Wednesday, August 28, 2013
The Chutzpah of Racist White Trash Yahoos Knows NO Bounds!
Even as some misguided GOOPr morons and white racist asses attempt to “boycott” the excellent film ‘The Butler’ (too late, you dolts!) on the basis of being “anti-American” (because Jane Fonda plays Nancy Reagan) a reminder has surfaced that racism remains as strong as ever in this country
This with an incident at a Charleston, SC restaurant called “Wild Wings Cafe” , where 25 black family members were chased out because one lone white trash woman (of clearly questionable intelligence) claimed she felt “threatened” by the group. Aw, boo hoo hoo, missy. Here’s a piece of advice then: better not go to Barbados where you will find ALL the customers are black.
How the hell could this occur in this day and age, when we supposedly left the Jim Crow past behind, in the South? Well, the logical reason is that too many haven’t heard the news that the Jim Crow laws went out with the Civil Rights Act! Also, maybe the establishment that forced the African-American family out needs to be forced to watch ‘The Butler’ (along with a certain cretin fake Confederate asshole) to see just what went down at multiple lunch counters in the South some 50 years ago.
Turning peaceable folk away who just wanted some food, on the basis of “feeling threatened”? Threatened of WHAT? A spontaneous riot? Violence? Any such feeling must therefore clearly be at the root of a primeval racist reaction – which paranoia NO restaurant should honor or succumb to. The correct reaction here? The rational one?
“Lady, we are sorry you feel the way you do, but we aren’t going to turn away 25 customers because you are suffering from paranoid schizophrenia,”
According to WNEM Channel 5 in Charleston, Michael Brown stood up to the manager and asked her to clarify her actions, which she did as another member of the group filmed the confrontation.
According to Mr. Brown, the woman said – get this – she felt “threatened” by his party so asked the restaurant manager not to seat them in HER section when they’d already been there for two hours! Brown's party was then denied service and essentially informed it had to depart. All this because of one piece of white trash – who really did believe it was HER section and that the restaurant was obligated to meet HER needs! Are U fucking kidding me?
This woman and all the proto-Rebel trash that would defend her and the Wild Wings honchos, need one thing and one only: a series of electro-convulsive therapy treatments! Oh, in addition to seeing ‘The Butler’ in the same manner as the punk protagonist Alex in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ – forced to view therapeutic films to curb his violence with his eyelids taped open!
Brown has since made countless attempts to contact the corporate office of Wild Wings to file a complaint, to no avail. So he took the issue to Facebook, notifying his circle and all others who might read it that he will never go to Wild Wings again. In his own words: “This type of racial discrimination is unacceptable and we have to put a STOP TO IT. The manager looked me dead in the face and said she was refusing us service because she had a right to and simply she felt like it. “
Does a place of PUBLIC business have the right to refuse service based on skin color? No it does not! The era depicted in ‘The Butler’ ought to have ended by now, but this is yet one more reason to go to see the film – to be reminded of what our African –American citizens had to endure a half century ago, and why it must never be permitted to return. No matter how much the disgusting racist revisionists, including all latter day pro-Confederate traitors, want to try to turn history on its head!
On this, the 50th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr's 'I Have A Dream' speech (on the D.C. Mall) it reminds us of just how much work we have to do to bring this nation fully out into an era of genuine post-racial reality. Where one's character ought to trump the color of one's skin in any human interaction.
Where Do You Stand on the Sample GRE Aptitude Test Scale?
First the answers to the last set of quantitative questions:
Section I:
1. (B), 2. (E), 3. (E), 4. (E)
Section II:
1. (E), 2. (E), 3. (E), 4. (B), 5. (D), 6. (B)
---------------------
Now, assuming you followed the time constraints, add up your correct responses which will be some total out of 25 for the verbal, and out of 20 for the quantitative. These yield a "raw" score which - when scaled to the no. of questions (relative to the original test) yields a comparative GRE score out of 800. These are given below:
Verbal:
Raw score/ 25..............................GRE analog
______________________________________
25.....................................................800
24....................................................750
23....................................................720
22....................................................690
21....................................................660
20....................................................630
19....................................................610
18....................................................580
17....................................................550
16....................................................500
15....................................................460
14....................................................400
---------------------------------------------------
Quantitative:
Raw score/ 20................................GRE analog
______________________________________
20....................................................800
19....................................................740
18....................................................710
17................................................... 680
16....................................................650
15....................................................620
14....................................................590
13....................................................550
12....................................................510
11....................................................470
10 ..................................................430
-----------------------------------------------------------
Now, add up the verbal plus quantitative GRE analog scores. If you got 1250 or over, you'd likely qualify for Mensa (remember this is a sample facsimile test of the 1985 version, not the actual one with same no. of questions, time etc.). To get an idea of comparative (estimated, i.e. plus or minus 3 pts)) IQ to sample GRE scores, see : http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/greiq.aspx
Section I:
1. (B), 2. (E), 3. (E), 4. (E)
Section II:
1. (E), 2. (E), 3. (E), 4. (B), 5. (D), 6. (B)
---------------------
Now, assuming you followed the time constraints, add up your correct responses which will be some total out of 25 for the verbal, and out of 20 for the quantitative. These yield a "raw" score which - when scaled to the no. of questions (relative to the original test) yields a comparative GRE score out of 800. These are given below:
Verbal:
Raw score/ 25..............................GRE analog
______________________________________
25.....................................................800
24....................................................750
23....................................................720
22....................................................690
21....................................................660
20....................................................630
19....................................................610
18....................................................580
17....................................................550
16....................................................500
15....................................................460
14....................................................400
---------------------------------------------------
Quantitative:
Raw score/ 20................................GRE analog
______________________________________
20....................................................800
19....................................................740
18....................................................710
17................................................... 680
16....................................................650
15....................................................620
14....................................................590
13....................................................550
12....................................................510
11....................................................470
10 ..................................................430
-----------------------------------------------------------
Now, add up the verbal plus quantitative GRE analog scores. If you got 1250 or over, you'd likely qualify for Mensa (remember this is a sample facsimile test of the 1985 version, not the actual one with same no. of questions, time etc.). To get an idea of comparative (estimated, i.e. plus or minus 3 pts)) IQ to sample GRE scores, see : http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/greiq.aspx
The Net Rises to Fight the Surveillance State!
Ed Snowden: His revelations have set the Internet to work to combat the super snoops!
Even as the Denver Post Sunday Editorial blistered the laxity of congress and the FISA courts in failing to oversee the indiscriminate NSA surveillance ('Surveillance Court Must Be Reformed', p.3D), noting they have "wandered far from the Constitution in the quest to keep the nation free and safe" (that's putting it mildly!), the internet is now gathering muscle to outwit and outmatch the snoops. (Essential given the NSA "can now tap into 75% of all internet traffic" according to one Post citation of a WSJ article).
