Grewal

People's behavior is largely determined by forces not of their own making. Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position. People invetibaly are shaped by external circumstances, as is also said by psychologists. You see every day how one automatically becomes rowdy and energetic at a football stadium, clearly influenced by the thousands of foot-thumping football fans cheering for their teams. On the other hand, one acquires an air of civility when attending a ball or a royal event. These examples clearly show how one is a slave to one’s surroundings. If we look at children and see how they develop, it is often seen that the offspring of educated, white-collar workers, whether they are scientists, businessmen or engineers, will inevitably turn out to be responsible and thoughtful citizens. A child surrounded by logical, thoughtful parents, who focus on building positive traits, will be inclined to exercise his or her mind. On the other hand, if you look at the children of working class people or those from broken families, you will see a distinct pattern emerging, wherein the child will not be too keen on going to school or that he does not value relationships. Why would he when he has never seen his parents valuing theirs. No wonder psychologists emphasise the importance of providing a positive, encouraging environment for children. Our surroundings influence us in myriad ways. Not just individuals but whole societies are impacted by forces not of their own making. For instance, if you live in a fair, free and just society, you would be more prone to treating men and women fairly, but if you have grown up in a patriarchal society, you would tend to sideline women. You would not think twice before judging a woman on what she wears or what she eats, drinks or who she goes out with, a thing for which you would be scorned in the West. Further, it is often seen that people in violent areas, where there is little respect for the law, tend to be less civil than those living in more respectable places. However, one cannot totally assume that this argument is infallible. Clearly, you can do a lot to regulate your behaviour. History is replete with examples of men who have fought against the odds and the circumstances to change the world. Nelson Mandela lived in a country afflicted with aparthied, but he chose to battle this ideology, inspired by the works of nonviolent and fair-minded leaders like Mahatma Gandhi. Even then, it is clear how forces beyond our control heavily influence our behavior. If we recognise this and work towards correcting this bias of ours, we can definitely become better human beings.

The following appeared in an article written by Dr. Karp, an anthropologist. “Twenty years ago, Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist, visited the island of Tertia and concluded from his observations that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village rather than by their own biological parents. However, my recent interviews with children living in the group of islands that includes Tertia show that these children spend much more time talking about their biological parents than about other adults in the village. This research of mine proves that Dr. Field’s conclusion about Tertain village culture is invalid and thus the observation-centered approach to studying cultures is invalid as well. The interview-centered method that my team of graduate students is currently using in Tertia will establish a much more accurate understanding of child-rearing traditions there and in other island cultures.” Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strenghten the argument. Anthropologist Dr. Karp says that Dr. Field’s conclusion about Tertian village culture is invalid and so is the observation-centered approach to studying cultures. This argument is flawed as it contains causal, analogical and statistical errors, which once corrected will unravel the argument, thereby proving that its assumptions and implications are incorrect. Firstly, Dr. Karp after interviewing some children living in a group of islands that include Tertia finds that the children spoke more about their parents than other adults in the village. This he says proves that Dr. Field’s conclusion that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village rather than by their own biological parents is invalid. Dr. Karp hereby commits a causal error. Just because children spoke more about their biological parents than other adults in the village doesn’t mean they weren’t parented by the whole village. Dr. Karp provides little explanation as to how he reached this particular conclusion. Had he provided more information on who spent how much time on raising the children, his argument would have been stronger. Secondly, Dr. Karp commits the analogical error, saying that since he proved Dr. Field’s conclusion about the village wrong, he has proved the observation-centered approach to studying cultures wrong. This statement does not hold water. The observation-centered approach must be broad-based and could have been used correctly by several anthropologists in the past. In order to make such a strong statement, Dr. Karp should have provided more data and explained how he thinks this approach is wrong, typically taking a systematic approach and studying the technique closely, such as its methodoly. Lastly, Dr. Karp doesn’t say anything about the size of the sample of interviews his team has collected. If the size is too small or not representative enough of the whole village, his findings will prove to be incorrect. Further, the methodology used by his team of graduate students has not been discussed; it could be possible that they asked the wrong questions to the children, not asking them more about the time they spent with their biological parents. This shows that there are plenty of gaps in the argument, which if rectified will illustrate that Dr. Karp’s argument lacks substance and hence is flawed. As pointed out, these errors are serious, which if not corrected can result in one making wrong conclusions. Until and unless, Dr. Karp systematically provides considerably more information, we cannot make any statement about whether or not Dr. Field’s conclusion about children in Tertia being raised by the entire village is false.

