Final Exam Review

Hi everyone:

I hope that your Research Essay revisions are going well. Now it’s time to start thinking about the final exam (which, as we discussed, will take place in class on Th 12/18). As promised, here are some sample final exams for you to take to practice:There are three sample exams, and you should take all of them before midnight on Monday (12/15):

Sample Exam 1
Sample Exam 2
Sample Exam 3

1. Print out the article and the instructions.

2. Actively read the article, annotating it, reverse outlining it, and taking notes (you may use a dictionary to look up words you don’t know). Take as long as you need for this part of the exam (doesn’t have to be done in one sitting).3 (optional, but strongly encouraged!) Complete Part I (the summary) for the article. You may take as long as you need for this part. You will not have to write a summary for the actual final exam (you only will be handing in an essay), but this is good practice in reading comprehension/understanding the article.

4. When you feel comfortable with the reading, sit down to work on Part II, the essay. This essay must be handwritten, done without any help from others (or from aids, like a dictionary or your phone), and in one 75 minute session. Make sure you go to a quiet place where you won’t have any interruptions, set a timer on your phone, and get to work. It must be written in one continuous session. Once the time is up, don’t make any further changes/revisions, even if you didn’t finish.

5. Practice Exams HW due by 5pm, Monday, 12/15. To submit your work, either:
  • Drop off your handwritten essays/marked up articles/summaries in my mailbox in N512 (open 9am-1pm & 2-5pm, M-F), and I will scan them myself, OR
  • Scan them in using a phone (there are many free scanning apps such as CamScanner and GeniusScan) or scanner and e-mail them to me, clearly labeled (three separate files, one for each practice exam).

I need to have your work, so that we can project it in class together to discuss it and brainstorm successful strategies for the exam.

Please don’t hesitate to e-mail me or come see me with any questions. And if you would like additional individualized feedback on your practice final exams (beyond our in-class writing workshops on them), please e-mail me schedule an appointment to see me during my office hours on Tuesday, 12/16. Good luck!

Cheers,
Professor Belli

Tracking Happiness

The majority of people use technology at least once a day, making it easy to try to track happiness using technology. At first I didn’t think that happiness would be something that could be measured. How can it be measured if it’s a personal emotion it depends on how the person is feeling which is usually not the same all the time. All these websites talk about how they want to measure happiness by tracking what they do in their daily life. Different people have different ideas and approaches in how to measure a person’s well-being which will eventually lead to happiness.

In the first two websites they used an app named The H(app)athon App which is used to track a person’s values. They believe that the actions that are taken affect an individual’s happiness. When the app is downloaded they ask you to take a survey. The survey that is taken matches the individual with actives that they could do that will help boost up their happiness. The app also helps to see where an individual’s life is out of balance and then try to balance it out for it could benefit the well-being. In my opinion I think that that this app will help a couple of people but not everyone. It will help some people because some people may actually take it serious and follow what the app says to do which will make them feel like they are improving their well-being. It may not help others because not everyone will be consistent or truthful with the app. Also, not everyone is the same, what makes one person happy may not me the same for the other, it is not one size fits all.

The next two websites mention on how Santa Monica is trying to measure well-being and making it a city that is truly connected to its people. They believe that by reflecting how the community is back to the community, the community will realize and make it easier to improve its well-being. The Wellbeing project is researching all around the world to understand the strengths and challenges people face in their lives. Although, Santa Monica is beautiful, has nice weather, and feels like paradise, it is number two of the top ten most stressed out cities in America. It is in the top two because there is a lot of traffic and living there is too expensive. I think that by people taking action and by trying to improve wellbeing there is going to be a positive change. The more people work together on this project the more of an outcome there will be because that will mean that a lot of people are willing to work to improve their happiness. If everyone works together in Santa Monica and achieves their project on well-being it will have a great outcome in the whole world.