Start with yesterday's Financial Times article ('Internet Launches Fight Against State Snoopers') noting that an organization called the Internet Engineering Task Force (which develops internet standards) is proposing a system whereby ALL communications between websites and browsers will be protected by encryption. Something astounding and never before heard of? Hell NO! Merely using the same methods of encryption already used by banks and commercial entities like Amazon, to protect customers across the world wide web.
Certainly then, if customers (i.e. consumers) deserve such protection from snoops, so do citizens! Indeed, citizen rights to privacy as enshrined in the 4th amendment ought to be sacrosanct before any consumer protections.
The FT notes that while this plan is still in an early, developmental phase, it has the potential to transform the net and make it more difficult for governments and criminals to eavesdrop on citizens as they browse the web. After all, NO one is entitled to your own predilections, thoughts, opinions, words, unless you choose to disclose them - such as I do on this blog- which a certain unnamed, deranged and hateful loser (who rails about everything on it) would do better to avoid if he really wishes to spare himself from an early grave via stroke. (But maybe he never heard of not tuning in on a station if it evokes outrage, which leads me to conclude he's a masochist.)
Anyway, according to one software engineer cited in the FT piece: "There's been a complete change in how people perceive the world" since super patriot Edward Snowden did his patriotic duty (above any "oaths" or "orders") and revealed the extent of the NSA snoop machinery in their PRISM and Xkeyscore programs. Since Snowden did that, users of the net now understand how fragile their communications and how vulnerable their privacy, not to mention having gov't know more about them than they know about it.
Along with the IETF push to implement encryption systems impervious to the government snoops, other initiatives are also under way, such as an impetus for assorted groups to push for fundamental reforms in laws governing the web. (To reduce user transparency) The groups include the World Wide Web Foundation, as well as the ACLU which has condemned the NSA blanket surveillance.
Meanwhile, as a recent article ('My Own Private Internet') in Mother Jones documents (Sept-Oct, p. 30) creative software techies have already created a "parallel net" (actually a mesh) which "is faster than the Net we pay for" and which has the capability to skirt the snoopers. Data travels through this mesh nearly 30 times faster than the commercial net.
Already Joseph Bonicioli (the developer) has created a community mesh (the Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network) which has over 1,000 members who can "send messages, video chat, and exchange huge files without ever appearing on the regular internet". In other words, beyond the ears and eyes of the snoops, whether ensconced in NSA or its Brit counterpart GCHQ. According to Mr. Bonicioli:
"It's like a whole other web. It's our network and also a playground."
He adds his mesh has become "a major social hub with blogs, discussion forums, and a Craigs knockoff". And all this beyond the prying eyes of the government's surveillance renegades.
Bonicioli adds that "anyone can join free by installing some equipment".
The MJ article goes on to note that the Athens mesh is by no means unique, and "scores of communities worldwide have been building these roll your own networks - because a mesh can also be used as a cheap way to access the regular internet."
The MJ piece adds:
"In an era where governments and corporations are increasingly tracking our online movements, the user-controlled networks are emerging as an almost subversive concept. 'When you run your own network, no one can shut it down' said Bonicioli."
Will the Internet finally conquer the super snoops? I believe it will and probably the community mesh solution will multiply as users become more empowered - distrusting the coziness of the commercial net providers with the government. In the meantime, the IEFT encryption solution will be prodded onward but whether the powers-that-be allow it remains to be seen. Meanwhile, hopes for the FISA courts and congress to grow a pair to rein in NSA may be expecting too much. Most of their members have obviously lost sight of the 4th amendment if they ever believed in it.
Stay tuned!
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Looking at More Complex GRE-style Quantitative Aptitude Questions
First, the answers from last time:
Verbal (I):
1. (B), 2. (C), 3. (D), 4. (E), 5, (B)
Verbal (II):
1. (C), 2. (A), 3. (B), 4. (E)
Verbal -Analytic (III):
1. (A), 2. (B), 3. (A), 4. (E), 5. (E), 6. (C)
We look now at GRE- style quantitative questions. In each case for the given question set, study the graph and information concerning it, then answer the questions that follow:
Quantitative (I): 7 Minutes:
The graph shown displays the chemical potential vs relative temperature for pure water, a saline solution and ice. For an "ideal solution" (a solution in which all molecules interact in the same way) the chemical potential of water in the solution is given by :
where R is the gas law constant (8.314 J/mol K), T is the temperature, and xsolution water is the mole fraction of water in the solution. (On the graph, T0 is the freezing point of the pure water. ) As salt is added to the water, the concentration of water in the solution goes down. That makes xsolution water less than one, and the natural log of a number less than one is negative. That makes the concentration correction negative, so the chemical potential of water will drop as more salt is added.
1. The decrease in chemical potential occurs because:
A. The quantity x (solution water) is less than one.
B. There is a lower concentration of water in the solution than in the pure liquid.
C. There is a higher concentration of water in the solution than in the pure liquid.
D. There is no change in concentration between ice and pure liquid.
E. The freezing point remains unchanged.
2. At the freezing point, it is clear that:
A. Ice and pure water co-exist
B. The tendency of the ice to melt is exactly counter balanced by the tendency of the water to freeze
C. The chemical potentials must be equal so that: µice = µpure water
D. Pure water has a higher chemical potential than water in salt solution
E. All of the above.
3. It is clear that when salt is mixed with the pure water solution:
A. The dissolved salt will lower the chemical potential of the (originally) pure water.
B. The chemical potential of the ice is barely affected at all.
C. The water must now be more unstable than ice - so the ice will melt more slowly.
D. Answers A, B and C
E. Answers A and B.
4. Which, if any, of the following can be deduced from the graph?
A. The chemical potential for all 3 substances rises as the temperature decreases.
B. The solution (water in) curve is shifted below the curve for pure water because the RT in the xsolution water term is less than zero.
C. The lower chemical potential of solution water shifts the point of intersection (with that for ice) to the left. This means the freezing point for water in the solution is lower than the freezing point for the pure water.
D. Answers A and B
E. Answers A, B and C.
Quantitative II: (8 Minutes)
The graph above shows the radiocarbon C-14 excess over C-12 over a 2,000 year period. In general, C14 is produced in the upper atmosphere via the impact –interaction with high energy cosmic rays, say from galactic sources. Solar activity in turn modulates the intensity of these cosmic rays via the action of the heliosphere's magnetic field which deflects a fraction of the intense cosmic ray flux and other harmful interstellar radiation.
When the Sun is more active, the heliosphere will be stronger, shielding the Earth from more intense cosmic rays the effect of which is to reduce the C14 produced in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. Conversely, when the Sun is less active then the shield is weaker and more intense cosmic rays penetrate to our upper atmosphere yielding more C14 produced.
To conform with observed solar activity the plot (from P.E. Damon :'The Solar Output and Its Variation', The University of Colorado Press, Boulder, 1977) is such that increasing radiocarbon (C14) is downward and indicated with (+). The deviations in parts per thousand are shown relative to an arbitrary 19th century reference level.
