Study Tip #1

Understand your study topics in your own words: Your teacher or lecturer can explain something to you, you can learn it from a text book, your friends can study with you, even your own notes can explain it to you but all these explanations are of little use if, by the end, you can’t explain what you have learned to yourself. If you don’t understand a study concept that you need to illustrate in an exam to get top exam results, then you won’t be happy with your end exam result. To combat this, get into the habit of explaining whatever it is you are studying, in your own words, so you understand your study notes. The key to help improve your memory is to understand what you’ve learned when you are studying it. So don’t just memorise and tick off the list – make sure you understand your theory.

Study Tip #2

Don’t be afraid to ask study questions: Of course, depending on what you’re studying, it may be quite difficult to get into a position to understand a concept,theory or other information you need to learn. This is where it is invaluable to ask questions of your teachers, lecturers or other educators. Don’t be afraid of asking a ‘stupid’ question – there really is no such thing when it comes to study and learning! Embrace your curiosity, for as William Arthur Ward said: “Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning.” Doing so will allow you to fill in the blanks and better prepare you for exams.

Study Tip #3

Quiz yourself: Once you feel you understand a concept or a topic, it is important to test yourself on it. Try and replicate exam conditions as much as possible: turn your phone off, don’t talk, time yourself etc. You can set yourself a study quiz or practice exam questions and, so long as you approach it with the right mindset, you can get a very good idea of how much you know. You gain a greater insight into where you stand in relation to what you’ve studied so far. Also, it will give you some much need exam preparation, making the actual exam a more comfortable experience.Flashcards are ideal for boosting your memory and help you recall theory, definitions and key dates – these are great for quick study sessions, especially straight before an exam.

Study Tip #4

Get Creative with online study tools: Don’t feel obliged to just sit in front of a book with a highlighter; there are many different ways to study. You should pick whatever works for you. Try using as many study tools and techniques as possible to help you study better and find what works best for you. Perfect examples of such study tools would be online flashcards, mind maps, mnemonics, online study planners, video and audio resources. Login to your ExamTime account now to access your free online study tools; mind maps, flashcards, study quizzes and practice exam answers and bring your study notes with you wherever you are.

Study Tip #5

Set your study goals and create a flexible study plan: In order to achieve exam success you need to know what you want to achieve. That’s why it is extremely important to set your Study Goals now and outline to yourself what you need to do. With your study goals in mind and your end of year exams weeks and months away it makes sense to have a flexible study plan as opposed to a rigid one. The closer you get to your exams the more concrete your study plan should be, but at this point it should be porous. It should be broad enough to allow you to add and change aspects but concise enough so you know you’re covering each subject/topic as best you can at this point.

5:22 AM

The male advantage in general intelligence does not emerge until after puberty, because girls mature faster than boys.

In an earlier post, I discuss the new consensus in the intelligence research in the 21st century that men on average are slightly (but significantly) more intelligent than women, by about 3-5 IQ points.  However, in the same post, I also note that it is not because they are male that men are more intelligent but because they are taller.  Taller individuals are more intelligent than shorter individuals, and men just happen to be taller than women.  In fact, once we control for height, women on average are more intelligent than men.  It still remains true, however, that, without controlling for height or anything else, if you simply compare men and women, men on average are slightly more intelligent than women.

Another little-known fact is that, because girls on average mature faster than boys, the male advantage in intelligence does not appear until after puberty, when boys and girls finish maturing and growing.  Until then, girls are on average always more mature than boys at any given chronological age.  So comparing boys and girls, say, at age 10, is like comparing boys at age 10 and girls at age 12.  Naturally, older and more mature children have greater cognitive capacity than younger and less mature children.  So if you compare boys and girls at the same chronological age, girls on average are more intelligent than boys.  In other words, the sex difference in the rate of maturity masks and drowns the sex difference in general intelligence.