The last website talks about how happiness is influenced depending the geographical location that the person is currently in. For instance, the saddest part in New York City is Maspeth Park, Brooklyn because of its pollution and lack on sanitation. The happiest place in New York City is Times Square because it is a place where tourist go filled with excitement and joy feeling they have arrived to New York. This was all measured by looking at the tweets people have posted and analyzing their location at the moment. In my opinion that was a very smart way to track happiness. People usually tweet what they feel with no pressure or thought that they are being evaluated on how happy they are. Therefore, I feel like they will be much more truthful with their emotions. It is also a very smart way to track happiness because now people tweet more than ever. Technology has become a daily routine to mostly everyone. As technology continues to improve and advance there will be more accurate measurement on individual’s happiness and on what makes an individual truly happy.

In the app store: Happiness

In the tech world today, we can basically do anything. We have social networks. Just to name two we have Facebook and Twitter. We have apps on our phone. In fact more than one million of apps are being develop a day. This is why there isn’t no surprise, when happiness is also a purpose for an app. We have apps for everything now, for shopping, games, workouts, etc. So happiness got to be part of such a huge library of apps. However, are people just making money of it or just want society to be happy(?)

The app “Happier” is what the developers called a “course”. To me it’s a marketing skill. Since I happen to read how the course works, it’s seem kind of like youtube. It is just basically watching videos each day. The video often contains a lesson. However, to actually be in the “Course, one’s must pay $4.99. It’s a costly app, with such normal content to me. The app giving a free trail is just to lure us into to paying for it.

To actually gain more information, I downloaded the app to see what the fuss is all about. I just don’t see, but want to see how it actually works or how they claimed it works. After signing up, it tells me to pick an area of focus. I can see how people could actually like that because they want to focus on their own problems rather then focusing on a broader subject. I picked “mind” as my focus to see what happens.  The it gave me a list of courses. There are courses for meditation, stress, sleep, yoga, etc. It actually provides free courses. I picked the sleep Deep & Dream sweet course. It provides a seven day relaxing bedtime mediation to help my sleep. Each course has a host, and my course host gave me my intro lesson. After a few glimpse I went to my first lesson. i was led to watching my first video What a waste of my three minutes. It was boring to me making kind of unhappy. How ironic that I feel this way.  However the video did taught me something. If I want a great sleep, everyday before I sleep I should have a ritual. It could be anything. It could be drinking a cup of milk or water or turn off all electronics, etc. In another app called “Happify” it’s basically the same concept of “Happier”, but it does includes actitives and games that are “science-based happiness”. See what they did(?) To me it’s another marketing technique.

In the Hedonometer, it shows a graph of twitter in it’s happiness times. It has concluded the many tweeted happily during the holidays while the someone death decreased the happier tweets. Social network is like a primarily source track happiness even daily.

In conclusion, when it comes to tech, many people use the word happiness lure people into taking some cash out of their pockets. It’s just many want to be happy, stress-free, etc. People will actually willing to pay for this emotion. It also be tracked from social networks from all parts of the world. Happiness in some ways became the purpose of everything today.

Controlling the Unvierse with One Thought

In class we watched the first 20 minutes of “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne where mainly introduced the law of attraction. Rhonda Byrne starts of the video by saying that she researched history to find out about the secret. The video mentioned that applying the secret could bring an individual happiness, health, and wealth. There are many experts in the video such as philosopher, metaphysician, entrepreneur, visionary, and author that talk about their thoughts about the secret. They all agreed that the secret could change an individual’s life depending their thoughts. The video mentioned that no matter where you are or who you are the law of attraction follows you. The law of attraction is that whatever an individual thinks about that will happen. If there are negative thoughts then negative things will happen in their life. They described the law of attraction in three words which are thoughts become things.The film gave several examples of how the secret has affected people. For instance the lady that wanted the necklace she saw on display. As she looked at the necklace she concentrated on thinking positive and imagining herself wearing it. After time has passed by she receives the same necklace from a guy. With this example they wanted to show how thinking positive thoughts attract the things a person desires.