Questions:
1. The increasing C14/C12 ratio, i.e. from left to right on the graph probably arises from:
(A) Injection of anthropogenic CO2 into the Earth's atmosphere.
(B) The result of the known, slow decrease in the strength of the Earth’s magnetic moment.
(C) Increased cosmic ray fluxes on Earth
(D) Increased radiocarbon production on Earth resulting from (C)
(E) All the above
2. The sharp upward spike at the modern end of the curve (e.g. from about 1850 on) , representing a marked drop in relative radiocarbon, is probably due to:
(A) Anthropogenic causes—the onset of increased population and the Industrial Age
(B) The burning of low radiocarbon fossil fuels, such as coal and oil
(C) The systematic burning off of the world’s forests for agriculture.
(D) Processes (B) and (C) only
(E) All the processes: A, B and C
3. The percentage C14 excess over C 12 by the mid-20th century is approximately:
(A) +25, (B) -25, (C) +30 (D) +5 (E) +10
The graph below shows the changes in the heliosphere's magnetic field over different solar cycles, starting from 1900 to about the beginning of the 1st quarter of 2000. The vertical axis gives the magnitude of the magnetic field (B) in nano-Tesla. Note that the red portion of the graph denotes magnitudes observed from Earth, while the earlier (blue, light green) denoted inferred magnitudes.
4. Based on where Damon's (earlier) C-14 excess over C12 graph terminates, estimate the magnitude of the inferred or observed heliospheric magnetic field:
(A) 3 nT (B) 7 nT, (C) 9 nT (D) 5 nT (E) 8 nT
5. According to existing solar data, sunspot cycle 16 was a "weak cycle" which led to a much more energetic and active one (cycle 17). Estimate the ratio of the maximum magnitudes of the heliospheric magnetic fields, in cycle 17 relative to 16:
(A) 0.5 (B) 2.0 (C) 8/7 (D) 8.5/6.8 (E) 9/ 7
6. According to the World Meteorological Office:
“The year 2010 is almost certain to rank in the top three warmest years since the beginning of instrumental records in 1850.”
Assuming the validity of the arbitrary norm (zero line or abscissa) for 1890 in the Damon graph, then it is clear that the magnitude of the Middle Ages warming period (relative C14 strength of -18), for example, is less than about ½ the relative effect attributed mainly to anthropogenic sources in the modern era (-40). Based on this, and examining the two graphs, is it logical to conclude that the magnitude of the heliosphere magnetic field directly affects climate change on Earth?
(A) No, not enough data (B) Yes, to a small degree - because it modulates cosmic ray flux
(C) Yes, since the magnitude of the relative C14 over C12 excess, for Middle Ages warming, is less than about ½ the relative effect attributed mainly to anthropogenic sources in the modern era.
(D) No, because there weren't actual instruments to measure the heliosphere magnetic field in the Middle Ages.
(E) Yes, because the maximum peak for cycle 23 falls close enough to the beginning of 2010.
--------
Answers tomorrow. Also, where do you stand on a truncated GRE aptitude test scale? Find out tomorrow, assuming you've taken all these sample segments in the time.
Verbal (I):
1. (B), 2. (C), 3. (D), 4. (E), 5, (B)
Verbal (II):
1. (C), 2. (A), 3. (B), 4. (E)
Verbal -Analytic (III):
1. (A), 2. (B), 3. (A), 4. (E), 5. (E), 6. (C)
We look now at GRE- style quantitative questions. In each case for the given question set, study the graph and information concerning it, then answer the questions that follow:
Quantitative (I): 7 Minutes:
The graph shown displays the chemical potential vs relative temperature for pure water, a saline solution and ice. For an "ideal solution" (a solution in which all molecules interact in the same way) the chemical potential of water in the solution is given by :
µsolution water = µpure water + RT ln xsolution water
where R is the gas law constant (8.314 J/mol K), T is the temperature, and xsolution water is the mole fraction of water in the solution. (On the graph, T0 is the freezing point of the pure water. ) As salt is added to the water, the concentration of water in the solution goes down. That makes xsolution water less than one, and the natural log of a number less than one is negative. That makes the concentration correction negative, so the chemical potential of water will drop as more salt is added.
1. The decrease in chemical potential occurs because:
A. The quantity x (solution water) is less than one.
B. There is a lower concentration of water in the solution than in the pure liquid.
C. There is a higher concentration of water in the solution than in the pure liquid.
D. There is no change in concentration between ice and pure liquid.
E. The freezing point remains unchanged.
2. At the freezing point, it is clear that:
A. Ice and pure water co-exist
B. The tendency of the ice to melt is exactly counter balanced by the tendency of the water to freeze
C. The chemical potentials must be equal so that: µice = µpure water
D. Pure water has a higher chemical potential than water in salt solution
E. All of the above.
3. It is clear that when salt is mixed with the pure water solution:
A. The dissolved salt will lower the chemical potential of the (originally) pure water.
B. The chemical potential of the ice is barely affected at all.
C. The water must now be more unstable than ice - so the ice will melt more slowly.
D. Answers A, B and C
E. Answers A and B.
4. Which, if any, of the following can be deduced from the graph?
A. The chemical potential for all 3 substances rises as the temperature decreases.
B. The solution (water in) curve is shifted below the curve for pure water because the RT in the xsolution water term is less than zero.
C. The lower chemical potential of solution water shifts the point of intersection (with that for ice) to the left. This means the freezing point for water in the solution is lower than the freezing point for the pure water.
D. Answers A and B
E. Answers A, B and C.
Quantitative II: (8 Minutes)
The graph above shows the radiocarbon C-14 excess over C-12 over a 2,000 year period. In general, C14 is produced in the upper atmosphere via the impact –interaction with high energy cosmic rays, say from galactic sources. Solar activity in turn modulates the intensity of these cosmic rays via the action of the heliosphere's magnetic field which deflects a fraction of the intense cosmic ray flux and other harmful interstellar radiation.
When the Sun is more active, the heliosphere will be stronger, shielding the Earth from more intense cosmic rays the effect of which is to reduce the C14 produced in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. Conversely, when the Sun is less active then the shield is weaker and more intense cosmic rays penetrate to our upper atmosphere yielding more C14 produced.
To conform with observed solar activity the plot (from P.E. Damon :'The Solar Output and Its Variation', The University of Colorado Press, Boulder, 1977) is such that increasing radiocarbon (C14) is downward and indicated with (+). The deviations in parts per thousand are shown relative to an arbitrary 19th century reference level.
Questions:
1. The increasing C14/C12 ratio, i.e. from left to right on the graph probably arises from:
(A) Injection of anthropogenic CO2 into the Earth's atmosphere.
(B) The result of the known, slow decrease in the strength of the Earth’s magnetic moment.
