Map showing the literacy rate of each district in India. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Do we know that in terms of Women Literacy BIHAR ranks at Bottom with 53% as per Statistical Year Book 2012. Find other fact about Indian Literacy rates(85% Male & 65% for Female)…
Find further details in link below
Literacy Rate in India
Alexander and Hephaistion (Photo credit: █ Slices of Light █▀ ▀ ▀)
By about 380 BC the Persian hold on Indian regions slackened and many small local kingdoms arose. In 327 BC Alexander the Great overran the Persian Empire and located small political entities within these territories. The next year, Alexander fought a difficult battle against the Indian monarch Porus near the modern Jhelum River. East of Porus’ kingdom, near the Ganges River, was the powerful kingdom of Magadha, under the Nanda Dynasty.
Plutarch (AD 46 – 120) was a Greek historian, biographer and essayist, known primarily for his Parallel Livesand Moralia. He gives an interesting description of the situation:
As for the Macedonians, however, their struggle with Porus blunted their courage and stayed their further advance into India. For having had all they could do to repulse an enemy who mustered only twenty thousand infantry and two thousand horse, they violently opposed Alexander when he insisted on crossing the river Ganges also, the width of which, as they learned, was thirty-two furlongs, its depth a hundred fathoms, while its banks on the further side were covered with multitudes of men-at arms and horsemen and elephants.
Exhausted and frightened by the prospect of facing another giant Indian army at the Ganges River, his army mutinied at the Hyphasis (modern Beas River), refusing to march further East. Alexander left behind Greek forces which established themselves in the City of Taxila, now in Pakistan.
After the death of Alexander in 323 BC, Seleucus was nominated as the satrap of Babylon in 320 BC.Antigonus forced Seleucus to flee from Babylon, but, supported by Ptolemy, he was able to return in 312 BC. Seleucus’ later conquests include Persia and Media. He invaded what is now Punjab in northern India and Pakistan in 305 BC.
Further reading as published by Sanujit
published on 12 February 2011, 12:51
Can be downloaded here: Indo-greek connection
Troy: Definition
English: Hectōr (Ἕκτωρ), or Hektōr, is a Trojan prince and the greatest fighter for Troy in the Trojan War. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Troy is the name of the Bronze Age City featured in theTrojan War of ancient Greek oral and literary tradition and the name given to the archaeological site in the north west of Asia Minor (now Turkey) which has revealed a large and prosperous city occupied over millennia. There has been much scholarly debate as to whether mythical Troy actually existed and if so whether the archaeological site was the same city, however, it is now almost universally accepted that the archaeological excavations have revealed the city of Homer’s Iliad. Other names for Troy include Hisarlik (Turkish), Ilios (Homer), Ilion (Greek) and Ilium (Roman).
Mythological Troy
Troy is the setting for Homer’s Iliad in which he recounts the final year of the Trojan War some time in the thirteenth century BC. The war was in fact a ten-year siege of the city by a coalition of Greek forces led by King Agamemnon of Mycenae. The purpose of the expedition was to reclaim Helen, wife of Menelaos, king of Argos and brother of Agamemnon. Helen was abducted by the Trojan prince Paris and taken as his prize for choosing Aphrodite as the most beautiful goddess in a competition with Athena and Hera. The Trojan War is also told in other sources such as the Epic Cycle poems (of which only fragments survive) and is also briefly mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey. Troy and the Trojan War later became a staple myth of Classical Greek and Roman literature. Futher Readings……………….. click below and download
Troy
American Journal of Physical Anthropology (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Anthropology Study-plan and Booklist by Dr.Vijay (IAS) for UPSC Civil Service (Mains) Exam
This article, is a compilation of gems given by Dr. K.Vijayakarthikeyan (AIR 22 / CSE 2010) on the IOforum. At present, He is an IAS officer in Tamilnadu cadre.