The best way to teach is to praise positive actions and ignore negative ones. Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the recommendation and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, describe specific circumstances in which adopting the recommendation would or would not be advantageous and explain how these examples shape your position. The prompt says that the best way to teach is to praise positive actions and ignore negative ones. Now many might say that to spare the rod is to spoil the child, but the fact is that positive reinforcement can result in remarkable improvement in a student. This essay will discuss why the best way to teach is to praise positive actions and give examples in support of this claim. In education, as we all know, if you keep criticizing the student and not praise his or her achievements, it can lead to discouragement and in extreme cases, can cause the student to lose interest in studies. This has been proven time and time again. Therefore, in the developed world, there is heavy emphasis on positive reinforcement and building children’s confidence as in formative years, a negative or traumatic school experience can be detrimental to a person’s mental health. On the other hand, the developing world still seems to be stuck in the past, with teachers sticking to old hectoring tactics even resorting to beating when the child has made mistakes. They believe that if children are complimented for their achievements, they will complacent or that they will become arrogant. One can only witness how detrimental it has been to the developing world’s progress. Moreover, it is evident how the West has implemented this positive reinforcement in the field of sports to its advantage; it is arguably producing the best sportsmen in the world. A coach would typically focus on what the athletes are doing well and help them build on these successes. Most athletes are taught the power of visualisation, wherein they would imagine how well they would play in the game before it begins, thereby helping them get into a positive state of mind and alleviate stress and anxiety. Even in performance art, the teacher would often stress on the artistes’ strengths, accentuating them in order to get the best out of them. For instance, while casting, directors or casting directors would only choose those actors for a particular role, who can naturally play it, as in they will only cast a serious man in a serious role or an artful person in a cunning role. This being said, one can understand how totally ignoring negative actions can be disastrous. So one needs to be cautious in not totally ignoring negative actions, how else will a person learn from his or her mistakes. But at the same time it is a common mistake to lay all the focus on rectifying faults insead of building on strengths or positive actions. Thus as we can see how positive reinforcement can help people realize their potential, the best way, indeed, is to praise positive actions and ignore negative ones as much as one can.

Recent incursions by deep-sea fishermen into the habitat of the Madagascan shrimp have led to a significant reduction in the species population. With the breeding season fast approaching, the number of shrimp should soon begin to increase. Nonetheless, the population should not return to the levels before the fishing boats arrived. Because this trend is expected to continue over the next several years, the Madagascan shrimp will quickly become an endangered species. Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument. The argument doesn't seem to be coherent, making several assumptions without reasoning through the various questions coming to mind. Firstly, it doesn't make clear as to why the species population fell sharply, merely saying that recent incursions by deep-sea fishermen into the habitat of Madagascan shrimp led to the drop in population. The argument doesn't say whether the fishermen caught shrimp or fishes that the shrimp fed on. We just don't know what caused the population drop. There could be other reasons for this that may not be linked to the fishermen's incursions in the area. For instance, global warming could have caused the water temperature to rise, making the area unsuitable for shrimps or there could have been an environmental catastrophe such as a big oil spill that killed the shrimp. Secondly, the argument says that shrimp population should not return to levels before the fishing boats arrived, adding that this may result in Madagascan shrimp becoming an endangered species. This statement isn't logically sound. Even if we assume that the shrimp's population declined due to the fishermen, what's to say the species will not become extinct if the population doesn't return to its previous levels. The deep-sea fishermen can still catch the remaining shrimp, and thereby reducing their number bit by bit every year until they go extinct. Thirdly, if we assume that the shrimp's number doesn't reach levels before the fishermen had arrived, they can still catch the shrimp and reduce their population drastically. Further, if the shrimps were not to increase in population and the fishermen were not to catch them, how do we know that their numbers will increase, not knowing how many times their breeding season occurs in a year and how much time do they take to muliply. These are all gaping holes in the argument. Unless these things are made clear we can't reach the conclusion that the argument has reached. Also, we are also not told how many times the fishermen come to the area. Do they come once in a year, six months, three months or every month? Before making any more deductions from this argument, we need to be told what is the population of shrimp in the region and how many shrimps have the fishermen supposedly caught. Without these numbers, the argument comes across as vague. Only when we know how fast do the shrimp multiply and how many are caught can we make projections about the extinction of the shrimps. These are some of the assumptions made in the argument and without answering the abovementioned specific questions, we can't reach this conclusion. To be cogent, the author needs to think through the argument.

