William Kwan | Will Kwan

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.