In class we also watched two parody films that in a way made fun of the film “The Secret”. One parody that we watched was SNL Oprah The Secret which is a mockery of Oprah’s talk show. In this video Rhonda Byrne was always smiling portraying that she was happy because she found the secret and applies it to her life. She also mentions that she was not a doctor or a scientist but yet she found this amazing and life changing secret. Pamela which is one of the people that believe in the secret said that the secret has changed her life for the better. She claims that the secret helped her when her husband left her for another woman. She started to have positive thoughts of her husband coming back which resulted her in getting a restriction order. Byrne asks her if her and her husband are back together, she answered no but then that was thinking negative. Pamela changed her answer and said they were together which is not true. Therefore, that proved that the secret is just a way of lying to yourself rather than being realistic about the problem.

In my opinion I don’t think that the law of attraction is true because it is impossible to control the universe just with thoughts. Of course that thinking positive is always a good thing it does change the way an individual sees things and changes the mood of a person. A person that thinks negative is going to feel sad rather than a person that thinks positive which will have a happy life because they are not bring themselves down. Thoughts have a strong affect in a person’s mood but has no effect in getting the things an individual wants. For instance, if an individual wants to become a chief they can’t just think about it and magically become a chief. They will have to work hard and learn the basic skills need to become a chief. The individual will have to practice and be dedicated in order to achieve their goal. It is impossible to just sit down and start thinking about becoming a chief and the next morning have all the knowledge needed. If that was the case why would people even bother to go to school or work, everyone will just think of what they want and get it. The universe obviously does not work like that because then everyone will have a perfect life.As humans there are emotions involved. A person can’t always be happy because it is normal not to be pleased by everything or to have a bad day. Negative emotions help an individual understand and appreciate the good things in life.

 

 

The Effects Of Being Positive

“Want to know a secret?,” Rhonda Byrne might ask her readers and many others who want something. On Tuesday, I don’t actually understand the secret since we only saw like the first twenty minute of the documentary and the fact that I was kind of unproductive that day.  I eventually got the idea of the secret is to be positive and positivity will lead to what we desire. On Thursday, I arrive to class hoping we don’t have to do much. I just didn’t feel like going the first place. I thought about it for a few minutes and I decided to go. After a few minutes in class, I was told that we will watch a SNL skit. I love SNL, I watch it every Saturday or on demand if I can’t watch it that day. In the SNL skit, Byrne is impersonated as someone who lives in her own little world. It’s seem to be a fantasy where thinking positive leads to what we desire. The funny thing is that the skit is about Oprah giving interviewing Byrne and a reader of the book, “The Secret.” The reader use the secret in her life, but is it actually working? Well, she seems confident, but I feel like she isn’t being realistic. She is in process of a divorce and due to Byrne’s secret, you got to be positive. The reader really want to save her marriage and apparently staying positive is doing her no good.

In my opinion, I disagree with the “Secret” The reason why is that Byrne used many examples related to someone being rich. Let say I am a billionaire and I want a buy a mansion to live in during the summer time only, then I could get that if I be positive. I also believe that thinking you want something doesn’t mean that I can get it. I want a 4.0 GPA. I know for sure I can’t get that. I could stay positive, but that wouldn’t help me get it. I would eventually be upset if I didn’t get that GPA, even though I was so positivity and confident that I would get it.

Due to the fact of my unproductiveness in class on Tuesday, I can say I regret that. I feel like I didn’t take in all the information from the documentary but only took in the SNL skit and the other parody information leading to what I believe in what Byrne meant when talking about the secret. I know that parody is meant to take something serious and make it funny. That why maybe I interpret the “secret” wrong. I hope I am well prepare on Tuesday for further discussion on this topic and hope to get a more detail idea of the secret.

Mayors visions on well-being for New Yorkers

In the night of the NYC mayoral primary 2013, Bill De Blasio’s gaol is to give equal opportunities to everyone and to unify the city. De Blasio started off his speech with the terrifying terrorist attack of 9/11. He takes a moment to remember everyone that suffered the tragedy of 9/11. Throughout all the pain everyone suffered that day, everyone one came together and help anyway they found possible. People put at risk their own life to try to help others, complete strangers. It was a reminder that those in authority have the job to keep everyone safe in the best way they can. De Blasio said “New Yorkers left no one behind that day” (10:42). That day everyone helped each other no matter the racial statues or economic statues. The city became united. De Blasio explains that there was a tale of two cities. One tale where the wealthy were doing better then ever, their lives couldn’t get any better. The other tale where most of the citizen are living in the line of poverty. Parents are fearing that their children will not have the opportunity to have a high education. Where pro active policing is now turning into racial profiling. De Blasio restates that we can’t allow New York to continue unsafe, changes have to be made for a better future.