Disclaimer
Disclaimer
It’s completely based on my anthro strategy which helped me (Dr. Vijay) get 375 marks in Anthropology, in 1st attempt in cse 2010, it worked wonders with me, it may or may not work with you
Getting started with Anthropology
Entire syllabus of Anthropology can be seen on my other blogpost
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who appealed to celebrate the centenary as a festival, will formally inaugurate the function at Patna‘s Gandhi maidan. M I Khan reports
Bihar, which has been centre of knowledge and power over the centuries, on Thursday completed 100 years of its existence.
Three-day centenary celebrations have been planned to commemorate the founding of the state. Read the rest of this entry »
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A revenue surplus budget of Rs 78,686.83 crore for 2012-13 for Bihar with thrust on agriculture and education, increasing taxes on Works contract, vehicle tax, VAT on tobacco products and brick-kilns was on Friday presented by Deputy Chief Minister S.K. Modi, who is also the finance minister.
Mr. Modi said for 2012-13 the revenue surplus is Rs 7088.59 crore and will be used for investment in physical infrastructure, generating productive capital assets like roads, buildings, power, schools, health centres and irrigation schemes.
The fiscal deficit for 2012-13 is Rs 7569.43 crore, which is 2.87 per cent of the GSDP. The fiscal deficit to GSDP has been limited to three per cent as per FRBM Act.
The net borrowing for 2012-13 has been limited at Rs 7916 crore by the Government of India and the GSDP estimate arrived at for the year is in accordance with 13th Finance Commission recommendations.
The public debt is estimated to be Rs 59,732.81 crore which is 22.64 per cent of GSDP, he said.
The department-wise allocation for the state plan for 2012-13 is Rs 3670.26 crore for education, Rs 3613.63 crore for road construction, Rs 2192.47 crore for water resources, Rs 2118.40 crore for social welfare, Rs 2001.75 crore for energy, Rs 8663.37 crore for planning and development, Rs 1661.78 crore for rural works, Rs 1574.84 crore for rural development, Rs 1200 crore for agriculture, Rs 1186.00 crore for panchayati raj and Rs 6917.50 crore for others.
Credits: The hindu; Timesofindia, Mauryatv, DD-Bihar.
Budget speech in hindi and english can be downloaded here:
http://finance.bih.nic.in/Budget/Budget-Speech.pdf
Public Service Commission preparation
Social media in the Arab Spring, Japanese megaquake and nuclear disaster, orgasms in the brain, HIV drugs, faster-than-light neutrinos, Higgs and more
Read more: “Smart Guide 2012: 10 ideas you’ll want to understand”
JANUARY
• Egypt cuts its people off from the internet as the “Arab Spring” begins. In Syria, Tunisia and elsewhere citizens use social media to organise street protests
FEBRUARY
• IBM‘s supercomputer Watson takes on, and beats, two former winners of the US gameshow Jeopardy! Despite a few mistakes it easily wins the $1 million prize
MARCH
• Magnitude 9.0 earthquake rocks Japan, followed by a tsunami that devastates towns and leaves 20,000 dead or missing. Explosions at Fukushima nuclear plant lead to meltdown when the cooling system fails
APRIL
• A software bot called LIDA shows the first hints of consciousness by reacting just like a human when carrying out simple tasks
• Personal details of 77 million users are stolen after Sony’s PlayStation Network is hacked – forcing the firm to take it offline
MAY
• Author Kayt Sukel stimulates herself to climax in an fMRI scanner to learn more about the female orgasm, brains and the control of pain
JUNE
• Physicists at CERN manage to bottle atoms of anti-hydrogen for 1000 seconds – about 10,000 times longer than before
• Infamous “hacktivist” group LulzSec announces it is disbanding after “50 days of lulz”, during which it attacked a number of corporate targets, including Fox News
JULY
• Space shuttle Atlantis lands at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for the last time, bringing the curtain down on the shuttle era after 135 missions
• Antiretroviral drugs shown to not only help those with HIV stay alive but also greatly reduce transmission of the virus to others
AUGUST
• World’s first 3D-printed aircraft makes its maiden flight in the UK. The parts took just two days to design and five to print
SEPTEMBER
• Shock at claims that neutrinos have travelled faster than the speed of light – apparently breaking the existing laws of physics
OCTOBER
• First analysis of network of 43,000 companies shows a minority – mainly banks – hold a disproportionate amount of power over the global economy
NOVEMBER
• Breakthrough in Alzheimer’s research as cognitive decline is reduced in two people – by jolting brain tissue with electrical impulses
• Launch of NASA’s Martian rover, Curiosity, as part of the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft. It is due to arrive at the Red Planet in August 2012
DECEMBER
• Two teams at the Large Hadron Collider announce they have found hints of a lightweight Higgs boson
• Climate change conference in Durban, South Africa, ends with agreement to accept targets on emissions in 2020
Image via Wikipedia
In a joint excavation carried out by the Department of Archaeology of Pune’s Deccan College and Gujarat’s archaeology department, a new Harappan site has been discovered at Kotada Bhadali village area in Nakhatrana taluka of Kutch district. The site dates back to 3000 BC.
