What question would I ask myself in this sentence to find the complete subject?: Next week, Mr. Mackey will give our class an exam over grammar...

There are two methods to identifying the subject of a sentence is. One is in finding the subject first and the other involves finding the verb first. So, there are two questions that can be asked. They are as follows:

1. What word is the sentence telling something about? 
2. Who or what is doing the action in this sentence? (Ask who or what + the verb)

• Finding the subject first

--Find the subject by asking What word is the sentence telling something about? 
The answer will provide the subject. In the sentence provided, Mr. Mackey is the person that the sentence is telling something about. Therefore, Mr. Mackey is the subject of the sentence.

• Finding the verb first

--Find the verb and any of its auxiliaries by looking for an action word. In other words, ask "What is going on?" The answer is the act of giving in the future: "will give" (This verb phrase is the verb give and its auxiliary will). Then, to find the subject ask the question Who or what? before the verb(s). i.e. Who or what will give? Answer: Mr. Mackey=the subject

In summary, identify the subject by asking (1) who/what the sentence is about, or (2) identify the subject by first finding the verbs of action or existence; then ask who/what +the verb(s). 

Another method is to find out first what actions are going on; that is, identify the predicate of the sentence/the verb(s), and then ask who the doer of the action(s) is/are. In the above-mentioned sentence--

Next week, Mr. Mackey will give our class an exam over grammar and writing.--

The action is that of giving ("will give"), so, then, the question can be Who will give the class an exam? Answer: Mr. Mackey=the subject of the sentence.

Who actually invented the assembly line? Gustavus Swift or Gerald Ford?

Of the two choices, none of those people invented the assembly line. I believe you are thinking of Henry Ford who was the first to start using a moving assembly line. The concept of an assembly was to speed production and to divide labor. A worker on the assembly line does one specific job in the manufacturing process, over and over each day. By doing only one part of the job and having others do another part of the job, manufacturing can be done faster.

It should be noted that Henry Ford was the first to use the moving assembly line. Ransom Olds invented the first assembly line. He used the assembly to manufacture cars. His assembly line also increased the rate of production of automobiles.

Thus, in your question, I believe you are referring to Henry Ford. It should be noted that Henry Ford invented the first moving assembly line while Ransom Olds invented the first assembly line.

Since World War II, the US has become the world’s A. “policeman” B. “peace-keeper” C. “war-monger” D. “democratic example”...

The answer to this question is really a matter of opinion.  There is no way that we can objectively say whether it is more appropriate to call the US the world’s “democratic example,” or the world’s “policeman.”  As the article in the link below shows, people typically say that, since WWII, the US has been and continues to be the world’s policeman.

Most people say that the US has been the world’s policeman because the US tends to take it upon itself to right perceived wrongs.  The US has done things like trying to end the fighting in the former Yugoslav republics. It has led a coalition to push Iraq out of Kuwait.  Because the US has been the world’s major free superpower (during the Cold War) and the world’s only superpower (after), it has often been put in the position where it is expected to try to fix the world’s problems.  Therefore, I would tend to say that Option A is the correct answer.  However, I strongly suggest that you check your class materials to see what answer your instructor expects to see because this question is a matter of opinion.

In "The Sign of the Beaver," what did Attean say that touched Matt?

Attean says that Matt moves quickly, like an Indian, to save them when they are confronted with a mother bear and her cub. This is very meaningful to Matt.

Throughout approximately the first half of the book, Matt struggles to gain Attean’s respect. Though Matt teaches Attean to read English, he knows that Attean does not value this skill as much as the Native American survival and hunting skills he shows Matt as they hunt and walk through the woods. Matt focuses on learning some of these skills from Attean.

Attean teaches Matt to use a bow and arrow. The first time Matt kills a rabbit with it, Attean is there. This makes Matt proud, but right away, another event occurs that is more meaningful. As they move through the woods with the rabbit, they encounter a mother bear and her cub. When the mother bear appears ready to charge them, Matt instinctively throws the rabbit at the bear to distract her. At that time Attean charges the bear and kills her. Even though Attean kills the bear, he insists that Matt saved them when he initially threw the rabbit to distract the bear. Attean says that Matt acted quickly, "like an Indian." Matt is touched. He knows he has earned Attean’s respect.

Why does Nick Carraway visit Gatsby at the beginning of Chapter 7?

Chapter 7 opens up with Nick realizing that on one particular Saturday night the lights at Gatsby's mansion were not on. This was very odd, because normally the mansion would play host to magnificent parties on the weekend. Nick observed that a number of cars would pull up to Gatsby's expecting a party, only to see the lights turned off, where they then "turned expectantly into his drive stayed for just a minute and then drove sulkily away." (Fitzgerald 113) Because it was unlike Gatsby to behave in this manor, Nick decided he would go over to Gatsby's house to see if he was sick. Upon walking over, Nick knocks on the door and discovers an "unfamiliar" butler has answered. Nick then asks "is Mr. Gatsby sick?" (Fitzgerald 113), to which the butler replies with a "Nope". Nick then states how he has not seen Gatsby around and was worried about him. He asks the butler to tell Gatsby "Mr. Carraway came over" (Fitzgerald 113) prompting a call to Nick from Gatsby the next day. Hope this helps!

