Monday 26 May 2008

EAS Past Paper 2006

Please can you go to this link and download the exam papers 1 and 2 from 2006.

http://www.cie.org.uk/qualifications/academic/uppersec/alevel/subject?assdef_id=778

Wednesday 21 May 2008

Linking Words for essays

Giving examples

For example
For instance
Namely

The most common way of giving examples is by using for example or for instance.
Namely refers to something by name.
"There are two problems: namely, the expense and the time."

Adding information

And
In addition
As well as
Also
Too
Furthermore
Moreover
Apart from
In addition to
Besides

Ideas are often linked by and. In a list, you put a comma between each item, but not before and.
"We discussed training, education and the budget."

Also is used to add an extra idea or emphasis. "We also spoke about marketing."
You can use also with not only to give emphasis.
"We are concerned not only by the costs, but also by the competition."
We don't usually start a sentence with also. If you want to start a sentence with a phrase that means also, you can use In addition, or In addition to this

As well as can be used at the beginning or the middle of a sentence.
"As well as the costs, we are concerned by the competition."
"We are interested in costs as well as the competition."

Too goes either at the end of the sentence, or after the subject and means as well.
"They were concerned too."
"I, too, was concerned."

Apart from and besides are often used to mean as well as, or in addition to.
"Apart from Rover, we are the largest sports car manufacturer."
"Besides Rover, we are the largest sports car manufacturer."

Moreover and furthermore add extra information to the point you are making.
"Marketing plans give us an idea of the potential market. Moreover, they tell us about the competition."

Summarising

In short
In brief
In summary
To summarise
In a nutshell
To conclude
In conclusion

We normally use these words at the beginning of the sentence to give a summary of what we have said or written.

Sequencing ideas

The former, … the latter
Firstly, secondly, finally
The first point is
Lastly
The following

The former and the latter are useful when you want to refer to one of two points."Marketing and finance are both covered in the course. The former is studied in the first term and the latter is studied in the final term."

Firstly, … secondly, … finally (or lastly) are useful ways to list ideas.
It's rare to use "fourthly", or "fifthly". Instead, try the first point, the second point, the third point and so on.

The following is a good way of starting a list.
"The following people have been chosen to go on the training course: N Peters, C Jones and A Owen."

Giving a reason

Due to / due to the fact that
Owing to / owing to the fact that
Because
Because of
Since
As

Due to and owing to must be followed by a noun.
"Due to the rise in oil prices, the inflation rate rose by 1.25%."
"Owing to the demand, we are unable to supply all items within 2 weeks."
If you want to follow these words with a clause (a subject, verb and object), you must follow the words with the fact that.
"Due to the fact that oil prices have risen, the inflation rate has gone up by 1%25."
"Owing to the fact that the workers have gone on strike, the company has been unable to fulfil all its orders."

Because / because of
Because of is followed by a noun.
"Because of bad weather, the football match was postponed."
Because can be used at the beginning or in the middle of a sentence. For example, "Because it was raining, the match was postponed."
"We believe in incentive schemes, because we want our employees to be more productive."

Since / as
Since
and as mean because.
"Since the company is expanding, we need to hire more staff."
"As the company is expanding, we need to hire more staff."

Giving a result

Therefore
So
Consequently
This means that
As a result

Therefore, so, consequently and as a result are all used in a similar way.
"The company are expanding. Therefore / So / Consequently / As a result, they are taking on extra staff."
So is more informal.

Contrasting ideas

But
However
Although / even though
Despite / despite the fact that
In spite of / in spite of the fact that
Nevertheless
Nonetheless
While
Whereas
Unlike
In theory… in practice…

But is more informal than however. It is not normally used at the beginning of a sentence.
"He works hard, but he doesn't earn much.""He works hard. However, he doesn't earn much."

Although, despite and in spite of introduce an idea of contrast. With these words, you must have two halves of a sentence.
"Although it was cold, she went out in shorts.""In spite of the cold, she went out in shorts."