The state’s archaeology department and Deccan College have planned a detailed excavation in January to gather more information related to the site.
Y S Rawat, the state’s director of archaeology, said, “Primary excavations have showed that the site probably belongs to late Harappan period around 3000 BC, but the data available from the excavation is too little to determine the exact period. We will carry out more studies to confirm the period and other facts.” Read the rest of this entry »
Giant leaps: Science breakthroughs of the year
Image via Wikipedia
The Hayabusa mission After some near-disastrous technical difficulties and a stunningly successful recovery, Japan‘s Hayabusa spacecraft returned to Earth with dust from the surface of a large, S-type asteroid – the first direct sampling of a planetary body in 35 years.
Unravelling human origins Studies of the genetic code of both ancient and modern humans revealed that many humans still carry variations in their DNA that were inherited from archaic humans who lived tens of thousands of years ago, such as the mysterious Denisovans in Asia and still-unidentified ancestors in Africa. Read the rest of this entry »
Public Service Commission preparation
Business leaders today need to achieve success in the face of fierce global competitive pressure and uncertainty. The paradox of our times is that focus on securing economic returns has become the least reliable way of achieving business success. The very drivers of value creation are changing as key links in the value chain, such as natural resources and human talent, become scarce. CIMA and Tomorrow’s Company have started a unique journey to explore the future and purpose of business, researching the development of leadership, future talent, the co-creation of value, business accounting, sustainability and integrated reporting.
Irrespective of the size and nature of an organization, the board should aim for the long-term, sustainable success of the company. They are engaged in approving, monitoring and determining the short and long-term strategy of the business, an effective business model and, most importantly, the risk management strategy of the business. The ability to make quality decisions regarding strategic development, risk assessment and risk mitigation, appropriate resource allocation, and talent management are some of the key skills that leaders of today must demonstrate. A board leading by example, and aligning the short and long-term business strategy to the vision, mission and values of the organization, will successfully influence customers, stakeholders, management and shareholders.
This unprecedented change in the demands of leadership over the last 10 – 15 years has been created by social and technological change, by globalization and a growing concern for the future of our planet. We are now at a turning point in the 21st century. The context in which companies now operate is a triple context – where future and enduring business success will rely on understanding and responding to the links between the economic, social and environmental sub-systems and the opportunities.
Thus, there is an increasing requirement for leaders who will prioritize the stakeholders of their organisations (customers, employees, suppliers, the community, the planet, and the shareholders), rather than personal reward, and personal power and prestige. Read the rest of this entry »
Public Service Commission preparation
India’s electorate emphasized political stability and governance coherence in the 15th national elections in 2009. Predictions of a fragmented electorate and party system emboldened small groups to envision obtaining power in third and fourth fronts emphasizing regional, caste, ideological, and personality considerations. Instead, the Congress Party gambled successfully on a minimum rather than a maximum1winning coalition.