What is the relationship between form and content in Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for Death--"?

Emily Dickinson used a traditional ballad rhythm and meter that supports the content of the poem in "Because I could not stop for Death--," but she modified it with enjambment and caesura to add nuances of meaning.

Traditionally, ballads use iambic rhythm, meaning a pattern of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables. The length of lines in traditional ballads can vary from poem to poem, but two typical lengths are trimeter (six syllables) and tetrameter (eight syllables). Dickinson uses alternating tetrameter and trimeter, a form called a "fourteener" because there are fourteen feet (twenty-eight syllables) in each stanza. 

The combination of iambic rhythm and short lines is perfect for ballads. Ballads tell a story, and this consistent, jaunty rhythm tends to move a story onward easily. It gives a feeling of walking briskly, or in this case, movement of the carriage with the wheels going around and around repetitively. This poem is a narrative--it tells a linear story about the person in the poem being picked up in a carriage by Death and Immortality, who then drive her to the graveyard. The ballad form supports the developing action of the story, and because many story poems have been written in this form, the reader can easily pick up on the feeling of a tale being told.

Dickinson was innovative in her use of enjambment and caesura to lend variety to the rhythm of her poetry. Enjambment refers to lines of poetry that do not have a hard stop at the end; caesura refers to hard stops in the middle of a line of poetry. Using enjambment creates a free flow of the language, while caesura creates a jerkiness. Both of these qualities--free movement and jerking--are typical of carriage rides and reinforce the content of the poem. 

At the beginning, in stanza one, every line has a hard stop, indicated by a dash. There is no enjambment. This would be consistent with the carriage being at a stop and the jerky movements of being loaded into the carriage. The second stanza uses enjambment to show that the carriage is beginning to roll away. That smooth ride continues into the first line of the third stanza, but then it becomes jerky with hard stops at the end of every line and some caesura within lines. This may indicate that the ride is becoming less pleasant, which is matched by the air growing "quivering and chill." The final stanza returns to enjambment, consistent with the ongoing state of eternity spoken of in that stanza.

Dickinson was masterful in her use of the rhythm and meter of the traditional ballad to support the meaning of her poem and the addition of enjambment and caesura to suggest a more nuanced understanding of the progression of the story. 

Were Jem's actions justified in Chapter 11 of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird?

One could argue that Jem's actions were justified following Mrs. Dubose's derogatory comments about his father. At first, when Mrs. Dubose begins to insult the children, Jem does the right thing and tells Scout to ignore her. Mrs. Dubose then says, "Not only a Finch waiting on tables but one in the courthouse lawing for niggers!" (Lee 135) Jem could handle personal attacks on his character, but when Mrs. Dubose mentions his father, he becomes infuriated. She follows up with an additional comment, "Your father's no better than the niggers and trash he works for!" (Lee 135) Jem is a polite, respectful young man who holds his father in high esteem. He is usually calm and able to handle criticism, but Mrs. Dubose's comments crossed the line. Jem felt that he had a good reason to destroy her camellia bush because her comments were aimed at the person he adored the most in life. One could argue that he was simply defending his father's reputation. The fact that an elderly woman would say such a disgusting comment to children about their father makes one consider Jem's actions justifiable. Such a rude, racist comment deserves a response similar to Jem's.

In Lyddie, what dreadful news does Lyddie receive in chapter 20?

Lyddie gets a letter telling her that her mother died.

Since she was a little girl, Lyddie wanted nothing more than to get her family back together.  Her father left when her youngest sister Agnes was born, and her mother was never the same after that.  She slumped deeper into depression until she left the farm to go to Lyddie’s uncle’s house, taking Lyddie’s two little sisters with her and leaving Lyddie alone with her brother.

After taking the job at the factory, life was full of loss for Lyddie.  First she learned that her youngest sister Agnes died.  Then her uncle came to tell her that her mother was being sent to an insane asylum.  That left Rachel, who stayed with Lyddie until her brother Charlie came to take her home to his new family.

After Rachel left, Lyddie began to realize that she had to let go of the dream of getting her entire family back together again.  Agnes was dead.  Charlie and Rachel were adopted, her mother was institutionalized, and no one had heard from her father for years.

Then Lyddie got a letter saying that her mother had died.

A letter arrived in September, on thick, expensive paper, the addressdecked out in curlicues. "We regret to inform you of the death of Maggie M. Worthen ..." They hadn't even got her name right. Poor Mama. Nothing ever right for her in life or death. (Ch. 20)

Lyddie’s mother’s name is Mattie, not Maggie.  Lyddie thinks to herself that her mother has been gone from them for years.  This is just the final loss.

The only family Lyddie really has left is Brigid.  Although they are not related, they are close.  Diana is gone, and Lyddie enjoys teaching Brigid how to read.  One day she goes to find her friend and sees Mr. Marsden, the overseer, trying to assult her.  Lyddie beans him with a bucket and rescues Brigid.  Unfortunately, he trumps up charges against her and gets her fired.

