#i got an above average score on a reading level assessment

[nickbutnodick]

dude im nearly two fucking grades ahead of average and my mon was so fucking disappointed and i dont know what she wants from me

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hi! Thank you for running this blog its extremely helpful!

I fed some of my writing into wordcounter and the every snippet got a different reading level from 8th grade to college student and I was really confused by this? Is it odd that it's not consistent? Does this mean that the ones with a lower reading level need more editing?

Also, How do I go up a reading level? and is this a poor metric to evaluate my skill as a writer?

"Reading Level" Assessment in Writing Apps

If you've ever run your writing through Grammarly, Hemingway, Wordcounter, or other similar apps and programs, your writing was probably assigned some sort of readability or reading level score.

Readability scores are not a metric for evaluating writing skills. Instead, they're a metric for evaluating who would be able to read what you've written. In other words, the average reader would need at least an 8th grade reading level to understand your writing. However, that doesn't mean no one under an 8th grade reading level could understand your writing. It also doesn't mean your writing is too simple for anyone above an 8th grade level. Now, if you were writing a middle grade superhero story and got a readability of "difficult" or college level, that would be an indication that you need to simplify. Interestingly, many people have about an 8th to 10th grade reading level.

The question of consistency is a bit harder to answer. I don't think it's odd that it's not consistent, but I do think it would be worth running the same snippets through an app/program like Grammarly or Hemingway that will actually highlight the problems in each snippet. That way you can figure out what it is in each snippet that is rating at a particular reading level. Because if your grammar and punctuation are consistently at a college level, and your vocabulary is consistently at an 8th grade level, that's probably fine. But if you have some snippets where your punctuation is 8th grade and others where it's college level, that's probably an indicator that there's something in your punctuation that needs working on. You would want like things to be rating at a fairly consistent level.

I hope that explains things a bit! ♥

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[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #161

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re making the leader of the Shinsengumi and (as of writing this) the only berserker we don’t personally own, Hijikata Toshizo! The good Vice Commander is a  Battle Master Fighter for his tactical prowess, as well as an Ancestral Guardian Barbarian so he can fight in that suit and summon the Shinsengumi to his side.

Check out his build breakdown below the cut, or his character sheet over here!

Next up: To the left! Take it back now y’all!

Race and Background

People might argue against this, but you’re still technically Human, giving you +1 Dexterity and +1 Constitution. (We’re using variant rules here.) You also get proficiency with Medicine. It’s been a while since you sold that stuff, but it’s like riding a bicycle. Probably. You also get the Charger feat, so now you can make a melee attack as a bonus action after using your action to dash. You either get  a +5 damage bonus to the attack, or you can shove the target 10 feet away.

You’re also a Soldier, giving you proficiency with Athletics and Intimidation, which you’ll get a lot more use out of than investigation. 

Ability Scores

You use guns and lighter swords most of the time, so your Dexterity has got to be high. That being said, your Strength also certainly isn’t bad either. His ironclad adherence to the way of the shinsengumi gives him a higher than average Constitution. You’d think that’d be wisdom but no, it literally makes him tougher. Your Charisma isn’t terrible, but you’re only really good at intimidating people. After that is your Intelligence- you certainly aren’t dumb, but you’re more of a practical learner than a book learner. Finally, dump Wisdom. You’re a berserker. A couple battlefield skills are tied to wisdom, but we’ll get something to make those a bit better later on.

Class Levels

1. Fighter 1: First level fighters get a fighting style, and being a Close Quarters Shooter will help you mix up your melee and ranged attacks by ignoring the normal disadvantage ranged attacks have when next to enemies. You also ignore most cover on creatures next to you, and you get +1 to ranged attacks. Your Second Wind also lets you stay on the battlefield for even longer, healing yourself on a short rest. The Shinsengumi never die, so keeping your HP above zero is a priority.

As a fighter, you get proficiency with Strength and Constitution saves, as well as Survival and History. You’re literally a historical figure, honestly that one’s just a gimme.

2. Barbarian 1: Bouncing over to barbarian right away lets you Rage as a bonus action, giving you advantage on strength checks and saves, a bit of bonus damage when making strength-based attacks, and you resist physical damage types, all for as long as you keep attacking or taking damage, up to a minute. You also get Unarmored Defense, giving you an AC based on your dexterity and constitution while in a snazzy outfit.

3. Fighter 2: Second level fighters get an Action Surge, letting you take an extra action in a turn once per short rest. We heard you liked advancing. Now you can advance while you advance.

4. Fighter 3: Third level fighters get their specialty, and as a Battle Master you can use your Combat Superiority by spending Superiority Dice, 4d8 that you get back on short rests. Commander’s Strike lets one of your allies attack as a reaction, and you add the die to their damage. Tactical Assessment adds the die to an Investigation, History, or Insight check, and Commanding Presence adds it to an Intimidation, Performance, or Persuasion check. You’re also a Student of War, giving you proficiency with one kind of artisan’s tools.

5. Barbarian 2: Going back to the barb gives you Reckless Attacks, giving you advantage for the turn in exchange for enemies getting advantage for the round. Pro tip: use your gun. You also get a Danger Sense, giving you advantage on dexterity saves you see coming. Dodging gunfire is very useful, even if you can shrug off a bullet.

6. Barbarian 3: Third level barbarians get proficiency in Perception thanks to your Primal Knowledge. You also become an Ancestral Guardian, letting you summon your Ancestral Protectors, the Shinsengumi, as you rage. The first creature you attack each turn gets bogged down by Shinsengumi agents, giving them disadvantage on any attack that isn’t against you. On top of that, if they still try to attack other creatures they deal half damage thanks to getting resistance slapped on their attack.

7. Barbarian 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to grab the Crossbow Expert feat. Or gunner, if your DM’s okay with guns. We don’t assume your DM’s cool here, so we’re just calling it Crossbow Expert. This lets you ignore the loading properties of crossbows, ignore disadvantage caused by people standing near you, and attack with a hand crossbow as a bonus action after you attack with your main action. You like mixing things up when it comes to taking down lawbreakers.

8. Barbarian 5: Fifth level barbarians get an Extra Attack each attack action. You also get Fast Movement giving you an extra 10′ of speed each round, letting you charge even further every turn!

9. Barbarian 6: Sixth level ancestral guardians get a Spirit Shield, spending your reaction while raging to reduce incoming damage to yourself or another creature within 30 feet of you. Most people hold back a bit when faced with bursts of gunfire. You are not most people, but still.

10. Fighter 4: Finally bouncing back to fighter nets you another ASI, making your Strength a bit better so your rage attacks can be more accurate.

11. Fighter 5: This level is very special; you get absolutely nothing. The extra attack you get this level doesn’t stack.

12. Fighter 6: Another ASI already? Grab the Tough feat for 24 extra HP now, plus 2 more HP each level up.

13. Fighter 7: Seventh level battle masters can Know your Enemy, spending a minute to read your opponent’s Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, AC, HP, or class levels. You find out if your target is equal, superior, or inferior to you in two of those areas.

You also get another Superiority Die and the maneuver Bait and Switch. You can spend 5′ of movement to swap places with a willing creaure (within 5′ of you, duh) without provoking any attacks of opportunity. For the round, you or the other creature get a bonus to their AC equal to a roll of the superiority die.

14. Fighter 8: Use this ASI to bump up your Dexterity for a thicker skin and more powerful gunpowder.

15. Fighter 9: Ninth level fighters are Indomitable, letting you re-roll a failed save once per long rest. I’d save it for death saves, you’re not exactly great at self-preservation.

16. Barbarian 7: We’re back in barbarian to stay now, gaining a Feral Instinct that gives you advantage on initiative rolls. You can also ignore being surprised if you rage first. You can also make an Instinctive Pounce when you rage, moving half your speed for free. Your catchphrase is “advance”, you’re going to be quick on the draw.

17. Barbarian 8: Use your last ASI to bump up your Constitution for a better AC and even more health. Despite your in-game stats, you’re a pretty tanky guy.

18. Barbarian 9: Your Brutal Criticals make you a terror of the battlefield, adding an extra die of damage when you deal a critical attack with melee weapons. You made your own martial arts style, it makes sense you’re good with it.

19. Barbarian 10: Tenth level guardians can Consult the Spirits, casting Augury or Clairvoyance once per short rest for free. That’s... not particularly in character, but I guess every police force has investigators.

20. Barbarian 11: Your capstone level unleashes your Relentless Rage. When you’d normally drop to 0 HP, you can make a DC 10 Constitution save. If you make it, you stick around at 1 HP and the DC increases by 5. The saves reset on short rests. You are the Shinsengumi, and the Shinsengumi will never die.

Pros:

Speaking of, you’re really tough. With over 200 HP, rage defenses, and the ability to abuse your range for three attacks each turn, you’ll be able to stick around for a long fuckin time on the battlefield. 

Your Ancestral Guardian skills and battle maneuvers give you a surprising amount of support utility for a barbarian/fighter mix. Spy on the enemy and protect your squishy party members, then go ham and give the rogue a chance to get another sneak attack in.

In a similar note, your battlefield control skills are surprisingly useful for how subtle they are. Bait and Switch is great for getting your allies out of sticky situations, or you can shove creatures away for a similar effect. Basically you’re exactly annoying enough to make enemies focus you, which is exactly what you want.

Cons:

One big problem is your focus on dexterity-based weapons for your damage. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with that, it does mean you’re leaving quite a bit of damage on the cutting room floor while raging. A few barbarian skills also aren’t really made to work with bows and arrows. Basically it makes reckless attack better, but brutal critical worse.

You’re also not great against magic thanks to your terrible wisdom. This is almost a defining feature of berserkers, but it’s still worth mentioning. Especially since it means your party might be fighting the near immortal death machine if you go up against mind-controlly enemies.

With no sources of magic damage, you might find fighting certain types of enemies pretty hard without the DM’s help. Unless your DM’s a huge prick that probably won’t be a problem, but I don’t know your DM, so it counts as a negative.

[atxlxs]

Beyond The Veil: Chapter 5

The assessment test was pretty consistent.

Those that had the quirks suited for it at first glance had dominated while the rest all seemed to get variations of the same base score. Some slightly better, some slightly worse. This made it pretty easy for Muska to just, consistently get good scores.

When your quirk, *cough* and other things *cough*, essentially affects anything and everything as long as the energy itself isn’t being used by something else it becomes easy to just enhance everything.

Ball throw? More like sniper propulsion. Long jump? Ha, more like flying to the opposite side. Grip strength? She doesn’t even need to touch it. Just contract the energy surrounding the mechanism. Flexibility? She used to do ballet, like, a century ago but muscle memory counts.

She had some tests she couldn’t do well, like the endurance test. She was here to train her quirk after all. Plus the longer the tests went on the harder it was to continue. If she continued at the level she was doing, she’d have one hell of a headache. It was starting to hurt as well. Every time she tried to go over her limits, using the energy actually hurt so she’d rather avoid that.

By the end of it all, Muska had placed a solid 3rd place. Beating out Robocop and PomPom (Bakugo), looking down the list with curiosity, Muska cringed at Midoriya taking last place. The kid definitely couldn’t regulate the energy belonging to his quirk, which felt really weird whenever Muska looked into it, and had broken his finger on the ball throw. However, what she didn’t expect was the feeling of mirth coming off of Aizawa.

Wait a damn minute.

The fucker wouldn’t.

“It was a logical ruse to make you all perform at your best capabilities.”

The fucker did.

Now, even as the class started shouting once more that evening, Muska was highly focused on the man in front of her. That was a lie. He lied about it being a ruse. The energy had fluctuated just slightly when he said ruse, going from mirth to a hazy feeling. The indescribable experience one goes through when they white lie or bluff.

He was going to expel the person who came in last. Something changed that though. What the fu- Oh. Ooooh.

“...If you won’t take this seriously as the hero in training students you are…”

The bastard was judging our potential and disguised it as an assessment!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rat-man hadn’t given Muska a map, either expecting her to ask someone to help or look at the map and guess. She would do neither. Asking for help would warn them beforehand and she might be waved off considering it was a staff meeting. Secondly, she just doesn’t want to.

Instead of her quirk, Muska closed her eyes and felt around the harmony. Surprisingly, the school was ‘clean’ for the most part. A few dark patches here and there but nothing horrendous. That was when she noticed it. A room towards the top of the fourth tower, left side in the back away from the gate, was filled with several aged energies. One of which seemed to be escaping slowly towards something else. That was weird, but definitely where she needed to be.

It took 10 minutes of dedication to get to the tower needed, and 10 more to not stab the principal on sight after she got up the stairs and walked over to a steel door that had a key code. Disregarding the key code box since she definitely didn’t know said code, she decided that knocking in the tune to “Crab Rave” was a good alternative.

The door opened before the first verse was done to a very confused woman in spandex. Giving her a smile, it definitely had an annoyed flair to it since she could be at home and forcing Eras to be cooking right now, Muska slipped past her and into the meeting room. The Rat-man stood on the large table, surrounded by pro hero’s (based on the flashy getups…. Is that a horse gas mask?) and seemed to be in the middle of something. A beat of silence followed as Muska walked over to an empty chair near the front, it looked to be Nedzu’s but the short rat-man didn’t need it, and sat down. Pulling out her phone and starting to scroll through Tiktok. It was an old app but it stayed strong through the years and was still running.

“Uh, whatsa youngin like ya doin here?” Horse gas mask man asked. The heroes all subtly nodded along, too shocked by her nonchalant actions about crashing a very obvious faculty meeting.

Muska’a face twisted into a small frown as she turned her attention up to see the man. Aizawa, who she just now noticed was sitting at the back corner of the table, was just glaring down at Nedzu. Smart move and he was right.

“First of all, don’t call me youngin, I can guarantee I'm older than you. Second of all, ask Remy the rat here for that info.” Muska stated, about to return to her phone before perking up again and continued, “Also rat-man, if you want answered questions they better be done before 5, I have pasta being cooked by a glorified 5 star chef waiting at home.”

Several heroes choked, Aizawa hid a snort into his scarf, at her words. Nedzu, the fiend, just smiled wider.

“Of course!” The chimera chirped.

Yes chirped, maybe he had some bird DNA mixed in?

“I wouldn’t want to keep you too long! Faculty, this is Viridis Muska, Viridis, these are the pro heroes on staff that I trust to keep their mouths shut under oath of an NDA! Your guardian was kind enough to email it over to me this afternoon.”

Muska snorted at that. “Yea sounds like her.” Placing her phone face up on the table next to her, she tapped on the table expectantly as the Rat took his sign to continue.

“The most obvious question should probably be first and I know my dear staff are confused, what did you mean by you being older?”

It was an innocent question, she’ll answer it.