Despite and in spite of are used in the same way as due to and owing to. They must be followed by a noun. If you want to follow them with a noun and a verb, you must use the fact that.
"Despite the fact that the company was doing badly, they took on extra employees."

Nevertheless and nonetheless mean in spite of that or anyway.
"The sea was cold, but he went swimming nevertheless." (In spite of the fact that it was cold.)
"The company is doing well. Nonetheless, they aren't going to expand this year."

While, whereas and unlike are used to show how two things are different from each other.
"While my sister has blue eyes, mine are brown."
"Taxes have gone up, whereas social security contributions have gone down."
"Unlike in the UK, the USA has cheap petrol."

In theory… in practice… show an unexpected result.
"In theory, teachers should prepare for lessons, but in practice, they often don't have enough time."

Tuesday 13 May 2008

Examiners reports for 8004 GP

If you go to www.cie.org.uk you can find some past papers to download, and examiners reports etc.




Wednesday 7 May 2008

Evidence Against Global Warming

Watch the web for climate change truths
Notable stories of recent months should have been the evidence pouring in from all sides to cast doubts on the idea that the world is inexorably heating up. The proponents of man-made global warming have become so rattled by how the forecasts of their computer models are being contradicted by the data that some are rushing to modify the thesis.
So a German study, published by Nature last week, claimed that, while the world is definitely warming, it may cool down until 2015 "while natural variations in climate cancel out the increases caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions".
A little vignette of the media's one-sided view was given by recent events on Snowdon, the highest mountain in southern Britain. Each year between 2003 and 2007, the retreat of its winter snow cover inspired reports citing this as evidence of global warming.
In 2004 scientists from the University of Bangor made headlines with the prediction that Snowdon might lose its snowcap altogether by 2020. In 2007 a Welsh MP, Lembit Opik, was saying "it is shocking to think that in just 14 years snow on this mountain could be nothing but a distant memory".
Last November, viewing photographs of a snowless Snowdon at an exhibition in Cardiff, the Welsh environment minister, Jane Davidson, said "we must act now to reduce the greenhouse gases that cause climate change".
Yet virtually no coverage has been given to the abnormally deep spring snow which prevented the completion of a new building on Snowdon's summit for more than a month, and nearly made it miss the deadline for £4.2 million of EU funding. (Brussels eventually extended the deadline to next autumn.)
Two weeks ago, as North America emerged from its coldest and snowiest winter for decades, the US National Climate Data Center, run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a statement that snow cover in January on the Eurasian land mass had been the most extensive ever recorded, and that in the US March had been only the 63rd warmest since records began in 1895.
While global warming enthusiasts might take cheer from the NOAA's claim that "average global land temperature" in March was "the warmest on record", this was in striking contrast to a graph published last week on the Climate Audit website by Steve McIntyre.
Tracking satellite data for the tropical troposphere, it showed March temperatures plunging to one of their lowest points in 30 years.
Mr McIntyre is the computer expert who exposed the infamous "hockey stick" graph - that icon of warmist orthodoxy which showed global temperatures soaring recently to their highest level for 1,000 years. He showed that the computer model that produced this graph had been so designed that it would have conjured even random numbers from a telephone directory into the shape of a hockey stick).