(C) Increased cosmic ray fluxes on Earth
(D) Increased radiocarbon production on Earth resulting from (C)
(E) All the above
2. The sharp upward spike at the modern end of the curve (e.g. from about 1850 on) , representing a marked drop in relative radiocarbon, is probably due to:
(A) Anthropogenic causes—the onset of increased population and the Industrial Age
(B) The burning of low radiocarbon fossil fuels, such as coal and oil
(C) The systematic burning off of the world’s forests for agriculture.
(D) Processes (B) and (C) only
(E) All the processes: A, B and C
3. The percentage C14 excess over C 12 by the mid-20th century is approximately:
(A) +25, (B) -25, (C) +30 (D) +5 (E) +10
The graph below shows the changes in the heliosphere's magnetic field over different solar cycles, starting from 1900 to about the beginning of the 1st quarter of 2000. The vertical axis gives the magnitude of the magnetic field (B) in nano-Tesla. Note that the red portion of the graph denotes magnitudes observed from Earth, while the earlier (blue, light green) denoted inferred magnitudes.
4. Based on where Damon's (earlier) C-14 excess over C12 graph terminates, estimate the magnitude of the inferred or observed heliospheric magnetic field:
(A) 3 nT (B) 7 nT, (C) 9 nT (D) 5 nT (E) 8 nT
5. According to existing solar data, sunspot cycle 16 was a "weak cycle" which led to a much more energetic and active one (cycle 17). Estimate the ratio of the maximum magnitudes of the heliospheric magnetic fields, in cycle 17 relative to 16:
(A) 0.5 (B) 2.0 (C) 8/7 (D) 8.5/6.8 (E) 9/ 7
6. According to the World Meteorological Office:
“The year 2010 is almost certain to rank in the top three warmest years since the beginning of instrumental records in 1850.”
Assuming the validity of the arbitrary norm (zero line or abscissa) for 1890 in the Damon graph, then it is clear that the magnitude of the Middle Ages warming period (relative C14 strength of -18), for example, is less than about ½ the relative effect attributed mainly to anthropogenic sources in the modern era (-40). Based on this, and examining the two graphs, is it logical to conclude that the magnitude of the heliosphere magnetic field directly affects climate change on Earth?
(A) No, not enough data (B) Yes, to a small degree - because it modulates cosmic ray flux
(C) Yes, since the magnitude of the relative C14 over C12 excess, for Middle Ages warming, is less than about ½ the relative effect attributed mainly to anthropogenic sources in the modern era.
(D) No, because there weren't actual instruments to measure the heliosphere magnetic field in the Middle Ages.
(E) Yes, because the maximum peak for cycle 23 falls close enough to the beginning of 2010.
--------
Answers tomorrow. Also, where do you stand on a truncated GRE aptitude test scale? Find out tomorrow, assuming you've taken all these sample segments in the time.
"FRISCO" - A Name to Hate? REALLY?
Looking toward the Orchard Hotel in San Francisco - where we stayed last September while I received my prostate cancer treatment at the UCSF Helen Diller Cancer Center . The Powell Ave. cable car is in view. Needless to say, I fell in love with the city!
According to a piece in the San Francisco Chronicle online the other day, a woman phoned the paper in a literal rage after visiting a museum in the city and finding a work of art partially tagged with the hideous word "Frisco". She fulminated at length expressing how such a travesty could occur and in a place of culture. Have people no shame?
This reminded me of when I first inadvertently used the word "Frisco" in Fairbanks, AK soon after I arrived to take up a research assistantship in the fall of 1985. A Ph.D. plasma physics classmate named Jeff Collier heard it, and went ballistic.
"FRISCO? The name is NOT 'FRISCO'! It is San Francisco! Please, PUH-leeze, never use the word 'Frisco' again for San Francisco! It is gauche and cruel to us who are natives!"
Whoa! Seriously? Brother, you need to take a valium! It's just a name!
But is it just a name? Not to old line San Franciscans who detest 'Frisco' with a passion. Which elicits the question of why there's such an emotional response to a name. According to the Chronicle piece, the trouble began in the old days when the city was a major port and all manner of louts ("shrimpers, crimpers, criminals and sailors" ) and low- class people infested the area - getting drunk, starting fights and displaying all around bad behavior. Most of the louts were recognizable by an emblematic pair of crusty pants called "Friskos".
Somehow the name caught on, and the next thing you knew, authors like William Saroyan were adopting it in their novels, and Woody Guthrie was using it in songs. Then it spread to other songs and poems etc. Before you knew it, to the more staid San Franciscans' horror, it had become entrenched - like a parasitic worm. The Chronicle noted that the main culprits for using it continue to be tourists who apparently have no idea how it offends.
While we were in the city last year, I made the mistake of using the term off-handedly (essentially under automatic pilot) at a restaurant called 'Scala's" on Powell Avenue and wifey promptly corrected me before the waitress appeared:
"You can't use that word here! It's not 'Frisco'! People here don't like it!"
You'd think I had used a four letter epithet.
"Why not? What's wrong with it? Why don't they like it?"
"I don't know! Please don't say it when we go to the cancer treatment center!"
Of course, by then I'd totally forgotten about it and 'Frisco' was the least thing on my mind as I was being admitted then taken for anesthesia and implant surgery.
The Chronicle noted, however, that the word is now in such widespread use that the old line tribe of SF has just about given up on their crusade. Especially as the paper notes a new culprit has arrived to take its place: "SAN FRAN". Now, it turns out, almost as many San Franciscans detest "San Fran" (again mostly used by the tourist hoi polloi) as "Frisco".
Look, whether "Frisco", "San Fran" or San Francisco, the city is a delightful place ("a rose by any other name" etc.) And after my treatment, I couldn't wait to sight see! Pier 31, Golden Gate bridge, Chinatown, the Redwoods. No American should omit it from his or her "bucket list". Just don't use the term "Frisco" (or "San Fran") when you're there!
Monday, August 26, 2013
Why The Epidemic Of Depression In The US of A?
Why the prevalence of so much depression in the U.S.? In 1998, Martin Seligman, then president of the American Psychological Association, spoke to the National Press Club about an American depression epidemic: “We discovered two astonishing things about the rate of depression across the century. The first was there is now between ten and twenty times as much of it as there was fifty years ago. And the second is that it has become a young person’s problem. When I first started working in depression thirty years ago. . . the average age of which the first onset of depression occurred was 29.5. . . .Now the average age is between 14 and 15.”