“Why Remy, that's cause unless Humanity has managed to surpass their expected due date of at max 120 years, then I am very much so older.”

The room was filled with confusion. It radiated off them in waves as distress rose at getting such vague answers. Aizawa in the corner sighed and snapped his gaze from the rat to her.

“I’m sure what the rat meant to ask was how old are you exactly and how did you reach that age.” Aizawa stated. Clear and concise.

“Of course, if I remember correctly I should be turning 267 this year,” she said, not pausing even when coffee was spat all over the table from a few of the people around the room, “and I was born a human, however upon entry into the veil and my chosen profession as a witch, I was changed. Reaching the height of my craft has allowed me to unlock certain aspects of my being, immortalizing my body for now. I’m still technically in my ‘teen’ years considering the average witch you’ll meet has passed a thousand years in some capacity.”

Aizawa ran a hand down his face in exasperation and a quiet mumble of “fucking problem ch- witch” escaped. A few other heroes were pale, and the spandex woman looked very intrigued. A twink with blond hair that had the weird energy actually coughed up blood. Muska’s gaze snapped to him at that. The need to heal over writing her focus for a moment before Nedzu cleared his throat for attention again.

Reluctantly she returned her gaze to the rat. If she didn’t know any better she would have thought he was undisturbed. She did, however, know better. The rat was practically vibrating where he stood in excitement.

“Viridis, do you think you could give us a basic rundown of the veil?” Nedzu quizzed, looking more and more like the sadistic researcher he was. Fuck, He's just like the elves.

Muska leaned back and sighed. She expected this and went over it with eras last night. They came up with what could, or couldn’t be talked about for the beginning until they were all deemed trustworthy.

“I can give you a short, very short compared to all the details of the veil, summary but frankly the veil doesn’t want certain info getting into certain hands.” She said, voice cold and steely. She would not be taking a no for this.

“I understand! Anything you can trust us with for now would help the mystery that has been plaguing me for years.” Nedzu said, which caused Muska to cackle a bit.

“I know, the… reps of certain races and collectives have placed bets on when and who would slip and give you the info at some point.” watching with amusement as Nedzu’s whiskers twitched, she sighed and leaned forwards. Pointing a finger at the white board behind her.

Nedzu, who of course understood exactly what that meant, nodded.

Muska stood up and grabbed three markers. One black, one green, and one red. Taking the black marker, she drew a large circle and wrote ‘The Veil’ above it. Uncapping the green marker, Muska spoke up as she marked off sections in the circle with black and labeled them in green.

“In the veil there are set collections and races. I, as a witch, belong to the group called Magia.” Magia was written in a section taking up a 5th of the circle, “It's a collective that represents those who follow magically tied professions, no matter the race you are, since once you become a part of what defines the Magia you are assigned this section. Of course like nations there is also dual representation. However, that's more complicated and this is the short version.”

A quick glance told Muska that everyone in the room was listening with rapt attention. Especially Aizawa and Nedzu, one more concealed than the other.

“Next is the elvish. Yes, elves, and yes, they are very pretentious. The younger ones are more lax and ready for mischief, but the elders tend to be stuck in their ways or research. God the research they do. They’re called the scholars of the abyss. Do you need to know something? Ask an elf. They write and read practically everything there is to write and read.” Another section gets cut off and labeled.

“Then there's the dwarves, oh and I’m listing these in population order as is the sectioning. The more people the bigger the section and so on. I’ll get to influence later. Back to dwarves. They aren’t all blacksmiths as myth leads you to believe but they do make the best weaponry and armor. You can find quite a few in engineering professions. A lot find jobs in mixology and brewing as well.” Another section. So far all are labeled with green.

“Next is the Vampires. These guys are incredibly important in the veil since they were the first members of it. Treated the closest to monsters, they had to run away from society's view earlier than loved races like elves and dwarves. Hell, even witches had some supporters when Halloween started to become a festive rather than a lore holiday. If you want to truly know about the veil? Then ask a vampire. They have every secret tucked away and safe guarded by their Origins.” Muska said, a small mischievous smirk was hidden as they faced the board. The energy shift in Nedzu told her the first time he met Eras would be cathartic considering it's her quirk registry game that led her here.

“Next is a much smaller group called the Fae. They are everything you’ve read and more. Do not engage with them until you’ve gone through Celtic mythology. You’ll become moss like that. I fuckin hate the imps sometimes.”

“In a more general group are the smallest numbers. Collectively known as the ‘inbetween’ these members range from the sirens in the waters to the spirits that haunt the earth and fuel the energy. Demons fall under here too but they rarely visit earth and always do so under contract so they don’t have much of a voice. Dragon descendants too, the last of the actual dragons died thousands of years ago but their blood lines are in half dragons. They have wings on some, horns and scales on others, but all carry the boiling blood of their predecessors.”

Muska took a deep breath after labeling one of the last spaces with green. Capping it, she uncapped the red and wrote a bold ‘FORGOTTEN’ in the smallest space. Turning around she dropped all smiles and pleasantries. Voice harsh and cold as she spoke venom with every word.

“Never, ever, look for those in the forgotten. They do not have representation but they are known and branded. A red circle with a line in the middle along with text that only certain people can read is their symbol and it's burned into their skin. The forgotten are the, essentially, criminals of the veil. The veil is filled with people of dubious legalities to humans but there is a special place to rot for those that cross veil taboos. Whether it’s a necromancer practicing on those that are alive, or a vampire who has gone blood crazy and slipped into the view of humans as food. Elves committing experimentation on live creatures for research or sirens drowning sailors into the ocean out of amusement. These are all examples of forgottens who get branded soon after they are recognized.”

The air seemed stale as Muska ran her glare over the heroes present. Even Nedzu shuddered as the energy in the room seemed to freeze and burn those that took too deep of a breath despite not actually happening.

The heroes nodded once they realized she was looking for a response and her gaze softened but still held a serious edge to it.

“The brands are placed by chosen representatives of the race where the forgotten came from. The representative is chosen by a council meeting between the heads of each race, the heads themselves are chosen by vote or position within the race and the job is carried out within 24 hours of discovery.”

Speaking of the representatives of races,

“Any questions before I head home for my fuckin pasta?”

(She just really wants her pasta)

Tags:

@baguettehead

[adrianodiprato]

+ “Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.” Dame Jane Goodall DBE | English Primatologist and Anthropologist

Educational Spring | Wellness by Design®

Yesterday a friend sent me a message about an encounter they had with one of my ex-students at a recent dinner party. This ex-student mentioned the impact that I had on a number of his friends, his words were “you have no idea how many he stopped from suiciding just for being there and being him”. I’m not sharing this message to brag, I am sharing this insight into the true value of teachers and learning communities that operate from a human-centred learning ecosystem design. People need people. Every individual matters.

This got me thinking about what really matters. It amplified for me that the real pandemic of our industrial model of schooling is the growth in mental illness amongst young people. Additionally, COVID-19 sharply illustrated the truth of inequity in our system, especially with reference to the digital divide. According to Pasi Sahlberg from the Gonski Institute for Education, the pandemic has unearthed this unpleasant truth, "The education system has unequal structures that have become visible now through this remote online learning period."

So, what if we placed wellness at the centre of our society? What if we made it central to the objectives of learning? What is the interconnected relationship between character, competency and wellness within a whole education? What might be the global context for this?

The World Economic Forum has explored whether gross domestic product is still a relevant measure of a population’s wellbeing for many years. Looking at what alternatives could offer as mega trends such as climate change, demographic shifts, rapid urbanisation, moves in economic power, resource scarcity and swift advancements in technology innovations reshape our world.

In an interview with the BBC Radio 4 in May 2019, Lord Richard Layard, a Program Director at the London School of Economics and the Vice Chair of the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics, advocated that wellbeing should replace growth as main aim of UK spending. His group drafted a wellbeing report for the UK government, setting out proposals including a bigger budget for mental health, a strategy to improve the wellbeing of children in schools, and more spending on further education for people who don’t go to university.

Australia also performs very well in many measures of wellbeing relative to most other countries in the OECD Better Life Index. Australia ranks at the top in civic engagement and above the average in income and wealth, environmental quality, health status, housing, jobs and earnings, education and skills, subjective well-being, social connections and personal security. Having said that, mental illness remains a serious issue. One in five (20%) Australians aged 16-85 experience a mental illness in any year. Data from the 2014 Mission Australia’s Youth Survey showed that around one in five (21.2%) of young people (15-19 years old) met the criteria for a probable serious mental illness.

Learning Creates Australia recently highlighted the current measures of success and achievement in schooling are causing barriers to excellence rather than leading to excellence in learning outcomes as highlighted below:

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wants to transform its politics to focus on empathy, kindness and wellbeing. After talking about “doing things differently” with a “well-being budget” at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in January 2019, Jacinda Ardern’s New Zealand government in May of the same year unveiled its plans to make that strategy a reality.

This move toward a greater commitment toward the health and wellness of communities is not limited to New Zealand. The United Arab Emirates has a Minister of State for Happiness and a National Programme for Happiness and Positivity. It has an agenda that is based on three pillars: inclusion of happiness in the policies, programmes and services of all government bodies and at work, promotion of positivity and happiness as a lifestyle, and development of benchmarks and tools to measure happiness.

Gross National Happiness (GNH) is a philosophy that guides the government of Bhutan. It includes an index which is used to measure the collective happiness and wellbeing of a population. Bhutan measures this collective happiness and wellbeing via a Gross National Happiness index over nine domains as illustrated in Figure 1. 

Figure 1: Bhutan Gross National Happiness Index

Dream a Dream is a not-for-profit organisation in Delhi, India positively impacting on the lives of young people from vulnerable backgrounds to overcome adversity and flourish in a fast-changing world. One key aspect of their work is the development and implementation of a Happiness Curriculum. The curriculum aims to equip students with skills so that they can better deal with anxiety and stress while thinking critically.

The 45-minute class starts with a meditation session, after which students read and listen to one another’s stories. In addition to textbooks, street plays and yoga serve as teaching tools. The curriculum has been implemented in at least 1,024 Delhi government-run schools, affecting more than 1 million students to date. “In a year and a half, we have already started observing minor but beautiful, positive changes in the relationship of the child and the teacher,” Vishal Talreja Co-founder says. “We have children coming forward and saying, ‘I look forward to coming to school.’”

The Dream a Dream Happiness Curriculum is becoming a model that other governments are promising to replicate in their countries’ classrooms. Countries such as Colombia, UAE, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

It is increasingly becoming clear that the main goal of governments is the overall wellbeing of its citizens. Their resources need to be more wisely spent based on what really matters most for the entire human experience. This also presents a real challenge for the entire education sector and makes a strong case for the moral imperative to curate a human-centred Wellness by Design® learning ecosystem.

Will Richardson, Co-Founder of The Big Questions Institute believes “in school, we seem to think learning happens only when it’s age-grouped and graded, or when it’s chunked into time blocks and subjects and meets some predetermined outcomes. Students have “learned” it seems only when they have consumed a mandated bucket of information or content and been tested to make sure they consumed it adequately.”

We have got to stop the testing hamster wheel that burns out children. We cannot and will not continue to be terrorised by the dreaded ATAR, an overbearing student ranking system that ends the careers of school leaders and teachers and drives up anxiety levels in young people. Figure 2 highlights that 64% of those living in inner regional areas and only 40% for those living in very remote regions complete Year 12. Of course, there are other factors impacting on these statics of those in disadvantaged areas, nonetheless the numbers are damming of our current infatuation with an out-dated, one-size fits all industrial model of schooling.

Figure 2: Geographical impact on education attainment rates1

Daniel Koretz, one of the America’s foremost experts on educational testing, argues in The Testing Charade that the whole idea of test-based accountability has failed—it has increasingly become an end in itself, harming students and corrupting the very ideals of teaching. Pressure to raise NAPLAN and ATAR scores dominates much of Australia’s education today. More often than not standardised tests shape what is taught and influence what we value as assessment. In many schools, we seem to think learning happens when it doesn’t look like real life. During the pandemic with the transition online, we’ve been reminded of those things that we value most: relationships, community, the curiosity of young people, and the power of real, authentic self-determined learning.

Please do not interpret my shift in emphasis as denouncing the value of literacy or numeracy data. Not at all. Of course, they have a place in supporting student growth, not just definitions of achievement. Nonetheless quantification measures like NAPLAN and the ATAR have assumed an importance beyond their ability to truly judge and paint the whole picture of each individual.

By its very nature, a crisis turns everything on its head. So now that everything has changed, why not take the opportunity to guide the development of a new culture? Director and Founder of Leading Thinking International, Kathleen Donohoe in a recent post titled Is educational policy constraining a renaissance in education? stated, “Age old traditions such as school times, compulsory hours, the definition of attendance, recognition, reporting and feedback on learning and the definition of student engagement are following the fate of blackboards and chalk, requiring the reimagination of policy, process and procurement.”

We’ve been paralysed in schooling for far too long, educating by living in the world without truly feeling. Now, acutely, we feel that need for an evolution and move toward the next normal. As we grow out of the pandemic, we need to recognise that this is our Educational Spring. It could happen, but it might not. There will be enormous pressure to forget this educational spring moment and go back to the old ways of experiencing schooling life. History is happening right now.

A clear feature of all the models we shared in our Continuous Learning Toolkit | Volume II – Leading Through Crisis has been an explicit focus on wellness. While some have viewed the use of technology as a distraction, the application of technology during COVID-19 has been an opportunity to prioritise wellness into all aspects of planning and scheduling. This new normal of schooling is based on a shared understanding of the significance of the interdependence of learning and wellness as we support each young person to flourish in this new world environment. It requires us to map the connectedness of a whole education for character, competency and wellness. It brings into sharp focus self-direction, self-determination and self-regulation as critical dimensions in fostering the development of resilient, resourceful and independent learners equipped with the adaptive expertise and self-efficacy to thrive in their world. Let us all build back better, with Wellness by Design®.

To prepare today’s learners to thrive in this new world environment, a whole new Wellness by Design® framework is needed. At the centre of this framework must be an explicit purpose-driven social contract based on the reality that all young people are home to a life, and that individual and collective wellness encompass all dimensions of life within any community.

For learning communities, a positive sense of individual wellness supports a base for rich learning growth and achievement, that enables all learners to thrive throughout their time at school and beyond. Wellness and the full flourishing of the individual cannot be separated from learning. Post COVID-19 we have the powerful potential to positively disrupt education forever, and the key is a genuinely human-centred reimagining. Therefore, it is imperative that any continuous learning competency framework for all school communities, needs to develop a learning ecosystem model that Equips the Learner, Empowers the Learner and Enables the Learner, positioning wellness at the heart of school life.