Bill De Blasio is a democrat which is goes more to benefit poor people. He used the day of 9/11 to show the way everyone came together and helped each other out. The way every one reacted so rapidly to help no matter who the person was. De Blasio wants New York to be like that everyday. He wants New York to be a united and equal city. Parents with a low economic statues should be able to give their children the same opportunities to receive high education. He referred New York as the tale of two cities where he mentions that the wealthy are living better then ever before and most citizens are living in the line of poverty. Wealthy people are in all ability to help but yet prefer to build luxury condos over community hospitals. Also police racial profiling is becoming very dangerous. Instead of police bring the feeling of safety they are doing the complete opposite. There should be changes done to feel safer and in order to have better opportunities. This will help in the well-being of people because they will feel safer and they will also be given more opportunities.

New York Cities 2013 primary night Joe Lhota’s victory speech is about continuing to improve the city and improve education. Lhota remarks several times that America is the land of opportunity, New York City is the place of opportunity. He doesn’t want to bring the city to bankruptcy and economic fear like others have done by picturing the perfect world. Lhota supports the New York City Police Department all the way. Lhota is very proud of the police ” who have brought our crime down over 75% over the last 20 years and I am determined to bring it down even more” (8:44). Lhota thinks if the the police does’t keep up with what they are doing the city will be unsafe. He also beliefs that stop question and frisk must continue. Lhota wants to continue improving the city just like he gives the example of Brooklyn improving and becoming safer to race a family. He also wants to improve education and give more opportunities to children to become more competitive in the 21st centenary.

Joe Lhota is a Republican which goes more in favor to the wealthy people. He doesn’t talk much about the lower class people showing that he mostly cares about the cities appearance. He want to continue to modernize the city with out taking in mind if it will benefit or harm lower class people. He also is in favor of the actions that police are now taking. Which harms a lot of people because of racial profiling. In reality this will not benefit the well-being of most people. Improving the city will bring up the cost of rent and many people wont be able to afford it. Also the police using racial profiling will cause to blame people that a innocent. These are not things that will bring an individual well-being or happiness within themselves.

Both candidates used pathos, logos, and ethos to catch the listeners attention and try to earn their votes. Bill De Blasio used pathos when he talked about the tragedy of 9/11 and the way he kept referring to that day. He uses logos when he talked about the tale of two cities, the wealthy and the poor. It is obvious that there is two completely different social classes and that one is benefiting more then the other. He uses ethos by having his speech in Brooklyn. This gives of to show that he is like everyone else and that he puts himself in everyone’s shoes. Joe Lhota uses pathos by mentioning that his parents worked very hard to give him a good education and where he came from. With this he wanted to show everyone that he and his family have also struggled. Lhota uses logos when he talks about the percentage of crimes that have gone down in the last 20 years. He wants to show how much it has gone down and to trust him that he will help to bring it down even more. Lhota uses ethos when he talks about others trying to paint the perfect picture and actually ended up bring the economy down. By using that he wants to show that he has a better plan then others and he is aware of what can happen.

 

Victory Speeches And the Well-Being of a City

In Bill DeBlasio and Joe Lhota victory speech, they both seem to have the same vision on making New York City a better place, but each believe in a different technique on doing so. During Joe Lhotas speech, he used ethos in order to persuade his supporters by showing alot of his character. Joe Lhota says that “New York City is the city of opportunity”. With this being said he states that the other party is wrong about “tales of 2 cities”. Lhota believes that the city of opportunity will be divided because of “tales of 2 cities” (5:40) he states that it will (5:28) “Tear down the progress thats happend over the last twenty years”. Joe Lhota also believes in security and education for the well being of New York City. Lhota supports NYPD and he says “crime is at historic lows” (8:20). Lhota states that he supports the New York Police Department and a safe neigborhood and because of this he believes that “stop and frisk must continue” (9:00).