The Congress initially allied with a few partners in its minimal winning coalition, so as to highlight the Congress Party rather than the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition label. This successful strategic gamble provided more coherence, clearer messages, and a revitalizing leadership. Lacking only 10 seats for a majority, the UPA coalition quickly attracted other parties for a comfortable 2 majority (see Table 1.1 for Lok Sabha results by party, Table 1.2 for coalition formations, and 1.3 for party symbols).Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signifies integrity, continuity, and competence in the 2009 campaign, which contrasts sharply with contestants burdened by criminal charge sheets. More than one-quarter of the elected Members of Parliament (MPs) fall into this category. And that does not include major criminal/political figures failing to win 3seats. Party and Alliance leader Sonia Gandhi, in addition, represents dynastic continuity. It now is a long chain stemming from Motilal Nehru to his son Jawaharlal Nehru, to Jawaharlal’s daughter Indira Gandhi, other son Rajiv Gandhi, and now to Rajiv’s wife Sonia Gandhi. Read the rest of this entry »
New Syllabus and Content for Civil Services Preliminary Examination, 2012
The Union Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Ministry has on 18.10.2010 announced changes in the pattern of the UPSC Civil Services Preliminary Examination 2011.
Public Service Commission preparation
After techniques on how to recall what you study, please read further for another very strong and most effective article on NOTE TAKING AND REVISING techniques at here at bpscjpsc.com .
This info graphic is propriety of “Course Hero” a channel partner of CIVIL SERVICES EXAM HELP. Read the rest of this entry »
Public Service Commission preparation
I hope some statistics from here would be asked at least in prelim of few exams. Actually, this is a tribute to Mr. Steve Jobs-“Stay Hungary and Stay Foolish“. Read the rest of this entry »
Public Service Commission preparation
2011 onward, all public commission is definitely focusing on topic like green house affect, carbon footprint and expect a definite question from this area of Environmental science. I hope the concise display of energy consumption and carbon footprint of India and USA along with all major nation will help you writing answer effectively.
“Clearly, Western Nations have been the key driver of climate change so far. Between 1950 and 2000, the United States was responsible for 212 gigatons of carbon dioxide, Read the rest of this entry »
Part-2
One to two days before the test, prepareand reinforcean appropriate Power List covering the key points of the material. What’s a Power List? It’s the natural culmination of the acronym, replacement/exaggeration and numeric sounds techniques you learned in the previous chapter. It can be expanded or contracted as you see fit, and can accommodate whatever materials you feel are important to review. Developing a Power List is not a substitute for studying your material, but a convenient way to memorize key points that you can later reconstructon paper, if that’s an optionduring the test.
If you have the three strategies from the previous chapter down, and if you’ve effectively highlighted your written text and taken good notes, you’re ready to supercharge your study and memorization efforts. Here’s how:
Step 1
Develop an acronym appropriate to the material you’ve been studying. In the case of the misdeeds that occurred within the Grant administration, you’d probably want one that reminds you of Grant himself and of each of the five main scandals:
1. Black Friday
2. Credit Mobilier Affair
3. Delinquent tax collection abuse
4. Whiskey Ring
5. Belknap Bribery Read the rest of this entry »
Part-1
Plan your time before you start: Follow the advice in Article 2 and develop a written battle plan!
Use your Planning Calendar, your weekly Priority Task Sheet and your Daily Schedule to allocate the time available to prepare for the test. Isolate the most important elements of the exam you must prepare for, and give them highest priority.
Whenever possible, schedule your test preparation activities for your own personal “prime time.” Keep all appropriate written planning materials in your Study Plan Central book. Monitor your progress toward key goals on a daily basis.
Here’s a suggested breakdown of the major study issues you could choose to focus on, assuming you have 12 days at your disposal. Of course, your own class, work and personal schedules will necessitate that you develop a unique schedule that works for you, rather than marching lockstep through this outline.
Days 12 to 9: Review your written materials extensively.