What are the 4 types of consumers?

The four types of consumers in ecology are herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, and decomposers. Herbivores are consumers who only eat vegetables, plants, grass, or some type of vegetation. An example of an herbivore would be a horse or a cow. A carnivore is a consumer who eats meat, or something that consumes other consumers.  An example here would be a lion or a tiger. Omnivores are animals who are a combination of the first two, in that they consume a mixed diet of vegetation and meat. Examples of omnivores would be bears, humans, and birds. The last group, decomposers, consume the remains of dead plants or animals. Examples of this would be fungi or bacteria. Each one of these consumers occupies its own unique niche in the grand circle life.

What is Calpurnia's dream?

Prior to his departure for the Senate on the fateful day of his death, Calpurnia, Caesar's wife, asks Caesar to stay home.  Along with recounting strange events taking place in the streets of Rome, Calpurnia tells Caesar of a dream she had, which he later recounts to Decius:

She dreamt tonight she saw my statue,                                         Which, like a fountain with an hundred spouts,                               Did run pure blood (Act 2, Scene 2, lines 76-78).

The dream shows further instances of foreshadowing, as Caesar next describes how the Roman people, rather than acting repulsed by the site of the bloody statue, actually smile and bathe in the blood.  Calpurnia feels this to be a bad omen, foreshadowing the events to come.

Decius manages to turn this around.  He tells Caesar that both he and Calpurnia have misinterpreted the dream, and that the blood spouting forth from the statue is the sustaining or life-giving blood that Caesar has given (through his actions) to all the Roman people.  Caesar is ultimately convinced to disregard the dream and to move forward with his original plans.

What are the reasons why I should read The Great Gatsby?

Your reasons for doing things are personal. The only person who can know your reasons is you. While an educator can suggest possible ways in which students might benefit from reading a book, those are not necessarily your reasons. A few possibilities are:

1. 
   The Great Gatsby is required reading for one of your classes. Although you can try to save time be reading summaries instead, by doing so you will miss important details, causing you to get lower grades on papers and tests. 


2. By reading extended (several hundred page) works written for adults, you develop high-order reading skills. Although your future employers won't quiz you on the contents of Fitzgerald's novel, in most professional jobs you will be required to read and understand long, complex documents. Thus the reading skills you develop by doing the full reading are transferable to both other classes and the work environment. The more you read, the faster your reading speed and the greater your reading comprehension.


3. The more you read, the better you write. Many studies on student writing skills show that high quantities of reading are strongly correlated with writing skill.


4. To understand the present involves knowing how things arrived at their present state. The Great Gatsby is a story with many details about life in the Jazz Age before the Great Depression and can help you understand the evolution of American society.


5. 
   The Great Gatsby is part of the American literary canon. This means that most well-educated Americans have read it, and not knowing it may, in certain social circles, make you appear ignorant and uneducated.


6. You might enjoy it.

Give a reason why scientists prefer the metric to the "US" system of measurement

Personally, I prefer the metric system because it is based on multiples of ten. This make mental math much simpler when using the metric system rather than the US system. Scientists sometimes have to make calculations on the fly, or many calculations in a row. If these calculations can be done accurately with mental math, you can save time. 

For example, it is much easier to convert grams to kilograms using mental math, since one gram is one thousandth of a kilogram. It is much more difficult to convert ounces to pounds, since one pound is one sixteenth of a pound. I would need a calculator if I were converting between pounds and ounces frequently.

Another reason I prefer the metric system is because familiarity with the metric system allows me to read and understand scientific results produced overseas. Can you imagine how complicated it would become if every country had its own unit of mass? Standardization makes international collaboration much easier.

How does the Constitution establish justice?

One of the goals of the Constitution was to establish justice. There are some ways the Constitution allows for this to happen.

The writers of the Constitution created the judicial branch. This responsibility of this branch of government is to determine what the laws made the legislative branch mean. The judicial branch was aided by the creation of a court system when the Federal Judiciary Act was passed in 1789. The Federal Judiciary Act created three levels of federal courts. These courts allow for a place where a state may take its case if it believes another state has done something wrong that harms that state. Before the Constitution was written, there was no place for a state to resolve disputes with another state. The federal courts also hear cases involving individuals that have been accused of violating federal laws. Therefore, through court proceedings, these people have the opportunity to defend themselves against charges made against them. Justice is established by the decisions made by the courts.

Justice was also established in other ways. Some of these were subtle while other ways weren’t so subtle. The Constitution allows for the removal of the President, Vice President, or judges if they have broken laws. In this way, the message is clear that nobody is above the law.

The creation of a bicameral legislature was another example of justice. Allowing states with more people to have more representatives in the House of Representatives gave large states power that was proportionate to their population. The Senate has equal representation, two senators per state, that allowed smaller states to feel their voices would be heard instead of being silenced by the large states that had more representatives. This was a subtle way of establishing justice.

The goal of establishing justice was important when writing the Constitution. Through various methods, the Constitution created a plan of government that established justice.

What might a utilitarian say to try to justify the Omelas system?