In Bill DeBlasio speech he uses pathos by remembering the tragic incident on september 11(9:35). He touches his supporters soft spots by using emotion in order for them to support him. In Deblasio speech he mentions that the well being of the city will include safety and authority, he believes in values and noone geting left behind no matter in what economic status they are in (10:30). Joe DeBlasio talks about “New York had become a tale of two cities.. were the wealthy couldnt be better.. and half of our citizens are living at or near the poverty line” (11:25). DeBlasio believes that they should help and support “poor  people”. He wants to change New York City inside and out by staying united. In DeBlasio speech he states that he is agsinst “stop and frisk”, he believes that it is dangerouse and it is “a risk the city cannot take” (16:51).

Both Joe Lhotas and Bill DeBlasio had taken their time to thank their families and ithers for their support during the campaign. Both Lhota and DeBlasio have a vision on making New York City a better place. Both candidates share the support of security/safety for the citys well being. This relates to my past discussions in English 1101 and Hus 1102 were we talked about well being. Starting to talk about this we used Maslow which brought up the topic of feeling safe. In class we discussed about everyday safety, for example police, firefighters, carring a weapon or not, hospital and etc. In this case, the safety that these two candidates are talking about is the New York Police Departments. Which comes up were  these candidates disagree. Joe Lhota believes that the stop and frisk is helpful and must continue for the safety in the streets of the city, while in other hand Bill DeBlasio disagrees with it. Another difference these two candidates have is there techniques in persuading others. Lhota uses more ethos in his speech while DeBlasio uses more pathos demonstrating his sympathy to those families who lost loved ones in 9|11.

Victory is Mine

After listening to both of the victory speeches by Democratic nominee, Bill De Blasio and Republic Nominee, Joe Lhota I noticed that they had many similarities and some differences. Starting with Bill De Blasio one main thing that stood out to me was that he is a very family oriented person. He based most of achievements being successful because of his family. His family not only being his wife, daughter and son but the whole democratic team that stood with him along the way. Bill De Blasio also based his speech on the sad day we will never forget, 9/11. He said on that day the heroic figures of New York didn’t think twice about laying down their lives for complete strangers. The main goal was to make sure no one was left behind and that is what he is going to accomplish. He wants to make sure everyone is serviced. He was told that he was “Guilty of being to bold.” Guilty of being to bold because people found that asking for a little more tax from the wealthy was to much, the sights that were set for children were to high and the quality of his thinking was to strong. But he believes that being bold is what being a true new Yorker consists. Not settling for less as he said is a chance he can not afford to take. He wants to ensure that every child has the same opportunity to get a proper education. He wants to change the fact that half our country is living below standards and in poverty. He disagrees with the way the police is portraying the stop and frisk movement and feels like they are mainly tackling people of color. Overall Bill De Blasios main factor to continue to strengthen his people in the best way possible.

Unlike Bill De Blasio, Joe Lhota had a different approach. He was mainly focused on decreasing taxes and creating more well paying jobs. He agreed with the way that the police were portraying the stop and frisk policy. He states that he will unify city and create a new and different vision. everyone Wants safer streets and he believes that can happen if we support the NYPD. He is determined that he can bring crime rates down and what ever he says will be done. Having experience and being able to balance out difficult situations is who he believes should be the mayor. Its not about being a democrat or a republican its about who can stand strong through everything. In comparison to Bill De he also believes that every child should have the same opportunity to attend college. opening more charter schools and making the economy for affordable is his mission. He stands as a honest man and states the truth about everything that he says and sees.

In connection to our views on happiness I feel that to these candidates happiness comes from seeing their city and people grow. knowing that what they said during their speeches comes to play and doesn’t just disappear after they are elected. It seems to me Bill De Blasios happiness draws from the unity of the people of new York and Joe Lhotas happiness comes from provided effectual change in new York. For them it does not seem to be all about money but more on what changes and improvements needs to be made.

