit. Long after this, when St. Clair began courting her, she saw this as a sign that she would also lose the other half of h... ...es she wants to keep the house and is in control of her life again.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Many of the characters in the novel are struggling to find themselves. Personal history is an obvious contributor to the development of the characters' senses of self. The events that occur in a character’s past influence their attitudes toward themselves and the way they treat their daughters. The two cultures that meet in the families portrayed also influence these attitudes. It is only when the characters take both these factors into account can they begin to discover their true selves. Work Cited Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. New York: Random House, 1989. Sources Consulted Do, Thuan Thi. Chinese-American Women in American Culture. 1992 http://www.ics.uci.edu/~tdo/ea/chinese.html Jokinen, Anniina. Anniina's Amy Tan Page. 1996 http://www.luminarium.org/contemporary/amytan/

Chad Foster’s “Teenagers Preparing for the real world” Essay

Chad Foster’s book Teenagers Preparing for the Real World, is a great motivational piece for teens and leaves a lasting impression on the reader. In the chapter â€Å"Mr. X and Mr. President,† Foster instills the importance of contacts and friendship in a person’s life. His example of Mr. X shows kids that a friendship formed in a person’s younger years can pay off greatly down the road, emotionally and even financially. He then tells the tale of his father’s first experience in the work world, where he met two men, had a brief friendship for a few months, then moved. Foster senior continued to correspond with these men for the next thirty years, never even seeing each other. As it turns out, one of these men was President George Bush and Foster had the opportunity to meet him in person. This story is significant because it shows that everyone grows up to be someone in the world, and someday you just might want to be their contact. Overall, this is a very well put together chapter and defiantly leaves an impression on the reader.

Guitar Playing Techniques Essay

You can play your guitar during your leisure time at home as a hobby, to record in the studio, to perform in a quiet cafà ©, or to perform in front of a huge crowd. To make that record worthy of being platinum, to make that soothing aura within the cafà ©, or to make that crowd uncontrollable and crazy partially depends upon the technique you use to play the guitar. Three techniques that are popular and can be used to amaze your listeners are elegant fingerpicking, strumming, and sweet sweep-picking. Elegant fingerpicking is mostly used to serenade the audience into a state of complete relaxation or euphoria. You can pick with the natural sound-muting characteristic of your fingertips or the solid and natural sound-amplifying characteristic of your nails. You can also choose to hit any combination of strings to emphasize the sound of each string or to create a soothing rhythm by hitting multiple strings at the same time. Fingerpicking is only an intermediate level technique, but there are many details that can be added to make it a more advanced skill and much practice is needed for it to be perfected. Using the fingerpicking technique you can assemble different pitches and patterns with however many strings you have to formulate an attention-grabbing rhythm. Strumming, which is more common than fingerpicking, can be used to create catchy tunes and can also bring about many different moods within the different musical audiences. You can use a guitar pick to give you a louder and bolder sound or use your hands which allows you to be more flexible, creates a blurred effect, and makes the sound more natural and brighter. Strumming brings more attention to the rhythm of the song or piece of music because the strumming itself has percussion characteristic. Strumming is preferred for beginners because it’s one of the most basic techniques of playing guitar and helps you get used to the sound of the guitar in a fun, but quick way. Even though strumming one of the most basic and popular techniques, it is also a very effective attention grabber. Whether you are trying to play a slow song that’s heavy on the eyelids or an exciting piece that can make the crowd lively all depends on the strumming pattern used combined with the chord progression. Sweep-picking is the most advanced of these three techniques and when used efficiently can produce a heart-racing performance. Sweep-picking combined with the customized sound of an electric guitar can create some of the most crowd-shaking performances. It can be aggressive yet gentle, but sweep-picking isn’t usually used to serenade or sooth. It consists of hammer-ons, pull-offs, bending, and so on, all in a single strum. The key is that the left hand, for right-handed guitar players, has to be timed and trained perfectly so when the pick goes over the string it hits all the notes needed by the time the pick gets to the next string. This is what makes sweep-picking a very advanced technique. It’s the heart of the performance and the flow is beautiful. Although there are many approaches to playing the guitar, these three techniques, no matter the difficulty, make for great performances. There’s always a way to get creative with fingerpicking when you have six strings and five fingers. A song can be complete with just strumming due to its percussion aspects and flexibility. And sweep-picking can always get the crowd to either shed tears or go wild. If you have practiced enough and you are confident about your skills then by the end of your performance, or when you publicize your record not only will the listeners be satisfied, but you will too.