Sad! Even sadder, the deck is stacked against the struggling citizen being squeezed into passive consumerhood almost from the get go. In schools he's branded with ADD and forced on drugs because he sees he's merely being trained to be a cog in a corporate machine. At work, the intelligent employee who sees himself performing mechanical drudge tasks beneath his brain power can't help feeling enraged, frustrated. And then there is the fundamental bias in mental health professionals when any one seeks assistance. They then learn that their "problems" - often inattention and noncompliance - are treated as mental disorders. Those with extended schooling have lived for many years in a world where they all pay attention to much that is unstimulating. In this world, one routinely complies with the demands of authorities......or else....is deemed a "trouble maker". Thus for many MDs and Ph.Ds, the genuinely passionate people who rebel against this attentional and behavioral compliance appear to be from another world.
By accepting this tommyrot (committing the fundamental attribution error), people become mentally passive, no longer transgressive in their outlooks. They end up blaming themselves instead of the foul system that plays both ends against the middle to trap them. Enter the so-called “free market” which is really a COERCIVE market in which people are forced to compete but almost never win. THIS above all is responsible for the absurd rise in depression. And so we become disengaged from our jobs and our schooling. Young people are pressured to amass increasingly large student-loan debt so as to acquire the credentials to get a job, in a profession for which they often have little enthusiasm for. And increasing numbers of people are completely socially isolated – so will tend to self-medicate using assorted drugs, sex or even writing hateful, angry blogs in which they thumb their noses at the world. How to know if a market is free or coerced? Charles Reich provided the test ('Opposing the System’, 1995, p. 22):
"A free market produces results that favor the health of society as a whole, because an essential balance is maintained. But in a coercive market, the balance is destroyed, the earning power of work and the standard of living of workers declines, and society as a whole is devastated while those with economic power gain an ever more unbalanced share of the nation's economic wealth"
This is exactly what we have with the top 1% controlling 57% of the nation's wealth, and 400 billionaires with the same monetary resources as 150 million fellow citizens! And they control the purveyors of PR, whether based on university "research" or the compromised media, who want people to believe THEY are responsible for their failures and not the corrupt SYSTEM which forces them to play both ends against the middle and lose. Merely take the example of a family barely making it, one of whose members now get a promotion. But by getting that promotion - earning say $5,000 more a year - which might help them breathe easier, they then forfeit their food stamps and Medicaid benefits, so are right back behind the "eight ball". Fairness? Hell, the system's coordinators and promoters never heard of it!
Factoring into the false consciousness that gives rise to mass depression is the "fundamental attribution error" which is defined as:
The tendency to credit or blame individuals for their level of failure or success without considering the aspects of the social structure that impel or impede their progress. Thus, it results in praise of the system and condemnation of individuals who are defined as losers.
This in turn leads to workers who mutate into automatons prepared to tolerate any amount of systematic abuse from a corrupt system, because they lay the blame on their own "lack of ambition" or some other false excuse contrived by the corporate thought controllers to deflect blame from their own greed. Then, when their own expectations for their future success aren't met, they turn the selfsame perverted paradigm onto themselves and ...become depressed. Which can manifest in many ways.
This may well be at the heart and core of why so many of the working and middle classes vote against their own best interests (even when they're on food stamps). Precisely because they blame all or most of their failures to get ahead on themselves, instead of the vicious system of economic tyranny where it belongs. In this sad way, people become passive and their own worst enemies. The idea that our mental illness epidemic is being caused by a peculiar rebellion against a dehumanizing society, is then removed from the mainstream memetic map. When a societal problem grows to become all encompassing, we often no longer even notice it.
The poor shmuck who just killed himself because he got downsized two weeks before his pension? Hell, he should have chosen a better job! The sorry loser who sits in a depressed apt., cranking out hideous hate blogs all day until he's on the verge of a stroke? He needs to go to a shrink - who, of course - will blame him for not being "adjusted". She will then steer him onto Paxil or Zoloft and if those don't work, likely have him briefly committed for electro-convulsive therapy. The young mother who lost her job because she couldn't find or afford child care? Tough luck! She shouldn't have had so many kids, or any kid, period! And so it goes!
What happens when struggling people are shut out by the deliberately dysfunctional system? Well, then they will seek to survive any way they can! They will most likely try the route of getting Social Security disability or maybe some form of VA benefits (if they were in the service) to be able to continue, since working is no longer an option - at least in their minds.
Here's a stat to blow minds: The tally of those who are so disabled by mental disorders (including depression) that they qualify for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) increased nearly two and a half times between 1987 and 2007—from one in 184 Americans to one in 76. For children, the rise is even more startling—a thirty-five-fold increase in the same two decades,” as Marcia Angell summarizes in a New York Times Book Review. Angell also reports that a large survey of adults conducted between 2001 and 2003 sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health found that at some point in their lives, 46 percent of Americans met the criteria established by the American Psychiatric Association for at least one mental illness.
We literally have nearly half the country putatively off its rocker! Another wowser: In 2011, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that antidepressant use in the United States has increased nearly 400% in the last two decades, making antidepressants the most frequently used class of medications by Americans ages 18-44 years. By 2008, 23% of women ages 40–59 years were taking antidepressants. And we won't even add to this all the poor zombies on sleeping pills like Ambien, because they can't sleep properly!
Another barometer - using questions - to assess whether our society is as fucked up as it appears or not. Do our major societal institutions promote: ·
Enthusiasm—or passivity?
· Respectful personal relationships—or manipulative impersonal ones?
· Community, trust, and confidence—or isolation, fear and paranoia?
· Empowerment—or helplessness?
· Autonomy (self-direction)—or heteronomy (institutional-direction)?
· Participatory democracy—or authoritarian hierarchies?
· Diversity and stimulation—or homogeneity and boredom?
I warrant most readers will know which answers are forthcoming. I warrant they will also see why this society - such as it is- is totally fucked up and generating fucked up, angry or pathologically sick people almost at twice the birth rate. One way to make it healthier? Ease up and back off from all the hyper-militarist bullshit which is creating authoritarian personalities at a rate unheard of in our history. According to Harvey A. Hornstein in his terrific book Cruelty and Kindness: A New Look at Aggression and Altruism (Prentice-Hall, 1976, 'We and They', p.13.), this militarist-oriented personality "is pathologically rigid, absolutist and displays little or no flexibility" . In the words of some, “It’s my way or the highway”. This type of psychotic then becomes ensconced in the corporate world, say as a bully employer or worse, the guy in the next cubicle!
The problem with endemic militarism is that it literally breeds millions of such personalities, or else paranoid ones that tend to join subversive Right wing terror groups, or gun groups. As Hornstein shows, deprived of their manhood - either because of losing a job to a black or brown person (or woman), or unable to provide for family - they take out their anger and frustrations on anyone or anything that they deem offends them. In the process they dehumanize their targets, using epithets like "monkeys", "baboons", "libtards" or "c*nts" to try to make themselves feel superior - but they never do. In the end, despite all the words of roiling hate, their depression continues and their families and society pay the price.
Can this insanity be halted? Maybe, but the odds right now are slim. Too many are caught up in the brain grinder. It will likely take an alien invasion - with the focus on lobotomizing all the authoritarians and dispatching them to Tau Ceti- to fight a real war against a giant race of super -armored beetles or giant spiders. (See 'Starship Troopers' or better, read the book by Robert Heinlein.)