On April 24 the World Wildife Fund (WWF), another body keen to keep the warmist flag flying, published a study warning that Arctic sea ice was melting so fast that it may soon reach a "tipping point" where "irreversible change" takes place. This was based on last September's data, showing ice cover having shrunk over six months from 13 million square kilometres to just 3 million.
What the WWF omitted to mention was that by March the ice had recovered to 14 million sq km (see the website Cryosphere Today), and that ice-cover around the Bering Strait and Alaska that month was at its highest level ever recorded. (At the same time Antarctic sea ice-cover was also at its highest-ever level, 30 per cent above normal).
The most dramatic evidence, however, emerged last week with an announcement by Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory that an immense slow-cycling movement of water in the Pacific, known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), had unexpectedly shifted into its cool phase, something which only happens every 30 years or so, ultimately affecting climate all over the globe.
Discussion of this on the invaluable Watts Up With That website, run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts, shows how the alternations of the PDO between warm and cool coincided with each of the major temperature shifts of the 20th century - warming after 1905, cooling after 1946, warming again after 1977 - and how the new shift to a cool phase could have repercussions for decades to come.
It is notable that the German computer predictions published last week by Nature forecast a decade of cooling due to deep-ocean movements in the Atlantic, without taking account of how this may now be reinforced by a similar, even greater movement in the Pacific.
Mr Watts points out that the West coast of the USA might already be experiencing these effects in the recent freezing temperatures that have devastated orchards and vineyards in California, prompting an appeal for disaster relief for growers who fear they may have lost this year's crops.
Mr Watts's readers are amused by the explanation from one warmist apologist that "these natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming caused by human activities - or they can have the opposite effect of accentuating it".
It is striking, in view of the colossal implications of the current response to "the greatest challenge confronting mankind" - as our politicians love to call it - how this hugely important debate is almost entirely overlooked by the media, and is instead conducted largely on the internet, through expert websites such as those run by Mr McIntyre and Mr Watts.
On one hand our politicians are committing us to spending unimaginable sums on wind farms, emissions trading schemes, absurdly ambitious biofuel targets, and every kind of tax and regulation designed to reduce our "carbon footprint" - all based on blindly accepting the predictions of computer models that the planet is overheating due to our output of greenhouse gases.
On the other hand, a growing number of scientists are producing ever more evidence to show how those computer models are based on wholly inadequate data and assumptions - as is being confirmed by the behaviour of nature itself (not least the continuing non-arrival of sunspot cycle 24).
The fact is that what has been happening to the world's climate in recent years, since global temperatures ceased to rise after 1998, was not predicted by any of those officially-sponsored models. The discrepancy between their predictions and observable data becomes more glaring with every month that passes.
It won't do for believers in warmist orthodoxy to claim that, although temperatures may be falling, this is only because they are "masking an underlying warming trend that is still continuing" - nor to fob us off with assurances that the "German model shows that higher temperatures than 1998, the warmest year on record, are likely to return after 2015".
In view of what is now at stake, such quasi-religious incantations masquerading as science are something we can no longer afford. We should get back to proper science before it is too late.