A focus on wellness is imperative now more than ever before - and I’m not talking about a visit to a day spa or a regular massage (although self-pampering is always welcomed). Wellness by Design® refers to a sense of wholeness and connection that entails personal growth, character and competency, healing from the residual of one’s past, and integration of self-worth and agency.

Maintaining personal wellness often requires commitment and significant effort. Through acknowledging our whole selves, not just the parts we think are amazing, but our blind spots, we become better equipped to connect with the other, which further opens up ways of our social, cultural and spiritual awareness.

So, in the context of schooling, how do we truly meet this moment? It is time to shift the emphasis, the investment from the seduction of just academic prowess and league tables achievement. It is time for learning communities to amplify the central position of Wellness by Design® as we support each young person to move from resilience to the power of resourcefulness of self-efficacy, personal aspiration, adaptive expertise, agency and advocacy.

We need to consider the role of personal goals, challenging assumptions, cognitive flexibility, courage over fear, emotional regulation and self-determination in supporting young people to flourish for their future. All fostered in a school ecosystem that values high (wellness) support as much as high (academic) expectations. A school that explicitly cultivates relationships that give each young person a profound sense of psychological safety, where they are known, valued and loved, through an authentic feeling that someone has their back and always in their corner. After all, we all need a champion.

It may seem counter-intuitive to put wellness at the centre and allow it to permeate throughout the whole of learning instead of confining it to a box of its own, and attending to it as an afterthought, but if we are not well, then how are we to thrive? How are we to make progress? How are we to succeed?

It’s time for us to create Wellness by Design®

References

Koretz, D. (2017). The Testing Charade. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Seligman, M. (2011). Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being. New York: Free Press.

Southwick, S. M., & Charney, D. S. (2018). Resilience: The science of mastering life’s greatest challenges. 2nd edition. New York: Cambridge University Press.

1   Commonwealth of Australia. Commonwealth Government (2019). National regional rural and remote tertiary education strategy: final report. Page 13. Year 12 rates are for people aged 19. Tertiary qualifications are for people aged 25-34 years. Remote includes Remote and Very Remote Categories. Any tertiary education qualification includes VET in Schools. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (2016) Census of Population and Housing.

15   Financial Review, May 29, 2018.

16   Mission Australia (2017). Youth Mental Health Report: Youth Survey 2012-2016. Page 12.

[heysawbones]

Congratulations, Me; You’re Slow

Surprise, me! You’re literally slow. As in, your processing speed - the rate at which your brain takes in stimuli and makes sense of it - is below average. Quantitatively. The average is 100. Yours is 94. 

Three years ago, I was given a cognitive battery. I’ve had an unusually high number of these in my life. Most people will never have even one. I’ve had four; one to assess for the Gifted and Talented program in kindergarten, one to reassess for the same when I changed school districts, one to assess for ADHD, and yet another, the latest, to assess for the same, as the prior records were lost. ADHD runs in my family, but I seem to have been one of those kids who compensated really, really well. Was I organized? Not even a little. Lose things? Constantly. I procrastinated like a motherfucker, too, but it was usually easy to make up the work in class before it was due. I would drive hard to complete the GT project-based assignments at the last minute, and always did fine. Better than fine, even. Sure, I used to obsessively braid yarn or draw in class, but nobody had any reason to suspect I would have issues with things like maintaining attention or executive function later on. If they did, I never heard about it. Even today, it’s not obvious; people associate a certain flightiness with ADHD and that isn’t me. People associate a lot of things with ADHD that aren’t me. This has been so much of an issue, in fact, that despite meeting diagnostic criteria over and over, as admitted by clinicians, people have been hesitant to give me the diagnosis. The argument deployed tends to be: you have all the symptoms, but you also have chronic depression, which has the same symptoms, so we’ll just go with that one. The underlying rationale, the unspoken answer to “why can’t it be both? they often co-occur” seems to be: you are too articulate and self-aware to have ADHD. It boils down to you’re too smart to be slow. 

This is unfair to me, and demonstrably untrue, besides. I recognized this long ago. I am the one who has to figure out some way to compensate for the symptoms. Yes, the symptoms of depression and ADHD overlap (especially if you are depressed for a long time), but the treatment of those symptoms is not the same. I have been in treatment for depression for over ten years. Am I better than I was? Unquestionably so. 

Do I function at a level sustainable for an adult not on disability? Can I get places on time? Can I catch a plane without showing up 14 hours early, lest I show up 14 hours late, or at the wrong airport entirely, instead? Do I remember things people told me yesterday? Can I go to Target without the possibility of getting caught up in a weird cognitive trap where I want bananas, but am too guilty to buy them unless I do the rest of my grocery shopping, which I don’t have the mental energy for? Do I remember enough of my meds when I go on trips? Can I stop persistently putting things in places that make no sense, and then having no idea that I’ve done it 15 seconds later? Can I manage an adult’s schedule? Can I remember to pay bills on time? Can I remember what I’ve spent money on in the last week? Can I remember what I ate this morning? Can I hold down a job that is, honestly, below my abilities in many ways?

The answer is, of course, sometimes yes. Distressingly frequently, it is no. Where travel is concerned, it is always no, and somehow, I have managed to show up at the wrong airport entirely more than once. 

Yes, I recognize that these are problems all people have, to some degree, at some time in their lives. If people are willing to act on the belief that I am too smart to be slow, why is it that when I account for my concerns and attempt to articulate the impact they have on my life, I am suddenly not self-aware anymore, and am only overreacting to what obviously MUST be the same degree of these problems that other reasonable adults experience? Why am I credible in other areas, but not this one? If I am so smart, why is it assumed that I’ve failed to account for my own emotional bias when gauging the difficulty I am experiencing? Why is it more satisfying to assume that I am not trying hard enough, then it is to accept that a smart, self-aware person may, in fact, have some kind of Brain Problem that, really, there is no logical contraindication to, and much evidence, for? When I do the responsible thing and insistently pursue all reasonable options to address my mental and neurological health, with the goal of being a functional contributor to society, why is this so persistently reduced to a fetish specifically for an ADHD diagnosis? I’m smart when it’s convenient for others, but not when it comes to the ability to draw cause and effect relationships from my own behavior, and make comparisons between those and the behavior of others? If I got treatment that worked, I wouldn’t care what the diagnosis was. Come the fuck on. I’m tired of this.

-----

Anyway. I sat down with the results of that three-year-old cognitive battery. I’ve read the summary before; it’s peppered with lines like

“There is also considerable other evidence in this testing consistent with a diagnosis of ADHD”

“In my experience, some individuals who are very bright are able to compensate for some of their disability”

“this distribution of index scores is very typical of individuals with ADHD”

“Many of the behaviors she describes are certainly typical of individuals who suffer from ADHD. Unfortunately, the coexisting history of chronic major depression and PTSD make that differential diagnosis based on history alone difficult” 

When I first read that last year, I was shocked because the therapist who requested the cognitive battery, only expressed surprise that I was “very smart” and said that my “scores were fine.” When I later confronted him after having read the summary myself, he merely admitted that some of my scores were “lower than others”. He never entertained the possibility that I had ADHD, which in an of itself, wouldn’t have been a problem if he’d been willing to just try the treatments for it, since clearly the two industrial-strength doses of antidepressants I was already on, were not cutting it. Alas, he was not, and it wasn’t until after he retired that the issue was addressed again.

Surprisingly, I was not the person who addressed it. When my therapist-MD retired, I needed at least a primary care provider to manage my medications. Since the appointment was for psych med management, I had to fill out a bunch of related intake forms - you likely know the kind. While looking them over, my new doctor peered up at me and asked, “Has anybody ever suggested that you might have ADHD?” I was taken aback by the question and wasn’t sure where to start. Them? Asking me? if I have ADHD? She asked me? 

I told her that I’d had two full cognitive batteries done, and that both of them concluded roughly the same thing: yes, all the symptoms are there, no, we do not know if it’s ADHD because there’s too much background noise from other psych issues. Without skipping a beat, she said the most amazing thing to me: 

Well, whatever it is, you have the symptoms, so let’s treat them.

God. Why didn’t someone say that years ago? Diagnoses are human constructs; we use them to group symptoms that tend to occur together, when they’re thought to have the same causes. Depression and ADHD have many (but not all) of the same symptoms, but the overlap doesn’t qualify as a diagnosis because the causes are assumed to be different. I think we often forget that diagnoses are containers for commonalities that we use to make talking about medicine easier, not necessarily biological phenomena unto themselves. If you remember that they are containers - a sort of conceptual shorthand - then it follows that if one treatment for a set of symptoms isn’t solving the problem, you ought to try a different treatment often used for the same symptoms, even if the minutiae of diagnosis means you aren’t sure you can apply the diagnosis typically associated with that second treatment*.

I am now on Vyvanse. Does it magically solve my problems? No. Does it help? Yes. I am in a much better position to actually address the bad habits and coping mechanisms someone like me builds up over the years. The notable insomnia should wear off over time, and besides, as a person with an existing sleep disorder, having fucked up sleep isn’t new. It’s a price I’m willing to pay.

-----

Anyway. So I sat down with the results of that three-year-old cognitive battery, because I had to dig them up for my new therapist. Instead of reading the summary, I dug into the raw numbers: the related tests are the Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale IV (WAIS-IV), and the Weschler Memory Scale III (WMS-III). I couldn’t find sufficient guidance on interpreting the WMS-III, so I’ll stick with the WAIS-IV scores:

At first inspection, these scores do look “fine”. Anything within 10 points of 100 in either direction qualifies as “average”, even if 100 is “the average”. But on further reading, both in the summary and out: 

-Examination of these results reveals considerable significant variability between various functional capacities, with VCI of 141 a full 3 standard deviations above PSI of 94.** Problems with both working memory and processing speed impacted her overall IQ considerably, bringing her Full Scale IQ down to 120 (from 133). 

-A significant difference among subtest scores can suggest a problem in the particular skill being tested; this might underlie a learning disability. A significant difference among standard Index Scores might also indicate a learning disability, ADHD

-when I see a difference in IQ scores such that the verbal and nonverbal scores are far superior to the processing speed score, I try to discern what could be causing the discrepancy.

-LD diagnoses are also reliant on score discrepancies. On the WAIS, a gifted individual with ADHD may look like this.

Verbal comprehension - 132

Perceptual Reasoning - 129

Processing Speed - 97

Working memory - 101

Absolute scores aren’t the only diagnostic tool. Relative scores are also important. For example, average scores across the board wouldn’t be indicative of a working memory or processing speed issue, whereas great discrepancies between those parameters and others, is - even if the working memory and processing speed scores themselves are the same in both examples. What I’m saying is, it’s right there. It’s in the numbers. There’s no wiggle room. My old therapist saw these numbers, and not only did he choose not to act on the information, he pointedly refused to do so. If he hadn’t retired, I’d look into suing for malpractice. It’s in the god damn numbers, my dude. I don’t care what you want to call it, the deficit is right. there.

What did I ever do to him? Did he just... not believe ADHD is real? More to the point, did he think I somehow, without knowing the ins and outs of the WAIS-IV, faked the deficits or something? Really, guy, what the hell?

-----

Do I feel bad about being slow? Honestly, no. I might have if I found this out 10 years ago, or in circumstances wherein that reality didn’t perfectly explain aspects of my experience that other people have been prone to downplay, or dismiss entirely. Instead, it’s the closest I can get to scientific verification that I’m not just losing my shit over nothing over here; that something has, in fact, gone awry, and may always have been awry. I couldn’t compensate forever (though the ways I’ve done it are many, and in retrospect, interesting) and now I’m on the other end of it, trying to rebuild. I am, as I like to say, building an exoskeleton - something that will hold me up when my brain insists on faceplanting. I’m just grateful there’s someone out there who isn’t too caught up in the semantic navel-gazing of diagnosis, to help.

*There are obvious exceptions here, such as when the two diagnoses have causes whose treatment is contraindicated in the other diagnosis. This is not the case with depression and ADHD.

** You see that Percentile Rank of 34? That means I performed better than 34 percent of people my age, at least according to the test sample. That’s. Not great.

[keire-ke]

fic fragment - Stucky

[So this is the thing I am currently working on. :) You can probably guess where this is going. Cap!Steve/modern!Bucky]

Tony is seriously regretting having come out for this so-called mission.

"I am seriously regretting coming out for this so-called mission," he told JARVIS.

"As you say sir," JARVIS replied. The outline of the building he was circling trembled and refolded, as the sensors bounced off the walls, revealing more details inside, and all of them were adding up to everything they already knew, so score one for accuracy of intel, probably.

"Do I detect a note of sarcasm, JARVIS? From you? That is low."

"I do believe that would be due to subroutine that-dash-is-dash-low, an integral part of my core code."

"Never heard of it."

"You outlined most of my selective assessment of subjective statements protocols on December 24th, 2005, during a party, and compiled it by the end of the year."

"That doesn't sound like me."

"You have attended a Christmas Eve party at the Met, which you left early with a young gentleman and his young wife, then proceeded to ignore them both while you wrote the subroutine in the limousine en route home."

"That does sound like me."

"May I also trouble you with the information that the left knee wiring is due for an upgrade and I wouldn't recommend the classic landing?"

"Noted."

Nothing substantial to shoot and he wouldn't even get to pull of his favorite dramatic landing. It was like the Avengers didn't even need his talents on this particular venture, which, to be fair, was advertised as being of an assessment variety rather than anything else, so he couldn't even sue for false advertising.

"Natasha," Cap whispered into his com unit, "report."

"In position."

The air around the compound stilled. The tiny speck-o-Steve in the corner of Tony's heat signature cam visibly turned his head, taking in the expanse of the parking lot before him and breathed into the com: "On my signal."

Tony let loose the ancillary "distraction only" hand laser cannons, vaporizing the illusion of the heavy door to the warehouse. A blast of hot air tore through the empty lot, upending a car, giving Falcon a boost into an impressive aerial display, sending him far above the warehouse. Why wasn't Falcon taking the flying point on this venture was quite beyond Tony. So his leg didn't have time to fully recover, big deal. He was flying with incomplete wiring!

"JARVIS tells me it's not so much incomplete as it is frayed," Falcon's voice rang in Tony' ear. "And we suspected explosives and guns, which makes your presence required."

"JARVIS, why is that bird reading my mind?"

"You talk to yourself, sir."

"On open coms. Signed, that bird." High in the air the Falcon did a flip and a twirl. "I have multiple hotspots showing on my scanners."

"You and me both."

On the ground Cap pirouetted through the hot cloud, and sent his shield flying. It ricocheted from a lamppost, hit the very un-vaporized door and came flying back, just as the Man with the Plan leapt over a hostile, grabbed the shield mid-flight and knocked the goon out as he landed.