Stylistic Features in A Prayer for Owen Meany Essay Example

Stylistic Features in A Prayer for Owen Meany Essay Example Stylistic Features in A Prayer for Owen Meany Paper Stylistic Features in A Prayer for Owen Meany Paper John Irving was born on March 2, 1942, in Exeter, New Hampshire, United States and is an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter. Irving had achieved his fame after the international success of The World According To Garp in 1978. Irving often brings his own life stories to his books making them more connectable and lively like with his seventh book A Prayer For Owen Meany. Published in 1989, it tells the story of a unique friendship between John Wheelwright and Owen Meany growing up together in a small New Hampshire town during the 1950s and 1960s. It makes me ashamed to remember that I was angry with him for taking my armadillos claws. God knows, Owen gave me more than he ever took from me-even when you consider that he took my mother. (Irving. 101). A Prayer For Owen Meany uses many stylistic features to enhance the development of the boys friendship like the amazing narrative point of view, the highly personal mood and tone, and well developed characters. The narrative perspective of A Prayer For Owen Meany can connect or entranced a reader by the friendship told through the first person of John. John Irvings A Prayer For Owen Meany is an amazing tale about two friends, John Wheelwright and Owen Meany. It documents their adventures through their childhood to their present life as adults. A Prayer For Owen Meany is told through the first person narrative of John Wheelwright. what makes this book successful and not another story of someones childhood is the way John Irving uses the inside view of John and Owens weird friendship to hook the reader. Dan understood that I loved Owen, and that I wanted to talk with him most- most of all- but that it was a conversation, for both Owens sake and mine, that was best to delay. But before we finished loading the baseball cards in the car, Dan Needham asked me what are you giving him? What? I said. To show him that you love him. Dan Needham said. Thats wha

Penubuhan Malaysia 1963 Essay Example

Penubuhan Malaysia 1963 Essay Example Penubuhan Malaysia 1963 Essay Penubuhan Malaysia 1963 Essay 16 September 1963 The establishment of Malaysia The Prime Minister of the Federation of Malaya, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra in his speech at the Conference of Foreign Journalists Association of Southeast Asia held at the Adelphi Hotel, Singapore on 27 May 1961, had an insight about the need to establish a plan to bring the Federation of Malaya, Singapore, North Borneo, Brunei and Sarawak into a form of political and economic cooperation. Among other things, this cooperation should be conducted with the aims of limiting the influence of ommunist influence that could Jeopardise the political stability within the region. The Governments stand is based on the political developments in Singapore that shows an increasing influence of the Leftist. In addition to that, the idea is to offset the total population, increasing the economic development and to accelerate the process of the independence for Singapore, Brunei, North Borneo and Sarawak. The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Branch of Malaya and Borneo Meeting n Singapore on 23 July 1961 had agreed to establish the Malaysia Solidarity Consultative Committee, chaired by Donald Stephen. The purpose of setting up this committee is to explain more clearly about the concept of Malaysia to the public, especially to the people of Sabah, Sarawak and Brunei. In this committee, the representatives of Malaya consisted of members of Parliament. Singapore Representatives comprises of the Legislative Council members and one from the opposition party. Members of the delegation from Sarawak were members of the State Council, the same with Sabah. The Committee convened four times to discuss matters relating to the establishment of Malaysia. The first meeting was held in Sabah in August 1961, followed by Kuching, Sarawak in December 1961 and then in Kuala Lumpur in January 1962. The last meeting was held in Singapore in February 1962. In the last meeting, the Committee agreed to submit a memorandum to the Cobbold Commission to conduct surveys on the views of the people in Sarawak and Sabah on the notion of Malaysia

