Richard Nixon Essays (713 words) - Watergate Scandal, Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon Bill Bryant Per. 1 Research Quest Text Book Area Our textbooks had a lot of information on Richard Nixon he did many different things in his life. Since I am concentrating on the Watergate scandal I read the section in the book about that. The information was on pages 775- 781. It discussed what the Watergate scandal was about. The Watergate scandal took place during Nixon's second term. In January 1973, two months after Nixon had won the presidential election Watergate began to unfold. Investigations revealed that the Nixon administration had violated people's civil liberties and was guilty of abuses of power. The Watergate crisis ended with the resignation of President Nixon on August 9, 1974. Twenty Questions 1 Where was Richard Nixon born? 2 Why was Richard Nixon impeached? 3 What was the Watergate scandal? 4 What did Nixon accomplish while in office? 5 What events led to Nixon's resignation? 6 Would Nixon have been forced to resign if he didn't do it on his own? 7 How was Nixon caught for the Watergate Scandal? 8 When was Nixon elected? 9 When did Nixon resign? 10 Who had found the tapes about Watergate? 11 What were Nixon's goals as President? 12 When did Richard Nixon die? 13 How did Nixon change the Supreme Court? 14 Why did Nixon try to improve relations with China? 15 Why was the Watergate Scandal so bad? 16 Why was Nixon involved in Watergate? 17 How did the people feel about Nixon's involvement in Watergate? 18 Why was Nixon re- elected in 1972? 19 What would have happened to Nixon if he didn't resign? 20 what effects did Watergate have on public confidence in the government? Thesis Nixon's involvement in the Watergate Scandal forced him to resign. Outside Discussion For the outside discussion I talked with my dad. He told me that he felt Nixon wasn't a very good president. He said that Nixon had really messed up the United States. We talked about the Watergate scandal and how Nixon had resigned. My Dad felt that Nixon had done the right thing by resigning from office. My dad also told me about the gas crisis that had happened during Nixon's Presidency. He told me about how the government had said that we were going to run out of gas and prices went way up. Now 20 years later we still have plenty of gas to go around. My dad felt that Nixon wasn't a very honest of too great of a guy. Teacher Discussion The teacher discussion took place on Friday October 13, 2000. We discussed what part of Nixon's life I should research about. We talked about various time periods of Nixon's life such as before, during, and after his presidency. I chose to do the end of his presidency, which is when the Watergate Scandal took place. Bibliography (5 Books) Grosset and Dunlap. The memories of Richad Nixon. New York: A Filmways company Publishers 1978. Hess, Stephen and Mazo, Earl. Nixon. New York: Harper and Row 1968. Mazo, Earl. Richard Nixon. New York: Harper and Brothers: 1959 Schuster and Simon. Richard Nixon in the arena. New York: 1990 Wicker, Tom One of Us New York: Random House, 1991 (3 Magazine articles) Buchanan, Patrick ? Watergate: A political coup Driven By Media Hatred of Nixon? Human events Jul. 1997 D'Agostino, Joseph. ?Watergate and Congress: From Criminal Investigation to Impeachment Inquiry? Human Events Mar. 1998. Kehoe, John ?Richard Nixon? Biography Feb. 1998 (2 Electronic sources) ?Richard Nixon.? 12 October 2000 http://metalab.unc.edu/lia/President/Nixon.html. ?Richard Nixon.? 12 October 2000 http://www.swiftsite.com/Nixonfamily Bibliography Buchanan, Patrick ? Watergate: A political coup Driven By Media Hatred of Nixon? Human events Jul. 1997 D'Agostino, Joseph. ?Watergate and Congress: From Criminal Investigation to Impeachment Inquiry? Human Events Mar. 1998. Grosset and Dunlap. The memories of Richad Nixon. New York: A Filmways company Publishers 1978. Hess, Stephen and Earl Mazo. Nixon. New York: Harper and Row 1968. Kehoe, John ?Richard Nixon? Biography Feb. 1998 Mazo, Earl. Richard Nixon. New York: Harper and Brothers: 1959 Nixon Family. Acadian Production. 1997-2000. 12 October 2000. www.Swiftsite.com/Nixonfamily. ?Richard Nixon.? Encarta Online. 1993-2000. Microsoft corporation 12 October 2000. www.Encarta.msn.com. Schuster and Simon. Richard Nixon in the arena. New York: Simon and Schuster 1990 Wicker, Tom, One of Us New York: Random House, 1991 Biographies

How to Improve ACT Science Scores 7 Tips From a Perfect Scorer

How to Improve ACT Science Scores 7 Tips From a Perfect Scorer SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Are you struggling with ACT Sciencescores between 14-24? You're not alone - hundreds of thousands of other students are scoring in this range. But many don't know the best ways to break out of this score range and get 26+on the ACT. Here we'll discuss how to improve your ACT Sciencescore effectively and why it's so important to do so. Put these principles to work and I'm confident you'll be able to improve your score. Brief note: This article is tailored for lower-scoring students, currently scoring below a 26 on ACT Science. If you're already above this range, my perfect 36 ACT Sciencescore articlewill be better for you as it contains advanced strategies. In this article, I'm going to discuss why scoring high is a good idea, what it takes to score a 26, and then go into ACT Science tips. Stick with me - this is like constructing a building. First you need to lay a good foundation before putting up the walls and windows. Similarly, we need to first understand why you're doing what you're doing and what goal you're aiming for, before diving into tips and strategies. In this guide, I talk mainly about getting to a 26. But if your goal is to get to a 24 or lower, these tips still equally apply. Understand the Stakes At this ACT score range, improving your low ACT Sciencescore to a 26 range will dramatically boost your chances of getting into better colleges. The reason? A 26 puts you at the 83 percentile, well above the national average of all ACT test takers. This is roughly equal to a 1200 out of 1600 on the SAT. Let's take a popular school, University of Massachusetts Amherst,as an example. Its average ACT score is a 27. Its 25th percentile score is a 24, and 75th percentile is a 29. Furthermore, its acceptance rate is 63%. In other words, a bit more than half of all applicants are admitted. This is a decently competitive school - almost half the people are rejected, and the lower your score, the greater the chance you'll be rejected. In our analysis, if you apply with an ACT score of 21, your chance of admission drops to 25.4%. This means you have a 3 in 4 chance of being rejected! But if you raise your score to a 26, your chance of admission shoots up to 57.7% - over double the chances of admission, for just 5 points of improvement. And because your ACT Science score factors into your ACT composite score, raising your Science score will really help raise the average of your total score. In fact, if you raise your ACT Science score by 4 points, your Composite score will increase by a whole point. It's really worth your time to improve your ACT score. Hour for hour,it's the best thing you can do to raise your chance of getting into college. Curious what chances you have with a 26 ACT score? Check out ourexpert college admissions guide for a 26 ACT scoreto see what colleges you're competitive for. Know That You Can Do It This isn't just some fuzzy, feel-good message you find in a fortune cookie. I mean, literally, you and every other reasonably capable student can score a 26 on ACT Science. The reason most people don't is they don't try hard enough or they don't study the right way. Even if you don't consider yourself a science geek, or you got a B in Biology, you're capable of this. Because I know that more than anything else, your ACT score is a reflection ofhow hard you work and how strategically you study. Here's why: the ACT is a weird test. When you take it, don't you get the sense that many questions are nothing like what you've seen in school? It's purposely designed this way.The ACT is a national test, which means it needs to be a level playing field for ALL students around the country. It can't discriminate against students who never took AP Physics (or whose schools don't even offer AP classes). Therefore, the ACT can't test difficult concepts, because this would be unfair for students who never took AP Physics.The ACT Science sectioncan't ask you to solve cold fusionor build a rocket to get to Mars. So it HAS to test scientific concepts that every high school student will cover: how to interpret data graphs, what the scientific method is, how scientific theories disagree from each other. This leads to the big secret of ACT Science. The Big Secret: You Don't Have to Know Much Actual Science Many students who study ACT Science are intimidated by the mistaken impression that they need to know a lot of science to get by. The reality is the opposite - it's much more about reading comprehension, understanding graphs, and logic. Now, it SEEMS like you need to know a lot of science, because there will be weird scenarios you've never seen before, from dinosaur claw sizes to how clouds affect soil temperature. These may seem intimidating because you've never learned this in school. Here's an example graph: You've probably never seen a graph like this before in school. The thing is,every other high school student in America hasn't seen this graph before either! The ACT expects you to solve questions for this graph through the skills you've learned in high school - looking at two axes, understanding how a plot works, and getting data values from the graph. This is good news for you: if you can practice the basic skills tested on ACT Science, and you know what types of questions will be asked, you'll do a great job on the section. I guarantee it. Just to prove this to you, further down we're going to understand this graph and go through a few sample questions. The key to improving your ACT Science score is to: Learn the types of questions that the ACT tests, like the one above Put together the concepts you already know to solve the questions Practice on a lot of questions so you learn from your mistakes I'll go into more detail about exactly how to do this. First, let's see how many questions you need to get right a 26 in ACT Science. Disappointed with your ACT scores? Want to improve your ACT score by 4+ points? Download our free guide to the top 5 strategies you need in your prep to improve your ACT score dramatically. What It Takes to Get a 26in ACT Science If we have a target ACT score out of 36 in mind, it helps to understand how many questions you need to get right on the actual test. The ACT Science section has 40 questions on it. Depending on how many questions you get right, you'll get a Scaled score out of 36. Here's the raw score to ACT Science Score conversion table. (If you could use a refresher on how the ACT is scored and how raw scores are calculated, read this.) Scaled Raw Scaled Raw Scaled Raw Scaled Raw 36 40 27 32 18 16 9 5-6 35 39 26 30-31 17 14-15 8 - 34 38 25 28-29 16 13 7 4 33 37 24 26-27 15 12 6 3 32 - 23 24-25 14 5 2 31 36 22 22-23 13 10 4 - 30 35 21 21 12 9 3 1 29 34 20 19-20 8 2 - 28 33 19 17-18 10 7 1 0 So if you're aiming for a 26, on this test you need to get just 30 questions correct. This is just a 75% on the test! Also, keep in mind that you'll be able to GUESS on a lot of questions. Because there are only 4 answer choices, you get a lot of questions right with a 25% chance! So here's an example. Let's say you know how to solve just 27 questions for sure. You guess on the remaining 13, and get 4 of them right by chance. This gives you a raw score of 31, or a scaled score of 26! This has serious implications for your testing strategy. In essence, you only need to answer 2/3 of all questions right. In school, this would be a D, but on the ACT, this can get you to your ACT score target! We'll go into more detail below about what this means for your testing strategy below. Whatever you're scoring now, take note of the difference you need to get to a 26. For example, if you're scoring a 22, you need to answer 8-10 more questions right to get to a 26. Once again, if your goal is a score below 26, like a 24, the same analysis applies. Just look up what your Raw Score demands above. OK - so we've covered why scoring a higher ACT Sciencescore is important, why you specifically are capable of improving your score, and the raw score you need to get to your target. Hopefully, getting to a 26 on ACT Science doesn't seem so tough at this point! Now we'll actually get into actionable ACT Science tipsthat you should use in your own studying to maximize your score improvement. ACT Science Tips to Get a 26 ACT Science Tip #1: Don't Waste TimeUnderstanding Useless Details Tell me if this sounds familiar: you're reading an ACT Science passage, and it's so overwhelming trying to understand every detail of whatever obscure thing they're telling you about. This is by far the biggest time waster for most students - and because you only have 35 minutes to get through 7 passages and 40 questions, time is a huge factor in ACT Science. Here's the truth: ACT Science passages are full of scientific details that don’t actually matter to answering the questions. This is especially true of all those complicated graphs you see. You literally don't have to understand many of the details to get every question correct. The ACT does this on purpose to confuse you and make the test harder, and to show you what real scientific research kind of looks like. But you aren’t reading a science journal – you’re answering ACT Science questions. A common mistake people make is to try too hard to understand the passage in its entirety. They want to understand every detail in every chart. Trying to understand the entire passage is a HUGE waste of time because most of the passage isn’t going to have a question asked about it. This is true in ACT Reading, and it’s even more true in ACT Science. So what should you do instead? Skim the passage and understand the passage at a very high level. Answer these two questions only: What’s the main point here? What’s the figure showing? That’s it. When I read ACT Science passages, I don’t understand the deep details of what’s happening. I get the gist and I move on to the questions. Let’s try an example from a real ACT Science passage. I’m going to show you how useless most of the passage is and how little you need to understand to answer the questions. My skimming: There is a lake. The lake sediment tells us about the climate in the past. They mention average temperature for figure 3, so that’s probably what the main point is. There’s a weird oxygen symbol 18O, but all I need to know is that SMALLER values mean COLDER. This is a map showing 3 sites. We’ll probably be looking at samples from these 3 sites. Otherwise, I don't care right now where the sites are, how big the lake is, or whether I can see my house on this map. I'm ignoring all the fine details. This shows us a cutaway section of the lake, with the 3 sites from Figure 1. The y-axis is elevation. The key shows that each colored section is a different layer. Lake clay, glacial till, bedrock. The layers change as you move across the graph. How exactly they change I’m not going to care about until I get asked about it. I have no idea what the hell â€Å"glacial till† is but I’m not going to worry about that, since I’ll bet the ACT isn’t going to ask me to define it. Here's abunch of graphs designed to be confusing. Well, they all look about the same. We’ll just look at Site 1. The y-axis shows depth, so the further down, the deeper into the earth we go. The x-axis shows the 18O thing. From left to right, this value gets larger. What Site 1 shows is as you go UP in depth, you get a LARGER 18O value. That's all I'm going to care about for now. Now look at the other 2 Sites. Site 2 looks about the same, except for a glacial till line higher up. Site 3 looks the same as Site 1 - curve goes up and to the right. And now there’s this formula. I’m not even going to bother with this crap until they ask me a question about it. Notice from my notes that I really understand the passage only at a 30,000 foot level. I’m not getting bogged down in details, and I’m not understanding every detail of every graph. Doing that would be a waste of time. Just to convince you this high level of understanding works, we’re actually going to answer all 5 questions for thispassage. Look at the Key on the right. Lake clay is gray. Where is it thinnest? Winnipeg, F. You literally didn't even have to read the passage to solve this! You could have solved it just by looking at the picture. We want to find the SMALLEST 18O value, which means it’s more on the LEFTside of the graph. From the dots we see that’s going to be at the BOTTOM LEFTof the figure. Choice C. Once again, you barely had to read the passage to solve this! It's just figuring out where the dots are. OK, so figure 2. We start from Grand Forks on the right, then move to Site 3. Lake clay, the gray piece, gets THICKER. They say this in the question, and we see it in the figure. The question asked about glacial till, the striped layer under it. It gets THINNER as you go from Grand Forks to Site 3. So thickness DECREASES, choice J. Yet once again, you barely had to know the passage to solve this! OK, we want the elevation of the TOPof GLACIAL TILL at each of 3 sites. Glacial till is the STRIPED layer. At Site 1, the top is 200. At Site 2, the top is 205ish. At site 3, it’s 180 ish. Answer choice C is the only one that fits these values. YET AGAIN you barely had to know the passage! To rephrase: it rains. Water gets to 3m deep. What is the 18O 3m deep? Look at figure 3 at a depth of 3m. In each figure, it’s around -15. Answer J. Finally, surprise surprise, you didn't have to know the passage at all to answer this question. EASY PEASY. Notice all the crap we didn’t have to care about: In the passage, we didn’t have to care about how old the lake was or how it formed. Wedidn’t have to care about what 18O means about temperature. We didn’t use Figure 1 at all. Stupid map. In figure 2, we didn’t care at all about bedrock. Also, we only needed to care about how the layers changed when we were asked about it. In figure 3, we didn’t have to care at all about how Site 2 had a glacial till layer. We sure as hell didn’t have to know what the formula meant. I hope you get the point. So much of each passage is USELESSto getting the questions right. The stupid ACT knows this, and they WANT you to get bogged down. â€Å"Oh gee, I wonder what bedrock is? How might they ask questions about this?† â€Å"Boy this formula looks real tough. What is 18O, and what is 16O? What’s groundwater and what’s standard water? Why multiply by 1,000?† You can waste so many minutes trying to make sense of the entire passage. If you have time management problems, skimming the passage can be a huge time savings for you! Again, when you read the passage focus on only two questions: What is the MAIN POINT of the passage? What is the MAIN POINT of each figure? I’ve started yelling more just because of how angry this test makes me. So let me take a deep breath. Moving on†¦ Bonus:Want more helpful tips like this? Check out our new ACT Science prep book. If you liked this lesson, you'll love our book. It includes everything you need to know to ace ACT Science, including deep analysis of the logic behind ACT Science questions, a full breakdown of the different passage and question types, and tons of expert test-taking and study tips. Download our full-length prep book now: ACT ScienceTip #2: Understand What ACT Science Actually Tests ACT Science stands out as the most structured and predictable section on the ACT. What I mean by that is ACT Science has 3 passage types, and each passage type has specific question types associated with it. This is unlike ACT English, where all 5 passages have all sorts of random question types associated with it. To do well on the ACT, you HAVE to predict the questions and passages that you're going to see on test day. Here are the passage types and question types associated with them: 3 Data Representation Passages - describes a study, heavy on graphs and charts Read-the-Graph Questions Interpreting Trends Calculating Values 3 Research Summaries Passages - describes an experiment with multiple parts Experimental Design Hypothetical Experimental Changes Interpreting Experiments 1 Conflicting Viewpoints Passage - 2 or more scientists disagree Understanding Viewpoints Comparing Viewpoints Remember what I said about ACT Science testing basic skills you've learned before in school? This is it - reading graphs, the scientific method, and comparing viewpoints. Here's a helpful writeup of the 3 types of ACT Science passages and an overview of question types. Your job is to understand these skills, figure out what you're weak in, and drill those skills until you've mastered them. Does this sound intimidating? Our PrepScholar ACT program does the hard work for you by dividing up the entire test into specific skills you need to master. For every skill in ACT Science and every other section, you'll get a focused lesson and a quiz customized to your skill level. This is how I studied for the ACT and got a perfect score, so that's how I designed our prep program to work. If you could use help breaking down the ACT like this, definitely check out our PrepScholar ACT program. ACT ScienceTip #3: Learn How to Read Graphs By far the most important single skill on ACT Science is knowing how to read graphs and charts. Nearly half of all questions on the test will relate to reading a graph and making sense of it. Often, the graph will be in a totally unfamiliar subject you've never learned about. The units will be weird, and the shape of the graph might be weird. Don't worry about this - the graph isweird for every other student in the country too. The ACT does this on purpose so that students with advanced science knowledge don't have a huge advantage on the test. For example, if the ACT showed problems from AP Physics, people would riot - it's unfairly discriminating against students whose schools don't have AP Physics. But if the ACT shows a graph about sabertooth tiger tooth sizes, this is OK - almost no one will have seen this graph before, so everyone's on more level footing. If you've been overwhelmed by graphs before, this is important to sink in - ACT Science is designed so that YOU are fully capable of understanding everything you need to answer the questions right - if you learn the right skills. So how do you actually read a graph? The three most important steps you need to understand every single graph are: Skim the intro text. Often the passage will tell you literally "Figure 2 is about X" and this is a big head start. (Like I said in Tip #1, though, don't get bogged down in details.) Read the axes. What does the x-axis represent, and what changes as you move from left to right? What does the y-axis represent, and what changes as you move from bottom to top? This tells you what is actually being shown. Understand the general shape of the graph. Where is it going up or down? If there are multiple lines shown, how do they differ? I mean GENERAL - don't memorize every detail, just get a sense of what's going on. Let's apply this with the following real ACT Science passage. OK - so it's about photosynthesis, which you may remember from AP Biology. It's how plants use sunlight to generate glucose (sugar).We also hear about wavelength, which is a property of light. We can see that Violet light has a shorter wavelength than Red light. Here's Figure 2: Let's step through the 3 steps: Skim the intro text.Here it tells us figure 2 "shows the average rate of photosynthesis at various wavelengths, as a percent of the average rate of photosynthesis at 670 nm." So we get a hunch for what the graph is showing - how fast photosynthesis happens, at different wavelengths. Read the axes.The x-axis shows wavelength, and as you move from left to right, the wavelength gets larger. The y-axis shows rate of photosynthesis, and as you move from bottom to top, the rate gets bigger (which means photosynthesis happensfaster). Understand the general shape of the graph.Generally, I see two peaks and a big valley in between. Remember, higher on the y-axis means faster photosynthesis. This means that photosynthesis happens really fast at two wavelengths, and really low in the middle (around 540 nm). Again, few people have ever seen this graph before - or if they have, they've probably forgotten it. Now you understand it just as well as anyone else. With this in mind, we can try answering a question! Let's rephrase the question. "At what wavelength is photosynthesis faster than it is at 670 nm?" Let's rephrase it even more simply. "At what wavelength is the graph higher than where it is at 670 nm?" Because we understood what the y-axis was showing, we know that HIGHER UP means FASTER PHOTOSYNTHESIS. So first, let's find out how fast photosynthesis is at 670 nm. It's right around 100. (Actually, it tells you this in the intro text: "Figure 2 shows the average rate of photosynthesis at various wavelengths as a percent of the average rate of photosynthesis at 670 nm." Naturally, the value at 670 nm should be 100%. You don't have to know this, and I didn't dwell on it since it's not critical to know.) OK, now we look at where the rate of photosynthesis is higher than 100 at the 4 points: 400, 430, 630, and 700 nm. I show these with orange dots here: It's pretty clear that the only dot higher than 100 is at 430 nm. So B is the answer. What we just went over is exactly how you can approach every single graph on the ACT Science section. Some graphs will be more complicated than this, but the principles are really all the same. You CAN understand every graph in ACT Science. If you keep practicing these skills over and over again, you WILL become much better at getting more questions right. Trust me. Want to learn more about reading graphs on ACT Science? Read our complete guide to How to Read Graphs, Tables, and Data on ACT Science. ACT Science Tip #4: Understand Your Weaknesses, and Keep Drilling Them You only have a limited amount of time to study for the ACT. You need to get the biggest score improvement possible for every hour you study. To get the biggest score improvement, you need to understand where your greatest weaknesses are. Then you need to keep drilling those weaknesses with practice until you solve your weakness. This makes sense, doesn't it? Most students actually actively avoid improving their weaknesses.As a result, they waste a ton of time studying without any actual improvement. Why is focusing on your weaknesses so hard to do? A few reasons: Diagnosing your weaknesses requires a lot of analysis and discipline.To do this right, you need to categorize every practice question you do by skill, score how many questions you get right on each skill, and figure out which skills are best to work on. This is pretty laborious and tough to do right. It's a lot more enjoyable to work on things you already do well.Would you rather eat ice cream or cabbage? In ACT prep, ice cream is working on skills you're already good at - it feels great to knock questions out of the park and get high quiz scores. Unfortunately, this is a false sense of confidence - you're ignoring all the weaknesses that are actually bringing down your score. You should be eating your cabbage by working on weaknesses, which takes a lot more mental energy and is unpleasant since you keep making mistakes. But it's the only way to get better. Even after you find your weaknesses, it's not clear how you should improve on them.Let's say you find out you have problems with interpreting experiments. How do you get better? Do you do a bunch of practice questions? Which questions do you use? How do you teach yourself the right skills? You have to overcome these problems to really drill down on your weaknesses.This is really the only way to get better. But it's the foundation to how I designed our ACT prep program at PrepScholar. Here's a step by step guide on how to find your weaknesses: Categorize every practice question you take by skill, especially for practice tests. You can find every skill listed in our Ultimate ACT Science Study Guide.Try to categorize as accurately as possible. Keep track of how many questions you got right and wrong in each skill. You can use a notebook or a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. Identify the skillsyou're missing the most number of questions in. Don't just focus on the % correct - what really matters is how many more points you can get by mastering that skill. For example, there might be a really uncommon skill that shows up just once on every test. Even if you get 0% of those questions right, it's not lowering your score much. It's much better to work on the skill that appears 10 times per test that you're getting 50% of questions right on. Find the best resources to train your weakness. You need a way to 1) learn the underlying skills, 2) find practice questions to keep drilling that skill. Unfortunately, as I'll discuss below, there aren't that many great books for ACT Science available. Sound overwhelming? It is a lot of hard work, but it's the most effective way to improve. Most students don't take the time to do this, which is why they don't improve their score. However, doing this well really does take a lot of energy and discipline.In PrepScholar ACT, we do all of the above steps automatically for you so you can focus on actually learning.You'll avoid the hard organizational work of finding your weaknesses and gathering practice problems, and focus on actually learning the skills to improve your score. Bonus: If all of this is making sense to you, you'd love our ACT prep program, PrepScholar. It does all of the hard work in finding your weaknesses and giving you the exact lesson you need to get better. We designed our program around the concepts in this article, because they actually work.When you start with PrepScholar, you’ll take a diagnostic that will determine your weaknesses in over forty ACT skills. PrepScholar then creates a study program specifically customized for you. To improve each skill, you’ll take focused lessons dedicated to each skill, with over 20 practice questions per skill. This will train you for your specific area weaknesses, so your time is always spent most effectively to raise your score. We also force you to focus on understanding your mistakes and learning from them. If you make the same mistake over and over again, we'll call you out on it. There’s no other prep system out there that does it this way, which is why we get better score results than any other program on the market. Check it out today with a 5-day free trial: ACT Science Tip #5: Use Only High-Quality Practice Materials ACT Science is an odd section. You take weird scientific concepts and papers, distill them into a high school-friendly format, and ask very specific types of questions to test science reasoning skills. This means that test prep writers have a lot of ways to go wrong. Unlike other ACT sections like Reading or Math, ACT Science has woefully few ACT books to prep from. In fact, I can't recommend ANYpublished ACT books - all the ones I've seen so far are pretty terrible. They all suffer from one or more of these problems: The passage is inappropriate. It's either too easy, too difficult, too short, or uses unnecessary jargon. Official ACT Science passages have a very specificfeel to them. The questions asked aren't stylistically correct. They might test interpretation of graphs in the wrong way, or it doesn't have the right bait answers that ACT Science has to trick you. They don't teach you the fundamental skills underlying the questions. If it's just a book of practice questions, it's not enough. This is often a problem because ACT prep companies hire people who are too unskilled or too advanced to write ACT Science material. If you hire PhD's in science who are super smart but don't know the ACT well, you'll produce ACT Science content that will be way too difficult. So where can you get great practice materials? The very best source of practice questions is official ACT practice tests. These are official tests previously administered to real students. There are some problems with just using these tests though. They aren't organized by skill, which means it's hard to find problems to drill a specific skill like Interpreting Experiments or Comparing Viewpoints. Also, there aren't that many official tests available (up to 10 or so), and you want to save some of these tests to gauge your ACT score. Finally, practice tests don't actually have any instructional material - they're just a bunch of practice questions. If you need lessons to teach you how to actually read graphs and understand ACT science, you won't find that here. If you want to supplement with more ACT Science questions, you might consider our program PrepScholar. To make sure we produce the highest quality questions possible, we broke down the test into its individual skills and categorized every wrong answer type and question type possible. You can see some of this in our Ultimate ACT Science Prep Guide. I also hire only the best ACT content writers - these people usually have years of deep tutoring experience, went to Ivy League schools, and know the test inside and out. Even if you don't use PrepScholar, make sure you find a source of great source of ACT Science materials somewhere. ACT Science Tip #6: Track Your Time Per Passage and Question Tell me if this sounds familiar - in 35 minutes, you don't even make it through the entire section. You just try your best and answer as many questions as you can, then guess on the remaining questions at the end. ACT Science has tough time pressure.You only have 35 minutes to get through 7 passages and 40 questions. Even I, a perfect ACT scorer, find ACT Science to have pretty tough time pressure. Furthermore, unlike ACT Math, the questions and passages aren't arranged in difficulty. Therefore, you can't predict ahead of time which questions are going to be harder, and just skip the hardest questions. This means you need to hustle to get through all the passages and questions. But there's good news. Remember what we said above? To get a 26 on ACT Science, you can miss 10 questions. This means you don't have to fret about getting every question correct. In fact, there are some questions that are so hard that you will never get them right, no matter how much time you spend. Therefore, I have tworecommendations: Spend no more than 1.5 minutes reading each passage. This takes 10.5 minutes away from 35 minutes. From my tip above, you already know that you don't need to actually read the entire passage to answer the questions. Spend no more than 30 seconds trying to answer each question. This takes away another 20 minutes. If you get stuck on a question and have no idea how to solve it, MOVE ON. You do NOT want to spend 90 seconds on one question - that's time better spent getting more questions right. When done right, this gives you a few spare minutes to go back to some tough questions and try to get them right. See a question that you have constant trouble with? Feel free to skip it and come back to it later. As you practice, it might help to have a timer by your side. 90 seconds for reading a passage passes a LOT more quickly than you would expect. ACT Science Tip #7: Don't Worry About Memorizing Science Here's my final tip. A lot of students try to study for ACT Science by reviewing their old class notes from biology, chemistry, and physics. The problem is, ACT Science isn't really a test on science. It's a scientific reasoning test, based mostly on scientific data you've never seen before. Aside from a few questions about basic scientific concepts (like natural selection and electrical charges), nearly everything else can be answered without a deep foundation in the subject matter. For example, look at the photosynthesis example from Tip #3 - you technically don't even need to know what photosynthesis is, and you could answer those questions. The few scientific concepts you likely already remember - but if not, here's all the actual science you need to know for ACT Science. So put aside your textbooks and notes from high school - they're not the best way to study for ACT Science. The best way, as we've discussed throughout this tips guide, is to focus on the test: Understand what's tested on ACT Science Know how to approach ACT Science passages - don't get stuck in the details Understand your skill weaknesses, and drill them Practice time management so you can get through all the questions Summary Those are the main strategies I have for you to improve your ACT Science score. If you're scoring a 17, you can improve it to a 22. If you're scoring a 21, you can boost it to a 26. I guarantee it, if you put in the right amount of work, and study like I'm suggesting above.Notice that I didn't actually teach you any sciencecontent. I didn't point to any facts or formulas that will instantly raise your score.That's because these one-size-fits-all, guaranteed strategies don't really exist. (And anyone who tells you this is deceiving you). Every student is different.Instead, you need to understand where you're falling short, and drill those weaknesses continuously. You also need to be thoughtful about your mistakes and leave no mistake ignored.This is really important to your future. Make sure you give ACT prep the attention it deserves, before it's too late, and you get a rejection letter you didn't want.If you want to review any of the strategies, here's a list of all of them: Tip #1: Don't Waste TimeUnderstanding Useless Details Tip #2: Understand What ACT Science Actually Tests Tip #3: Learn How to Read Graphs Tip #4: Understand Your Weaknesses, and Keep Drilling Them Tip #5: Use Only High-Quality Practice Materials Tip #6: Track Your Time Per Passage and Question Tip #7: Don't Worry About Memorizing Science What's Next? We have a lot more useful guides to raise your ACT score. Read my corresponding guides for other ACT Math sections: Get a 26 in ACT English, ACT Reading, and ACT Math. What's a good ACT score for you? Read our detailed guide on figuring out your ACT target score. Want a bunch of free ACT practice tests to practice with? Here's our comprehensive list of every free ACT practice test. Want to improve your ACT score by 4 points? Check out our best-in-class online ACT prep classes. We guarantee your money back if you don't improve your ACT score by 4 points or more. Our classes are entirely online, and they're taught by ACT experts. If you liked this article, you'll love our classes. Along with expert-led classes, you'll get personalized homework with thousands of practice problems organized by individual skills so you learn most effectively. We'll also give you a step-by-step, custom program to follow so you'll never be confused about what to study next. Try it risk-free today:

Ordovician Mass Destinction Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Ordovician Mass Destinction - Essay Example This time period was witness to a number of conditions and events which were responsible for giving rise to a number of bioevents during this time. Ordovician time period is characterized by â€Å"rapid replacement of the Cambrian fauna with the Paleozoic fauna† (Barnes et al ,pg 140). The biota during this period was modifying itself and adapting to the changing physical and chemical changes in the oceans. Most of the life forms of this period that adapted and existed successfully were the ones that were most severely affected by this extinction event. Almost 26% of all marine families and almost 85% of all genera went extinct. Today, there is a big scientific debate about how man’s activities is leading us towards the 6th mass extinction .Anthropogenic activities have affected the Earth and all living beings adversely such that the current rate of species extinction is much higher than the background extinction rate. Interaction between environmental and ecological factors has contributed significantly to the extinction event. One of the major culprits that contribute towards this is global change in climate while others include habitat destruction, pollution etc. But if we take the Ordovician mass Extinction into account we will see that it occurred not due to anthropogenic activities but by Nature’s own course. This vindicates the fact that even Nature plays a pivotal role in destruction and extinction. Climate change and habitat destruction occurred during the Ordovician-Silurian period which vastly affected the marine species and led to their extinction. After this most of these extinct species could not recover from the effects and hence led to permanent loss Research has tried to pinpoint the exact events that led to mass destruction of most marine life forms during this event however a few possible explanations have surfed even though the

SYSTEMS AND DATABASES - COURSEWORK Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

SYSTEMS AND DATABASES - COURSEWORK - Essay Example Solution: A database solution would ensure better storage, addition, modification and deletion of resident records so that bed allocation is handled better. Bed allocation would not only help the care manager but also the placement officer to know the affordable rates for the beds for fund approval process. Databases namely Oracle or MySql server can be used for storing and retrieving the records of beds and residents. Problem definition: The nurse records are not well maintained for immediate allocation and is very difficult to know the availability of the nurses for resident allocation and assignment. Even their weekly payment hours are sometimes faulty. Solution: A database system with alerts (triggers) would be largely helpful in knowing the reorder level for nurse’s availability and their filling up with buffers so that patients are taken care and attended at all times. Solution: An information system should be well connected with the pharmacist who would ensure better and timely delivery of drugs for use by the home. Again the proposal for an interconnected system like that of ERP is most useful in such cases. It would not only manage the various elements but would also reduce their operation cycle time in terms of effort and time taken by the various actors like the care manager, nursing manager and others to accomplish a task. As the hospital demands quick and timely action to keep up with the patient’s medical demands, an ERP system would ensure effective data transfer and reduce their lead times (Ballou, 2002). Solution: The updation of records are essentially required for fetching the exact state of the patients at all times. The system must reflect that at every point of time as to the status of the patient. A database solution would ensure better management of the home and ensure a reflection of the

Analysis of Toyota’s Marketing Strategy Essay Example for Free

Analysis of Toyota’s Marketing Strategy Essay Surendra Bhandari1 [available at: http://papers. ssrn. com/sol3/papers. cfm? abstract_id=1624068 ] Abstract Toyota was established in 1937 in Japan. First time it introduced its product Corona in the US in 1965. By the 70’s, Toyota was the best-selling import brand in the US. During the 80’s, it started manufacturing vehicles in the US. In 2006, it had globally become the second largest car seller and third largest car sellers in the US having more than fifteen percent market share. It is estimated that by 2008 it is going to be the number one car producer and seller both in the US and across the world. This profound success of Toyota is associated with its most proficient market strategy. The case of Toyota notably proves that how important is market strategy in the life of a company to be a market leader. 1. Mission Toyota’s mission statement is as follows: â€Å"To sustain sustainable growth by providing the best customer experience and dealer support. † (Toyota, 2007) Customer satisfaction is the driving force for Toyota, which inspires it to provide the highest quality products and services. â€Å"Kaizen† is a word that Toyota upholds, which means â€Å"continuous improvement† of its technology, products, and services. In short, Kaizen for customer satisfaction is Toyota’s mission. Toyota further explains its mission as follows: 1 Dr. Bhandari can be contacted at: [emailprotected] com â€Å"Around here our values are just like yours. We are hard working. We are active in community. We are creating jobs. We celebrate our diversity. We are building cleaner greener cars. And this is just the beginning. † (Toyota, 2007) 2. Distinctive Competencies Among others, three distinctive competencies of Toyota are remarkable. These distinctive competencies appeal the consumers, build trust with them, and make them satisfied. These competencies are as follows: i. Popular Economy Car: Toyota is best known for ‘popular economy car’. It has successfully branded the concept of ‘popular economy car’, by producing cars matching to the concept. It has garnered its success by selling the concept to the consumer. It has also become profoundly successful in segmenting, targeting, and positioning. As a result, based on the pricing reports generated by over ten million visitors, out of top ten cars, three are Toyotas – Toyota Camry (No. 2), Toyota Corolla (No. 4), and Toyota Avalon (No. 8). (Kelly Blue Book, 2007) It produces eight varieties of cars. Among them, the prices for the four varieties cars range 10,000. 00 US $, three varieties range 15,000. 00 US $, and one variety ranges slightly over 20,000. 00 US $. ii. Cutting-edge Technology: Toyota simply did not stop to the concept of ‘popular economy car’. This concept could have easily turned into product maturity and decline. But Toyota continuously engaged in improving technology – design, looks, comfort, fuel efficiency, environmental friendliness, and other technical improvements. For example, Toyota Corolla was first introduced in Japan in 1966 and in the US in 1968 as a first generation Toyota Corolla. Since then roughly in every three years it is being developed and marketed in a new model. By 2006, tenth generation of Toyota Corolla was already launched with significant technological improvements. Toyota’s hybrid cars can be taken as another example. It started producing hybrid cars in 1995 however till 1999 Japan was 1 the only market for its hybrid cars. Coming to 2005, it became successful to capture a large chunk of US market. Today, it is selling almost seventy five percent of its hybrid cars alone in the US market. iii. Low Operating Cost: Why consumers purchase Toyota? The simple answer is that Toyota’s cars are distinctive with the properties of low operating cost. For example, a survey carried out by Toplin Strategy Group in 2007 has revealed that 73% of Prius owners had bought Toyota Prius because of financial incentive to purchase the vehicle such as lower sticker price or lower operating cost than other choices. (Marketing Green, 2007) Similarly, based on 45% highway driving and 55% city driving with annual 15,000 miles Toyota Prius has been proved to be the most fuel efficient car than any of its competitors such as Honda Civic Hybrid, Ford Escape Hybrid, and Lexus GS 450. (Fuel Economy, 2008). 3. Trends / Conditions Among many other factors, demand for energy efficient and greener cars, demand for low operating cost, and demand for high level of safety and comfort are the most significant factors that are influencing the trends and conditions of automobile marketplace. Today’s automobile sector can be best described as one of the sectors that are trying utmost to respond these important marketplace demands. Based on these demands, there is both good and bad news for the auto industry, including for Toyota. Good news is that there is surprisingly robust vehicle sale in the market. The bad news is that some of the leading automakers are shedding thousands more jobs. Some of the automakers are also projecting downward market trends. These trends are important because, automobiles are responsible for 13. 3 million US jobs, and US $ 675 billion revenue in the US economy. 2 On a year-on-year basis, Toyota sales has surged 10. 5%, General Motors Corp. has showed a year-on-year improvement posting 12. 1% sales gain, and Chrysler has taken a 15% year-on-year sales dive, whereas Ford Motor Co. has stayed mostly flat, down 0. 5%. In terms of global sales, Toyota is in second position following GM. In terms of sales in the US market, Toyota is in third position having 14. 9% of market shares in 2006. Union of concerned scientists in their 2007 report state that Toyota has regained second place overall in the environmental rankings as well and is the only automaker to make consistent improvements on its global warming score since 2001. Toyota has the best global warming performance in six out of ten classes and better than average performance in the rest. If past trends continue, Toyota may overtake Honda’s global warming score within two years. Doing so will require continued investment in hybrids. Globally, 53 millions new cars are sold in 2007. Out of them, 15. 9 millions are sold alone in the US. In 2007, around the world, it is estimated that there will be 806 million cars and light trucks on the road, out of them 244 million will be in operation in the US alone. Currently, these vehicles burn nearly 260 billion gallons of fuel yearly and by 2020, the number of cars and light trucks is estimated to reach above 1 billion. The years of 2004 through 2007 will long be remembered as a pivotal period in the automobile industry as during this period gasoline prices started a sea change among US consumers that is finally creating a significant demand for fuel efficient vehicles. As a result, this has lead to the phenomenal demand for Toyota’s Prius hybrid car. Responding to the demands of consumers Toyota has expanded its investments in Georgetown, Kentucky plant to enable to manufacture 48,000 hybrid cars yearly. Ford launched its first hybrids, and other carmakers, including GM, were greatly encouraged in their own efforts to bring more hybrids to the market. However, response to hybrids from U. S. makers has been lukewarm at best. Consumers 3 generally aren’t as impressed with U. S. hybrid technology as they are with that of Toyota models. In short, while the US based Big Three struggle, Toyota is being more strategic. It has increased its capacity to manufacture over 1. 5 million vehicles yearly in North America. On a global scale, the company plans to sell 10. 4 million vehicles by 2009, up from 8. 8 million in 2006. The big news is that Toyota is most likely surpassing GM in global sales by 2008, making Toyota the world’s largest carmaker. 4. Organizational Objectives Toyota has set seven fundamental objectives. Among them, to dedicate in providing clean and safe products and enhance the quality of life everywhere through better production and services is the main objective of Toyota. Similarly, its other objectives are: to honor the law, language and culture of every nation with fair corporate activities; contribute to economic and social development of communities around the world through corporate activities; create and develop advanced technologies and provide outstanding products and services to customers; foster individual’s creativity and teamwork value; pursue growth through innovative management; and work with business partners for mutual benefits. To achieve these objectives and their effective implementation, it has clearly set fourteen principles that are widely considered as Toyota’s Ways. Based on these principles, Toyota takes management decisions on a long-term philosophy, even at the expenses of a short-term financial goal. It believes in a continuous process flow to bring problems to the surface, uses visual control so that no problems are hidden, uses pull system to avoid overproduction, and works like tortoise and not the hare. It standardizes the tasks and processes as the foundation for continuous improvement and empowers employees by which it further enhances its ability to use only reliable and thoroughly tested technology that serves the customers. 4. Similarly, its organizational objectives are further substantiated by its idea of developing exceptional people and teams who follow the philosophy of Toyota, respect the network of partners and suppliers, and learn from the practices. It believes in making decisions slowly by consensus thoroughly considering all options and once the decisions are taken, it implements the decisions rapidly. On top of that, by becoming a learning organization through relentless reflection and continuous improvement of its products and services, Toyota can be exemplified as a case that has achieved its organizational objectives successfully. 5. Strategic Business Unit Toyota offers energy efficient, green, and popular economy cars, SUVs/Vans, hybrids, and light trucks with safety and comfort measures in place. It produces more than two dozen varieties of products. All of its products are globally very popular. Its products are sold in over 200 countries across the globe. On top of that, the US is the biggest market for Toyota. For example, till 2006 it had sold more than 7 million Toyota Corollas alone in the US. In the financial year 2006-07, in consolidated terms, it sold its products of 226. 06 billion US $ (23,948. 00 billion yen) and earned net income of 15. 17 billion US $ (1,644. 0 billion yen). (Toyota, 2006) In 2006, Toyota was engaged in a variety of projects designed to solidify its foundations while continuing to grow. On the product front besides its two dozen already launched products, Lexus has launched its new flagship model, the LS, and the new global Camry went on sale. In manufacturing, several new projects were started around the world. In May 2006, manufacturing of the Camry began in Guangzhou, China, while in the United States, the Kentucky plant, which in October 2006 celebrated 20 years of production, has started manufacturing the first Toyota hybrid vehicle to be made in North America, the Camry Hybrid. In November 2006, the Texas plant began producing the new Tundra truck, a key vehicle in Toyota’s North American lineup. 5 In Japan, Toyota Motor Kyushu, Inc. has begun full-scale operations at its engine factory, and Toyota Motor Tohoku Co. , Ltd. has increased its manufacturing capacity. In human resources development sector, following the establishment of the Asia Pacific Global Production Center in Thailand in August 2005, Toyota has established the North American Production Center in the U. S. in February 2006, and the European Global Production Center in the United Kingdom in March 2006. Established as branches of the Global Production Center in Japan, these were created to spread Toyota’s manufacturing knowledge and skills throughout the world in pace with the rapid growth of Toyota’s overseas manufacturing. In RD side, Toyota has focused its efforts on three key areas: environment, safety, and energy. It has made a special effort in the area of the environment by expanding its lineup of hybrid vehicles, and has worked on RD relating to plug-in hybrid. In addition, as part of Toyota’s efforts to respond to the diversification of energy, in 2007 Toyota has introduced a flex fuel vehicle in the Brazilian market that will run on 100% bio-ethanol fuel. From this point on, based on the philosophy of providing â€Å"the right car, in the right place, at the right time,† and in accordance with the infrastructure and customer needs of each region, Toyota is striving for promoting efforts to develop environmentally friendly technology and vehicles. 6. Boston Consulting Group Matrix Based on the Boston Matrix, the market situation of Toyota is Healthy. To support this statement, three products are chosen here – Camry, Prius, Corolla. These all fall into the category of Star as they are holding high market share and high market growth. All these three products are well established and the growth is exciting. These are creating fantastic opportunities. The only challenge is Toyota needs to maintain its Stars. And, it seems that for at least a couple of years Toyota will maintain its Stars. 6 Toyota Corolla: It is a compact car, very popular throughout the world since it was first introduced in 1966. In 1997 it became the bestselling car in the world; in 2004 it was the number one selling car in the US in its segment with over 30 million sold as of 2007. In the US alone, more than 7 million Toyota Corolla cars have been sold. Over the past 40 years, one Toyota Corolla car has been sold on average every 40 seconds. Today, it is manufactured in 16 countries in the world. It has been almost steadfast in face-lifting each generation after two years, and replacing it with an all-new model every four year. As a result, it has brought in market its 10th generation model in 2006 in Japan and has been introduced to the US market since October 2007. This product strategy of Toyota Corolla has helped it to be continuously in the Star quadruple. Toyota Camry: It is a mid-size car manufactured in the US, Australia, China, and Japan. In some markets, the top range Camry models are seen as executive cars. The Camry has been the bestselling car in the US, its largest consumer market, for nine of the last ten years starting in 1997, with the only exception in 2001. The first generation Camry was introduced in 1983 and in 2007 the sixth generation Camry has been introduced. The sixth-generation Toyota Camry is the first generation in which it has been available as a gasoline/electric hybrid. EPA fuel economy estimates for the 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid 38 MPG in city and 40 MPG on highway. Toyota Prius: It is a hybrid electric vehicle and one of the first such vehicles to be massproduced and marketed. The Prius first went on sale in Japan in 1997, and worldwide in 2001. By the end of 2003, nearly 160,000 units had been produced for sale in Japan, Europe, and North America. The Prius has won several awards, including the Car of the Year Japan in 1997/98, the North American Car of the Year 2004, and the European Car of the Year 2005. EPA has recently revised environmental standards and the Prius 2007 has been acknowledged as the most fuel efficient car sold in the US. Its market share in the US is growing each year. In 7 2000, Prius market share in the US was very negligible but by 2005 out of its total sale the US alone had consumed about seventy percent. 7. Organizational Strategy for Growth Toyota has already got market over 200 countries across the globe. Only in 2006, it sold 8. 52 million of its products and has planned to be a number one car producing and selling company by 2008. This ambitious strategy of market penetration is associated with its proficient demographic and psychographic segmentation and targeting. It has successfully got high level of positioning in the mind of the consumers with its brand and distinctive competencies as discussed above disseminating through integrated market communication (IMC) techniques. Toyota has diversified its product with a brand of right car in the right place. For example, it has introduced a flex fuel vehicle in the Brazilian market that will run on 100% bio-ethanol fuel. It has introduced hybrid electric car (Prius) mostly for the market in the US, Japan, and EU. On top of that in each two year it improves looking of its product and in each four year transforms model into new one. By upholding this strategy of product development, Toyota has become successful in managing product life cycle, more specifically it introduces product and keeps the product growing without letting them to be matured and decline. Its exceptional organizational strategy for growth is importantly nurtured by its strategy working with around 522 subsidiaries around the world and successfully creating a wider market chain around the globe. Another way of Toyota’s organizational strategy for growth is that it reads the public mind through its research department that monitors the industry and keeps tabs on demographic and economic developments. Its mission: to predict consumer trends and create a lineup of cars and trucks to capitalize on them. Each professional is expected to spend time out in the field talking 8 to car buyers. The Japanese have a name for it: genchi genbutsu go to the scene and confirm the actual happenings. 8. Market Share While looking at the market share of Toyota in the US market since 1980 to 2006, it is realized that its market share is continuously growing. For example, in the 80s Toyota’s market share in the US was about 5% and that has risen to above 15% by 2006. So in a twenty-five years time Toyota has outstandingly tripled its market share in the US. On the other hand, market share of its three major competitors GM, Ford, and Chrysler is gradually declining. In the 80s GM’s market share in the US was above forty-five percent. But by 2006 GM’s market share has shrunk to 24%. Similarly, in the 80s Ford had more than twenty-three percent market share but by 2006 its market share has come down to sixteen percent. By being successful in increasing market share, Toyota has become the world’s most profitable automaker. In 2006, it sold 2. 5 million cars and trucks in the US market alone. Because, Toyota is already bigger than Chrysler in the US and is about to pass Ford by 2008, Toyota’s presence in the US is now so prominent that the 3,322 business leaders surveyed by Fortune have named Toyota as one of America’s most admired companies. On the financial side, Toyota’s net revenue for the fiscal year 2007 is 23. 94 trillion yen, which is an increase of 13. 8 percent compared to the fiscal year of 2006. In 2007, its operating income has increased by 19. 2 percent to 2. 23 trillion yen. Its net income has increased by 19. 8 percent to 1. 64 trillion yen. All of these figures marked record high. It is estimated that the consolidated vehicle sales for the fiscal year 2008 will be 8. 89 million units. The revenue for the fiscal year 2008 is estimated to be 25. 00 trillion yen. While we compare its net income from 2004 to 2006, it is clearly shown that its net income is increasing each year. For example its net 9 income for the year 2004 was 1,162,998 million yen that increased to 1,171,260 million yen in 2005, and in 2006 that further increased to 1,372,180 million yen. 9. Elements of Marketing Strategy Toyota’s segmentation and target market is guided by its philosophy of ‘right car in the right place’. Toyota has employed both demographic and psychographic form of multiple segmentations and targeted its market on that basis. For example, it has segmented all the countries across the globe as its market. But has also identified its focused market such as the US, Canada, EU, Australia, China, India, and Indonesia. On top of that US is its first priority being the biggest market. It is because, US consumes almost 30% of its products. Its products range with different prices from US $ 10,000. 00 to 30,000. 00 plus. The economy class cars are targeted to lower and middle level income people and the luxury cars are targeted to higher middle and higher income group people. With a variety of product attributes it targets different age group and professional groups of people. For example, for sport people it has sport cars. For environmentally sensitive people it has Prius – environmentally green car. Likewise, it has offered 100% bio-ethanol fuel car in Brazil, where is bio-ethanol potential. Likewise, those who are truck lovers or professional who need trucks, it offers them different variety of trucks. In fact, its marketing strategy – segmentation, targeting, and positioning is nurtured by its variety of offers and product attributes. Further, it has designed its market strategy at different levels – global level, regional level, and national level based on the assessment of customer needs and choices. Toyota focuses its products in market with comfort, kindness, and excitement. Toyota claims that its products harmonize ecology and emotions. One of the key factors for designing segmentation and targeting, Toyota’s analysis is always based on the condition of market, economy, purchasing 10 capacity, and consumers’ choices. Based on these factors Toyota is launching its global motorization strategy with leading-edge technology. Likewise, Toyota has upheld a very strong promotional strategy using integrated market communication (IMC) tool. On top of that, Toyota blog (http://blog. toyota. com) is another very successful mechanism of advertising and promotion. On its blog, Toyota closely pays attention to the voices of its customers and provides responses to a large amount of inquiry. 10. Elements of Market Planning Toyota has adopted three important elements in its market planning – green, safety, and low operating cost. Being based on these three important factors, Toyota has become successful to garner the market opportunity. On the whole, there seem more opportunities for Toyota than threats. However, there are some threats that cannot be denied. Opportunities: Toyota’s market share is growing each year. From about 5 percent market share in 1986, it has acquired more than 15 percent market share in the US in 2006. Its competitors’ market share is declining each year, which is the biggest opportunity for Toyota. Toyota and its competitors have similar segmentation and targeting but in creating positioning Toyota has come off much ahead than its competitors because of its products’ attributes. Further, it is also ahead of its competitors in technology front. For example, it is the first automobile producer that introduced hybrid in the market. Today, the market share for its hybrid is growing exponentially. At the same time, hybrid products of its competitors are not successful. Threats: Besides opportunities in the marketplace, Toyota’s most illustrated product – Prius has not got much success in Europe and its market share is declining in Japan itself. Further, its competitors – GM, Ford, and Chrysler have become more strategic and are being focused on 11 from cutting-edge technology to leading-edge technology. Toyota is growing with ambition to pass the GM but still GM is the number one automobile in the US and the globe. 11. Conclusion From the perspective of marketing strategy, Toyota can be taken as a company that has successfully achieved its mission statement, successfully branded its distinctive competencies, and profoundly achieved its organizational objectives. This success is based on its successful market strategy. This is corroborated by the fact that all of its products studied in this paper (Toyota Corolla, Camry, and Prius) do fall into Star quadruple under the Boston Matrix. In quintessence, it can be said that Toyota is an outstanding case for learning how to build and implement market strategy, get penetration in the market, manage product life cycle, uphold market positioning, best use of integrated market communication (IMC), and branding its product in the mindset of the customer. In short, Toyota is a notable example that proves how important is marketing strategy in the life of a company and managers. References CNNMoney, (2007), America’s Best Car Companies, Mrach 7, 2007 available on http://money. cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/03/19/8402324/index. htm visited on Nov. 20, 2007. Fuel Economy, (2008), 2008 Hybrid Vehicles, available on , http://www. fueleconomy. gov/feg/hybrid_sbs. shtml , visited on Nov. 22, 2007. Kelly Blue Book, (2007), The Most Researched Sedans, available on http://www. kbb. com/kbb/ReviewsAndRatings/default. aspx? trid=3gclid=CKrS8rHMgI8CFTa oGgodgyqT2w#ManufacturerId=49ModelId=286 visited on Nov. 27, 2007. Kotler, Phlipe Keller,Kevin Lane (2006), Marketing Management, Prentice Hall, 12th ed. 12 Marketing Green, (2007), Hybrids Shift into the Mass Market, available on http://marketinggreen. wordpress. com/2007/04/29/hybrids-shift-into-the-mass-market/ visited on Nov. 20, 2007. Plunket Research, (2007), Automotive Industry Overview, available on http://www. plunkettresearch. com/Industries/AutomobilesTrucks/AutomobilesandTrucksStatis tics/tabid/90/Default. aspx , visited on Nov. 19, 2007. Spirou, Patricia (2007), Three Step Process in Determining the Market/Position Initiatives in Strategic Planning, available on BB.

Canadian Identity :: essays research papers fc

Throughout Canada’s relatively short existence we have created quite a reputation for ourselves. Our great nation is known for many things , and I am proud to say that most are positive. Does Canada have a strong national identity? Anyone can see the answer is yes. Just take a look at the facts. For example, we are renowned for our peacekeepers and no other country is considered more peaceful. Without a doubt this is the type of identity we should work to keep. The first thing we should examine is what exactly is meant by â€Å"strong national identity†. A very good example of strong national identity is the U.S.. I doubt there is a man on this planet who is not familiar with the U.S.. People immediately recognize their flag, and most people can tell you quite a bit about them. The same is true of Canada, and what do they know of Canada? In 1995 U.S. President Bill Clinton stated his view of Canada in a speech where he declared, â€Å"Canada has shown the world how to balance freedom with compassion and tradition with innovation, in your efforts to provide health care to all your citizens, to treat senior citizens with the dignity and respect they deserve...†(Canada Today 9). We were also rated first in the UN’s 1992 â€Å"Human Development Index† (9).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As I have already stated Canada is very well known for our many peacekeeping efforts. This is due to the many places our peacekeepers have been, or are at this very moment, such as Bosnia, East Timor and even Central Africa. These are just a very small portion of the places our peacekeepers are presently stationed. I am not even mentioning the dozens and dozens of other places they have been to. Our peacekeepers have helped save countless lives and Canada has gained relatively little in return, but Canada does it anyways, because it is the right thing to do.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Aside from our activities outside the country, we are also one of the best countries to live in. We have one of the top 5 life expectancies for both men and women. We also have the longest expected education according to the UN’s stats. These are just a few reasons why Canada is the greatest country.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Not only do we have a lot to offer Canadian citizens, here is a list of reasons to immigrate to Canada provided by KAM International:

Important Soft Skills for University Essay

Competition for jobs is very tight right now due to the many people who apply for jobs or at least the capacity of workers. Of course the graduates will work and will compete with the graduates themselves or other college graduates. Thus students should prepare themselves to compete before and after it passed in getting a better job. Develop hard skills are the main answer to success in getting the job. However, it is not enough hard skill capabilities, but must be balanced with the ability of soft skills in meeting the challenges while doing the work. By Admin working world believe that human resources are superior to those who not only have hard skill proficiency, but also an expert in soft skill aspects. Added also, that the world of education, revealed by research at Harvard University by the United States turns a person’s success is not determined solely by the knowledge and technical skills (hard skills), but more by the ability to manage ourselves and others (soft skills). From the above, we can see that the importance of hard skills and soft skills for anyone who wants to get or when doing the work. Thus required that every student should improve the hard skill and soft skill in preparing for the world of work during their studies. This is in line with the Higher Education Long Term Strategy 2003 – 2010 (Directorate General of Higher Education, 2004) which was formulated by the Ministry of Education clearly states that the role of higher education in increasing the competitiveness of nations is vital given the level of competition of human resources in the national labor market and International continues to increase with increasing application of science and new technologies in various fields of business, as well as the need for a level of professionalism (knowledge, hard skills, soft skills) are higher. Soft skills  Soft skills are personal attributes that enhance an individual’s interactions, career prospects, job performance and education. Soft skills complement hard skills, which are the technical requirements of a job, education and many other activities. Soft skills are skills that effect how people interact with other people, and also intrapersonal and interpersonal skills, such as one’s attitude, communication skills, time management abilities, ability to work under pressure. Soft skills can be said to incorporate all aspects of generic skills that include the cognitive elements associated with non-academic skills. The reorientation of education which is one trust of education for sustainability also relates the importance of these so-called soft skills. Vast research and expert opinions have been sought in the effort to determine the specific soft skills to be implemented and used in higher institutions of learning such as university level. Based on the research findings obtained, seven soft skills have been identified and chosen to be implemented in all institutions of higher learning here and university student. They are: * Communicative skills. * Thinking skills and Problem solving skills. * Team work force. * Life-long learning and Information Management. * Entrepreneur skill. * Ethics, moral and professionalism. * Leadership skills. Each of the soft skills comprised of several sub-skills. These sub-skills are divided into two categories of implementation. The first category delineates the soft skills that every individual must have and the second category represents soft skills that are good to have. Despite the emphasis being put on the soft skills that must be present, it is also encouraged to inculcate the soft skills that are good to have. All elements of soft skills must be acquired by each individual student and evaluated effectively and comprehensively. Soft skills must be acquired by each and every individual in the institutions of higher learning without which, the student is regarded as incompetent in the above skill. Soft skills can be regarded as the additional generic skills and a bonus to the student. It can be observed that education is an essential tool for achieving sustainability for university student such as communication skills. Communication skills are essential for the successful future career of a student. In today’s competitive world, communication skills in business are the most sought after quality of an educated person. Reading, writing and listening carefully are the three most important communication skills for students. These skills like most of the communication skills sounds too familiar as a result of which we take them for granted. As regards reading and writing, the only thing that we need to tackle is to adapt with our growing age and concentration. With these two qualities, it is possible to develop reading, oral communication skills, writing skills and increase Ability to deliver idea clearly, effectively and with confidence either orally or in writing. Apart from reading and writing presentations, reports and speeches are a part of university curriculum. This makes expressive skills and managing skills also important for a university student. It is also important to develop communication skills in relationships. FINDINGS 1. Soft skills that are important for university student. Communication skills The communicative skills involve effective communication in both the national language and English language in different contexts and with different people. Communicative skills are an integral part of any education system either in higher education or lower education. At this very level, emphasis has been given to develop the communicative skills of individual in university so that by the time they leave university, they are able to participate in public community activities and decision making. What is found to be missing in among university student is the lack of communicative skills. The absence of good communicative skills somehow or rather has an influence on the poor presentation of their views and decisions made to gain other’s confidence and respect. â€Å"Real communication occurs when we listen with understanding – to see the expressed idea and attitude from the other person’s point of view, to sense how it feels to him, to achieve his frame of reference in regard to the things he is talking about. † Carl Rogers (1952, p. 3) As we can see if students apply these skills, student able to deliver idea clearly, effectively and with confidence either orally or in writing, moreover, student also can communicate with individual from a different cultural background. Thus, this is a good time to reorientate the curriculum of higher institutions to embed communicative skills more effectively. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Skills This skill includes the ability to think critically, creatively, innovatively and analytically. It also involves the ability to apply knowledge and understanding to new and different problems as well. The critical thinking skills, skills to organize and interpret data and information, skills to formulate questions and the ability to analyze issues that confront communities are greatly addressed in the reorientation of basic education. The following are some examples of skills that are similar to the soft skills being emphasized in the university curriculum. The ability to think about systems (both natural and social sciences). * The ability to think in time-to forecast, to think ahead, and to plan. * The ability to think critically about value issues. * The ability to separate number, quantity, quality and values. All the above skills are important and students will require them as adults. The Skill of Team Work The ability to work with people from different social cultural background to achieve a common goal. Students are encouraged to play their role in the group and to respect opinions and attitudes of others in the group. They are also expected to contribute to the group plan and coordinate the group effort besides being responsible to the group decision. If the future human capital can attain these skills, we can be rest assure that the future generation for university student will collaborate ideas and cooperate a taskforce towards the well-being of the nation. 2. Reason why some university student are not equipped with the soft skills According to the former Higher Education Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed, the failure of graduates get jobs is because they do not have the soft skills required employer. He said that apart from poor command of English, is narrow-minded graduates, no leadership, a sense of belonging and no communication skills. In the dialogue between the Ministry of Higher Education and employers in the country, many say not employed university graduates because they have no soft skills (Bernama, 2007). as we see the dialog above, students nowadays less exposure to soft skills such as writing strategy, communication and critical thinking strategies, in addition, weak command of English is also included in the factor of lack of communication skills among university students. The next factor is, some students lack the confidence to speak in public, this is because, they afraid that they will mistakenly say, or embarrassed to talk and lack of preparation in an assignment or presentation. Other factors such as poor critical thinking can also be seen among university students, because students are not applying a concern or complacency of what the students’ own doing. Next, students are also less skilled organize, interpret data and information in some of the tasks assigned by the lecturer, this made the task is not complete and does not meet what is required by the lecturer. In this situation, we do not also have to blame the student, the university should also encourage students to apply soft skills in themselves. 3. Some efforts are made to develop students soft skills There are many ways of improving soft skills. One of them is through learning by doing. Besides the soft skills can be honed and improved by following the training and management seminars. Although, one powerful way to improve the soft skills by interacting and doing activities with others. Follow the organization is one way to interact with others. In order to develop the attributes of soft skills in university students, self-evaluation is required of every student of the power which is currently owned, as well as weaknesses. The students were given a questionnaire that contains the attributes of soft skills. Then fill it with a mark which had enough they have and which ones still need to be developed. Attributes that appear in the list of the most visible attributes so which ones have the highest mode to be developed. Then a course where a student are reviewing the vision of his study program, and seeks to combine the expectations of students, expectations and resources in the institution. Thus be selected several important attributes that need and developed for his students. Development of soft skills in university can also be done through the learning process and student activities in extra-curricular activities or co-curricular activities. Most importantly, this is not material soft skills rote but practiced by individuals who are learning or who want to develop it. By the time students want to develop interests and talents in the field of sports for example, often supervising sports activities always focus on the techniques of how to win the match to be performed by the students. Conscience must be developed to be able to govern themselves and to interact with others. FURTHER RECOMMENDATIONS Model for implementing soft skills in higher education A holistic approach is used to plan and implement the soft skills among students of higher education. This approach is based on the combination of several programs and main activities formal teaching and learning activities (include all curricular and co-curricular elements), support programs (academic and non-academic focused) and the students campus life. In general, the development of soft skills among the students via the formal teaching and learning activities takes two models which is stand alone and embedded. Stand Alone Subject Model This model uses the approach of training and providing opportunities to students to develop soft skills through specific courses that are carefully planned for this purpose. Usually, these subjects are offered as university courses such as English language, entrepreneurship, and elective courses such as public speaking, critical thinking. The courses in this category are often a part of the overall requirements that make up the program. The number of courses and credits in this category depends on the curriculum design and the requirements of the program. The stand alone subject model can also be initiated by encouraging students to sign-up several additional courses which can be accumulated to be a minor course which is different from the initial program signed-up. For example, a student who is pursuing an engineering program is encouraged to take minor courses in management or mass communication. However, such an approach will require an increase in the number of credits and time spent for the particular program. Embedded Model This model uses the approach of embedding the soft skills in the teaching and learning activities across the curriculum. It does not require the student to take special courses as in the stand alone subject model. Instead the students are trained to master the soft skills through various formal teaching and learning activities that are planned and carried out using specific strategies and methods. In this way, the content and learning outcomes to be achieved for the respective courses are maintained. The learning outcomes related to the soft skills will be integrated and be part of the learning outcomes of the respective courses. This is the suggested model to be implemented in all the courses for the different programs in institutions of higher learning. Each element of soft skills is spelled out in the learning outcomes and then translated into the instructional plan for the semester. This is followed by implementing several teaching and learning activities such as questioning, class discussion, brain storming, team work, presentation, role play and simulation, project, field work and site visits. In general, the development of soft skills using the embedded model requires the expertise of the lecturers to use the various teaching strategies and methods that are entirely student-centered. It also involves active teaching and learning and students should participate actively in the activities. Some of the appropriate strategies and methods that are practical include learning by questioning, cooperative learning, problem-based learning (PBL), and e-learning. CONCLUSION To live to the challenge of globalization which is in line with the era of information economy, the strength of a nation is strongly dependent on the ability of its citizen to be highly intellectual and skillful. The development of human capital in university student is thus important and necessary since it drives the nation to the envision vision and mission. Without a quality human capital, a nation will be weak as there is no human factor that is capable to embark on new initiatives and perspectives. A quality human capital comes from a quality education process. A carefully designed and well planned education system is critical to developing such human capital. Thus, institution of higher learning plays a very important role to produce a human capital that is highly knowledgeable and skillful to meet the demand and expectations of many people. The teaching and learning processes in institutions of higher learning should be capable to provide such knowledge and skills to future graduates. We can see good results and positive when university students adopt or emphasize soft skills in themselves. (2511 Words) Reference Groupfenglish, (27 May 2011). The important of soft skills development in education. [Online]. Available: http://blogs. funiber. org/formacion-profesor/2011/05/27/the-importance-of-soft-skills-development-in-education/ Vishal jain, (22 February 2009). Important of soft skills development in education. [Online]. Available: http://schoolofeducators. com/2009/02/importance-of-soft-skills-development-in-education/342 TITLE: NEED AND IMPORTANCE OF SOFT SKILLS. Dr. A. Muthumanickam,. Reader,. Department of Education, Madurai Kamaraj University. http://dspace. unimap. edu. my/dspace/bitstream/123456789/5819/1/NEED%20AND%20IMPORTANCE%20OF%20SOFT%20SKILLS. pdf Chapter in a Book by More than Three Authors: S. 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