Here’s a perfect demonstration, using data from the National Child Development Study (NCDS) in the United Kingdom.  The NCDS contains a population (not a sample) of all babies born in Great Britain (England, Wales, and Scotland) in one week in March 1958 (n = 17,419), and has followed them throughout their lives for more than half a century.  The NCDS also has one of the best measures of general intelligence in all of survey data.  They measure intelligence at age 7 (with four different cognitive tests), at age 11 (with five different cognitive tests), and at age 16 (with two different cognitive tests).  Note that the respondents are largely before puberty at ages 7 and 11, but largely after puberty at age 16.

Here are the graphs that chart the mean IQ of the NCDS respondents by sex at ages 7 and 11, before puberty.  You notice that girls are slightly but (given the large sample size) statistically significantly more intelligent than boys at both ages.  At age 7, the mean IQ for girls is 100.6 while the mean IQ for boys is 99.4.  At age 11, the mean IQ for girls is 100.4 while the mean IQ for boys is 99.6.

However, the sex difference is reversed at age 16, as the following graph shows.  Post puberty, the mean IQ for girls is 99.2 while the mean IQ for boys is 100.8.  Remember, these are the same individuals who are tested at three different ages in their lives.  (And, no, it does not mean that girls become less intelligent after puberty in any absolute terms.  The IQs are calculated and normed at each age separately.  It only means that girls become less intelligent relative to boys after puberty.)

5:10 AM

When you drive a hatchet through the neck of a chicken, rendering it decapitated, it tends to thrash about here or there for a little while before it dies. Generally one won’t live eighteen more months, only to asphyxiate on some corn lodged in its exposed esophagus in a motel room in Arizona. Such is why the story of Mike the Headless Chicken is arguably the most recounted chicken decapitation story in America.
There’s really no wrong way to tell this story: Mike was an unnamed, anonymous 2.5-lb. bird living in Fruita, Colorado when he was chosen to die by farmer Lloyd Olsen who planned on eating him one evening in September 1948. After the hatchet was dropped and the rooster’s head severed from his body, Mike went through the usual indignant rigmarole over the abuse, flopping about and flapping his wings and the like. After a moment, however, he got over the affront and went back to the usual chicken pastimes like pecking for food. Except without a head.
After they realized that Mike didn’t plan on succumbing to death anytime soon, and being humane and soulful people, Farmer Olsen and his wife chose to sustain the rooster’s life by feeding and watering him with the aid of an eyedropper. They also used the dropper to clear debris from his esophagus and didn’t have it with them in that motel in Arizona, which is why Mike died.

12:38 AM

The origins of ice cream can be traced back to at least the 4th century B.C. Early references include the Roman emperor Nero (A.D. 37-68) who ordered ice to be brought from the mountains and combined with fruit toppings, and King Tang (A.D. 618-97) of Shang, China who had a method of creating ice and milk concoctions. Ice cream was likely brought from China back to Europe. Over time, recipes for ices, sherbets, and milk ices evolved and served in the fashionable Italian and French royal courts.
After the dessert was imported to the United States, it was served by several famous Americans. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson served it to their guests. In 1700, Governor Bladen of Maryland was recorded as having served it to his guests. In 1774, a London caterer named Philip Lenzi announced in a New York newspaper that he would be offering for sale various confections, including ice cream. Dolly Madison served it in 1812.
First Ice Cream Parlor In America - Origins Of English Name
The first ice cream parlor in America opened in New York City in 1776. American colonists were the first to use the term "ice cream". The name came from the phrase "iced cream" that was similar to "iced tea". The name was later abbreviated to "ice cream" the name we know today.
Methods and Technology

12:37 AM

1. Things that taste good are bad for you.
In 1948, the Framingham Heart Study enrolled more than 5,000 residents of Framingham, Massachusetts, to participate in a long-term study of risk factors for heart disease. (Very long term—the study is now enrolling the grandchildren of the original volunteers.) It and subsequent ambitious and painstaking epidemiological studies have shown that one’s risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, certain kinds of cancer and other health problems increases in a dose-dependent manner upon exposure to delicious food. Steak, salty French fries, eggs Benedict, triple-fudge brownies with whipped cream—turns out they’re killers. Sure, some tasty things are healthy—blueberries, snow peas, nuts and maybe even (oh, please) red wine. But on balance, human taste preferences evolved during times of scarcity, when it made sense for our hunter-gatherer ancestors to gorge on as much salt and fat and sugar as possible. In the age of Hostess pies and sedentary lifestyles, those cravings aren’t so adaptive.

