Thursday, March 26, 2020

Ayatollah Khomeni essays

Ayatollah Khomeni essays What Were The Significant Influences of Religion Upon Ayatollah Khomeinis Leadership Style? Ayatollah Khomeini was born in 1902. After his initial religious training he taught in the major Shi'i theological school at Qom, but was exiled for his opposition to the government of the Shah, Reza Khan. Living in Paris after 1978 he orchestrated the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran. He became both the political and religious leader of the country throughout the protracted Iran-Iraq war, until he died in 1989. Ruhollah Khomeini can be portrayed as one of the most seminal and enigmatic characters of the twentieth century. In no small way has his influence touched our lives, even, or perhaps especially, here in the detached atmosphere of a western first world country, and herein lies the dilemma: Khomeini represents a type of politico-spiritual leader virtually unheard of in the West save the token titles of ruling monarchs in Victorian England. This, combined with the different social implications of Islam compared to Christianity leaves a wide gap in our perceptions, and therefore our ability, to produce an objective analysis. There are many factors to be considered when evaluating the leadership of an individual, and these will vary significantly in effect from leader to leader, but with one proviso there will always be a single unifying purpose. It is this purpose that drives the individual to greatness, or alternatively, excess, and in Khomeini this manifested itself in the form of religious fanaticism. Religion in the Islamic world governs every facet imaginable of society, from law to education to social customs, and the clerics hold great sway over public opinion. This essay will attempt to address the implications of this religious control when utilised by a charismatic, single-minded individual, and how a sufficiently eloquent orator can twist the emotions of the populace. Now, in the light of recent tra...

Friday, March 6, 2020

ACT Practice Tests What They Can and Cant Do

ACT Practice Tests What They Can and Can't Do SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips ACT practice tests are invaluable for any level of ACT preparation, from those just beginning their study to those who have studied for months already. There are limits, however, to what ACT practice tests can do. Read on to find out what things ACT practice tests are good for and what they just can’t accomplish. feature image credit: Limited/used under CC BY 2.0/Cropped and resized from original. What ACT Practice Tests Do Well Going through ACT practice tests can help your studying in myriad ways. For one thing, taking practice ACTs orients you towards the test. If you get too caught up in doing practice problem sets, you can forget what your ultimate goal is: doing well on the ACT when you sit down and take it on test day, not just acing problems in isolation. Making it through the full test length (between three and four hours, depending on whether or not you take ACT Plus Writing) requires stamina as well as knowledge, and part of being prepared is making sure that you’re strong in both those arenas. At the very beginning of your studying, you should sit down and take a realistic ACT practice test all the way through. The realistic part is important because by taking practice tests in the morning and all at once (just like the real ACT), you’ll be able to review mistakes that wouldn’t show up if you were just doing practice sets in the afternoon or evening. Practice tests are valuable not just because of what you gain while you’re taking them, but because of what you can gain upon reflection after taking the test. After you've taken your first practice test, note what surprised you most about the experience (both in a good way and in a bad way). It could turn out that you're a lot more focused when you sit down to take the test all at once; on the other hand, you might discover that when you take the ACT at 8am, you're a lot more prone to making careless mistakes on Reading than you would be otherwise. Reviewing wrong answers, or even questions you weren't sure about but guessed correctly on, is key to improvement. Once you identify your problems, you can then come up with solutions (whether it’s making sure to sleep enough the night before the test or continuing to take more practice tests to get used to the time demands). After you've implemented those solutions, you should take a second practice test and see if the changes you've made in your studying have resulted in changes in your score. One final point is that taking practice tests close (but not too close) to the ACT helps you build up your test muscle memory. Like playing a piano concerto all the way through in advance of a concert, or playing through a full-time scrimmage before a big game, taking full-length ACT practice tests gets your mind in shape. Overall, practice tests are a critical (30%+) part of a good ACT study program. It’s imperative that you have high accuracy questions that are representative of what you'll see on test day, and there's no better source of these high-quality questions than official ACT practice tests. Read more about why high-quality materials are important in our guide to the best ACT prep websites out there. What ACT Practice Tests Don’t Do While practice tests are important for all the reasons outlined above, you can't spend 80%+ of your ACT prep time on practice tests and call it a day, because practice tests aren’t the answer to every problem and won’t cure all your issues. For example, if you're 30 hours into your studying, you shouldn't take three practice tests in a row and expect to see positive results. You'll be gaining a little bit of muscle memory, but score increases as a result of muscle memory are very low. You'd be better off investing that time shoring up your weak spots with targeted practice questions. Focused practice outside of taking full-length practice tests is important for improving specific skills, like using quadratic equations or understanding parallelisms. Doing the same type of question over and over again and drilling down on why you're making mistakes is the most effective path to improving your performance in those areas. Seeking Lavender (Provence 2012)/used under CC BY-SA 2.0/Resized from original. As you improve on the ACT overall, doing this kind of narrow practice is more efficient, because the more you study, the fewer areas and types of questions you’ll struggle with. Thus, it’s a better use of your time to focus in on your weak areas rather than taking an entire practice test and wasting time on doing questions that you already can ace. Practice tests also become useless or wasted without enough preparation before taking each one. If you take one, don’t learn any lessons (either by reflecting on wrong answers or reviewing theory and content you didn't know), and take another practice test, the second one will almost certainly be a waste of time and energy. What’s Next? Want to make sure you're mimicking the real test when you take practice tests? Learn about the eight steps to follow to get the most realistic ACT practice test experience here. Have a limited amount of time to study and want to make sure you divide it up wisely? Read our guide to using ACT practice tests over 20 hours of prep. How can you study your way to a perfect ACT score? PrepScholar co-founder and perfect scorer Allen Cheng walks you through his process in his article on how to get a perfect 36 on the ACT. Want to improve your ACT score by 4 points? Check out our best-in-class online ACT prep program. We guarantee your money back if you don't improve your ACT score by 4 points or more. Our program is entirely online, and it customizes your prep program to your strengths and weaknesses. We also have expert instructors who can grade every one of your practice ACT essays, giving feedback on how to improve your score. Check out our 5-day free trial: