How to Help Your Child Ace School Exams

Thursday, March 1, 2012

How to Help Your Child Ace School Exams

When it seems that it is becoming a habit for your child to put off school work, it’s time for you to step in and help your child develop good study habits to get better grades. It is important for you to emphasize to your child the importance of setting priorities early in life. Don’t wait for them to flunk their tests, or worse, fail in their subjects before you talk to them about it.

You can help your children hurdle their tests with these 7 tips:

1. Help them set targets

Ask your child what they want to achieve for that particular school year. Tell them to set a specific goal or target. If they say, “I want to get better grades,” tell them to be more specific. It will be better if they say they want to get a GPA of 2.5 or higher. Having a definite target will make it easier for them to undertake a series of actions to achieve their goals, instead of just “shooting for the moon.”

2. Preparation is key

At the start of the school year, teachers provide an outline of a subject’s scope along with a reading list and other course requirements. Make sure that your child has all the materials they need for these course requirements. Having these materials on hand will make sure that your child will have no reason to procrastinate and give them the opportunity to study in advance.

3. Teach them to mark important dates

You may opt to give them a small notebook where they can jot down important dates or a planner that has dates where they can list their schedule. Ask them to show this to you so you can give them “gentle reminders” to block off the whole week before the dates of an exam. During this week, advise your child to not schedule any social activity so they can concentrate on studying.

4. Schedule regular study time

Encourage your child to set aside at least two hours every day to go through their lessons. This will help them remember the lectures for the day and understand the concepts they were taught. They should be encouraged to spend more time on subjects or concepts that they do not understand.

Read the rest at http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/how-to-help-your-child-ace-school-exams.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LifeHack+%28lifehack.org%29

Beetlemania: Invasive insect could become our billion-dollar problem | Grist

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Beetlemania: Invasive insect could become our billion-dollar problem | Grist

When the Khapra discovers a new food source, it does not pause to think about how it might live harmoniously and sustainably in this new ecosystem. Instead it lays its eggs in everything. A single female can lay 500 eggs, according to Andrew R. Cline, senior insect biosystematist at the Plant Pest Diagnostics Branch of the California Department of Food & Agriculture. The insect is so small that it can hide behind a fleck of paint on the inside of a grain silo, but eyewitness accounts of infestations describe looking down into grain stores that seemed to be alive, they were so thickly coated with wiggling larvae. The Khapra beetle doesn’t leave much behind. Other insects will maybe take 30 percent of a crop, Cline says. The Khapra will take 70 percent. Or all of it.

Statin Drug Safety Warnings - NYTimes.com

Statin Drug Safety Warnings - NYTimes.com

Now the Food and Drug Administration has agreed the concerns are valid enough to add new safety alerts to the prescribing information for statins, which are the most widely prescribed drugs in the world. As Gardiner Harris reports in today’s Times:

Online Vocabulary Building

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

    http://vocabgenii.com/  

    http://knoword.org/

 WordStash

   http://wordstash.com/

 

   http://myintercambio.com/ 

howjsay . com 

   http://www.howjsay.com/ 

 

   http://www.vocabsushi.com/ 

Translation Telephone 

http://www.translation-telephone.com/

My Stars

Friday, January 27, 2012

I just can't keep up with my reader. I was out of touch with computer for so long.  My solution, post it!
So here is my long stared reader items that I want to clear out but keep stored in an easier manner.  Hope you don't mind the flux of posting to come.

Pack a Bag via Art of Manliness

Packing to Avoid Wrinkling
The bane of any traveler’s existence is the wrinkles and creases that end up in your clothes after you pull them out of your suitcase. Try these techniques to keep your clothes neat and crisp while they’re en route to your destination.
Alternate Folding
One way to avoid creases in clothing is by placing one garment between the folds of another garment. By placing another garment between the folds, you can prevent a crease from forming.
In this example we’re packing a dress shirt, a pair of dress slacks, a tie, and few t-shirts.
1. Start off by buttoning the bottom, middle, and top button of the dress shirt.
2. Lay the shirt facedown on a flat surface. Put your finger about an inch from the collar of the shirt and fold the sleeve into the shirt, forming a straight line down the edge. Bring the sleeve in line with edge you just created. Repeat on the other side. You should end up with something that looks like this.