Tony watched the spectacle with a certain amount of math-derived satisfaction, before hiking up his metaphorical pants and diving through the itty bitty window into the warehouse, landed in the clear space in the middle, and looked around.

"Tony, where are you?" Steve asked, just as Tony, in a flash of panic, did his best impression of a Swan Lake, whirling on his toes to get picture of everything that was around him before the ominously blinking lights, glaring at him from all around, made good on their terrible, terrible promise.

"Inside – you might want to keep out of this one, Capsicle."

"What are we looking at?" Steve asked, but that was roughly when the entire building exploded. The fire wreaked havoc with his heat displays, but the experimental echolocation vision kicked in, shutting down all external audio, showing him that Steve raised his arm and Natasha came huddling under his shield, until entropy did its work and the air assault passed. "Everyone okay? What happened? Tony?"

"There may have been grenades."

"May have been grenades? Tony—"

"I did not blow them up, if that's what you mean," Tony said, walking out of the burning warehouse in his highly advanced armor made of indestructible titanium alloy painted a hot red-and-gold. He could only imagine how cool he looked.

"So dramatic," Natasha told Steve quietly.

"If I didn't have to worry about fire and shock waves I would do it all the time." Steve was being honest, Tony could tell. He opens his mouth to tell JARVIS to collect footage from the nearby cameras, to make into everyone's screensavers, when a siren cut through the crackle of flames.

"Someone called the fire department?" Tony asked, making a mental note to call the fine people of the NYFD and offer commendation for quick reactions.

"NYPD! On the ground, now!"

Wrong NY-asterisk-D.

A surprisingly slim man was stalking their way, gun in his extended hands, a golden badge gleaming right above a very nicely proportioned thigh. One of the hands was a very handsome metal prosthetic, mostly out of view thanks to a combination of shirt rolled up to the elbow and riding gloves, whose shifting plates reflected the fire very nicely. The faint hum of the machinery inside told a fascinating story. "JARVIS, make a note to look into prosthetics, that sound doesn't sound like it needs to be there."

"Get on the ground!"

The human component was not happy to see them, Tony put together out of context.

"Easy there, Harry," Tony started, holding his hands up.

"Stop fucking talking."

"Sir, please calm down," Steve said. The man barely looked at him, sweeping his gaze across the lot and to the burning warehouse, taking in the flames. "The warehouse was a Hydra secret field base."

"Geez, Rogers, anyone ever tell you what a secret is?" Natasha muttered, a small smirk tugging at her lips.

"I think I can puzzle it out for myself."

"Pal, I've got backup incoming. You might want to put your hands on your head and shut the fuck up." The gun remained in place, muzzle dangerously level with the general whereabouts of Cap's chest.

"You maybe chill there, Robocop." Tony's faceplate swung open. "The signature hour is not for another week."

"You maybe treat this seriously, tinman." Robocop told him, eyes still fixed on the fire. "The lot of you are under arrest."

"Son," Steve began, and stepped up, raising his hand. "We're sorry if we've overstepped—" and too late Tony saw the calculated predictions on the inside of his helmet kick in, a breath too late: the gun feigned left, as did Steve's arm in a simple block, that was exactly the millisecond a booted foot struck out, missed his legs, came back under the knee, while the metal hand tangled in the shield's harness, around the shoulder. Suffice to say Steve ended up face-down on the ground, looking mightily confused.

"You have the right to remain silent," Robocop told him, to the usually quite arousing tune of a pair of handcuffs being slapped into place. "Anything you do or say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you. Do you understand these rights?"

Captain America was on the ground, handcuffed. "JARVIS, please tell me you are recording this."

"Easy there," Natasha said. The words came out accompanied by a faint hiss. "Let him go."

"Or what?" The policeman looked up, one knee digging into Steve's back, cast a quick look at Tony and then back at the Black Goddamned Widow, like she was your average pot dealer. "You'll fire? Shoot me in the face with a laser beam? Go ahead, make my day. Assault a police officer, in full view of all the cameras in the neighborhood, I am begging you. I'm sure your overworked PR team will love spinning that."

Miracle of miracles: the Black Widow hesitated.

"Hey, okay, I have actual experience with getting arrested, so let me." The armor hissed and spat and Tony stepped out, stretching his fingers. "Look here, Officer Hot Stuff. We're just doing our civic duty here—"

"You've just torched my crime scene, and my warehouse of evidence, and quite possibly my informant. But I'm sorry, you were explaining how you were not obstructing justice?"

Okay, there was possibly maybe a slight miscalculation involved. "Hey, look, I have pictures of the insides, you can see the contents clear as day—"

"Stand down," Steve told the cement under his face.

"Steve?"

"Stand down."

[futurespecialeducator-blog]

Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach.  Chapter 3

Gail Tompkins

Takeaway: When planning literacy instruction, we need to carefully link our instruction with assessment.  This is especially important when it comes time to assess a student’s literacy development.  This testing can be helpful in determining a student’s reading level as well as their literary strengths and weaknesses.  Ultimately, from these results you will make goals to help them best meet grade level standards (or above grade level standards for advanced students.)  Aside from keeping assessing literacy skills teachers should also keep a running record of student’s reading levels.  In doing this you are recording a child’s abilities on a book they’re already familiar with and have had the time to practice the high- frequency words, decode unfamiliar words, and use reading strategies.  This shows the assessment in true use and how it is working aside from the assessment.

Nugget: I really enjoyed/ appreciated this section on Nurturing English Language Learners.  It suggests 4 different types of literary assessments that could be used to near accurately reflect what they know.  These types are oral language assessments, reading assessment, writing assessment, and alternative assessments.  Often times we just assume that ELL’s are below level, but with adjustments like this we could come to find that ELL’s are just like the other students and can be classified into three levels. Below level, on level, and above level.  

Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach.  Chapter 11

Gail Tompkins

Takeaway: The chapter explains 3 different ways to differentiate instruction in order to help students be successful in their work inside and outside of the classroom.  These 3 modifications are: 1.) differentiating the content, 2.) differentiating the process, 3.) differentiating the product.  Using these modifications, you can effectively work with struggling reader and writers.

Nugget:  On page 371 it discussed making your instruction rigorous, relevant, flexible, and complex.  By recognizing the diversity of levels and backgrounds of each of our students we can truly start to understand each student’s needs. Some students may need extra assistance while others may be able to move on pretty quickly from a subject.  Applying these tools to our instruction and then connecting it with the differentiation of content, process, and product can ensure that each student is being effectively challenged.

Engagement with Chapter 3 and 11

For my inquiry project I have decided to continue my inquiry from last semester but shift my focus from below level ELLs to above level readers being ELLs.  I really appreciated the ELL connection in chapter 3.  At some point or another most teachers will have an ELL in their class. This ELL or these ELLs could be at varying level of English proficiency. This connection and adaptation that the author made for literary assessing is very important for all teacher, not just ESL teachers.  You want to see the full potential of all of your students, just because they have one label (ELL) doesn’t mean it automatically attaches another label.  

Readerly Exploration

For my readerly exploration I explored relationships with other people through reading by using texts as a shared experience with another person/ other people or to gain insight into the perspective of another person.  I interviewed my roommate, Megan.  Megan is an applied health science major with a psychology minor. I asked her, “is literary assessment the most effective way of monitoring a student’s progress in literacy development?” She initially said yes and no. She said that certain students may appear to fall behind in these assessments because of their lack of testing skills as well as their ability to apply learned tools to rereading the same text becomes irrelevant.  She said that those that are good at taking tests are put at a greater advantage in that they can process the information in a different way and thus score better.  I then asked her, “do you think that doing a running record would be more effective in monitoring student’s progress?” (I also explained what a running record was).  She thinks that this is a better form of assessment because students are given a fair advantage of reading a text that they’re familiar with.  She thinks that advanced readers can often get lost in this type of assessment.  They may process this information much quicker than the average reader.  Thus, these assessments could be useful, but may need to be more frequent in order to challenge the student.  You don’t want students staying on the same book that is “easy” for them, you want to move them onto a book that will stretch their skills.  Finally, I asked her, “do you prefer the formal assessment or the running record for documenting your progress?”  She said that she’d prefer the running record because she’d feel more comfortable talking about and engaging with the text.

Multimedia Documentation

I used a picture of a test where a student got a gold star and “good job” written on it.  I chose this picture because I feel like certain students are never given the opportunity to earn the gold star because the assessment isn’t on their level. However, if we put the assessment on their level, I feel like every student could be earning the “gold star” or any sticker for that matter that can be seen as a reward for working their hardest.

[lostsolsdestinyblog]

What even is Destiny 2 PvP scoring?

So we’ve just been through another Iron banner week; one with quite a few changes to both aesthetic as well as rules and it has just left me contemplating the entire nature of D2 PvP and how it is played and scored.

We don’t have to rehash all the drama of the SB/CBMM debate, but I think it’s safe to acknowledge that things were not on the firmest ground there. We also know that Forsaken is only two weeks away and that will have a huge impact on how we experience the game. All that said, I’m still sitting here this morning just scratching my head at exactly why D2 PvP works the way it does.

There are many layers to this that go back to D1 design decisions and rather than evolving in D2, there seems to be more regression than anything and I’m not sure why. The first thing that has been really odd from the launch of D1 has been stat-tracking. When Bungie made Halo, we had access to such a wealth of post game statistics on bungie.net. It wasn’t just kills, deaths and assists. We had statistics for who we killed most within a match or killed us, what weapons we died to, heat maps for every kill and death within a match or on a particular map.

When Destiny released, it’s post game stat tracking was spartan by comparison. We had access to win, losses, kills and deaths, but not much more. Now we could go to sites like destinytracker to find out more detailed information on what weapons we killed most with, statistics on number of zone neutralizations and caps, etc, but still nothing to the scope of Halo and all pulled from bnet API.

I can understand that maybe all the stat tracking that existed was a heavy upkeep within the bnet framework and therefore works out well for it to be outsourced to community willing to take that on; and for the most part bnet gave enough relevant info in D1 to get by, but D2 has even less information. While D1 at least let us track our k/d by gametype over the last week, 30 days or all time, D2 simply lets us see match results.

Where is gets even more odd is what those results show. This is a clash match I played on August 5th and take note of the over all score vs the opponents defeated.

In a 99-97 loss we somehow defeated 157 opponents to 141 for the winning team... In Clash.

Here is the individual breakdown for the match which makes for great post-game screen shots of high kill games, except for the fact that the numbers aren’t real or representative of actual individual kills.

I sort of understand why Bungie decided to go away from k/d tracking and moving to kd/a in D2. They were trying to make the game more player friendly for everyone and kd/a numbers look nicer, but again the numbers aren’t really relevant to much and don’t really give a player an accurate assessment of their overall skill level. We are also seeing all these 40, 50 and 60 kill games popping up since the switch to 6v6 and while Control does track actual individual kills per game, anything coming out of Clash is meaningless.

The picture above shows I defeated 25 opponents. I had a good game, woo hoo! Except that the only real kills I can count are 2 super and 1 grenade. I have no idea how many actual weapon kills I got since assists count in opponents defeated. So yeah, it doesn’t really make any sense what we are being shown or why. In Halo I could go to the post match statistics and see where my game was lacking and where I was doing well. I get literally nothing out of stats post-match in D2.

Another problem with the lack of meaningful statistics is in balancing the game and player complaints. I read all the time that the only weapons players are dying to are Graviton, Vigilance or whatever the flavor of a particular week or month is. I personally despise the kill feed as it stands with no followup post-match stats. The information is there and I can see all the different weapons in the feed and how little I actually die to the metas, but there is no way to show that outside of the kill feed because outside of the studio those numbers don’t exist.

This leads to players seeing a particular weapon kill them in the feed and it stands out because they know it’s popular. They’re dying to other things as well, but God damn that Graviton when it’s in the feed. This was HEAVILY exacerbated by the introduction of Trials in D1 because in 3v3 Elimination, if a team or teams use one particular weapon and that’s the only thing you die to each round due to the format, it makes it seem op or overused, but that has zero transition to the entirety of the rest of PvP.

I don’t expect to ever have a level of information available that Halo offered, but what we have now just isn’t good enough and needs to be better and not only more substantial, but relevant as well. Also I would like to give a bit of thought once more to scoring overall in the context of D2 Control.

As I have stated in previous posts, I understand why the rule changes were made that started with zones capped and eliminated having to first neutralize in D2 since it was going 4v4. Ultimately that decision played a big factor in supporting the heavy team-shooting and fireteam advatage play in D2. It made zones disposable because they were too easy to cap and too difficult to defend. So we got the merry-go-round (thank you PBRbaby on bnet for that perfect descriptor) play that is D2 with teams just stacking up and running zone to zone capping. The other side effect of this has been the unending spawn flipping and by proxy this has fed into the problems D2 has had with bad spawning and getting spawn killed.

Iron Banner made the changes that allowed zones to be locked on powerplays and then reset and ultimately it just magnified the need to stay grouped and blitz around to zones, especially since a group could cap faster and even if a player or two were contesting one of their zones, they could still lock by capping first. The fact that you can be 1% away from taking an enemy zone and still get locked out is broken in my opinion. I like what Bungie were attempting overall with the IB changes and it did give it a unique feel and aesthetic, but ultimately I don’t think it led to a plethora of great matches or particularly rewarding play.

This is a game my team won yesterday as I solo queued.

We won by 20 points but the opposing team had 44 more kills than us (and these are actual kills, not Clash’s inflated numbers factoring assists). I get it’s Control and we held the zones, but that is a HUGE discrepancy. It is also worth noting that outside of the actual post match screen, there is no place to see who capped zones. That seems like it should kinda be a thing for Control stat tracking.

That was a good match for my team, but I can’t imagine very satisfying for the opponents and underscores how frustrating D2 can be trying to rely on random teammates with no real communication. I would love to know the average number of caps per match for winning teams in D2 vs D1. I know it is much higher and I’m willing to bet by as much as 60% per match.That means there is even more of a premium on playing as a team in D2 which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but doesn’t seem to be all that popular when you see all the complaints of how tilted D2 is against solo/small team players.

D1 Control allowed solo players to have more of an impact on play both is attacking and particularly in defending. When opponents had to first neutralize, it meant capping was riskier and necessitated more players on a zone to try to cap faster. This allowed for solo players to be able to make more big plays as the other team risked capturing. 

And finally I’ll close with this screenshot and link to the twitter post from @smcglauser https://twitter.com/smcglauser/status/1031391308764536834

When results like this are even possible, something is just broken.

[creativecraig]

Peak

Audience and Purpose

For those wanting to push their cognitive skills

Main audience of 14+

Peak Brain Training is a mobile application that focuses on your cognitive skills using stimulating games and workouts.

