How to Spot Bad Health Advice

Does the acai berry really slow aging?  How about that daily glass of red wine to prevent heart disease?  Newspapers are packed with new, exciting research from so-called “experts”, giving us simple, authoritative claims to improve our health.  The fads are usually rooted in weak, reductionist science which can be quickly debunked.

As a health nut myself, I try to skim through the massive volume of health tips from a skeptic’s perspective, but it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the contradictory information scattered about.   Rather than blindly following the words of an unknown figure, I want to interpret scientific data on my own and make my own informed decisions.  The question is, how do you categorize the good from the bad?

Let’s break down at a recent news story from BBC, titled “Daily Aspirin ‘prevents and possibly treats cancer’.  I chose this article arbitrarily; you can do the same kind of analysis on any kind of health study.  The complete article can be found here:

10 Ways to Get Rid of Writer’s Block

Writing is either the most rewarding or the most frustrating activity in the world.  The despair of being stuck on a sentence can make you pull your hair out.  Fortunately, there are many ways to combat writer’s block so you don’t have to spend fruitless hours in front of Microsoft Word.

10 Inspirational TED Talks to Get You Thinking

You may have heard of the Technology Entertainment and Design Conferences, a set of global conferences bringing together some of the most successful and interesting speakers in the world. You can watch these speeches at TED.com, one of the best websites to learn new ideas and kick-start your creativity. However, searching through the 900+ videos can be a daunting task. Here are ten must-see TED Talks to get you started.

How to Ace the SAT in Three Weeks Part 6: The Essay

Format

The very first section of the SAT is the dreaded essay, where you’re given 25 minutes to write up to two pages on a given prompt.  Marked on a scale of 2 to 12, the essay makes up 30% of your total Writing score.

Preparation Materials

• No need to buy anything here; all you need are the essay prompts from past essay exams

Guide

The SAT essay is heavily criticized for the formulaic writing style it forces the test-taker to adopt because of the time constraints.  25 minutes is not enough time to write out a well-thought out, cleverly expressed essay, even if you’re a brilliant writer.  What’s more disturbing is the fact that there is a proven correlation between essay length and score; in other words, the more your write, the higher your score will probably be, even if it’s total crap.

But personally, I like the SAT essay.  Yes, it requires a dull, mechanical response; however, being able to produce a sizeable chunk of decent writing in a limited amount of time is a valuable skill to have (especially if you’re a blogger!).  If you’re aiming for that perfect 12, you want to fill up most of the two pages with clear, organized, and relevant writing.

The Buteyko Technique: The Correct Way to Breathe

Stressed?  Anxious?  You know the drill.  Stop for a moment, take a deep breath, and everything will be better.  Or will it?

How to Ace the SAT in Three Weeks Part 5: Writing, Multiple Choice

Format

The SAT Writing Section is divided into three sections: one 25-minute essay, one 25-minute multiple choice section, and one 10-minute multiple choice section. The multiple choice questions consist of improving sentences, identifying sentence errors, and improving paragraphs. They are arranged in ascending difficulty per section, with the 10-minute section always being the final part of the exam.

Preparation Materials

• Official SAT Study Guide

• Material from The RocketReview Revolution: The Ultimate Guide to the New SAT

Guide

The Writing multiple choice is one of my favourite sections, and it’s not because I’m a stickler for proper English. In my opinion, it’s the easiest section to study for three reasons:

How to Ace the SAT in Three Weeks Part 4: Math

Format

The Math section is divided into two 25-minute sessions and one 20-minute session, for a total of 44 multiple choice and 10 grid-in questions.  The questions in each section are presented in the order of difficulty.

Preparation Materials

• Official SAT Study Guide
• Casio fx-300MS Scientific Calculator

Guide

The Math section loosely touches upon four major concepts:

1. Numbers and Operations
2. Algebra and Functions
3. Geometry and Measurement
4. Data Analysis, Statistics, and Probability

Unlike the Math II Subject Test, the Math section on the Logic and Reasoning test requires very little memorization of facts and formulas.  If you’ve paid attention in math class, you should have the necessary knowledge to work out the questions.  The trick is to be familiar with the types of questions commonly asked on the test and learn how to solve them efficiently.  Rather than going over all the individual topics or reiterating general test-taking strategies, this post will cover some of the idiosyncrasies of the exam and how you can exploit them.

How to Ace the SAT in Three Weeks Part 3: Critical Reading, Passage-based Reading

Format

The Critical Reading section is divided into two 25-minute sections and one 20-minute section, with each section ending with passage-based reading.  Passages generally range from 100-900 words, and are presented from shortest to longest.  Most questions will include line numbers indicating the location of the information in the passage.

Preparation Materials

• Official SAT Study Guide

Guide

The primary quandary I had with passage-based reading was how exactly to approach it.  I’ve broken it down into 4 methods.  These aren’t the only way to do it, nor are they mutually exclusive.

How to Ace the SAT in Three Weeks Part 2: Critical Reading, Sentence Completion

Since this is the first actual “guide” post of the series, I’d like to emphasize the fact that these are the methods I personally used to prepare for the SAT in three weeks.  There are plenty of great study guides out there jam-packed with useful information; however, under the time constraints, it would’ve been a waste of time for me to learn and implement too many strategies.  I felt it was best to stick few solid principles, ones that I’ve had success with in previous standardized testing situations.  However, I have stumbled upon a couple tricks which I feel could be beneficial, even though I didn’t use them.  These are included as well, but I’ll indicate whenever I mention a tool I didn’t actually use.  They won’t make or break your SAT score, but they can make a difference.

How to Ace the SAT in Three Weeks Part 1

The SAT stirs up an aura of apprehension matched by no other standardized test of its kind.  Being a Canadian student, I’m not compelled to go through this dreaded ordeal.  However, I felt it would be an intriguing self-learning project, so I set out to see if I could ace the SAT… with three weeks of preparation.