3. Lay your tie completely unfolded along the length of the shirt. Place a folded t-shirt at the point where you want to fold the dress shirt.

4. Fold over your dress shirt. Fold any part of your tie over that’s hanging out of your shirt over your dress shirt. You’ll end up with something like this.

5. Now it’s time to fold your slacks. Lay your slacks on a flat surface and place a t-shirt at the point where you plan on folding the pants. Fold.

6. If you want, place another t-shirt on top of your folded pants. Fold the bottom half of your pants over your t-shirt.

7. Flip over your pants, so the waist band is face up. Place another t-shirt where you want to fold the waist band over the rest of the pants. Fold. You should end up with three folds in your pants with t-shirts in between each fold.

Fold and Roll
If the alternate folding method isn’t your thing, you can always go with the traditional fold and roll method.
1. Roll up garments that don’t wrinkle as easily. These include t-shirts, underwear, jeans, and cotton slacks.
2. Fold garments like dress slacks, dress shirts, and dress coats.
3. Place the rolled up garments on the bottom of the bag. Then place the folded garments on top.
4. Place shoes, socks, and your Dopp kit along the sides of the bag.

Find it all at:  http://artofmanliness.com/2008/10/16/how-to-pack-a-bag-when-traveling/

Shortcut world via MakeUseOf.com

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Currently, it provides keyboard shortcut lists for the following apps.

• Firefox
• Winamp
• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Powerpoint
• Google Chrome
• Photoshop
• Windows XP
• Fireworks
• Outlook 2007

Certainly, a site worth bookmarking. You might also want to check KeyXL which is another similar tool profiled earlier. Or better go and download some MakeUseOf Cheat sheets.
Check out Shortcutworld @ www.shortcutworld.com (By Abhijeet from Appscrazy)
New on MakeUseOf ...

• Now, you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Recommended!
• MakeUseOf 'Geeky Fun' - Hillarious Geeky Pics and Videos from different parts of web.

HBR email editing

1. Delete redundancies. Say it once. That's enough. If you're repetitive, the reader will stop reading and start skimming. (Like you probably just did.)


2. Use numbers and specifics instead of adverbs and adjectives. "The project is currently way behind schedule on major tasks," is not as clear as "The project is 3 weeks late delivering hamburger buns to Des Moines." (If you don't have numbers, still get rid of the adverbs and adjectives.)

3. Add missing context. Does your reader know that hamburger buns in Iowa are required for the company to collect $37 million? If you're not sure, remind them.

4. Focus on the strongest argument. Should those hamburger buns get shipped because the delay is embarrassing for the company, because it's costing children their lunch, or because it's costing the company tens of millions of dollars? Maybe all three, but one of those reasons (and it depends on your reader) will be enough to get buns on the road.

5. Delete off-topic material. The best emails say one thing and say it clearly. One-subject emails also make it easier for the recipient to file the message once they've taken action, something anyone who uses Outlook to manage tasks appreciates.

6. Seek out equivocation and remove it. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" works for Dickens, not status reports.

7. Kill your favorites. Is something in your text particularly pithy, amusing, or clever? Chances are, it's not. If it sticks out, it's probably a tap-dancing gorilla in boxer shorts — hilarious when you thought of it, embarrassing when it gets in your manager's inbox.

8. Delete anything written in the heat of emotion. Will this sentence show them who's been right about the hamburger buns since the beginning? Yes? Cut it.

9. Shorten. Remember the reader struggling to digest your message on the run — a BlackBerry or an iPhone gets about 40 words per screen. What looks short on your desktop monitor is an epic epistle on their mobile device.
 
10. Give it a day. With time, what seemed so urgent may no longer need to be said. And one less email is something everyone will thank you for.

via: http://blogs.hbr.org/silverman/2009/04/how-to-revise-an-email-so-that.html