Branding

Just like Elevate, Peak uses a vibrant blue and white colour scheme throughout their application. This works well in some cases such as the image to the left, other times I think they have used too much of the blue, such as the image to the right. This has resulted is a very bright screen making it difficult to read to the average user never mind taking into account users with visual impairments. This strong blue is shown throughout the application and they also use different colours to associate different categories of improvement but again the colours clash with each other and there is no thought for accessibility. This is something that I need to be aware about when creating my own application.

One aspect that was used successfully was the use of iconography. Throughout the onboarding experience, emojis, game overviews, icons were used to aid heavy written content to visualise and allow for quick processing. This is something that is done quite often in both health products and games.

Use of typography is quite good, again using a san-serif font just like Elevate, this makes it easy to read and process. The use of highlighted words is another prominent use of typography through out the application. Key words are highlighted in bold making it easier for users to skim read written content and spend more time improving their cognitive skills.

Onboarding Experience

The onboarding experience was a straight forward procedure, and fairly similar to Elevate's. The use of yes or no question throughout the onboarding experience allows for users to process and sign up quickly whilst being informed of how they are improving and what they are improving.

The categorical colours are also used throughout the onboarding experience. As you can see above in the "games to remember", this is coloured yellow/orange throughout. This allows the user to associate all games and data through this application that are using this colour to be part of the "memory skills", this is known as colour association. As stated above in the branding section, I think the colour is over used on the onboarding experience making it hard to read and see content. For my application the balance between using colour and over using is such as key aspect as it has a big influence on the audience that will be using my application.

One aspect they have got right which Elevate didn't was the positioning of the assessment section. This is the first step after you have signed up. It is better to allow the user to understand and commit to your application before trying to force them to use it. I feel Peak have got a better balance and by removing the assessment from before the sign up of the onboarding experience allows for content to be more digestible and most importantly improves the speed of sign up.

Features

One of Peak's best features is the gaming experience. Before you play the game  you are given a quick, simple instruction on how to play the game selected. The use of animated tutorials/how to guides are extremely useful, especially for an audience that suffer from memory issues. This is something I need to achieve when designing my application as in order for my audience to improve and gain success, they need to know exactly what is expected within each game.

Another feature within the gaming aspect of Peak's application I thought was well executed was the different methods used in game play. Before with Elevate, I was critical on how they relied on multiple choice questions and did not change the method up. Within Peak's game play, each task is completely different such as ordering, memory plotting or word searching. Using different methods in which tasks need to be completed, make the user consider what is required, making them use different part within their brain, This method also makes the experience more enjoyable as they are not repeating the same task and potentially getting board.

The style of games being presented are also very well executed. Although Elevate's games were more details and illustrated, I think Peak's style works very well too. They allow the user to really focus on the challenge removing any distractions and aspects that are not adding to their progress. I think this is actually more effective as although Elevate's is illustrated and immersive, it can be potentially distracting and take away from the main goal. I need to consider the balance of graphic design vs intent to achieve a good sense of effective immersiveness.

The animation within the scoring section of the application is impressive. There is a slight anticipation as you wait for your score to be revealed, building excitement. The use of different animation also an experience that which could potentially be quite deflating seem more enjoyable. The use of icon going from large to small and inplace also is quite eye catching highlight the user's achievement giving the user the sense of achievement, confidence and positivity, this is something I will need to achieve in order to be successful as mental health has a massive impact on stroke recovery.

The in game graphics and animation are a very high quality. They engage with the users decision making extremely well with clear effects both pros and cons to their answer. I especially like the touches of detail such as the launch pad at the start, the blurring of stars in the boost of a correct answer. The games through are really engaging and making learning fun and enjoyable. I did however find multiple choice games very common. Just like the onboarding assessment I feel other types of interactions and testing could have been done to make the games not seem repetitive or like guess work. I feel that Elevate have focused on the gaming interaction well but have put their main goal of "improving people's mind" on the back burner.

Another aspect that was essential to this application was the communication of data and gamification. As you can see from the image above the use of high scores and positive reactions such as "good job" really interact with the user's experience. I also like the use if the lines around to the icon to indicate the achievement, this give the user a sense of where they are at this stage and how much they have to go to the next level.

Scoring and data tracking are also a big feature on the Elevate application.  As you can see from the image above you can see the scoring of the user's results across the board. They have again used the colour code to associate colour with categories which sticks in the user's mind. One thing I did not like was the ranking system below, you either had to play more games to get a ranking or pay for the upgrade. I understand they are pushing for subscriptions for premium access however I do think ranking and data should be able to be seen based on assessment and games played already.

Things I Liked

Iconography

Range of games

In game style

Presenting of data

Animation

Badges for each section (gamification)

Improvements

Accessibility

Colour balance

User Experience

Data summary starts off low even after assessment (not good for emotional support or confidence)

Some screens are very content heavy, could be stripped

Overall Reaction

Peak is definitely on the right track in terms of both creating great skill games for improvement as well as data for analysing. However I feel there is a lot of room for improvements. The main improvements being accessibility, colour balance and user experience. Designing a application with many features is great but if you do not get crucial aspects such as accessibility right, you've already been defeated. Consideration for all users is extremely important and this is something I cannot stress enough. I intend to put accessibility, user experience and colour balance in the highest category of consideration for my application as I aim for my targeted audience to use my application, without struggling or being confused.

[nekodracones]

The castle-focused Atlas economy: How it’s contributing to Atlas stagnation by rewarding the wrong achievements

When Atlas first launched, it was presented as a high-octane conflict rich battle royale.  Seen here:

The reality is, of course, far less exciting.  While Atlas conflict still occurs in the form of an occasional raid or sniper jaunt and even the rare large-scale castle battle, the average team is unlikely to see any serious castle battles on 5ta castles, or conflicted castle turnovers within a typical month.  (Unless, of course, said castle was poorly manned and an obvious target.  Then you’re just asking for it.)

When asked for an assessment of the above excerpt in the context of our current reality, my friend Titan commented as such:

20:09 Cat I need you to describe this (the photo above) in the context of our current Atlas situation 20:09 Titanium it appears to be describing a much better game than the one we get to play.

Indeed.  But why is reality falling short of expectations such a problem?

...---...

Expectations vs. Reality

It wouldn’t be a problem if PG devs could admit that their Atlas reality falls short of their ideal Atlas and adapt their season ranking method to suit the current state of Atlas.

This is the scoring system for the Lotusbloom Atlas season. (here) A quick read shows that the leaderboard is based on the most valuable 20 castles.  In any competition, something has to be competed for.  This leaderboard reads like it was concocted in an ideal environment where castles are fought over, and the longer a team holds a castle or the number of castles a team conquers within a season are a valuable measure of their competence.   

This is fine...if castle ownership and conquering were actually based on any sane standard metric of performance and activity.

In real Atlas, they are not.  How so?

...---...

1. Basic Economics 101

I’ve spoken to a lot of people in my time playing this game.  A shocking majority of people didn’t even know you got team rewards for completing an Atlas season, beyond a few Cat-triggered realisations that that’s where they got so-and-so portrait from.

Why?  For said majority of the atlas-playing population, said rewards are marginal to the point of being unnoticeable, to the point that for most, there is no incentive to go past 3.6m glory and waste troops fighting for castles.

Here are the rewards for the Lotusbloom Atlas season.  Notice how rewards drop off dramatically after the 26th-50th bracket, arguably even after the 11th-25th bracket.  Don’t forget that such highly-ranked teams are likely to home players who probably won’t even notice such insubstantial rewards for completing a three-month long season.

When your competition rewards are irrelevant for 95%+ of your atlas population, they’re badly scaled and you probably shouldn’t be surprised when your competition ends up being irrelevant and ignored.

...---...

2. Shooting Yourself in The Foot to Kill a Fly

The following mechanic was intended to encourage conflict and incentivise getting one over your opponents via retaining castles all while conquering theirs, but in reality, this actually backfires.

Given how difficult and costly conquering castles actually is, it’s better to sequester yourself away on castles and maintain peace with your neighbours once you have the castles you want, to prevent getting attacked.  Conflict isn’t rewarded enough to risk a conquer; when infrastructure bonuses are far more significant than any benefits the paltry Atlas season prizes (for most teams) could provide.

Below rank 25, there’s also no reason for teams to make conquer attempts on rivals’ castles in order to reduce their victory point potential, as it is unlikely to put them into a new bracket on the leaderboard, to get more prizes.

All in all, this mechanic just reads like a cruel, ironic joke in the context of how Atlas really is.

...---...

3. We came, We saw, We (did not) conquer

Conquering castles is an extremely costly time and troop investment.  With the existence of mega alliances, any given team has a limited number of viable castles that could be conquer targets, and it’s perhaps more costly than PG might expect to conquer a single castle. To expand on this, as part of a mega alliance, teams within the same mega alliance are socially contracted to not target each others’ castles, even though they may be vulnerable, or strategically easy conquers.  This reduces attractive conquer targets for individual teams drastically.

On top of this, mega alliances tend to send lots of teams to defend castles from conquer; the better positioned the contested castle, the more teams are summoned.  This is a point that has been belaboured multiple times in multiple channels, so I won’t expound too much on it: hitting ten times and only having one hit land is not fun.   Castle conquers are not fun.

Furthermore, the work needed to conquer castles is not worth any advancement made in team prizes unless you’re on the brink of the next bracket, which is...again, a marginal increase in prizes.  Season ranking honestly only really matters to the people already at the top (within the top 25 ranks), and at that level you probably already got all the castles you wanted in previous seasons and decided that further advancement via conquer wasn’t worth it.  Don’t forget how a majority of the people ahead of you are from your very own alliance, and you can’t conquer from them.

Social factors aren’t fully PG’s fault, but it’s irresponsible for season design to not consider these factors’ effects on player behaviour.

...---...

4. One Atlas Season, Disguised as Many

Castle ownership isn’t reset between seasons, and the churn is so low that it makes no sense to pretend that we expect any changes to the castle ownership-based leaderboard in each season.

Before some of you pick up your pitchforks and run me through for blaspheming and suggesting seasonal Atlas resets (which is an entire different discussion that has seen a lot of sane discourse on both sides, and deserves a whole series of posts)- that’s not what I’m saying.

Without touching the issue of whether castles should be a resource that carries over between seasons, it makes little sense to me to award discrete seasonal rewards for achievements made in past seasons that carry over into new ones, with such a low loss rate that basically all most teams need to do is ‘don’t fuck up’.

If you’re not doing much beyond maintenance work between and during seasons, and possibly expending less effort on expanding and maintaining your territories as compared to smaller teams that actually see significant/insignificant changes to their real estate holdings within a season, should you really be rewarded prizes that are tens of times as valuable?

(Cue the pitchfork mob coming @ me to tell me how much they worked for whatever castles they have.  Sure.  That’s a whole other debate, and I’m not going down that hole yet.)

Point being, the static nature of a team’s castle holdings throughout different seasons make them a poor metric as an assessment of seasonal ‘team performance’, and trying to pass them off as a good ranking system for discrete seasons is a Bad Idea.

...---...

5. Easy Lies the Head that Wears the Crown

Last but not least, we must consider how alliance plays a big part in terms of the castles teams have the ability to hold.  Amongst the 25 teams on the castle ownership-based leaderboard, PaleHorseRider is the only longtime non-Dread Friendly team.  (EXITIUM/ theMovement is politically relatively new on the scene, and the ownership of castles involved with them are still shifting, so let’s not talk about them yet)

Before this season, all the teams that were on the top 25 leaderboard were Dread-friendly teams.  We can probably thank(?) theMovement for PHR’s move up the ranks.

By virtue of having a stronger alliance behind them, Dread Friendly teams are less likely to lose their castles as it is more risky for opposing teams to make conquer attempts on them.  Conversely, it is more attractive for their stronger alliance to go after attractive castles that teams with weaker alliances own. Certainly PG devs could argue that this is intended.  But to what extent does PG want heavily influential social factors to play into a team’s individual leaderboard ranking, which one could argue should mainly be a measure of a team’s individual competence, performance, and activity within a season?

Just as PG’s castle ownership-based season scoring system assumes the setting of PG’s ideal Atlas world, is that same ideal Atlas world as heavily influenced and bound down by politics as the reality of the game we actually play is?

...---...

6. Ships of Theseus

If one were to gradually repair a ship and replace every single component of it as time passed, would the ship with all parts replaced still be the same ship?  Similarly, if one were to replace members on a team as time wore on, would the team, with a majority of players replaced, still be the same team?

Castles, however, follow teams, not individual players.  Would a mostly-replaced team with a wealth of inherited castles truly deserve the seasonal rewards that said castles would grant them, when the goal of each season should arguably be to reward competence, high performance, and high activity in teams?

When you use a castle ownership-based seasonal ranking, how do you differentiate grandfathered advantage from true competence?

You don’t.

You choose a better metric to measure seasonal competence by.

...---...

Data Analysis: Elementary, my Dear Watson

Let’s take a look at the Atlas seasonal team rankings from past seasons.

It’s been the same since the first Atlas season, and these results could have been predicted long before the first season was even announced.  You may notice that this ranking also matches the current influence ranking.

I’ve made a point about how the castle ownership-based leaderboard seems like a single season arbitrarily divided and rewarded as many.  Arguably, the castle ownership-based leaderboard assumes that gaining and keeping castles = activity, so, as a general guideline, these top teams’ castle holdings should align with their all time troop kills, no?

In the format: Influence. TeamName [ ATK / ATK rank ] 1. DREADNOUGHT [ 2.21B / 1 ] 2. LethalDescent [ 1.96B / 2 ] 3. JAPANeeeeZE [ 1.02B / 19 ]

Clearly these are all top teams who have consistently performed well since the release of Atlas.  While I regrettably have no way to obtain the full season’s worth of data on these teams, let’s check out their monthly troop kills.

In the format: Influence. TeamName [ MTK / MTK rank ] 1. DREADNOUGHT [ 45.7M / 5 ] 2. LethalDescent [ 22.8M / 105 ] 3. JAPANeeeeZE [ 33.2M / 32 ]

This is unfortunately less valuable data than the last set.  As it’s the last month of the Atlas season, most players on top teams have finished their seasons and wound down their Atlas activity, having most likely finished it within the first month, specifically within the first two weeks of double glory.

(This is actually indicative of another problem within the Atlas season, this one about personal glory- there’s very little incentive to go past 3.6m glory; the atlas chest return on troops is paltry.  This is another factor that has discouraged conflict this season- it’s more worth it to save for the next season than make an attempt to change one’s team Atlas ranking by attempting to conquer castles for the reasons provided above.)

