Hypnotizing Yourself
When you think of hypnosis, two images probably come to mind. The first is from a B-grade movie where you see some Svengali-like doctor — usually deranged — dangling a pocket watch in the face of some [more…]
Saying Hello and Goodbye in Russian
To greet one person with whom you're on informal ty (tih) terms, use the word Zdravstvuj (zdrah-stvooy; hello). To greet a person with whom you're on formal vy [more…]
Understanding the Transmission of Nerve Impulses
Nerve impulses have a domino effect. Each neuron receives an impulse and must pass it on to the next neuron and make sure the correct impulse continues on its path. Through a chain of chemical events, [more…]
Greeting and Saying Good-bye in Hebrew
Hebrew offers you many choices of ways to say hello and good-bye. Here are a few things to say in greeting: [more…]
Choosing When to Use Who and Whom
The whole topic of pronouns is enough to give you a headache, but the time has come to put to rest one of the peskiest pronoun problems once and for all. [more…]
Ten Things Never to Say or Do in Russia
Sometimes, knowing what NOT to do is even more important if you want to fit in or at least produce a good impression. Read on to find out about ten Russian social taboos. [more…]
Mastering the Formal Geometry Proof
Suppose you need to solve a crime mystery. You survey the crime scene, gather the facts, and write them down in your memo pad. To solve the crime, you take the known facts and, step by step, show who committed [more…]
Meeting the Most Often Used Suffixes
Some suffixes are used so frequently in the English language that you may not even think of them — much less recognize them — as suffixes. These include [more…]
Using Apostrophes to Show Possession
Apostrophes are those little curved marks you see hanging from certain letters. They look harmless enough, so why do even well educated people throw them where they don't belong and leave them out where [more…]
Sizing Up the Area of a Polygon
Not only can polygons be classified by the number of sides they have and by their angles, but they can also be grouped according to some of their qualities. Polygons can have three personality characteristics [more…]
Designing Experiments Using the Scientific Method
How do the scientists know what they know? When it comes to gathering information, scientists usually rely on the scientific method.
The scientific method [more…]
Forming a Thesis Statement
You've got a subject ("human-bear interactions") and a topic ("the relationship between Goldilocks and the three bears"). Now it's time to come up with a thesis statement — the point that you want to make [more…]
Ten Favorite Japanese Expressions
Life is full of ki-do-ai-raku (kee-doh-ah-ee-rah-koo; delight-anger-sorrow-fun), and some phrases slip out of our mouths repeatedly in response to different daily situations. Master these common Japanese [more…]
Going to Shabbat Dinner
The main meal of the week (and a festive one at that) in Jewish households in Israel and around the world is the Friday night dinner, Aruchat Shabbat (ah-roo- [more…]
Exploring the Different Types of Fiction
Fiction is a general term used to describe an imaginative work of prose, either a novel, short story, or novella. Recently, this definition has been modified to include both nonfiction works that contain [more…]
Determining How Your ASVAB Scores Affect Your Enlistment in Job-Training Programs
Each service branch has its own individual system of ASVAB scores. Recruiters and military job counselors use these scores, along with other factors such as job availability, security clearance eligibility [more…]
Robert's Rules: Using an Agenda to Produce Better Meetings
It's 7 p.m. on Tuesday night. You're attending the regular monthly meeting of your neighborhood association. Your president, Prissy Gardner (who was elected because nobody else wanted the job), is ready [more…]
Writing an Essay for a Study Abroad Program
If your university abroad requires you to write a personal essay or statement for your application (some don't!), doing so isn't as big a deal as those essays you wrote for admission to college — unless [more…]
Understanding Point of View in Literature
Literature provides a lens through which readers look at the world. Point of view is the way the author allows you to "see" and "hear" what's going on. Skillful authors can fix their readers' attention [more…]
Understanding the Treatment of Jews during World War II
As early as 1933, the Nazis had been sending people to concentration camps. Initially, these camps were located in Germany (like Dachau and Bergen-Belsen) and were used for [more…]
Tending to Word Roots
A root is the basic element of a word, and it is the foundation on which the meaning of a word is built. Many roots are real words in their own right: [more…]
Simple and Easy Geometry Tips and Tools
The first rule of life? Life (as well as geometry) can be difficult. But why make it more difficult than it has to be? Do you need help with geometry? Here are 11 tried-and-true tips to make your forays [more…]
Measuring and Making Angles
On a map, you trace your route and come to a fork in the road. Two diverging roads split from a common point and form an angle. The point at which the roads diverge is the [more…]
Counting on Numbers in American Sign Language
Did you know that counting in Sign can be done in 27 different ways? That's a pretty cool piece of trivia, but for this article, you just concentrate on two of those ways — using cardinal and ordinal numbers [more…]
Building a Bill in Congress
As soon as you start working with the United States Congress, you begin hearing about this bill or that bill. It's as if someone named Bill is everywhere in Washington. In the congressional context, a [more…]