Days 8 to 6: Develop “condensed notes” (later in this article) and review your own notes from class. Read the rest of this entry »
Some Essential Memory Skills: Part 3
You have now seen how a single impossible-to-forget sentence can translate into an impossible-to-forget 23-digit number something you probably would never have thought yourself capable of memorizing before you picked up this book. Now you’re going to learn how to use the process in the opposite direction by taking the numbers you need to memorize, turning them into words and ideas you can remember and incorporating unusual images that will stick in your mind just as readily as this sentence did:
“Some people don’t like to eat worms but I certainly do!”
The digital alphabet can make hard-to-memorize “abstract” numbers you face instantly memorable. (In the following examples, we’ll be memorizing only the dates by associating them with the most important single idea of the passage. You can also use the Acronym and Replacement/Exaggeration methods to develop more elaborate memory connections, and to master no numerical material as well.)
William Shakespeare died in 1616.
Picture yourself strapping William Shakespeare into an electric chair (William Shakespeare died…). As you do so, he begs you to refrain from touching his body and you scream, “Touchy, touchy!” (…in 1616) before you pull the lever.
The population of Nairobi, Kenya, is estimated by one source to be 1,482,386.
For “Nairobi” picture a knight in your own bathrobe. He’s causing a huge commotion by galloping his horse through a drive-in movie show (1,482,386), and he’s irritating the patrons by getting in the way of the images on the screen.
//////////////////////////
Stop! Take a moment now to review all the numerical associations you’ve just made. When you feel confident with each of them, take a break of at least 10 minutes. Then review all three categories of the mnemonic work you’ve done. Look once again at an the acronyms, replacements and exaggerations and numerical associations you just mastered. The process should take no longer than five minutes or so. Do this right now.
This step is an essential part of the memorization/study process. When it comes time to prepare for your exams, don’t skip this step! Take a few moments and review the associations you develop for your real-life study material.
An amazing thing happens when you use these systems: The effort you expend in applying the systems helps your “natural” memory do a better job. Often, the merest hint of the mnemonic technique you used is all that’s necessary help you recall the information in full.
Now it’s time to surprise yourself. Please take the short test on the next page. Write your answers on a separate sheet of paper.
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Some Essential Memory Skills : Article 4 part 2
Your Pathway to a Better Memory
Obviously, being able to memorize material such as we just reviewed, and being able to do so in a hurry, is a significant advantage when it comes to preparing for tests. It doesn’t hurt when you need to master-key points from your notes before writing a paper, either.
You can improve your memory just about instantly, and this chapter’s going to show you exactly how. There are three main methods for memory improvement, and
Page 32
although they may take some time to perfect, they don’t take much time at all to learn. And they can deliver results so quickly they’ll surprise you.
What follows is a condensed summary of some basic memory techniques that have been helping students, speakers, business people and stage performers for centuries. For a more in-depth review of the subject, take a look at my book, Improve Your Memory, available at your local bookstore, or Harry Lorayne‘s and Jerry Lucas‘s The Memory Book, which you can probably find at your local library. Both of these go into far greater detail than I can here but the name of the game at this point is speed, right?
Three basic methods for memory improvement
Replacement / Exaggeration
Numerical Sounds
These three methods may have fancy-sounding names, but the ideas behind them are extremely simple. No special aptitude, intelligence or training is required to use them and to dramatically increase your efficiency when it comes to studying. We’ll look at each of the techniques in detail and you’ll see how powerful a few very straightforward ideas can be when it comes to memory improvement.
By the way, there is a fourth and extremely powerful method, one that combines the basics of all three of the techniques you’re about to discover. We’ll deal with that strategy, which I call Power Listing, in the next chapter.
If You have a Test Now…
You’re about to learn some powerful techniques for improving your memory, and you should know ahead of time
that there’s a certain amount of self-testing involved in mastering these ideas. This self-testing process won’t take you that long, but if you are under severe time pressure in preparing for a test if the test is, say, tomorrow you will probably want to review all the basic principles covered in this chapter, skip the testing sections, then proceed to Chapter 8 to get some helpful advice on additional ideas you can use to improve your memory instantly.