A utilitarian would point to how much happiness the citizens of Omelas experience in order to justify its system of governance.

In assessing an action's value, the utilitarian uses the justification of how much good is expanded to as many people as possible. When philosopher Jeremy Bentham explains the concept of "utility," it is rooted the expansion of "happiness:"

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure... By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever according to the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words to promote or to oppose that happiness.

Bentham suggests that the "measure of government" is to "promote the happiness of society."

This happiness principle can be used to justify the structure of Omelas.  The system of Omelas is one whereby all "happiness" is dependent on the child's "abominable misery."  The suffering experienced is far less than the happiness that is gained from it.  Society is able to experience pleasures such as knowledge, beauty, harvest, and skills because of the child's predicament. The result is that more people prosper and experience happiness in Omelas. This utilitarian would use this metric to justify the Omelas system.

An elevator weighing 3830 N is pulled upward by a cable with an accleration of 2.22 m s^-2. What is the tension in the cable?

When accelerating upwards, the cables must support the weight of elevator and also compensate for the acceleration. Hence the tension in the wire support is given as:

F = ma + mg

where, mg is the weight of the elevator, m is elevator mass and a is elevator acceleration. 

Mass of elevator = weight/g = 3830/9.81 = 390.42 kg

Hence, F = (390.42 x 2.22) + 3830 = 4696.73 N

Thus, the tension in the elevator cable (when accelerating upwards) is 4696.73 N. This is the reason, we feel that our weight is greater, when elevator goes up. The elevator has to compensate for our weight (and its own weight) and provide acceleration, on top of the weight. In comparison, when going down, we feel our weight is less, since the cable support have lower tension (F= mg-ma).

Hope this helps.

How does Shakespeare use Banquo's ghost to present Macbeth in Act 3, Scene 4?

In Act 3, Scene 4, Macbeth's response to seeing Banquo's ghost gives the audience a good picture of his mental state at this point in the play.  When he first sees the ghost, he says to his guests, "Which of you have done this?" (3.4.59).  He is immediately suspicious of those men to whom he should feel closest: they are his lords, his advisers, those closest to his crown.  However, this -- his first response -- indicates that he is guarded even against them.  His suspicious nature is confirmed later in the scene when he tells his wife that "There's not a one of them but in his house / I keep a servant fee'd" (3.4.163-164).  In other words, he has a spy in each of his closest advisers' homes!  This also helps to convey his growing paranoia: his conscience is so guilty at this point that he feels himself to be suspected by everyone around him.

We also get to see how badly Macbeth wants to keep up appearances.  He tries to seem confident and controlled and powerful to all, and so he lies, saying, "I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing / To those that know me" (3.4.104-105).  In other words, he throws responsibility on the lords, insisting that he only has a minor, though odd, health concern, and they should consider it nothing if they want to remain close to him.

Further, his inability to control his immediate response to seeing the ghost also shows that he is not really as brave as he'd like to think.  This fact is conveyed to readers in other ways as well: it doesn't take a big man to order the killings of Banquo and his young son, and, later, Lady Macduff and her children.  He has to have others do his dirty work because he was too shaken by his one experience with murder to repeat it.  Lady Macbeth points out his cowardice in this scene as well: she asks him, "What, quite unmanned in folly?" (3.4.88), and says that Macbeth is "Shame itself!" (3.4.79).  Even when Macbeth tries to confront the ghost, he does so quite emotionally and fearfully, and it is only when the ghost exits that he says, "Why so, being gone, / I am a man again" (3.4.130-131).  The ghost "unmans" him, and this feels pretty shameful to both his wife and himself.

The appearance of Banquo's ghost shows us Macbeth's guilty conscience, his lack of courage, his desire to maintain appearances, and his growing suspicion and paranoia.  He is beginning to come unhinged.

What are some quotes that show King Claudius's dominance over Queen Gertrude?

The two women in Shakespeare's Hamlet are both dominated by the men in their lives.  Gertrude is subservient to both her new husband Claudius and to her son Hamlet, and at times, even Claudius's advisor Polonius seems to lord power over her.  Gertrude, even more so than Claudius, is the rightful ruler of Denmark; yet she is rarely given the respect due to this position.  Granted, one of our impressions of her is that she doesn't have much of her own to say; when Claudius gives instructions to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, she merely parrots his words after him.  Claudius and Polonius seem to be the true rulers of the country; they often plot and scheme without Gertrude's awareness:

Claudius:  Sweet Gertrude, leave us too,
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither...

She is not included in their plans and is expected to passively agree--and she does, rather pathetically:

Gertrude:  I shall obey you.

Later in Act 4, Laertes comes back from France determined to seek revenge for his father's death.  When he attempts to attack Claudius, Gertrude moves to stop him.  Claudius, ever confident of his position, demands that she not restrain Laertes:

Claudius:  Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person. There’s such divinity doth hedge a king

That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will.—Tell me, Laertes, Why thou art thus incensed.
Let him go, Gertrude.—

Twice he makes demands of the woman Claudius knows is the rightful queen of Denmark, the woman without whom he would have no claim at all.  As Laertes begins to speak, Gertrude tries once to defend her husband and again is told to leave Laertes alone--to defer to a lesser man.  She is not heard from again in the scene.  She is completely submissive to her second husband, the very man who killed her first.