Universities should require students to take courses only within those fields they are interested in studying. Write a response in which you discuss your views on the policy and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider the possible consequences of implementing the policy and explain how these consequences shape your position. Although it seems practical for universities to offer courses within those fields that the students are interested in, it does itself no favours by doing so: becoming less flexibile in terms of offering diverse courses will only reduce students' choice, thereby limiting their creativity in research. In today's times, when interdisciplinary courses are encouraged, universities will limit themselves by clearly differentiating between various fields. There is an increasing need for students to think on multiple levels, especially as rapid technological advances are bringing togther, and not segregating, the sciences and arts to offer enriching experience to the consumer. For instance, laptops are not only a utility to crunch numbers, but a style statement with increasingly user friendly designs, courtesy Apple, taking the consumer market by storm. One can also see how technology and the medical world are coming together, wherein some doctors operate on patients located thousands of miles away via computer-operated robots. This will increase consumer welfare, with scientific innovations leading to cheaper products. Letting students study persuasive prose as well as mathematics will only open up their minds, enabling them to understand that there is mathematics in writing compelling prose and that mathematics requires good instincts. Some of the greatest innovations have come from America, where interdisciplinary studies are encouraged, helping students think creatively and breaking the mould. Who would have thought you could get everything under the sun, from the most insignificant items such as toothpick to expensive, top-notch laptops, at your doorstep at the click of a button. If it were not for Amazon, which took the lead and today enjoys immense market power, our lives wouldn't have become significantly easier! Amazon chief Jeff Bezos married latest techonology with keen business sense to come up with this revolutionary and simple idea. I am guessing his education at the Ivy League must have played a part in his original thinking. On the other hand, compartemtalising students into either science, arts or commerce fields at the age of 16, leaving little room for them to explore other fields have reaped no dividends for a country like India. At a time, when everything merges into everything, you can't have engineers with no communication skills or journalists not knowing basic arithmetic: after all, journalists will become better if they use quantitave techniques to back their stories with data, like The New York Times or other top newspapers do. My point is that in today's age, where the next economic boom will be primarily hinged on the next big idea, we need to keep ourselves and our education open and flexible, enabling the youth to think out of the box.

To understand the most important characteristics of a society, one must study its major cities. Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ While it apparently makes sense to want to focus on major cities to understand the most important characteristics of a society, it may not help you to fully comprehend its workings, which are based on deeply held beliefs and ideas. It is true that bigger cities are melting pots of various cultures, bringing together people of diverse backgrounds, but, you will never understand the soul of the society, unless you understand its history and its roots. Culture in bigger cities or metropolitans become homogonised, if only superficially; people, especially those who moved to the bigger cities from small towns or villages, tend to change and evolve in order to fit in, but they never truly transform. Their beliefs and ideas of the world have already crystallized largely before they move to bigger cities, which become apparent once you probe a little deeper. On the surface, a large city will always appear to be more progressive and liberal. To really investigate and understand the spirit of a society, one needs to delve deeper into its soul: the vast expanse of rural hinterland and the small towns. Though you will witness some dying rituals and beliefs, on the whole, you will begin to understand the society more deeply through its history, its culture, its ideas of a nation, its founding fathers – needless to say, they didn’t just connect with the peoples of the bigger cities, but the whole of the country or society to bring about a revolution. It is vital to understand how a society eats, what it grows, what it wears, how it treats its women, what political ideology it espouses and so on and so forth. If and only if you witness and understand the problems the common man across a country from every part of the society faces and how he or she deals with it, will you appreciate it. The problems and lifestyle of the people in major cities will generally be starkly different from that of villages, which is why, I believe, one needs to observe the country or society as a whole to truly understand it.