While the data comparison above doesn’t really prove anything beyond proof that atlas seasons are really a sham and it’s just all one season arbitrarily chopped up into three-month durations, the following data will hopefully demonstrate how the castle ownership-based season structure fails to reward high-performing high-activity teams for high seasonal activity.

In the format: Influence. TeamName [ MTK / MTK rank ] [ ATK / ATK rank ] 22. PaleHorseRider [ 40.0M / 14 ] [ 1.40B / 8 ] 27. RoyalRoad [ 31.4M / 39 ] [ 1.51B / 7 ] 30. ButWeAreBetter [ 39.7M / 15 ] [ 1.71B / 3 ] 46. ProjectGhost [ 33.3M / 31 ] [ 0.56B / 73 ] 71. ANGELSnDEM0NS [ 66.2M / 1 ] [ 1.25B / 10 ] 113. WarEnforcers [ 64.5M / 2 ] [ 1.05B / 18 ] 346. UnitedinHonor  [ 32.0M / 35 ] [ 0.46B / 110 ]

The first three entries are the three non-Dread teams with the highest power ranks in the game.  One may notice that while they’re well ranked and comparable to LD, Dread, and NeeeeZE both in terms of monthly and all times troops killed (they’re consistent!) their influence ranks are significantly lower than teams higher-ranked than them on the seasonal leaderboard that have killed fewer troops in both areas.  Is this truly fair?

As the largest team in Arachnid, ProjectGhost holds their own troop-kill wise and surpasses many teams on the seasonal leaderboard.  Their all time kills are lower; they seem to have come into their own niche more recently.  Nevertheless, their influence ranks are similarly noticeably poorer than lower-performing Dread Friendly teams.  On top of this, the juxtaposition of their ATK vs their MTK highlights how teams can adapt and change and increase their performance seasonally instead of simply maintaining the same standards throughout their Atlas careers.

ANGELSnDEM0NS and WarEnforcers make for an interesting comparative case study.  The former is a Sine Nomine team, arguably the crown jewel in the Dread Friendly empire of alliances.  The latter is a founding team of the Libertas alliance, a semi-independent anti-Dread alliance.  They beat out 70 and 110 higher-influence ranked teams respectively to rank as the top and runner-up in terms of troops killed this month so far.  In terms of all time kills, both are ranked higher than a majority of teams occupying the top 25 seasonal leaderboard.  Clearly both teams have been demonstrating consistent, long term high-performance atlas activity, and yet both of them are comparatively low on the seasonal leaderboards.  It’s also interesting to note the disparity in team influence, which can probably at least be partially attributed to their political allegiances.  I can’t definitively speak for why either team never chose to attempt to break into higher ranks, with their activity, but I suspect that their reasons are varied, can probably be derived from my previous points, and will likely culminate in the conclusion that the effort just isn’t worth it.

Finally, UnitedinHonor is personally a fascinating team to me.  At rank 346, if the seasonal leaderboard was an accurate judge of a team’s activity, one would expect their performance to be solidly middle-of-the-pack.  Instead, they come in at rank 35 on the monthly kills leaderboard and 110 on the all time kills leaderboard, which puts them ahead of certain teams on the seasonal leaderboard itself.  This is no small feat for a platinum team with a lower power rank.  Additionally, noting the lower comparative ATK, we can make an assumption that this team has come into its own more recently, which would easily explain why they don’t have as many castles- they likely haven’t been prominent for a long enough time to receive gifted castles, as many higher influence-ranked teams have.

Of course, all these specific analyses are pure conjecture.  I cannot pretend to understand fully every team’s situation, but I will suggest that these stats shed a light on the veracity of my points.  These teams’ individual situations and positions on the seasonal leaderboard can all at least be partially attributed to a few of the points I’ve made in this post.

If PG would be willing to consider using a better metric to measure team competence, performance, and activity next season, I’ll be a happy Cat.

[foxybluesky]

Slums Test: What You Should Know and Why You Should Try it

Slums Test: What You Should Know and Why You Should Try it Have you ever come across this SLUMS test before? It's actually the Saint Louis University Mental Status Examination (SLUMS), and it's a way of screening you for Alzheimer's and other kinds of dementia. It was made as an alternative screening test to the commonly used Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). An idea was that MMSE ain't as effective at discovering people with very early symptoms of Alzheimer's. At times, it's referred to as Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), or mild Neurocognitive disorder (MNCD). These symptoms actually show as people gradually graduate from the normal aging stage to early Alzheimer's. Read: Fact About Dimples Of The Venus

SLUMS Scoring

SLUMS typically is made up of 11 items, and it does measure the cognitive aspects which include orientation, short-term memory, calculations, the naming of animals, the clock drawing test, and recognition of geometric figures. It actually uses approximately seven minutes to administer. Then, it does score between the range of 0 and 30. The Scores between 27 to 30 were taken as normal in an individual with high school education. Meanwhile, the scores from 21 to 26 reflect a mild neurocognitive disorder. Ultimately, results between 0 and 20 show the aspect of dementia proper.

Why is SLUMS Useful?

You wouldn't believe that Saint Louis University scientists used both the MMSE and the SLUMS to test 705 men aged at around 60 years old. These men are typically treated at Geriatric Research Education Clinical Center, Veterans Administration Hospitals in St. Louis around 2003. (Slums Test) Saint Louis's researchers later realized that as both devices diagnosed dementia, only the SLUMS discovered a group of patients as identified to have mild cognitive issues. Read: How To Get Thicker Thigh Another research was actually conducted too. Although, this research involves 58 nursing home outlets compared with the SLUMS' capacity to discover early dementia stages to that of the MMSE, the Test Your Memory (TYM) screen and the Short Test of Mental State (STMS). (slums cognitive test) So, the results brought it out that the SLUMS test was actually better at possessing that capacity to detect dementia in its early stages as compared with the remaining tests. Moreover, studies also detected that though, both the MMSE and the SLUMS got an estimate of 30 points, the actual average result of the SLUMS is more or less five points lower than this of the MMSE. Obviously, it's indisputable that SLUMS is a bit more tough test and therefore tend to be more reactive to mild cognitive impairment (Slums Test)

Merits and Demerits of the SLUMS test

Hands down, I can say the distinct way at which SLUMS benefits lie in its superiority compared with the MMSE in diagnosing people's milder cognitive challenges. And in actual fact, these problems aren't yet aggressive up to the unfortunate situation of dementia. Also, the SLUMS test is so beneficial due to its free service. Other tests demand that you pay, but the SLUMS test is free. Meanwhile, talking about the discouraging aspect, or in other words 'demerits' - from SLUMS, they include the fact that the SLUMS test is not as popularly observed as that of the MMSE test. Then,  it has been less studied for validity and reliability than the MMSE. Would you also believe that in spite of its value as a tool for screening, SLUMS would never be taken as an alternative for a full diagnostic workup for Alzheimer's problems or be administered by any individual other than professional medical personnel? I'll be frank with you, personally, If you see a physician for an evaluation, the SLUMS is one out of those tests that can be employed to assess the functions of cognition. Although it can appear somewhat intimidating to go through testing, it can also be really helpful to identify a fall back in thinking or memory in its earlier levels. Besides, an added advantage early detection gives include identifying possible reversible causes of loss of memory, feasible earlier treatment, and concentrating on strategies including diet and exercise that have been shown to be helpful in reducing or slowing down the chance of progression to Alzheimer's.

Is the SLUMS Exam Really Necessary?

Normally,  dementia can affect its signs and symptoms, and it can arrive on slowly and are usually dismissed or missed by caregivers and family members. As we both can see, we have here a problem resulting from early intervention. The early intervention actually plays such an important role in slowing the progression of dementia and dementia-related problems. As I've noticed, these studies could be self-demanding and strenuous, to seniors, it's likely to reduce test anxiety by reassuring patients through euphemisms. For instance, we can tell them it's a pleasant and even stress-free experience. Caregivers who get concerned about how to fire up loved ones for the test can watch a doctor take over the exams. (Slums Test) So, in case you find the results of your aging loved one's SLUMS Exam to be substandard, you do have to go through the act of seeking assistance or advice. A neurological or geriatric consultation might help further decide whether dementia is present. Essentially, asides from addressing the assurance it's present, the type of dementia present is relatively important. Guess what? Why it's beneficial to at an earlier stage discover this disease and the treatment of Alzheimer can't be exaggerated. As the case may be, you may detect that your aged loved one is experiencing certain cognitive declines, talk to his/her physician about maybe the SLUMS Exam is appropriate. And don't forget to learn online more useful information for caregivers on dementia, along with concise and comprehensive lessons from caregiver training clips.(slums cognitive test) You can search Google for available ones. Then, in case you're at a loss of those things you or any caregiver might do with a person with dementia, certain studies analyze various meaningful and affordable activities for patients affected with Dementia, along with practical advice to make caregiving easier. Read:How To Get Long Thick Hair In a Week ,Butt or Venus Dimples Long Paragraphs For him, Copy And Paste

SLUMS Cognitive Test: How it is Carried Out

SLUMS test has already been nominated to be reliable in assessing for mild cognitive impairment. This test is esteemed among those available screening tools suggested by the American Alzheimer’s Association that give operationalized mild cognitive impairment diagnosis. (Slums Test) Yet, veterans recommended that there are insufficient empirical reports looking similar to the use of the SLUMS test in research and clinical studies. Therefore, the information gathered in this study, which concentrated on the likelihood of using a Polish version of the test for the diagnosis of dementia and MCI, confirms its properties of psychometry. (slums cognitive test) Perhaps, the Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient approached an acceptable value. In addition, this particular value increased by removing the world ‘Figures’ from the analysis. This subtest may be skipped in the Polish version of the SLUMS test, as a result of the lack of differences in the responses of the subjects with varying functions of cognition ( for instance, no differences in responses between subjects with perceived dementia and those with the disappearance of symptoms). (slums cognitive test) By the way, relative results were got by medical scientists from Saint Louis, who insisted on the low discriminatory power of this particular subtest. So, the statistically noteworthy strong and positive correlations between the results of the SLUMS and STMS (r = 0.816), TYM (r = 0.883) and MMSE (r = 0.66) tests indicate that the Polish model of the test is correct and has a convergent justice and validity. Meanwhile, scores from previous studies evaluating the sensitivity rate of the above-mentioned tests reflect that the TYM and STMS are superior to the commonly used MMSE . Moreover, these researches, together with a rigid correlation of the TYM SLUMS, and STMS tests suggest that it appears as a better psychometric test than that of MMSE. Furthermore, the availability of statistically noteworthy differences between diagnoses in detecting dementia and cognitive impairment and suggests SLUMS to be a more better screening tool in the elderly at risk of cognitive impairment than this popularly used MMSE test. (Slums Test) Read: Sore Throats In Early Pregnancy How To Get Bigger Butts Naturally How Late Can A Period Be Without Being Pregnant How To Make Yourself Fart How To Get Bigger Boobs Without Surgery Afterward, when we assume popularly applied cut-off scores, the distribution comparison of subjects in the SLUMS and MMSE  diagnostic categories confirmed that the SLUMS classified subjects in the “suspected dementia” gathering more often than the MMSE. About seven subjects from the “suspected dementia” selection and 16 from the “cognitive impairment” selection were seen to have no cognitive impairment or dementia symptoms when using the standard MMSE test. Also, as soon as we compare SLUMS to TYM and STMS, it can be significant that subjects distribution in the group without dementia and cognitive impairment in SLUMS, is relative to that found in the group of STMS. Hence, the subjects would now be divided into two groups determined by the STMS results: 1.those without any symptoms, and 2. those suspected to have dementia. As the rules lay it down during the course of STMS test subjects with cognitive impairment may as well be grouped in the classification reflecting the attributes of dementia. Hence, subject distribution in diagnostic groups is not the same when taking into recognition the TYM results. (slums cognitive test) At the same time, due to this discriminatory ability of the SLUMS  test to diagnose MCI, there is a necessity for its validation in the state of Poland on a huge group of respondents from various social upbringings. Read:  what happens if you lose your virginity before 22  How To Deal With Painful Arthritis  Food Stuck In Wisdom Tooth Hole   When Can I Stop Worrying About Dry Socket 

Conclusions

Today, I've covered how the psychometric properties of the SLUMS test play a big role in the screening of cognitive impairments and dementia. As it stands now, after the addition of the Polish language clinicians' instructions in the test, the SLUMS test can be a productive alternative to the popularly used MMSE and a problem-solving device in MCI's diagnosis. Thus, you can consider this for any individual you suspect with dementia. Kindly share! Read the full article

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Credentialism and Corruption: A Second Look at the College Admissions Scandals

Digital Elixir Credentialism and Corruption: A Second Look at the College Admissions Scandals

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

We’ve had yet another college admissions scandal enter the headlines, briefly, and so I thought I’d aggregate the other recent college admissions scandals; it’s surprising — or not! — how prevalent they are. Then I’ll do a simple piece of arithmetic that I haven’t been able to find in the coverage.

The Scandals

This aggregation is by no means exhaustive[1]; what is most striking is the routine seaminess of it. Interestingly, only the “Varsity Blues” (2019) and “Clout goes to college” (2009) have catchy, “Watergate”-like monikers; the others are simply isolated news stories. Where no moniker exists, I invented one (“Fencing Coach Gets House”). In particular order, but starting with this month’s scandal, which made me think, “What, again? So soon?” Sometimes the institution is corrupt (e.g., Harvard), and sometimes the ingenious providers of professional services are corrupt. In all cases, the parents who participate in these schemes are corrupt.

Gaming Guardianship (professional services). From Inside Higher Ed:

[T]hat parents in suburban Chicago had taken part in a scam to increase their children’s eligibility for need-based financial aid for college. The scam, apparently devised by independent college consultant Lora Georgieva, owner of Destination College in Lincolnshire, Ill., involved parents giving up legal guardianship of their children during the junior or senior year of high school to a friend or family member. That allowed the student to claim independent status, meaning that eligibility for financial aid was based only on the student’s earnings rather than the parents’ income and assets.

Yes, you read that correctly. Parents gave up legal guardianship of their children for the purpose of qualifying for financial aid for college. In Lake County, Ill., alone, there were 38 cases in 2018 where a probate court judge granted transfer of guardianship for a teenager in the junior or senior year of high school. Most of those cases involved families living in homes valued at more that $500,000.

The story raises a number of questions. Did no one in the legal system in Lake County find an epidemic of wealthy parents giving up guardianship of their high school children in the least bit suspicious? Nearly all of the 38 cases above were filed with similar language: “The guardian can provide educational and financial support and opportunities to the minor that her parents could not otherwise provide.” I have read enough Scott Turow novels and watched enough episodes of The Good Wife to know that the judicial system in Illinois may be less than pure, but really?