Sad! Even sadder, the deck is stacked against the struggling citizen being squeezed into passive consumerhood almost from the get go. In schools he's branded with ADD and forced on drugs because he sees he's merely being trained to be a cog in a corporate machine. At work, the intelligent employee who sees himself performing mechanical drudge tasks beneath his brain power can't help feeling enraged, frustrated. And then there is the fundamental bias in mental health professionals when any one seeks assistance. They then learn that their "problems" - often inattention and noncompliance - are treated as mental disorders. Those with extended schooling have lived for many years in a world where they all pay attention to much that is unstimulating. In this world, one routinely complies with the demands of authorities......or else....is deemed a "trouble maker". Thus for many MDs and Ph.Ds, the genuinely passionate people who rebel against this attentional and behavioral compliance appear to be from another world.
By accepting this tommyrot (committing the fundamental attribution error), people become mentally passive, no longer transgressive in their outlooks. They end up blaming themselves instead of the foul system that plays both ends against the middle to trap them. Enter the so-called “free market” which is really a COERCIVE market in which people are forced to compete but almost never win. THIS above all is responsible for the absurd rise in depression. And so we become disengaged from our jobs and our schooling. Young people are pressured to amass increasingly large student-loan debt so as to acquire the credentials to get a job, in a profession for which they often have little enthusiasm for. And increasing numbers of people are completely socially isolated – so will tend to self-medicate using assorted drugs, sex or even writing hateful, angry blogs in which they thumb their noses at the world. How to know if a market is free or coerced? Charles Reich provided the test ('Opposing the System’, 1995, p. 22):
"A free market produces results that favor the health of society as a whole, because an essential balance is maintained. But in a coercive market, the balance is destroyed, the earning power of work and the standard of living of workers declines, and society as a whole is devastated while those with economic power gain an ever more unbalanced share of the nation's economic wealth"
This is exactly what we have with the top 1% controlling 57% of the nation's wealth, and 400 billionaires with the same monetary resources as 150 million fellow citizens! And they control the purveyors of PR, whether based on university "research" or the compromised media, who want people to believe THEY are responsible for their failures and not the corrupt SYSTEM which forces them to play both ends against the middle and lose. Merely take the example of a family barely making it, one of whose members now get a promotion. But by getting that promotion - earning say $5,000 more a year - which might help them breathe easier, they then forfeit their food stamps and Medicaid benefits, so are right back behind the "eight ball". Fairness? Hell, the system's coordinators and promoters never heard of it!
Factoring into the false consciousness that gives rise to mass depression is the "fundamental attribution error" which is defined as:
The tendency to credit or blame individuals for their level of failure or success without considering the aspects of the social structure that impel or impede their progress. Thus, it results in praise of the system and condemnation of individuals who are defined as losers.
This in turn leads to workers who mutate into automatons prepared to tolerate any amount of systematic abuse from a corrupt system, because they lay the blame on their own "lack of ambition" or some other false excuse contrived by the corporate thought controllers to deflect blame from their own greed. Then, when their own expectations for their future success aren't met, they turn the selfsame perverted paradigm onto themselves and ...become depressed. Which can manifest in many ways.
This may well be at the heart and core of why so many of the working and middle classes vote against their own best interests (even when they're on food stamps). Precisely because they blame all or most of their failures to get ahead on themselves, instead of the vicious system of economic tyranny where it belongs. In this sad way, people become passive and their own worst enemies. The idea that our mental illness epidemic is being caused by a peculiar rebellion against a dehumanizing society, is then removed from the mainstream memetic map. When a societal problem grows to become all encompassing, we often no longer even notice it.
The poor shmuck who just killed himself because he got downsized two weeks before his pension? Hell, he should have chosen a better job! The sorry loser who sits in a depressed apt., cranking out hideous hate blogs all day until he's on the verge of a stroke? He needs to go to a shrink - who, of course - will blame him for not being "adjusted". She will then steer him onto Paxil or Zoloft and if those don't work, likely have him briefly committed for electro-convulsive therapy. The young mother who lost her job because she couldn't find or afford child care? Tough luck! She shouldn't have had so many kids, or any kid, period! And so it goes!
What happens when struggling people are shut out by the deliberately dysfunctional system? Well, then they will seek to survive any way they can! They will most likely try the route of getting Social Security disability or maybe some form of VA benefits (if they were in the service) to be able to continue, since working is no longer an option - at least in their minds.
Here's a stat to blow minds: The tally of those who are so disabled by mental disorders (including depression) that they qualify for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) increased nearly two and a half times between 1987 and 2007—from one in 184 Americans to one in 76. For children, the rise is even more startling—a thirty-five-fold increase in the same two decades,” as Marcia Angell summarizes in a New York Times Book Review. Angell also reports that a large survey of adults conducted between 2001 and 2003 sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health found that at some point in their lives, 46 percent of Americans met the criteria established by the American Psychiatric Association for at least one mental illness.
We literally have nearly half the country putatively off its rocker! Another wowser: In 2011, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that antidepressant use in the United States has increased nearly 400% in the last two decades, making antidepressants the most frequently used class of medications by Americans ages 18-44 years. By 2008, 23% of women ages 40–59 years were taking antidepressants. And we won't even add to this all the poor zombies on sleeping pills like Ambien, because they can't sleep properly!
Another barometer - using questions - to assess whether our society is as fucked up as it appears or not. Do our major societal institutions promote: ·
Enthusiasm—or passivity?
· Respectful personal relationships—or manipulative impersonal ones?
· Community, trust, and confidence—or isolation, fear and paranoia?
· Empowerment—or helplessness?
· Autonomy (self-direction)—or heteronomy (institutional-direction)?
· Participatory democracy—or authoritarian hierarchies?
· Diversity and stimulation—or homogeneity and boredom?
I warrant most readers will know which answers are forthcoming. I warrant they will also see why this society - such as it is- is totally fucked up and generating fucked up, angry or pathologically sick people almost at twice the birth rate. One way to make it healthier? Ease up and back off from all the hyper-militarist bullshit which is creating authoritarian personalities at a rate unheard of in our history. According to Harvey A. Hornstein in his terrific book Cruelty and Kindness: A New Look at Aggression and Altruism (Prentice-Hall, 1976, 'We and They', p.13.), this militarist-oriented personality "is pathologically rigid, absolutist and displays little or no flexibility" . In the words of some, “It’s my way or the highway”. This type of psychotic then becomes ensconced in the corporate world, say as a bully employer or worse, the guy in the next cubicle!