Saturday 5 April 2008

George Smiley

Remember, I did this under the time limits that you might have in an exam, so there will be some gaps. It is by no means perfect. It's what you might be expected to come up with in about 45 minutes.

This text is in the genre of a spy novel. However it is not in the tradition of James Bond, as George Smiley is clearly not that kind of spy. The author John Le Carre clearly has a different kind of spy in mind. Le Carre’s purpose is as might be expected to entertain the audience, but not through acts of great courage and romantic conquest, but rather through his portrayal of a very ordinary man, who is suffering a very mundane problem suffered by mere mortals, an unfaithful wife. The tone of the text is one of dullness, monotony, ordinariness. Smiley is painted as very much an outsider in society.
The first paragraph sets the scene with the establishment of hatred that he feels for his wife, although he could not realistically sustain this as he still feels trapped by the love he has for her.
The next paragraph sets the rather dull tone with a build-up of vocabulary, “fog, heavier, closeness, bare, sparse, cautious…” all of this serving to create an atmosphere of oppression. The sentences are rather short and to the point. The mention of the fashionable King’s Road serves to establish the alienation of Smiley from this world. He is too ordinary, too mundane. The cul-de-sac emphasizes the fact that he feels trapped in a dead-end of his own. The oxymoronic “shrieking, silent…” reflects the anguish he feels. Lady Macbeth is perhaps reflective of the role his wife has played, in betrayal and manipulation of him.
The shutters of the next paragraph further emphasise the way he has been shut out of mainstream world, but they are not closed, highlighting the rather free-spirited nature of his wife. She is presented as a sophisticated rather sociable person who likes the finer things in life, contrasting with the dull monotony of Smiley’s world. It seems their relationship had been one of dependence on his part, and tolerance on hers, as long as she could have her adventures. She has clearly tormented him with her succession of affairs, and he is painted as a rather pathetic figure who would always accept her back, she would try for a while, learn German, so he could read to her, but in the end it would not last.
“As he watched…” is first of all reflective of his profession, he is after all a spy. It also emphasizes his alienation from the world of his wife. He still feels great resentment at what she put him through. The notes in the mirror . show what feelings he still has for her, how he has tortured himself in a masochistic way with his attachment to her, and that he has even kept all her letters to him in a “collection”.
It is quite sad when he is looking through the windows and it takes him some time to realize that she has another man in with her in the bedroom. He still is fooling himself until the moment when he sees someone else close the curtains. His obsession is still with security of the house, perhaps reflecting his own insecurity. There is a certain irony here in the situation in that the security is acting against him.
The last paragraph establishes the shame and self-disgust he feels. He has been fooled but it is his own fault. He is truly an outsider now, betrayed once again, by the woman he idealises. The words “anguish…blindly” clearly show this. He imagines what kinds of man might be in there with her, and his hatred is quite clear, all the types of men he might despise.
In summary Smiley is seen as a sad, alienated figure, who is deluding himself about his wife. In his work he is a senior spy, but the irony is that he is in thrall of his wife and under her control.

Wednesday 16 January 2008

A Useful Link for GP Essay Writing

http://www.moe.gov.sg/edsoftware/ir/files/gp-essay-helper/index.html

New GP Topic Blocks 3 and 4. Abortion

Here is a summary of the arguments on each side of the abortion debate. In the USA the two sides are generally called "Pro-choice" who are for abortions and "Pro-life" who are against. The debate has often been quite heated and has on occasions led to violence, with some abortion clinics being targeted with bombs by extreme members of the Pro-life side.


What the Pro Choice (for abortion) side believe:


· The fetus is not a human, just a mass of tissue
· Abortion is safer than childbirth.
· Abortion is Safe
· Every child should be a wanted child.
· The number of abortions is relatively small.
· Nobody has the right to impose their morals on me.
· A woman should be able to control her own body.
· Abortion must be kept legal, especially for all the rape and incest pregnancies.
· If abortion is outlawed women will be forced to go to back-alley abortion clinics.
· Aborting unwanted children reduces the number of abused children.
· We need to remember that we are overpopulating the planet
·



What the Pro-Life (against abortion) side believe:

Pro-life people are diverse in economic status, race, religion, and education. Yet, they are unified by the concept that all humans, especially the innocent unborn, have an inherent right to life.
· I believe that the unborn child is human.
· I believe life begins at conception.
· I believe that abortion is not safe.
· I believe that abortion is a war on the unborn.
· I believe that the Roe v. Wade decision, legalizing abortion on demand in America, was one of the most important and devastating Supreme Court decisions.
· I believe that a constitutional amendment should be passed that gives equal protection to all living humans, including the unborn.
· I believe that the violence inside and outside abortion clinics is morally wrong.
· I believe that rape and incest are horrible crimes and should be punished, but I don't believe that a child conceived from either should be killed.
· I do not believe that the government should fund abortions.
· I do not believe that the government should fund Planned Parenthood - the largest national supplier of abortions.
· Being a religious person, I believe that the Bible backs up my views on abortion.



Have a look at these links
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/ethics/abortion/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion
www.abortionfacts.com/

Saturday 12 January 2008

GP Topic - Drug Abuse. Block 3 and 4

here's a couple of links that you might find useful for the research into the topic. This will help with the essay.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/conditions/mental_health/drugs_use.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/surgery/drink_drugs/

AK