“Operation Varsity Blues” (multiple Ivies and wannabe Ivies). The Guardian:

There are 50 people charged in the case, including actors Felicity Huffman, known for her role on the TV show Desperate Housewives and the feature film Transamerica, and Lori Loughlin, a cast member on the TV series Full House. Defendants in the case include parents and college athletics coaches.

The wealthy parents were part of the biggest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice, prosecutors say, accused of conspiring to get their kids into elite colleges through bribery and cheating. The FBI investigation was dubbed “Operation Varsity Blues”.

Administrators of the SAT and ACT college exams were bribed to allow someone else to pretend to be the student and take the exam in their place, according to a criminal complaint. In other cases, the proctors gave the students answers or fixed their wrong answers after they had taken the test.

The children sometimes faked learning disabilities so that they would be able to take the tests at facilities where staff had been paid off, the complaint says; parents paid between $15,000 and $75,000 a test to participate in the cheating scheme, which was allegedly masterminded by William Singer, who ran a college prep company called The Key.

In another part of the scheme, college coaches allegedly received bribes to designate applicants as recruited athletes – which gives them a leg-up in admissions – regardless of their athletic ability, and sometimes when they didn’t even play the sport they were supposedly recruited for. Clients paid Singer a total of $25m to bribe coaches and university administrators, prosecutors say.

The schools include Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, the University of Southern California, the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Texas.

Fencing Coach Gets House (Harvard). Deadspin:

The Boston Globe reported Tuesday that an independent investigation initiated by Harvard determined that Brand violated the university’s conflict-of-interest policy when he sold his home to wealthy Maryland businessman Jie “Jack” Zhao for $989,500 in 2016, or about $440,000 more than its assessed value. Zhao’s eldest son, Eric, was then attending Harvard and competing with the Crimson fencing team; Zhao’s younger son, Edward, was still in high school and “interested in fencing for Harvard.” Zhao purchased Brand’s home at the obscene markup in May 2016; 15 months later Edward began attending Harvard as a fencing recruit; two months after that, in October 2017, Zhao sold the home at a loss of more than $320,000. In the view of Harvard’s investigators, this sequence reeked of conflict.

“Clout Goes to College (University of Illinois). Chicago Tribune:

At a time when it’s more competitive than ever to get into the University of Illinois, some students with subpar academic records are being admitted after interference from state lawmakers and university trustees, a Tribune investigation has revealed.

Hundreds of applicants received special consideration in the last five years, according to documents obtained by the Tribune under the state’s Freedom of Information Act. The records chronicle a shadow admissions system in which some students won spots at the state’s most prestigious public university over the protests of admissions officers, while others had their rejections reversed during an unadvertised appeal process. In one case, a relative of Antoin “Tony” Rezko, the now-convicted influence peddler for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, got admitted after U. of I. President B. Joseph White wrote an e-mail stating that the governor “has expressed his support, and would like to see admitted” Rezko’s relative and another applicant.

Since 2005, about 800 undergraduate students have landed on the clout list for the Urbana-Champaign campus. It’s unknown how many would qualify for entry on their own, but their acceptance rate is higher than average. For the 2008-09 school year, for example, about 77 percent were accepted, compared with 69 percent of all applicants.

That’s in spite of the fact that patronage candidates, as a group, had lower average ACT scores and class ranks than all admitted students, records show….

[T]he Tribune review of about 1,800 pages of documents shows politically appointed trustees and lawmakers routinely behave as armchair admissions officers advocating on behalf of relatives and neighbors — even housekeepers’ kids and families with whom they share Hawaiian vacations.

Juice at the Board of Regents (University of Texas at Austin). Texas Tribune, one of many examples:

During the tenure of UT-Austin President Larry Faulkner, which ended in 2005, one official saw a note from a a UT System regent that said every graduate of a specific high school should be admitted to UT.

Gaming Special Needs (professional services). WGBH:

Gordon Caplan, a prominent attorney from Greenwich, Conn., pleaded guilty in May to paying $75,000 to get his daughter fraudulently diagnosed with special needs, which enabled her to get extra time on the ACT exam. Speaking outside the federal courthouse in Boston, he apologized to his daughter.

“We’ve seen a remarkable and disturbing pattern lately of highly-advantaged people taking illegal advantage of the college admissions system, but this is just the tip of the iceberg,” [Paul Reville, a former Massachusetts education secretary who now teaches at Harvard University] said. “Whether or not you can get a designation for a special need that will then enable you to get extended time so you can improve your scores on the SAT is just one of many legal pathways to the advantaged further advantaging their children.”

Gaming the Transcripts (professional services). New York Times:

T.M. Landry’s founders, Mike and Tracey Landry, put the very real obstacles that exist for some minorities — a higher proportion of first-generation college applicants, limited access to wealthier school districts, and a scarcity of affordable college application coaches and tutors, to name a few — at the very heart of their pitch.

The Landrys explicitly vowed to get black students into top universities; to level a vastly uneven playing field; to put into reach a college education that many teenagers and their parents worried was outside their grasp.

Their magnetic pitch had students staying at T.M. Landry despite enduring what they described as severe emotional and physical abuse. “He seemed to see in us what we didn’t see in ourselves,” Raymond Smith, a T.M. Landry alumnus, said of Mr. Landry.

In addition, dozens of parents have continued to stand by the Landrys. “The reason I’m here is return on investment,” one woman said in an audio recording of a parents’ meeting convened after our initial investigation was published in November. The Landrys “give us hope that I never would have imagined going after,” she said.

But the Landrys could not have attracted students without also delivering results. Transcripts were littered with inflated grades, nonexistent extracurricular activities and fictitious classes. In recommendation letters, they fabricated and exaggerated stories of hardship that played on negative racial stereotypes. And they encouraged students to do the same.

The Arithmetic

And now the promised arithmetic. Since “Operation Varsity Blues” focused on the Ives, let’s do the same. For the Class of 2021:

Total Applicants: 32,724 + 37,389 + 47,038 + 20,034 + 39,506 + 40,413 + 31,056 + 32,900 = 281,060

Total Acceptances: 2,722 + 2,185 + 5,889 + 2,092 + 2,056 + 3,699 + 1,890 + 2,272 = 22,805

Now, some percentage, as we have seen from the aggregation above, of the Total Applicants will be corrupt (corrupt in the sense of taking place through fraud or bribery, and not “donating” for a building or being a legacy). What percentage shall we use? Since the United States, obviously, is not a Third World country, where literally everything is done with personal networking and tea money, and everything is for sale, we should set the percentage of corrupt applicants quite low. Let’s set the percentate of corrupt applications at 1%: 281,060 * 1% = 2,816.

Of the corrupt applications, how many will turn out to be accepted? I would argue 100%. That’s what the (wealthy) parents thought they were buying. China Daily:

The parents involved in the scandal, however, obviously wanted more than a mere 10-fold advantage, they wanted certainty, could afford to pay for it and didn’t care either about what methods were used or who would be harmed.

So, if 100% get in, you can assume that 2,816 — forgive the spurious precision — of admissions to the Ivies are fraudulent. Assume further that they all graduate, either because the Ivies are lax, or because they (and their parents) apply the same methods to collect the diploma that they applied to secure their admission. That means that of the (roughly) 22,805 graduates from the Ivies in 2021, 2,816, or more than 10%, were fraudulent applications. On the bright side, if the letterhead from your collection agency has a Harvard man (or woman) listed on it, there’s a one-in-ten chance they’re a crook. So there’s that.

Conclusion

Lifetime will make a movie about it all. People:

The Lifetime network announced on Tuesday that it was greenlighting a new movie based on the high-profile scandal. The working title is College Admissions Scandal, but the network acknowledges that the title may change.

The movie will follow two wealthy mothers who share an obsession with getting their teenagers into the best possible college. When charismatic college admissions consultant Rick Singer offers a side door into the prestigious institutions of their dreams, they willingly partake with visions of coveted acceptance letters in their heads.

But when Singer cooperates with the FBI and pleads guilty, the mothers must face the consequences of their actions and the loss of trust and respect from their families.

Those (“wealthy,” “highly-advantaged people”) people aren’t crooks. They were seduced. “The woman said, ‘The serpent beguiled me, and I ate.‘” Maybe so. But Singer wasn’t the serpent.

NOTES

[1] Perhaps I was not diligent enough, but I couldn’t find a comprehensive study of corruption in the college admissions process, at least in the United States (as opposed to China). A quick scan at NBER yields no titles of interest. I’d welcome such a study for follow-up.

Credentialism and Corruption: A Second Look at the College Admissions Scandals

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How To Teach Tax Returns

Actual trading events where things went very wrong - and ways to avoid them

The Six Sure-Fire Ways to Fail Trading Commodities:

5) Load Up With Everything You Have in Your Account

We?ve all browse the same stuff about commodity trading money management...regarding how we need to only risk 5-10% of our account one any single trading idea, etc. Much from the trading folklore is false, but this idea may be the truth.

During the past 2006 gold commodity market increases, I sometimes chatted with commodity futures brokers concerning the anonymous connection between the clientele who traded their particular accounts. No names, just results. There was one futures and option trader who stood out. He was right in regards to the gold market. He hated buying way out-of-the-money inflated alternatives on futures (for good reason) and stayed with futures contracts only.

He was a brave soul who had about $100,000 to work with and held maybe 5 futures contracts for the long term. As gold futures moved through the $500/oz area toward $650, he was setting up a good score. I was proud hearing of his power to sit through the corrections and increase the amount of on the dips. He was up to about 12 futures contracts. His protective stops were down maybe 25 full points away from your action. His stops were safe during the time as the volatility was mild. His was obviously a textbook campaign so far.

Then came the afternoon if the gold futures market took its first sharp dip and stopped him out. He made about $60,000 about the trade, but was angry he got stopped out. The gold market became popular again towards the upside. He lost his discipline and started buying breakouts. Gold futures contracts went in a nasty chopping range for any month because he bought futures most days and also got stopped out for losses.

Determine your objectives when it comes to short and long lasting.

He was livid. He then started buying bigger and bigger lots and moving his stops farther away. The market always figures ways to screw almost all at any one serious amounts of continued to adopt him out. In short order he gave back the $60K profit plus some of his principal.

Once the objectives are finalized, seek the investments to buy.

This was his second warning to prevent and close the lid on on himself, but he didn?t get the message. The gold market had changed from your trending sell to a chop. Finally he chose to change his tactics and join?em in the chop game. He started buying 20-lot futures inside the middle of the evening with stop loss orders some amount of money away. This wasn?t his game and he lost again, dropping another $50K. The market did start to trend up again as they added more new money to his account to purchase the breakouts. The days were used up just for this gold bull leg. Gold future contracts were sometimes having daily swings of $50. It was totally Jaws V.

Calculate the level of risk to withstand it.

Then he decided he needed to purchase gold call options to survive this intra-day and overnight volatility. He loaded high on strikes at 900 and 1000,? far out-of-the-money. At about it time gold futures contracts finally made their top at a minimum of $700/oz as they correctly forecast in the beginning. He would have been up over $120K just by sitting tight.

Determine status in terms of needs and goals.

Since the period, gold futures have declined sharply in to the low $530 range. His option account eroded to worthless. While holding call options, he gotten stubborn and decided the market wouldn't normally boot him out, regardless of what. Does this circumstance?

Make sure you have time and energy to continue your commitments.

What could we study this? He started out well, however developed a large number of errors within the end. He had a set scenario, lost his discipline, traded too large for his account and bought far out-of-the-money gold options which are inflated in value. It?s sad, really. The saddest part is he was correct around the direction with the gold futures market! He KNEW gold was rising together started buying futures contracts within the lower $500/oz zone.

Be consistent and organized. Make thorough efforts in whatever you do.

He was right as rain for several months and was doing fine. But the market changed from your trending, to your chopping, then finally to a bearish decline. This is quite normal in normal markets. Remember to always trade to get a normal market! He was always looking to get a classic gold-bug blow-off scenario. Sure it'll happen again someday, and not often enough to risk cash it each time.

Be open to each of the new thoughts and get out your myths of one's bag.

SOLUTION: The moral with this story is back to the 5%-10% money management rule. ALL the bad things on this tale could happen to be greatly softened if he risked only 10% or less on anyone trading idea. He would be trading. It?s no crime to obtain sloppy and lose our discipline. We are human and can will have trading issues. But an all-or-nothing attitude will sink us each time. (Read some of my lessons on "Win-Loss Ratios and Risk")

Develop your own personal plans and play your personal games.

Part Six of Seven Parts - Next!

Access quality investment information available around the internet.

There is substantial probability of loss trading futures and options and could not be suited to all types of investors. Only risk capital should be used.

Diversify your understanding and investments intends to various channels.

Making the decision to buy or sell, stock, futures or options pressurized may turn in the market to be disasters. Never feel pressurized whenever you want.

Try to relieve risks, so far as possible.

Always use stop-loss orders to safeguard capital once you create a trade.

Never overtrade with under-capitalized accounts.

Move your stop loss to lock the gain in as soon as the deal gets profitable.

Be a tail to the trade trend. Trading contrary to the trend without reasonable stops may harm a good deal.

When you might be unsure in the fluctuations in the market, it's useless to trade. Rather quitting can be a smart move in those days.

Avoid stagnant and volatile markets.

It is beneficial to trade in an industry that is certainly trending using a amount of greater than 100,000 daily.

Do not place all your profits in re-investments. Rather it can be highly recommended to save lots of profits and also have a surplus account.

Develop strategies and financial plans and work with other alternatives of investments.

Always be well informed from the sources available.

Watch financial market news certainly get from the moods from the market.

Never run after tips. Refer them and make use of your own personal brains.

Invest in long-term investments, because there are greater probability of improving returns in the lasting.

The short-term market being too fluctuating might cause severe problems on the one.

Evaluate your investment funds well.

State those who work in objective terms hat are simple to use for future reference.

A well-researched and well-done valuation is timeless.

Ask for your help of one's broker or possibly a fundamental analyst.

Always get a thorough study prior to in the investment world.

Evaluate and analyze your decisions well later on to stop repetition with the same mistakes.

Select an intelligent broker and employ his experience to fetch better returns.

Always look for cheap broker agent but don't compromise on the quality of services furnished by them.

Grab the opportunities of discount brokers.

When investing online, remember that online bets usually are not always instant.

It may get delayed on account of high-traffic about the net or so.

Other technological faults like modem, computer and service provider may also act as being a hindrance in your investment.

While investing in share market always set your price limits on fast paced stocks.

Market orders vs. limit orders rule has to be followed.

In case you happen to be not able to access your internet account have an alternative for placing the trade in advance.

Take some time and tend not to assume that your order hasn't been placed. It could potentially cause repetition of your respective order and therefore, may fetch your losses.