The problem with endemic militarism is that it literally breeds millions of such personalities, or else paranoid ones that tend to join subversive Right wing terror groups, or gun groups. As Hornstein shows, deprived of their manhood - either because of losing a job to a black or brown person (or woman), or unable to provide for family - they take out their anger and frustrations on anyone or anything that they deem offends them. In the process they dehumanize their targets, using epithets like "monkeys", "baboons", "libtards" or "c*nts" to try to make themselves feel superior - but they never do. In the end, despite all the words of roiling hate, their depression continues and their families and society pay the price.
Can this insanity be halted? Maybe, but the odds right now are slim. Too many are caught up in the brain grinder. It will likely take an alien invasion - with the focus on lobotomizing all the authoritarians and dispatching them to Tau Ceti- to fight a real war against a giant race of super -armored beetles or giant spiders. (See 'Starship Troopers' or better, read the book by Robert Heinlein.)
Looking At More Complex GRE Verbal Aptitude Questions
First, the answers from the previous sample GRE aptitude test questions:
Verbal (Pt. I):
1.(A), 2. (E), 3. (D), 4. (B), 5. (B)
2. Quantitative (Pt. I)
1. (A), 2. (E), 3. (C), 4. (D), 5. (C)
Verbal (Pt. II):
1. (D), 2. (D), 3. (C), 4. (C), 5. (E)
Quantitative (Pt. II):
1. (C), 2. (B), 3. (B), 4. (D), 5. (A)
----
Now, lest any readers believe the GRE questions were typically as easy as those in the last blog, let's look at a few examples of more complex ones. We will start out with a series requiring filling in the correct word pair in given blanks for a sentence, then go to one example each of a passage which must be read, then interpreted-analyzed and responses given. Here goes:
Verbal (I): (5 minutes)
Each sentence below has two blanks, each blank indicating a word has been omitted. Choose the pair of words which best fits:
1. It is true that seeds of some plants have _____ after two hundred years of dormancy, but reports that viable seeds have been found in ancient tombs such as the pyramids are entirely_______:
(A) revived: empirical
(B) germinated: unfounded
(C) endured: irrelevant
(D) erupted:reasonable
(E) proliferated: substantiated
2. The most technologically advanced societies have been responsible for the greatest ______ indeed, savagery seems to be in direct proportion to_______:
(A) wars: viciousness
(B) catastrophes: ill will
(C) atrocities: development
(D)inventions: know-how
(E) triumphs:civilization
3. The combination of ______ and ______ in Edmund's speech can be startling, especially when he slyly slips in some juicy vulgarity amid the mellifluous circumlocutions of a gentleman of the old school.
(A) tact: innocence
(B) raciness: ribaldry
(C) piousness: modesty
(D) elegance: earthiness
(E)propriety: bashfulness
4. Every new theory not only must _____ the valid predictions of the old theory, but must also explain why those predictions ______ within the range of that old theory.
(A)organize: failed
(B)generate: faltered
(C) promote: functioned
(D)refute: evolved
(E) accommodate: succeeded
5. Human reaction to the realm of thought is often as strong as that to sensible presences; our higher moral life is based on the fact that ______ sensations actually present may have a weaker influence on our action than do the ideas of _____ facts.
(A) disturbing: ordinary
(B) material: remote
(C) emotional : impersonal
(D) definitive: controversial
(E) familiar: symbolic
Verbal (II): (5 minutes)
Read the passage provided then choose the correct letter referencing some part of the passage - with conclusions stated or implied:
The Food and Drug Administration has recently proposed severe restrictions on the use of antibiotics to promote the health and growth of meat animals. Medications added to feeds kill many microorganisms but also encourage the appearance of bacterial strains that are resistant to anti-infective drugs. Already, for example, penicillin and tetracyclines are not as effective therapeutically as they once were. The drug resistance is chiefly conferred by tiny circlets of genes called plasmids, that can exchanged between different strains and even different species of bacteria. Plasmids are also one of the two kinds of vehicles (the other being viruses) that molecular biologists depend on when performing gene transplant experiments. Even present guidelines forbid the laboratory use of plasmids bearing genes for resistance to antibiotics. Yet, while congressional debate rages over whether or not to toughen these restrictions on scientists in their laboratories, little congressional attention has been focused on an ill-advised agricultural practice that produces known deleterious effects.
1. In the passage, the author is primarily concerned with:
(A) discovering methods of eliminating harmful microorganisms without subsequently generating drug resistant bacteria.
(B) explaining reasons for congressional inaction on the regulation of gene transplant experiments
(C) describing a problematic agricultural practice and its serious genetic consequences
(D) verifying the therapeutic ineffectiveness of anti-infective drugs.
(E) evaluating recently proposed restrictions intended to promote the growth of meat animals.
2. According to the passage, the exchange of plasmids between different bacteria can result in which of the following?
(A) Microorganisms resistant to drugs
(B) Therapeutically useful circlets of genes
(C) Anti-infective drugs like penicillin
(D) Viruses for use by molecular biologists
(E) Vehicles for performing gene transplant experiments
3. It can be inferred from the passage that the author believes that those in favor of stiffening the restrictions on gene transplant research should logically also:
(A) encourage experiments with any plasmids except those bearing genes for antibiotic research
(B) question the addition of anti-infective drugs to livestock feed
(C) resist the use of penicillin and tetracyclines to kill microorganisms
(D) agree to the development of meatier livestock through the use of antibiotics
(E) favor congressional debate and discussion of all science and health issues
4. The author's attitude toward the development of bacterial strains that render antibiotic drugs ineffective can best be described as:
(A) indifferent, (B) perplexed, (C) pretentious, (D) insincere, (E) apprehensive
Verbal-Analytical (III): (6 minutes:)
Read the passage then answer the questions on it which follow:
The work week in a small business is a five-day work week running from Monday through Friday. In each workweek, activities L, M, N, O and P must all be done, but the work is subject to the following restrictions:
L must be done earlier in the week than O but not earlier than P
M must be done earlier in the week than N and not earlier than O.
No more than one of the activities can be done on any one day
1. Which of the following is an acceptable schedule of activities with the activities listed from left to right in the order from Monday through Friday:
(A) L, M, N, O, P,
(B)M,N, O, M, N
(C) O, N. L, P, M
(D) P, O, L, M. L
(E) P, O, L, M , N
2. Which of the following pairs of activities could be done on Monday and Tuesday, respectively, of some week:
(A) L and O
(B) M and L
(C) M and P
(D) N and O
(E) O and M
3. If P is earlier than M on the schedule for some week, which of the following must also be true of that schedule?
(A) L is earlier than M
(B) N is earlier than M
(C) N is earlier than O
(D) O is earlier than L
(E) O is earlier than P
4. If P and N were done on Thursday and Friday, respectively, which of the following must be true?
(A) L is done on Tuesday
(B) L is done on Wednesday
(C) M is done on Monday
(D) O is done on Tuesday
(E) O is done on Wednesday
5. Which of the following could appear on the schedule for some week?
(A) L on Friday
(B) M on Thursday
(C) N on Monday
(D) O on Monday
(E) P on Tuesday
6. The one day of the week for which any one of the five activities could be scheduled while still allowing the other four activities to be scheduled is:
(A) Monday
(B) Tuesday
(C) Wednesday
(D) Thursday
(E) Friday
Answers tomorrow!