 

Visions Of Well-being for NYC

On primary night in 2013 both Bill De Blasio and Joe Lhota came out and gave their speech, both hoping for the win. Each candidate came out and told every one about who they are, their family and what are their plans as Mayor of NYC. Bill De Blasio is the man every one is able to relate to because he is a family man, he even had his daughter introduce him before he spoke and his son has helped throughout the whole campaign and thanked his wife for being his best friend and biggest supporter. As Bill De Blasio gave his speech he had a way of trying to make every one in NYC sound like one big happy family. He wants us all to work together and be there for one another as you would your own family. He hopes for change that will benefit every one. Bill De Blasio believes education is very important for the children so they can have a better future and actually have a chance at a good life. He is also not for the stop and frisk because it has become to a point of just racial profiling. Finally the wealthy should contribute more to society considering they have more than the others around them.

When Joe Lhota gave his speech on primary night it had some similarities to Bill De Blasio. Joe Lhota’s family is important to him as well introducing his wife and daughter as his foundation, his strength, his source of energy and how he would not be standing there without them. Both candidates take family very seriously and definitely want to make sure that everyone knows that. Joe Lhota spoke of keeping NYC safer, having a better education for children by improving schools which can lead to having good paying jobs in the future. Both candidates were in agreement with those points. They both spoke about stop and frisk as well. Joe Lhota is for it because he believes it will make NYC safer while Bill De Blasio is not for it because he says it leads to racial profiling. Overall both candidates want the people to have a good life and surprisingly they had more similarities than differences in the speeches.

In class we have been discussing the different types of happiness. No one really knows what consists of the true meaning of happiness for an individual but the government definitely plays a role in what they believe contributes to the happiness of the New Yorkers. In both of the speeches made by Bill De Blasio and John Lhota they both discuss education, safety and well paying jobs. Those seem to be the main ones that will increase in the happiness and well being of others. Education is definitely important so that their is a chance for people to learn and later on in the future use the skills they’ve learned to be able to have a well paying job. Making NYC a safer place will definitely increase in the happiness and well being of others. So much crime is committed daily and if it even went down a little can make a huge difference and will allows other to feel safer living in it. Having a well paying job is something that is a big part of someones happiness because this job is what allows them to pay their rent, their expenses, things they need etc.. Overall is for the people of NYC to work together and become stronger are believed by these two candidates will make our world a better place.

The Victory Speeches of the Primary Election of 2013

Like any other victory speeches; Bill de Blasio and Joe Lhota both said their thank you’s to the public, their team, and their families. They both then went on talking about their beliefs and their goals once winning the election to be the mayor of New York City. In the Bill de Blasio speech, Blasio mentioned one of his beliefs of how New York City is the “tales of two cities.” (11:24) Blasio argued this point by mentioning half of the citizens of New York City are living at or near the poverty line, parents are scared that their children aren’t receiving the best education needed, and that the New York City Police Department had be somewhat racial profiling. In the Joe Lhota speech, Lhota argued one of his goals is  to help making New York City more affordable (10:51) to the middle class families. To support his argument, Lhota mentions that he will support small businesses. Another main goal of Lhota is to improve the educational system for the New York City children. To support this goal he mention that he will  support and open up more charter schools, increase the standard of the teachers, and the standards on training.

Joe Lhota and Bill De Blasio both seems to have their own vision of happiness; well-being of New York City. As we all know, well-being is the state of comfortable, heathly, or happy. Bill de Blasio believes that the New York City Police Department’s Stop and frisk(16:28) had been demoting the well-being of New yorkers. Especially to specific groups. However, Joe Lhota vision of the well-being of New Yorker City is by supporting the New York City Police Department’s stop and frisk.(8:25) He mentioned that it will keep the street safe. One goal they both believe that can promote the well-being of New York City is education. Even though there plans are different, they both want the best education for the children of New York City.

From the speeches given from both candidates, they both somewhat represents different groups of New York City. Bill De Blasio seems to represent minor groups of New York City and Joe Lhota seems to represent more on the middle class of New York City. They seem to use ethos in their speeches because I see a lot of their character in it and their beliefs. They also seem to use pathos to capture New Yorkers.