In The Giver, what does "sixes" mean?

The sixes are children about six years old.

In Jonas’s community, all children born in a year are considered the same age.  There are only fifty children born each year, and they are assigned to parents when they turn One regardless of what month they were born in.  The Ceremony of One occurs in December, where the children get their names and families.

The Ceremony for the Ones was always noisy and fun. Each December, all the newchildren born in the previous year turned One. One at a time--there were always fifty in each year's group, if none had been released --they had been brought to the stage by the Nurturers who had cared for them since birth. (Ch. 2)

There is a ceremony for each age group up to twelve.  At the Ceremony of Twelve the children get their job assignments for life, and are no longer considered children so they no longer have an age number. 

There is really nothing special about the age of six.  The children are still young.

Fours, Fives, and Sixes all wore jackets that fastened down the back so that they would have to help each other dress and would learn interdependence. (Ch. 6)

Each ceremony includes a milestone and a gift, usually clothes like the Sixes' jackets.  At Seven, children get special jackets that button in the front, but up until then their jackets button in the back, which promotes interdependence because they need to help each other put them on.

The fact that the children of an age group are all assigned a number which designates birth order, but otherwise they are all considered the same age regardless of when they were born, contributes to the conformity and control that dominate the community.  They call it Sameness, which basically means that everything they do and every move they make is orchestrated by the community.

What is normal profit?

To understand what normal profit is, we have to understand the concepts of accounting and economic profit.  Accounting profit is what people generally think of when they think of profit.  This is the difference between what a company takes in in revenue and what it spends in costs.  If I own a small company and we take in $100,000 in revenue in a year and have $50,000 in costs, our accounting profit is $50,000.

However, this does not mean we have made economic profit.  Economic profit takes into account our opportunity costs.  In our example, let us say that I quite a job making $50,000 per year to start my company.  To determine economic profit, we have to include that $50,000 in our costs as something called “implicit costs.”  Now, my costs are equal to my revenues and I have made no economic profit.

When you make no economic profit, it is called “normal profit.” When you make a normal profit, you get enough revenue to cover all your explicit costs (the money you pay out to be able to make your product), but you also get enough revenue to cover the opportunity costs of the options you gave up in order to engage in the business you are in.

What is the weather like in Chapter 23 of Tuck Everlasting? What happened in the chapter?

When chapter 23 begins, the reader is told that the weather is hot.  Really hot.  

It was the longest day: mindlessly hot, unspeakably hot, too hot to move or even think.

In addition to being hot, I think the humidity must be really high.  The text doesn't explicitly say so, but there are some hints.  The reader is told that the air feels heavy with little to no breeze.  I've lived in Florida for a little bit of my life, and that state has some ridiculous heat and humidity.  When Babbit describes the weather as oppressively hot and heavy, I'm reminded of my time in Florida.  

By the time the chapter ends though, the weather has turned.  When Winnie wakes up moments before midnight, the reader is told that a thunderstorm is moments away from beginning.  

As for what actions happened in Chapter 23, there isn't much to write about.  Winnie has been confined to the house and the yard, which is fine because it's too hot to do anything else.  The rest of the family tries not to move around too much.  Everybody goes to bed early, which suits Winnie just fine, because she is waiting until midnight in order to sneak out and help rescue Mae. 

Did Nathaniel Hawthorne mean for The Scarlet Letter to be a feminist novel?

Arguably, the answer is yes. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that this was done purposely, and there is also supporting history showing that Hawthorne was, in fact, a huge supporter of specific women in history, Anne Hutchinson (whom he mentions in the novel), being definitely one of them. 

While the novel can be considered "proto" feminist (published before the actual feminist movement of the late 1960s itself), it definitely has more than enough ways to show Hester as a progressive and independent woman of her time. 

First, Hester can exist as a character of her own. If she were not a character, she would be a completely independent and self-sufficient woman; this is something that was simply not seen in the 17th century, when the novel is set. 

Second, Hester defies the system and strongly defends her pregnancy, her right to keep the name of the out-of-wedlock father secret, and her right to keep her daughter, even in front of the magistrate. She stands up for herself in the face of the Reverend Mr. Wilson, Chillingworth, Dimmesdale, the villagers, and (sometimes) even Pearl. She makes dealings with sailors, tends the deathbed of Governor Winthrop, and goes in and out of her dwelling as she sees fit. She is the master of her days and nights. That is much more than any woman of her time would have done for herself. 

Hester carries out the punishment of the scarlet letter, and gets out of prison to live life as a single mother, and as a pariah of the village. This, she does shamelessly and in complete awareness of what is coming her way. Still, rather than engaging in the futility of expecting Dimmesdale to acknowledge her, or Pearl, she moves on with her life the best way that she knows how. 