You’ll also want to review the advice on skimming first, and reading for detail later, that appears in Chapter 5.
If you have more than a few days to prepare for your test, however, then you should certainly follow all the advice in the following two chapters, and that includes working with the self-test material.
The three basic methods you’re about to learn are essentially the same as those offered by the high-priced “ultra-memory” courses you’ve probably seen on television commercials late at night. Weren’t you a little bit curious about how people could develop those high-powered memory techniques those courses promised? Well, now you don’t have to spend $150 to find out.
The three ideas are likely to have greater impact on increasing your personal efficiency when it comes to test preparation than any other part of your study regimen. Don’t skip the tests and activities that follow! Review each item closely until you feel comfortable with it, and take breaks at each point you are directed to by the text.
Acronyms
CREEP was the unfortunate name assigned to President Nixon‘s Committee to RE-Elect the President.
The four notes that fall on the treble scale’s “open spaces” are F, A, C and E. Music students are taught to remember the word FACE when they first encounter the treble scale.
For right now, give yourself a reward. Take a mandatory break of at least 10 minutes before you proceed. Listen to a favorite song or enjoy a high-energy snack to celebrate your accomplishment! Then, return to master the next technique for memorization.
Replacement/Exaggeration
Replacement is simply the process of substituting a boring word or phrase with a more interesting one and using the second word to remind you of the first. If you need to remember the French word for lawyer, ”avocat” (pronounced AH-vo-CAH), you might replace it with the phrase “avocado.”
Exaggeration is the process whereby you connect the two ideas with something outlandish or oversized. Picture, let’s say, a nationally known lawyer from a famous criminal trial of recent date. Does anyone come to mind? (If not, I’ll assume you’ve been on Mars for the last few years, and ask you to pick a specific lawyer you know or a lawyer from a favorite crime drama.)
The person you pick must be a specific individual not an abstract embodiment of lawyers as a group. To use exaggeration to fuse the two ideas (“avocado” and “lawyer”), imagine that lawyer making the closing argument to a jury, picking up a foot-tall avocado and smashing it on top of his head. See the green goop trailing down on his suit.
When it comes time to remember the word for “lawyer,” you’ll recall that absurd image. And you’ll remember “avocado.” And your “natural” memory will kick in with “avocat.”
Replacement finding the interesting word or phrase that sounds enough like the boring one to make your “natural” memory kick inis a pretty basic technique, and there’s not much to it. In the following examples, you’ll see more instances of replacement in action
Exaggeration, on the other hand, can take many forms and merits a little fuller discussion here. (In most cases, when people can’t get memory systems to deliver results for them, it’s because they haven’t mastered the technique of exaggeration.) Take a look at this sentence:
“Some people don’t like to eat worms but I certainly do!”
If I told you that you had to memorize that sentence, word for word and recall it for an exam, would you be able to do that? Of course you would.
What exactly makes that sentence memorable? For one thing, it summons up a vivid, unforgettable image (eating worms). For another, that image is a bit nauseating. Finally, it reverses your expectations about the situation and creates an unexpected connection. (Who on earth would brag about liking to eat worms?) All three of those factors can be put to work in your efforts to turn your study material into specific images you can manipulate and recall easily.
A vivid, exaggerated, unforgettable image is one that has direct, immediate visual appeal. A five-inch-long, dangling, wriggling worm on the end of a fork is a vivid image. However, a sign that says “WORMS FOR SALE” is notit’s vague, undramatic, not exaggerated and not visually oriented. So you’re going to construct pictures that are based in one vivid, exaggerated picture at a time.
An image with exaggerated gut-level associations is one that plays on our natural human tendency to remember that which is striking on a visceral level. Once you’ve pictured yourself moving a forkfuls of those huge, wriggling worms toward your open mouth, then closing your mouth around the fork and actually chewing the worms, you’ve conjured up a situation you’re not soon likely to forget.