Whats a Good SAT Score for 2018

What's a Good SAT Score for 2018 SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Another year, another chance to take the SAT! If you're taking the SAT this year, you might be wondering: just what is a good SAT score for 2018? Is there a particular score I should be aiming for to make sure I get into the colleges I want to go to? To answer the question of what good SAT scores for 2018 are, this article looks at a few different definitions of what makes a good SAT score, and how this has changed over time. We also explain why SAT score goals should be specific to each student and give you step-by-step instructions for choosing your target SAT score. What Is a Good SAT Score for 2018 Overall? On an individual level, a good SAT score is any score that gets you into at least one of the schools you want to go to. To figure out what a good 2018 SAT score is for all students, however, we'll need to take a broader view of SAT score data. The best way to do this is to take a look at the most recent data for the average SAT score and SAT score percentiles and see how your scores and percentiles compare. As a general rule, good SAT scores are ones that place you in the top half of test-takers; the farther above average your score is, the better. Similarly, a not-so-good SAT score is one that lands you in the bottom half of test-takers (and the further below average your score is, the worse). The latest College Board data indicates that the average SAT score for graduating seniors was 1060 (533 Evidence-Based Reading and Writing (EBRW), 527 Math), which means that good SAT scores for 2018 are those above the average SAT score of 1060/1600. To take a closer look at the different levels of performance on the SAT, we've created a chart with SAT percentiles and scores using data from students who took the new SAT and graduated in 2017. Remember that a percentile score tells you what proportion of students performed at or below your level (e.g., a 50th percentile score means 50% of students performed as well as or worse than you). Percentile EBRW Math TOTAL 90th percentile (excellent) 670* 680* 1340* 73rd percentile (good) 600 590 1180 50th percentile (average) 530** 520** 1050** 25th percentile (poor) 460 450 910* 10th percentile (very poor) 400 390 810* Source: SAT Understanding Scores 2017 *Score is one percentile higher than percentile listed (e.g. 91st or 24th percentiles).**Score is one percentile lower than percentile listed (e.g. 49th percentile). (Note that the percentiles of the total scores aren't always equal to the percentiles of the sum of the section scores. This is most likely due to score rounding, since scores are reported in increments of 10; for instance, the real 91st percentile EBRW and Math scores might be 665 and 675 respectively, which sum up to a total 91st percentile score of 1340, but round up to 670 and 680.) One (potentially surprising) number jumps right off the top of the chart- your SAT score doesn't need to break 1500, or even 1400, to put you in the top 10% of students. As the chart above indicates, a score of 1340 is in the 91st percentile! Thus, any score at or above 1340 is extremely impressive. On the lower end, any total score between 400 and 810 (a pretty wide range) puts you in the bottom 10 percent of test takers. If you raise your score to a 910, you'll still be performing worse than 75 percent of test takers. Because of this, it's pretty safe to say that any score at or below 910 is a bad SAT score. As we said earlier in this article, comparing your performance on the SAT to all other students who took the SAT is a fairly general way to look at things. After all, the main reason you want to perform well on the SAT is not just to have bragging rights that you got a high score, but to get into college. Depending on what colleges you apply to, a 91st percentile score could be way more than you need- or it could be lower than the score of the lowest-scoring accepted student. So how do you figure out what a good SAT score is for your specific circumstances? What's a Good 2018 SAT Score for You? In the end, when it comes to figuring out what a good SAT score is, what really matters is finding the score that's good for you. This means calculating what score you'll need to have a good chance of admission to the schools you want to get into. At PrepScholar, we refer to this as your target score. What you choose as your target score should depend entirely on what schools you're applying to. For example, for a student applying to highly competitive schools like Caltech (1560 average SAT score) or Yale (1540 average SAT score), a good SAT score will be at or just below 1600. But for a student applying to schools like UC Merced, a solid target score might be something closer to 1250. Where are these specific numbers coming from? Find out in the next section that will take you through calculating your target SAT score, step by step. Choosing an SAT Score Goal for 2018 Below, we'll walk you through the three vital steps to follow to determine your score goal. You can download a PDF of a blank chart from this ebook, or create one yourself. Here's an example of what your chart might look like: School Name 25th Percentile SAT Score 75th Percentile SAT Score Step 1: Fill In Your Schools The first step is to list the schools you know you want to apply to in the far left column, like this: School Name 25th Percentile SAT Score 75th Percentile SAT Score Wellesley College Wesleyan College Ohio Wesleyan University Wells College Note: This is just an example list. We don't recommend picking schools solely based on the fact that their names sound similar. If you're not sure what schools you'll be applying to yet, you can still list the ones that have been suggested to you by guidance counselors, parents, teachers, and friends. To arrive at the most accurate target score, though, it's better to take the time to research schools and figure out which ones you're interested in, then add them to your list. Think about what schools you plan to apply to, then write the names down in your target score chart. Victor van Werkhooven/Flickr. Step 2: Find SAT Score Information for Your Schools The next step is to find out the 25th and 75th percentile out-of-1600 SAT scores for your schools. (If you want to figure out what scores you should aim for in Math and Evidence-Based Reading and Writing as well, go to this link to download the charts.) A quick way to do this is to look for your schools in our PrepScholar college database. Start by searching for "[School Name] prepscholar sat or "[School Name] prepscholar". You can then go to either the admissions requirements page or the SAT and GPA page- both have SAT score information. Scan the page for the school's new SAT score information; specifically, you're looking for the 25th and 75th percentile scores. This information is important because it will tell you the SAT scores of the middle 50 percent of admitted applicants for that specific school. If you can't find your school in our database, you can search each school's website for their most recent admissions information (usually in their Common Data Set or Incoming Class Profile pages). However, because no two college websites are organized the same way, this is a long and arduous task, particularly if you're looking at 10+ schools (which is why we recommend using the PrepScholar database first). You'll also need to make sure the scores on the school pages are for the new SAT and not the out-of-2400 SAT; if they are for the old SAT, you can convert them to the new SAT scale using these conversion charts. Here's our sample target score chart again, now with SAT score information filled out for each school: School Name 25th Percentile SAT Score 75th Percentile SAT Score Wellesley College 1370 1530 Wesleyan College 1340 1520 Ohio Wesleyan University 1090 1320 Wells College 1020 1240 Step 3: Calculate Your Target SAT Score Finally, it's time to calculate your target score. For your best shot at getting into your schools, you'll want this score to be the highest 75th percentile score in your chart (since that will mean you're scoring as well as or better than at least 75% of all admitted students in all the other schools as well). In our sample chart, this score is an