Hester also changes, as a person and as a woman. Her scarlet letter had left her "able", and turned her into a heroine of the people. She is also stronger, less passionate, more immersed into thought; she is a full person whose punishing, scarlet letter

....was the symbol of her calling.

Therefore, Hawthorne gifts the reader with a female main character who is, in laymen terms, "no-nonsense". Rather than presenting an ornamental female playing the role of damsel in distress, he gives us someone comparable to "the sainted Anne Hutchinson", who also removes herself from mainstream society to fulfill what she believed was her mission in life. 

In Ancient Greece, why would people visit the Oracle at Delphi?

For centuries, Greeks flocked to the Oracle at Delphi to have an understanding of what the future held for them.  Today people study tarot cards or have their palm read, in Greece, it was the oracle.  The Greeks believed that Pythia, the daughter of Apollo, could predict your future.  The oracles would answer the questions on the seventh day of the month and citizens would wait in a long line.  Those at the end of the line may not even be seen.  The oracle was attended by members of all social classes, from the typical farmer to the merchants and even kings.  The city-state of Delphi prospered greatly because of the oracles and profited in many ways.  It would become a meeting place for scholars to debate and engage in intellectual inquiry.  Occasionally, rivals would meet at Delphi to negotiate and solve their differences.  

Describe Tom Buchanan in chapter 3 of The Great Gatsby and the event that took place concerning him.

In chapter 3, Nick Carraway runs into Tom Buchanan in New York City. Nick has come to have lunch with Gatsby at a Forty-second Street cellar when he spots Tom in the distance. Tom speaks aggressively as he comes towards Nick. Nick hears his questions as demands, saying twice that Tom "demanded" rather than "asked" a question. Tom asks (or demands of) Nick why he hasn't been around to visit, saying Daisy has been furious, and then he asks Nick how he's been.  

In the midst of all this, Nick introduces Gatsby to Tom. Tom is too preoccupied to notice, completely blind to the idea he might have a rival for Daisy. In contrast, Gatsby looks embarrassed, and when Nick turns around as Tom is demanding to know why Nick has come so far to have lunch, Gatsby has disappeared.

It's significant in this scene that the overbearing Tom is completely oblivious to the man who is a rival for his wife. 

'Certainty they beat me'-who is beaten by whom?

This utterance, like many others in this intriguing play, is a reference to the seemingly random acts of pain, violence, and injustice that Life brings to all of us, part of Beckett’s claim that Life, far from being a pleasant state, is a sort of curse, because we must all “crawl through the mud” of physical existence. In the play the line is a response by Gogo to Didi’s question about how he spent the night in a ditch. The pronoun “They” is intentionally without antecedent, as a way of expressing the nonhuman and therefore unattributable and unretaliated nature of all our “beatings," a part of our very existence. Often in our own lives we will experience an injustice or a physical condition bringing pain, and we vaguely ask “Why me?” and “I don’t deserve this.” These are the moments Beckett is referring when Gogo says “Certainly they beat me.”

What does Emerson suggest regarding nonconformity? How does this view conflict with Romans 12:2?

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a transcendentalist meaning that he believed humans were inherently good, and that society and its institutions corrupted this purity. By nonconformity, Emerson meant to encourage others to rely only on themselves and to trust their instincts and embrace their own ideas. Romans 12:2 reads: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Before looking directly at this Bible verse, it is helpful to consider the underlying tenets of Christianity.  Ultimately, the Bible states that man is not perfect and every person is born in sin. Conversely, the underlying tenet of transcendentalism states that every person is born pure and good, only being corrupted by society, and not corrupted by the sins of the world as it exists.

Now, to directly address how Emerson’s ideas of nonconformity conflict with Romans 12:2. Besides what I have already mentioned, this Bible verse is essentially calling humans to God to be transformed by His ways, not the world’s way, and not your own. Emerson believed that he could only rely on himself when God, as evidenced by this passage, calls people to rely on Him. Technically, transcendentalism was a philosophy born of this world, established by man, and exerted by such people as Emerson. By upholding this philosophy, Emerson is in direct conflict with the Bible verse which states to “not conform to the pattern of this world.”

Fremont City Council Considers an Environmental Cost Tax (see article attached as image). 1. Support Mrs. Lanza’s contention that continued...

A number of human activities are degrading our natural capital. Deforestation for timber is one such activity and is a potential cause of soil erosion, apart from loss of habitat for various species. Over-exploitation of our water resources is resulting in drought conditions in several regions of California. Increasing consumption of fossil fuels for our energy demands is causing global warming through release of greenhouse gases. This is apart from the loss of our fossil fuel reserve, which takes millions of years to form, thus resulting in loss of natural capital. 

Environment cost tax levied upon all items and services may not be the right solution, as the businesses are likely to pass it to the consumers and this may result in decreased consumption and possible unemployment. This may save some of our natural resources, but at a social and economic cost. But, we must debate among ourselves about the acceptable social and economic costs to save the natural resources, so that our future generations are left with some of these resources. Saving the environment, even at some cost and losses, has to be our priority. 