2:Your mind is not your own.
Freud might have been wrong in the details, but one of his main ideas—that a lot of our behaviors and beliefs and emotions are driven by factors we are unaware of—turns out to be correct. If you’re in a happy, optimistic, ambitious mood, check the weather. Sunny days make people happier and more helpful. In a taste test, you’re likely to have a strong preference for the first sample you taste—even if all of the samples are identical. The more often you see a person or an object, the more you’ll like it. Mating decisions are based partly on smell. Our cognitive failings are legion: we take a few anecdotes and make incorrect generalizations, we misinterpret information to support our preconceptions, and we’re easily distracted or swayed by irrelevant details. And what we think of as memories are merely stories we tell ourselves anew each time we recall an event. That’s true even for flashbulb memories, the ones that feel as though they’ve been burned into the brain:
Like millions of people, [neuroscientist Karim] Nader has vivid and emotional memories of the September 11, 2001, attacks and their aftermath. But as an expert on memory, and, in particular, on the malleability of memory, he knows better than to fully trust his recollections… As clear and detailed as these memories feel, psychologists find they are surprisingly inaccurate.

5:49 AM

1: Benjamin Franklin wore many hats: politician, diplomat, author, printer, publisher, scientist, inventor, founding father, and coauthor and cosigner of the Declaration of Independence. One thing he was not was a high school graduate. Franklin was the fifteenth child and youngest son in a family of 20. He spent two years at the Boston Latin School before dropping out at age ten and going to work for his father, and then his brother, as a printer.

2: Bill Gates is a co-founder of the software giant Microsoft and has been ranked the richest person in the world for a number of years. Gates dropped out of Harvard in his junior year after reading an article about the Altair microcomputer in Popular Electronics magazine. He and his friend Paul Allen formed Micro Soft (later changed to Microsoft) to write software for the Altair.

5:22 AM

10. Loved to SaiL

When Einstein attended college at the Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, Switzerland, he fell in love with sailing. He would often take a boat out onto a lake, pull out a notebook, relax, and think. Even though Einstein never learned to swim, he kept sailing as a hobby throughout his life.

9. Einstein's Brain

When Einstein died in 1955, his body was cremated and his ashes scattered, as was his wish. However, before his body was cremated, pathologist Thomas Harvey at Princeton Hospital conducted an autopsy in which he removed Einstein's brain. Rather than putting the brain back in the body, Harvey decided to keep it, ostensibly for study. Harvey did not have permission to keep Einstein's brain, but days later, he convinced Einstein's son that it would help science. Shortly thereafter, Harvey was fired from his position at Princeton because he refused to give up Einstein's brain.
For the next four decades, Harvey kept Einstein's chopped-up brain (Harvey had it cut into over 200 pieces) in two mason jars with him as he moved around the country. Every once in a while, Harvey would slice off a piece and send it to a researcher. Finally, in 1998, Harvey returned Einstein's brain to the pathologist at Princeton Hospital.

4:57 AM

The U.S.S. Cyclops was one of four Proteus-class colliers built for the U.S. Navy in 1910.
The ship was the second one named after the Greek mythical giants.

In 1917 the ship was commissioned due to the start of World War I and her captain, George Worley, was promoted to full captain.
Sometime after March 4, 1918 the ship and her entire crew of 306 crew and passengers disappeared without a trace.

4:42 AM

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