extremely high 1530- a 99+ percentile score! If this target score is so high as to seem completely unobtainable and hopeless, you can aim for a slightly lower score. Ideally, this score will be the second-highest 75th percentile score (in our sample chart, a 1520- not much different), or in between the second-highest and highest 75th percentile scores. You can also always go with the median of the 75th percentile score column in your chart (in our sample chart, (1520+1320)/2=1420), although this may pull down your chances of getting into the schools with higher 75th percentile scores. Alternatively, you can start out by aiming for this lower score, then upping your goals once you attain it. Once you have your target total SAT score, you can also calculate your rough target section scores by dividing your total target score by two and rounding up. In our example of a 1530 target total score, this gives us target section scores of 770 for Evidence-Based Reading and Writing and Math. (If you do want to calculate exact target scores for each section, follow the instructions in this article.) Want to learn more about the SAT but tired of reading blog articles? Then you'll love our free, SAT prep livestreams. Designed and led by PrepScholar SAT experts, these live video events are a great resource for students and parents looking to learn more about the SAT and SAT prep. Click on the button below to register for one of our livestreams today! Are Good SAT Scores in 2018 Different From Past Years' Good SAT Scores? We've now gone through three different criteria that can be used to determine what a good SAT score is: a score higher than the average SAT score, a score higher than 90% of students' scores, or a score higher than scores of 75% of students admitted to the schools you're applying to. But you might still have the lingering question: are good SAT scores in 2018 different from what good SAT scores were in past years? The short answer to this question: no, there's not really a difference between good SAT scores in 2018 vs. good SAT scores in past years. The longer answer involves getting back down into the details of SAT score data. Because 2017 was the first year the College Board released information about performance on the new out-of-1600 SAT, any comparison of those scores with past years' SAT scores requires score conversion. In the table below, I've converted the 2017 SAT score averages to the old SAT format for ease of comparison. Average SAT Scores 2006-2017 Year Total Critical Reading Writing Math 2006 1518 503 497 518 2007 1508 501 493 514 2008 1507 500 493 514 2009 1505 499 492 514 2010 1506 500 491 515 2011 1500 497 489 514 2012 1498 496 488 514 2013 1498 496 488 514 2014 1497 497 487 513 2015 1490 495 484 511 2016 1484 494 482 508 2017* 1450* 500* 450* 500* Table data taken from College Board's Total Group Reports 2016 and 2017.*Data converted from new 1600 SAT format to old SAT format. At first glance, it might seem like there's been a slight decline in average SAT scores over the last ten years, with a huge drop this past year for Writing in particular. If you go by averages alone, then it's easy to conclude that a good SAT score is lower for 2018 than it was in the past. However, there are a couple of important factors that you need to take into account when looking at this data. Converting between the old and new SAT is tricky because of how different the tests are, and Writing scores are particularly difficult to compare between the old and new SAT because old SAT Writing scores took your essay score into account, while new SAT Writing scores don't. It's possible that the 30-point Writing score drop in 2017 because the College Board didn't get the conversion quite right when removing the essay. Furthermore, averages are just one way of tracking changing scores. Another isthe distribution of SAT scores. Let's look at how the range of scores changed from 2011- 2016. (I've left out scores on the new SAT scale for clarity's sake.) SAT Score Percentiles 2011-2016 Year # tested 90th %ile 75th %ile 50th %ile 25th %ile 10th %ile 2011 1,647,123 1930-1940 1720 1490 1280 1110 2012 1,664,479 1930-1940 1720 1490 1280 1100 2013 1,660,047 1930-1940 1720 1490 1280 1100 2014 1,672,395 1930-1940 1720 1490 1270 1090-1100 2015 1,698,521 1930-1940 1720 1480 1260 1080-1090 2016 1,637,589 1930-1940* 1710-1720* 1470-1480* 1260-1270* 1090-1100* *2016 percentiles are approximate and based on PrepScholar's calculations, as the College Board did not release percentile data that year. Number of test takers for that year is from the College Board. As with averages, some of the percentile scores (mostly the 10th-50th percentile scores) have gone down a little bit over time. Over the years, as more students took the SAT each year, fewer test takers were reaching certain scores each year, which lowered the percentile scores. The changes in percentile scores, however, are fairly slight: of the percentile scores that decreased, almost all dropped by only 10 or 20 points, which is not enough of a change to indicate a significant trend. Interestingly, some of the percentile scores didn't change at all over the same period of time. From 2011 to 2016, the 90th percentile scores remained exactly the same, and the 75th percentile score nearly so, meaning that the same percentage of test takers were scoring at or near these scores each year. The overall consistency in SAT score percentiles, coupled with the fact that students may take the SAT over multiple calendar years (e.g., fall and spring junior year) suggests that what's a good SAT score hasn't changed much in the last few years. In Conclusion: What Are Good SAT Scores for 2018? There are multiple ways to define what is a good SAT score for 2018. The broadest comparison means looking at your SAT score and comparing it to the average SAT score (1060). If you scored at or above the average SAT score, you did well; if you scored below this score, you did not. A slightly more nuanced view takes into account different score percentiles and lets you compare your score against categories like the top 10% and the bottom 10% of students (1340 and 910 total SAT scores, respectively). If your score is equal to or above 1340, then congratulations- you're part of the top 10% of students who took the SAT! If your score is at or below 910, then you're in the bottom 10% of all students who took the SAT, and will probably need some dedicated studying to bring your SAT score up to your target score. While averages and percentiles give you an objective way to compare your score to the scores of other students, however, the most helpful way to think about it is to compare your score to the scores of students admitted to colleges you want to attend. To do this, you'll need to pick a target score, and then shape your SAT studying around meeting that goal. Ultimately, a good SAT score is one that gets you into the colleges you want to go to. If you follow our guidelines for choosing a score goal and work hard to attain it, you'll guarantee yourself a strong chance of being admitted to the schools you want to get into. Hitting your target SAT score takes you one more step up the ladder to reach your college admission goals. What's Next? Figuring out your target score is just the first step of planning out your test prep schedule. To find out what other steps you need to take, follow our guide to building your very own SAT study plan. If you haven't scheduled your SAT yet, you'll want to get on that (or at least get an idea of when the test is offered this year). Use our guide to choosing an SAT test date to see what your options are. Not quite hitting your target score yet? We have two sets of strategies, tailored to students at different skill levels. If you're regularly getting a 600+ on Math and EBRW but aren't quite hitting the score you need, be sure to read our articles on how to get a perfect SAT score and perfect Math, Reading, and Writing scores. If you're aiming for a 1200 total SAT score but aren't there yet, then our articles on how to improve low Math, Reading, and Writing SAT scores will be a better fit. Disappointed with your scores? Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points?We've written a guide about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