Population increase, technological advances and greed are some of the reasons pushing the exploitation of our resources. Increasing population means more demand, technological advances have eased the exploitation process and the greed of human beings is pushing us further and resulting in environmental damage. One potential and sustainable solution is awareness of masses towards environment is needed. This can be started at school level, teaching our kids on the importance of environment and how sustainable resource consumption can be beneficial to all of us. Similar programs geared towards other segments of our population, possibly through local libraries, etc. can be helpful.

Hope this helps. 

What is the double meaning of the word "game" in "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell?

In Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game" two hunters accidentally meet when Mr. Rainsford falls off a boat and ends up on an island where a man named General Zaroff lives. Rainsford is an avid hunter always looking for the next best kill. General Zaroff is also an avid hunter, but he has become bored with hunting the usual kind of animal and has set his sight on what he considers the most dangerous of all animals--man.

The word "game" in the title of the story has a double meaning. First of all, game is what a hunted animal is called, and secondly game is an activity people play. Zaroff hunts for his game, but at the same time, he is playing a game much like "Cat and Mouse" with his subjects. Rainsford is forced to be both a player in the game, and if he is killed, he will become the game (the dead animal) itself. 

With a 0.5 M solution: How many moles of NaCl would there be in 1,000 ml?

I believe your question is meant to ask how many grams of NaCl would be needed to make a 0.5 M solution in 1,000 ml; if not, please message me.

By definition, you already know how many moles, because it is part of your question-- 0.5, or 1/2 mole. A 1 molar solution of a substance means one molecular weight of molecules in 1 liter, usually of water. One liter is equal to 1,000 milliliters, so we also have your final volume. A mole of a compound such as NaCl (salt) is defined as the sum of the molecular weights of each component (in grams) as we find on the Periodic Table. The molecular weight of NaCl is 58.44 grams. If we added that amount, it would be a one molar solution, but we want 1/2 molar. One half of 58.44g is 29.22 g. This is the amount of NaCl needed to make a 0.5 M solution. 

As a side note, when you make such a solution in labs, you would dissolve your salt in a bit less than 1,000 ml to start with. After the salt dissolves, you would bring the amount up to exactly 1,000 ml.

In "Salvation" by Langston Hughes, why does Hughes not tell the story in present tense, and how would doing so change the story?

In “Salvation”, Langston Hughes is looking back to a defining moment in his life when he is confronted by his own beliefs and faith in religion.  He writes the story in past tense to show that he is now an adult but is still affected by the incident when he claims to see Jesus but actually doesn’t.  The pressure to be saved in church that day has a profound effect on him.  The disappointment he feels when he doesn’t see Jesus, like his Aunt and other parishioners expect, changes his religious beliefs as an adult.  He is naive as a child and doesn’t understand the concept of being born again, and the expectations for him are too extreme and hard for him to grasp.  So, as Hughes reminisces about this pivotal moment in his life, he is also understanding its lasting effects.  If he had written the story in present tense, as a child experiencing his failure at the moment, he may not have had the epiphany he does about his relationship with God and faith.  As an adult, he can sort out his feelings of guilt and disappointment as he looks back at the event and can come to grips with how it impacts him.

In what ways did meeting the Crow change the Kiowas' way of life?

When one speaks about the Crow, one is speaking about the second part of the Kiowa creation myth, imperative to the Kiowa religion. The Kiowa creation myth actually has two parts: one about "Boy Medicine," otherwise known as the Talyi-da-i bundles, and one about the sacred Tai-me bundle. The wisdom of the Crow has to do with the way the Tai-me bundle became sacred.

The Crow can be considered a minor character in the Kiowa creation myth. The Crow comes as a messenger in order for the Kiowa to learn about the importance of the Sun. The Kiowa tribe learns quickly, and befriends a strange and wild creature named Tai-me which becomes the main focus of their Sun Dance. In fact, Tai-me is often considered the "god of the Sun Dance." Even though Tai-me flew back to the Sun, Tai-me remains with the Kiowa in the form of a stone statue that is kept in a bundle all year. This special statue is revealed only on one day a year: the day of the Sun Dance. On this day, the statue of Tai-me is suspended from a pole in the Sun Dance lodge for the people to worship. 

In conclusion, meeting the Crow changed the Kiowa way of life by teaching the tribe to worship the Sun, providing the tribe with a sacred object (the statue) for veneration, and suggesting a special form of worship: the Sun Dance.

What does the encounter with Burris Ewell show us about Miss Caroline in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird?

At the beginning of Chapter Two of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, the reader learns something of Miss Caroline's background.

"...I am Miss Caroline Fisher. I am from North Alabama, from Winston County." The class murmured apprehensively, should she prove to harbor her share of the peculiarities indigenous to that region. (When Alabama seceded from the Union on January 11, 1861, Winston County seceded from Alabama, and ever child in Maycomb County know it.)

From the very beginning of Miss Caroline's installation in Scout's first grade class, she is perceived as an outsider. We can infer from the above quote and other events that Miss Caroline may be from the same state, but she knows little or nothing about this part of Alabama, so different from the county from which she hails.