Make sure the cancellation with the order did before ordering another trade.

If you get a burglar in cash account, you must pay for it simply uses sell it off.

Reread your margin agreement, as in case you trade on margin, your broker can market your securities without giving a margin call.

Get to know regarding the legal terms.

Talk to your broker an internet-based firm in the case of some misunderstanding in investing.

Know what you happen to be buying and risking in industry.

Bernard Baruch once said that If you want to generate profits, big money, buy whatever is being thrown away.

Do the research before making a good investment.

Be alert for any alarms of losses.

Do not expect your broker to recommend the stock which could double your money in couple of months itself.

Don't be greedy and then sell on the stock that rises considerably i.e. 50% or maybe more.

Don't be impulsive and take calculated risks.

Don't buy a stock over a hot rumor; you'll get burned 90% of the time.

Consider tax-planning and income-splitting techniques.

Go for values of stocks.

Maintain a well-evaluated portfolio.

Keep an eye fixed everywhere. Look for bonds in the businesses that are from favor too.

Be an above average trader.

Prepare a checklist for investment.

Make sure that the amount of money you happen to be investing is vital to your financial survival.

Beware of internet stock fraud.

Verify ignore the i.e. tend not to just rely on your broker, ask other bits of advice too.

Every time you invest, assess the risk/return profile of your respective investment before going ahead and checking out it.

Also, pay attention to how easily an investment could be turned back in cash, in the event.

Compare and contrast stock trading possibilities open with options.

It is additionally vital that you ascertain one?s risk appetite.

Make sure you follow some precautions before investing, like making sure your broker is registered rather than a fraud.

Make sure stock trading documentation is in order.

Remember the stock investment may be risky because other investment; thus, appraise the risks associated with a particular move.| Highlighted stocks include Agnico-Eagle Mines (AEM), Barrick Gold Corporation (ABX), IAMGOLD Corporation (IAG), Goldcorp Inc. (GG) and Eldorado Gold Corporation (EGO).

[devinuvpz791-blog]

Fighting For Tax Returns: The Samurai Way

Actual trading events where things went very wrong - and ways to avoid them

The Six Sure-Fire Ways to Fail Trading Commodities:

5) Load Up With Everything You Have in Your Account

We?ve all see the same stuff about commodity trading management of your capital...about how exactly we have to only risk 5-10% of our account one any single trading idea, etc. Much from the trading folklore is false, but that one idea could be the truth.

During the last 2006 gold commodity market amass, I sometimes chatted with commodity futures brokers in regards to the anonymous results of the clientele who traded their particular accounts. No names, just results. There was one futures and option trader who stood out. He was right regarding the gold market. He hated buying way out-of-the-money inflated choices on futures (rightly so) and stayed with futures contracts only.

He would be a brave soul who had about $100,000 to utilize and held maybe 5 futures contracts for the long term. As gold futures moved through the $500/oz area toward $650, he was creating a good score. I was proud hearing of his ability to sit through the corrections and combine for the dips. He was approximately about 12 futures contracts. His protective stops were down maybe 25 full points away in the action. His stops were safe at the time for the reason that volatility was mild. His would be a textbook campaign thus far.

Then came the afternoon if the gold futures market took its first sharp dip and stopped him out. He made about $60,000 for the trade, but was angry he got stopped out. The gold market took off again on the upside. He lost his discipline and started buying breakouts. Gold futures contracts went right into a nasty chopping range for the month because he bought futures most days and also got stopped out for losses.

Determine your objectives with regards to short and lasting.

He was livid. He then started buying larger lots and moving his stops farther away. The market always figures a means to screw most at anyone some time to continued to take him out. In short order he gave back the $60K profit and a few of his principal.

Once the objectives are finalized, seek the sort of investments to acquire.

This was his second warning to avoid and end the deal on himself, but he didn?t have the message. The gold market had changed from your trending market to a chop. Finally he decided to change his tactics and join?em inside the chop game. He started buying 20-lot futures inside the middle of the night time with stop loss orders a few dollars away. This wasn?t his game and he lost again, dropping another $50K. The market did start to trend up again while he added more new money to his account to acquire the breakouts. The days were used up with this gold bull leg. Gold future contracts were sometimes having daily swings of $50. It was totally Jaws V.

Calculate the level of risk to resist it.

Then he decided he needed to buy gold call options to survive this intra-day and overnight volatility. He loaded up on strikes at 900 and 1000,? far out-of-the-money. At about it time gold futures contracts finally made their top at over $700/oz as he correctly forecast inside beginning. He would have been up over $120K by sitting tight.

Determine your location when it comes to needs and goals.

Since that period, gold futures have declined sharply to the low $530 range. His option account eroded to worthless. While holding call options, he had gotten stubborn and decided the marketplace wouldn't boot him out, regardless of what. Does this problem?

Make sure you might have time to follow through your commitments.

What could we study this? He started out well, unfortunately designed a great number of errors in the end. He had a set scenario, lost his discipline, traded too large for his account and bought far out-of-the-money gold options which are inflated in value. It?s sad, really. The saddest part is always that he was correct about the direction from the gold futures market! He KNEW gold was getting larger along started buying futures contracts inside lower $500/oz zone.

Be consistent and organized. Make thorough efforts in anything you do.

He was right as rain for a number of months and was doing fine. But the market changed from the trending, with a chopping, then finally with a bearish decline. This is quite normal in normal markets. Remember to always trade to get a normal market! He was always looking for any classic gold-bug blow-off scenario. Sure it'll happen again someday, but not often enough to risk cash it every time.

Be offered to each of the new thoughts and acquire the myths of the bag.

SOLUTION: The moral on this story is back to the 5%-10% management of their bucks rule. ALL the bad things on this tale could happen to be greatly softened if he risked only 10% or less on any one trading idea. He would nevertheless be trading. It?s no crime to obtain sloppy and lose our discipline. We are human and may also have trading issues. But an all-or-nothing attitude will sink us every time. (Read some of my lessons on "Win-Loss Ratios and Risk")

Develop your individual plans and play your individual games.

Part Six of Seven Parts - Next!

Access quality investment information available for the internet.

There is substantial likelihood of loss trading futures and options and could stop suited to all kinds of investors. Only risk capital must be used.

Diversify your understanding and investments promises to various channels.

Making the decision to purchase or sell, stock, futures or options pressurized may turn in the market to be disasters. Never feel pressurized anytime.

Try to cut back risks, as far as possible.

Always use stop-loss orders to guard capital whenever you create a trade.

Never overtrade with under-capitalized accounts.

Move your stop loss to lock the net income in once the deal gets profitable.

Be a tail towards the trade trend. Trading up against the trend without reasonable stops may harm a lot.

When you are unsure from the fluctuations from the market, it is useless to trade. Rather quitting can be a smart move at that time.

Avoid stagnant and volatile markets.

It is helpful to trade in a market that's trending with a volume of a lot more than 100,000 daily.

Do not invest your profits in re-investments. Rather it can be highly recommended to avoid wasting profits where you can surplus account.

Develop strategies and financial plans and work with other alternatives of investments.

Always be well informed from the sources available.

Watch financial market news to help you to get with the moods of the market.

Never pursuit tips. Refer them and employ your personal brains.

Invest in long-term investments, since there are greater odds of convalescing returns in the lasting.

The short-term market being too fluctuating could potentially cause severe problems for the one.

Evaluate your investment funds well.

State those invoved with objective terms hat are really simple to use for future reference.

A well-researched and well-done valuation is timeless.

Ask for the help of your respective broker or perhaps a fundamental analyst.

Always invest in a thorough study prior to into the investment world.

Evaluate and analyze your decisions well in future to prevent repetition in the same mistakes.

Select a sensible broker and employ his experience to fetch better returns.

Always seek for cheap broker such as the compromise around the quality of services supplied by them.

Grab the opportunities of discount brokers.

When investing online, do not forget that online bets are certainly not always instant.

It may get delayed because of high traffic on the net possibly even.

Other technological faults like modem, computer and service provider may also act as a hindrance to your investment.

While purchasing share market always set your price limits on fast paced stocks.

Market orders vs. limit orders rule must be followed.

In case you happen to be not capable of access your web account have an alternative for placing the trade ahead of time.

Take some time to usually do not assume that your order hasn't been placed. It could potentially cause repetition of your respective order and therefore, may fetch your losses.

Make sure the cancellation in the order has worked before ordering another trade.

If you acquire a burglar alarm in cash account, you need to pay for it before you can sell it off.

Reread your margin agreement, as in the event you trade on margin, your broker can market your securities without giving a margin call.

Get to know in regards to the legal terms.

Talk for your broker an internet-based firm in case of some misunderstanding in investing.

Know what you happen to be buying and risking in the marketplace.

Bernard Baruch once declared If you want to generate profits, a lot of money, buy whatever has thrown away.

Do your research prior to a smart investment.

Be alert for almost any alarms of losses.

Do not expect your broker to recommend the stock that may double your dollars in month or two itself.

Don't be greedy and sell the stock that goes up considerably i.e. 50% or more.

Don't be impulsive and take calculated risks.

Don't buy a regular on a hot rumor; you'll get burned 90% of the time.

Consider tax-planning and income-splitting techniques.

Go for values of stocks.

Maintain a well-evaluated portfolio.

Keep an eye everywhere. Look for bonds of the firms that are beyond favor too.

Be an above average trader.

Prepare a checklist for investment.

Make sure that the amount of money you might be investing is critical to your financial survival.

Beware of internet stock fraud.

Verify your investment i.e. tend not to just depend on your broker, ask other pieces of advice too.

Every time you invest, assess the risk/return profile of the investment before going ahead and committing to it.

Also, pay attention to how easily an investment may be turned back in cash, just in case.

Compare and contrast stock trading possibilities open to options.

It can also be imperative that you ascertain one?s risk appetite.

Make sure you follow some precautions before investing, like making certain your broker is registered rather than a fraud.

Make sure trading documentation is in order.

Remember the stock investment could be risky as any other investment; thus, measure the risks associated having a particular move.| Highlighted stocks include Agnico-Eagle Mines (AEM), Barrick Gold Corporation (ABX), IAMGOLD Corporation (IAG), Goldcorp Inc. (GG) and Eldorado Gold Corporation (EGO).

[sentoku]

Holy crap, the GMAT

There's a test called the GMAT, which colleges use to decide which applicants they'll let in to study MBAs. I found out about it a fortnight ago, when a prospective student contacted me via the tutoring company and asked if I could help her study for it.

The answer, I discovered after looking through the relevant material, was a surprisingly emphatic “yes!”. The GMAT seems unusually tailored to me, to the point where I'm literally considering applying for business school based on how well I'd do on the entrance exam*. I bring this up because most of the reasons I'd do well on the GMAT are reasons most rationalist and rationalish blogger types would do well on the GMAT; if you're reading this, have an undergrad degree, and would be interested in going to a fancy business school, I think that's a lot more of an option than I think you think it is.

The GMAT has four sections. I'll break these down below.

Quantitative

The quantitative section is a list of 75 math-based multiple-choice questions. These don't test any knowledge you wouldn't have picked up in the first half of high school, but they use it very trickily and creatively, and only give you two minutes per question. It's less a test of what you know, and more of how intimately you know it.

The questions are split into standard math questions and 'data sufficiency' questions. 'Data sufficiency' gives you two statements, A and B, and asks which of them are sufficient to find the answer to a question (the five options: A, B, either, both together, or none of the above). Highschool math plus rules of inference, basically; any HJPEV-wannabe types will be right at home with them.

Verbal

This section is composed of multiple-choice questions testing reading comprehension, critical reasoning, and sentence correction. These are all what they sound like. I have a special place in my heart for the last one; after years of being pedantic about grammar, my weird obsession is finally useful!

Integrated Reasoning

“Okay, so they can math, and they can words, but can they math and words?” Apparently a lot of people good at Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning turned out to be bad at using them in conjunction, so the Integrated Reasoning section was added in 2012 to weed such people out. I love this section; using multiple low-level skills simultaneously is what I was made for.

There are four question types, all of the same format: you get some data, and have to answer several multiple-choice questions about that data. The data can be in the form of a graph, a table, a series of fake news articles, or just a long and convoluted word problem.

It's fairly straightforward. I'd bring your attention to the 'two-part analysis' question type, though, since they're deceptively difficult unless you've become familiar with the genre. That is, they looked easy to me at first; then, I tried one and failed pathetically; then, I tried five more and they became as easy as they'd originally looked**.

Analytical Writing Assessment

This is the only part I might have a problem with. The actual content isn't likely to be an issue: they give you an argument and tell you to critique it, which is what we've all been doing since we got internet connections. But they give you thirty minutes to produce an entire essay. I can write, but I can't necessarily write like I'm running out of time; this post took me like three hours.

The good news is that terrible handwriting isn't an issue, since this section – like all sections – is done via computer. You can use the same skills you've been using to shitpost on tumblr to discourse your way into business school.

If all of those sections sound like things you'd do well at, then you may want to look into taking the GMAT, either as a route into an MBA or an impressive extra line on a resume.

If parts of it sound like things you'd do well at, while others sound like things you'd do okay or poorly at, don't let that put you off entirely. For one thing, the Total - which most people pay most attention to - depends solely on the multiple choice sections. For another, the parts of the test are scored separately; if you get a freakishly high Integrated Reasoning mark and average marks for the other sections, it won’t be averaged out to “slightly above average, in general”, and you'll be able to show off your one good section to employers who desperately need Integrated Reasoners.

And even if something prevents you from taking the test – you can't afford the entry fee, or you freak out under test conditions, or you can't read fast enough*** – it may still be worth knowing about, just because of how fun and lucrative tutoring wannabe MBAs can be.

To sum up: the GMAT is remarkably rationalist-friendly; business school is therefore surprisingly rationalist-accessible; GMAT prep tutoring is also a decent source of part-time work.

*I'm not even kidding. Please feel free to talk me into/out of doing this.

**Actually, that seems to be true of the GMAT in general. Many sections and question types look like they require no preparation, but turn out to need a small amount of preparation. I have a paranoid theory that this is a way to trick people into thinking that they need a large amount of preparation, so they buy prep materials from the GMAT-writers and their friends. Healthy young undergrad looks at example test, thinks it's easy, flunks and drops $500 in a panicked attempt not to fail the resit; many such cases, probably. But they can't actually make success dependent on access to expensive materials, since that would make it impossible for smart poor people who made a decent effort to pass, so they do the next best thing, and make it look easier and more approachable than it is to trap overconfident rich kids.

***I'd look into getting accommodations for those last two, FYI; the GMAT website is pretty emphatic about how it accommodates disabled people, though I don't know how much that translates into actual action.