On the other hand, if you picture yourself pondering a can of worms on a supermarket shelf, you probably will
Welcome back! Assuming you are rested and ready to roll, you’re about to learn about one of the most powerful study techniques ever to come down the pike. Stick with it and follow all the instructions exactly as written. I promise you, you won’t regret it!
Numerical Sounds (Sounds and Digits?)
Seems kind of silly, doesn’t it? We associate the “ssssss” sound with the letter “S”but what sound do we associate with, say, the digit zero?
Unlikely as it may seem at first, there is a 10-digit phonetic “alphabet” tied to each of the numbers in our counting system. This alphabet makes it easy to remember even long-number sequences like this one:
03995121571143091041251
Within the phonetic number alphabet you’re about to learn to put to your advantage, the digit zero does have a sound it makes a “ssssss” sound, just like the letter “S.” It also makes the related “zzzzzz” sound of the letter “Z.”
There are no vowels within this number system or rather, there are whatever vowels you want to incorporate. There’s no sound associated with the letters “H,” “W” or “Y,” either, so you can stick them in wherever you want when it’s time to form a word.
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Some Essential Memory Skills: Part 1
Important note: Learning to study is a neglected art, and learning to use one’s memory efficiently is one of the most important aspects of that art. The next two chapters contain some of the most important material you will ever come across with regard to memory development. If you’ve done some memory training in the past, some of this material will be familiar. Nevertheless, do not skip these chapters; use them as a tune-up.
Throughout Chapters 3 and 4, the text instructs you to put the book down and take a break Do so! You may even decide to read the chapters on two consecutive days, so that you have the chance to ”sleep on” a the principles covered. Fine, but do take a break from your reading. You should not attempt to “cram” all the material that follows. Instead, allow it to settle in and become second nature. If you follow the instructions as written, you’ll discover a powerful, simple memory system that will help you in your studies and in business and personal settings for the rest of your life.
Pop Quiz!
Following you will find a list of facts, roughly equivalent to those you might have to memorize for study purposes. The questions that immediately follow them will test your powers of memorization as they stand right now, before
you learn about some of the simple memory-improvement techniques well be outlining in this chapter. Take the test, and read all of the material that appears in this chapter and the next, before you proceed.
Give yourself 10 minutes to review the material that follows. Then give yourself two minutes to answer the questions associated with them on pages 30 to 31. Mark your answers on a separate sheet of paper. Ready? Go!
William Shakespeare died in 1616.
A Zuccheto is a small, round skullcap worn by Roman Catholic ecclesiastics.
The Pythagorean Theorem states that a2 + b2 = c2, where a, b and c represent the lengths of the sides of a right triangle.
William Harvey (15781657) demonstrated that blood moves through the body in only one direction, along the veins and arteries.
Without referring back, answer these questions from memory. Do not check your answers against the text:
1. In what year was Rene Descartes born?
2. What was the name of the newspaper Benjamin Towne began publishing in 1783?
3. In What year did Ulysses S. Grant run for president against Horace Greeley?
4. Who assassinated President McKinley?
5. How far away is the moon from the each?
6. Where and when was the world’s first atomic bomb exploded?
7. Which compound is made up of molecules that contain two oxygen atoms and one carbon atom?
Do not go back to the material you studied.
Answers:
1. 1596.
2. The Pennsylvania Evening Post.
3. 1872.
4. Leon Czolgosz.
5. 240,000 miles.
6. July 16, 1945, at Alamagordo, New Mexico.
7. Carbon dioxide (CO2).
If you got all seven of these correct, congratulations! You probably have an excellent natural memory. Unless you have a trained memory, though, you should still review the principles in this chapter.
If you missed one or more of the questions, read on. We’re going to continue with the next section and learn how to apply some simple memory techniques to the material you just studied. Do not go back and review the questions.
Civil Services Exam Help 