(Note that if you plan to try this portion of the sample test under relatively consistent conditions with the actual one, you should take no more than 16 minutes.)
Verbal (Pt. I):
1.(A), 2. (E), 3. (D), 4. (B), 5. (B)
2. Quantitative (Pt. I)
1. (A), 2. (E), 3. (C), 4. (D), 5. (C)
Verbal (Pt. II):
1. (D), 2. (D), 3. (C), 4. (C), 5. (E)
Quantitative (Pt. II):
1. (C), 2. (B), 3. (B), 4. (D), 5. (A)
----
Now, lest any readers believe the GRE questions were typically as easy as those in the last blog, let's look at a few examples of more complex ones. We will start out with a series requiring filling in the correct word pair in given blanks for a sentence, then go to one example each of a passage which must be read, then interpreted-analyzed and responses given. Here goes:
Verbal (I): (5 minutes)
Each sentence below has two blanks, each blank indicating a word has been omitted. Choose the pair of words which best fits:
1. It is true that seeds of some plants have _____ after two hundred years of dormancy, but reports that viable seeds have been found in ancient tombs such as the pyramids are entirely_______:
(A) revived: empirical
(B) germinated: unfounded
(C) endured: irrelevant
(D) erupted:reasonable
(E) proliferated: substantiated
2. The most technologically advanced societies have been responsible for the greatest ______ indeed, savagery seems to be in direct proportion to_______:
(A) wars: viciousness
(B) catastrophes: ill will
(C) atrocities: development
(D)inventions: know-how
(E) triumphs:civilization
3. The combination of ______ and ______ in Edmund's speech can be startling, especially when he slyly slips in some juicy vulgarity amid the mellifluous circumlocutions of a gentleman of the old school.
(A) tact: innocence
(B) raciness: ribaldry
(C) piousness: modesty
(D) elegance: earthiness
(E)propriety: bashfulness
4. Every new theory not only must _____ the valid predictions of the old theory, but must also explain why those predictions ______ within the range of that old theory.
(A)organize: failed
(B)generate: faltered
(C) promote: functioned
(D)refute: evolved
(E) accommodate: succeeded
5. Human reaction to the realm of thought is often as strong as that to sensible presences; our higher moral life is based on the fact that ______ sensations actually present may have a weaker influence on our action than do the ideas of _____ facts.
(A) disturbing: ordinary
(B) material: remote
(C) emotional : impersonal
(D) definitive: controversial
(E) familiar: symbolic
Verbal (II): (5 minutes)
Read the passage provided then choose the correct letter referencing some part of the passage - with conclusions stated or implied:
The Food and Drug Administration has recently proposed severe restrictions on the use of antibiotics to promote the health and growth of meat animals. Medications added to feeds kill many microorganisms but also encourage the appearance of bacterial strains that are resistant to anti-infective drugs. Already, for example, penicillin and tetracyclines are not as effective therapeutically as they once were. The drug resistance is chiefly conferred by tiny circlets of genes called plasmids, that can exchanged between different strains and even different species of bacteria. Plasmids are also one of the two kinds of vehicles (the other being viruses) that molecular biologists depend on when performing gene transplant experiments. Even present guidelines forbid the laboratory use of plasmids bearing genes for resistance to antibiotics. Yet, while congressional debate rages over whether or not to toughen these restrictions on scientists in their laboratories, little congressional attention has been focused on an ill-advised agricultural practice that produces known deleterious effects.
1. In the passage, the author is primarily concerned with:
(A) discovering methods of eliminating harmful microorganisms without subsequently generating drug resistant bacteria.
(B) explaining reasons for congressional inaction on the regulation of gene transplant experiments
(C) describing a problematic agricultural practice and its serious genetic consequences
(D) verifying the therapeutic ineffectiveness of anti-infective drugs.
(E) evaluating recently proposed restrictions intended to promote the growth of meat animals.
2. According to the passage, the exchange of plasmids between different bacteria can result in which of the following?
(A) Microorganisms resistant to drugs
(B) Therapeutically useful circlets of genes
(C) Anti-infective drugs like penicillin
(D) Viruses for use by molecular biologists
(E) Vehicles for performing gene transplant experiments
3. It can be inferred from the passage that the author believes that those in favor of stiffening the restrictions on gene transplant research should logically also:
(A) encourage experiments with any plasmids except those bearing genes for antibiotic research
(B) question the addition of anti-infective drugs to livestock feed
(C) resist the use of penicillin and tetracyclines to kill microorganisms
(D) agree to the development of meatier livestock through the use of antibiotics
(E) favor congressional debate and discussion of all science and health issues
4. The author's attitude toward the development of bacterial strains that render antibiotic drugs ineffective can best be described as:
(A) indifferent, (B) perplexed, (C) pretentious, (D) insincere, (E) apprehensive
Verbal-Analytical (III): (6 minutes:)
Read the passage then answer the questions on it which follow:
The work week in a small business is a five-day work week running from Monday through Friday. In each workweek, activities L, M, N, O and P must all be done, but the work is subject to the following restrictions:
L must be done earlier in the week than O but not earlier than P
M must be done earlier in the week than N and not earlier than O.
No more than one of the activities can be done on any one day
1. Which of the following is an acceptable schedule of activities with the activities listed from left to right in the order from Monday through Friday:
(A) L, M, N, O, P,
(B)M,N, O, M, N
(C) O, N. L, P, M
(D) P, O, L, M. L
(E) P, O, L, M , N
2. Which of the following pairs of activities could be done on Monday and Tuesday, respectively, of some week:
(A) L and O
(B) M and L
(C) M and P
(D) N and O
(E) O and M
3. If P is earlier than M on the schedule for some week, which of the following must also be true of that schedule?
(A) L is earlier than M
(B) N is earlier than M
(C) N is earlier than O
(D) O is earlier than L
(E) O is earlier than P
4. If P and N were done on Thursday and Friday, respectively, which of the following must be true?
(A) L is done on Tuesday
(B) L is done on Wednesday
(C) M is done on Monday
(D) O is done on Tuesday
(E) O is done on Wednesday
5. Which of the following could appear on the schedule for some week?
(A) L on Friday
(B) M on Thursday
(C) N on Monday
(D) O on Monday
(E) P on Tuesday
6. The one day of the week for which any one of the five activities could be scheduled while still allowing the other four activities to be scheduled is:
(A) Monday
(B) Tuesday
(C) Wednesday
(D) Thursday
(E) Friday
Answers tomorrow!
(Note that if you plan to try this portion of the sample test under relatively consistent conditions with the actual one, you should take no more than 16 minutes.)
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