United States Vs. India Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

United States Vs. India - Essay Example The rate of unemployment according to the CIA Factbook was 9.5% in 2009 and 9.1% in 2008 in India. When compared to the USA, the unemployment rate is very similar for the year 2009 as the country had 9.4% unemployment but in 2008, the rate was 5.8%. The rise in unemployment in the recent years in US has been caused by the economic conditions and the sub-prime crisis. General Motors filed for bankruptcy in 2009 and many other companies which employed a large proportion of the population also closed down. Many companies made lay-offs to reduce costs as their products were not being sold in the market. Many economists say that the unemployment that the US faces is seasonal and will improve with time. The inflation rate in the US for consumer prices was -0.7% in 2009 and 3.8% in 2008 (CIA, 2010). In contrast, India had an inflation rate of 9.8% in 2009 and 8.3% in 2008 (CIA, 2010). The rate of inflation is very high in India as compared to the USA which was negative for the last year. This high inflation rate in India accounts for the high demand of products in the country and the low rate in US accounts for the low demand and higher production in the economy. The US is the largest hub of technology in the world with per capita GDP of US$ 46,900 where as the Indian economy has per capita GDP of US$ 3,100 as of 2009 (CIA, 2010). Both these countries derive most of the GDP from the services sector and have economic liberalization policies. India has become a well known exporter of software products and has an edge of low labor cost. Although more than half of the labor force is self-employed in the agricultural industry in India, but the sector only accounts for 17% of the net income of the country. The US only derives 1.2% of its total revenue from agricultural sector and 71 % of the revenue from the services sector (CIA, 2010). USA has been struck hard by the worldwide economic downturn and the country itself