Miss Caroline does not have any insight into the lives of the children she is instructing:

Miss Caroline seemed unaware that the ragged, denim-shirted and floursack-skirted first grade, most of who had chopped cotton and fed hogs from the time they were able to walk, were immune to imaginative literature.

Miss Caroline is stubborn, and shows a sense of superiority: though Scout is far beyond the reading and writing level of the other first graders, Miss Caroline sees this not as an accomplishment, but more as a stumbling block to her way of thinking and teaching. Scout reads well above her grade-level and can even write in cursive, but Miss Caroline is critical of Scout's advancement, implying that what she has learned is wrong in some way.

When it is time for lunch, Miss Caroline further demonstrates her unfamiliarity with country ways. Some children bring lunch and others go home for their lunch. The teacher's insensitivity in trying to force money on Walter Cunningham (whose family is very poor, but also proud) is obvious. Scout tries to explain:

That's okay, ma'am, you'll get to know all the county folks after a while. The Cunninghams never took anything they can't pay back...

Miss Caroline still does not understand, and Scout is humiliated for her efforts, smacked on the hand with the teacher's ruler and she is placed in the corner.

By the time the students begin their afternoon session, Miss Caroline has shown evidence that she is out of her depth. She demonstrates no flexibility: if something does not line up with her training or way of thinking, it is wrong. She is in no way prepared for Burris Ewell. When one of the other students tries to explain what Burris means when he says he is leaving and won't be back, Scout notes that at least Miss Caroline seems "willing to listen," unlike Scout's experience earlier in the day.

As Burris starts to brag about starting the first grade now for the third time, Miss Caroline makes a serious mistake: she tells Burris to sit down. Telling Burris to do anything is obviously a mistake. Miss Caroline, had she been less short-sighted, might have had a clearer sense of the kind of boy he was when he laughed so rudely when she asked him to bathe for the next day. Having once again not paid attention to what was happening around her, and being unwilling to consider anyone else's position, she is no match for the angry Burris:

You try and make me, missus.

At this sign of aggression, the admirable Little Chuck Little stands up to the threatening and nasty Burris:

Watch your step, Burris...I'd soon's kill you as look at you. Now go home.

Burris hurls insults at Miss Caroline until he is sure he has reduced her to tears and then he leaves.

While even the children of Maycomb are highly sensitized to the other members of their community—including financial status and behavior—Miss Caroline has no sense of the kinds of families that are represented in the classroom. While she arrives in high heels, a red and white striped dress, and red nail polish, she fails to notice what her students are wearing. Had she done so (as they were dressed in the most rustic clothes imaginable), she might well have understood that there was a great deal about teaching and her new community that she did not understand. Rather than listening, she stubbornly pushes forward, trying to make the class fit into a reality that is not their own. Rather than being concerned for her children, she only cares about instructing them (it would seem) with the new teaching method ("the Dewey Decimal System") that Jem's teacher has mentioned (even though it has no bearing, it would seem, on how she is teaching).

This incident also demonstrates how difficult it is for people (as Atticus later advises Scout) to walk in another person's skin.

Having witnessed Miss Caroline's ill-preparedness for teaching children from a town other than her own—her lack of learning about them or the community before she arrives—the reader understands that she is very much out of her element by the time she has to face a real problem in the classroom: Burris Ewell.

How does "Two Kinds" make connections between the text and the world?

There are a number of references within the story "Two Kinds" that readers will be able to associate with the real world. When Jing-mei's mother wants her to become a prodigy, she first considers making her into a "Chinese Shirley Temple," referring to the childhood movie star with whom many readers will be familiar. Jing-mei dreams of being Cinderella, which will remind many readers of the Disney movie. Jing-mei's mother quizzes her from several magazines that readers may be acquainted with, including Reader's Digest. Tan references the Ed Sullivan Show, a TV variety show which young readers may not know of, yet they can relate it to shows such as American Idol. The girl Waverly, who is a chess champion, may remind readers of times they have heard of chess champions or tournaments in the news. References to China, where Jing-mei's mother came from, and to Chinatown, Finland, and Stanford University all make connections to the real world as do the references to the music composers Beethoven and Schumann.

In Chapter 13 of The Lighting Thief, what was Percy's fatal mistake while battling the Chimera?

In Chapter Thirteen of The Lightning Thief, Percy, Annabeth, and Grover visit the St. Louis Gateway Arch on their three-hour layover. As the monument closes for the day, Percy finds himself stuck on the observation deck with a woman he rode up in the elevator with: a large lady and her pet chihuahua who turn out to be none other than Echidna, the Mother of Monsters, and her son, Chimera. 

They engage in battle, and Percy makes the dangerous mistake of lunging at the Chimera's neck with his sword, Riptide. Riptide hits the Chimera's collar and bounces off, causing Percy to lose his balance and fall over. The Chimera, which has a ten-foot-long diamondback rattlesnake as a "tail" seizes this opportunity to bite Percy in the leg, releasing a venom. Shortly thereafter, Percy drops Riptide. These mistakes put him in a very dangerous situation indeed: Percy is weaponless and poisoned!

Help!!! An active ingredient to control insects decay in 50% after 12 hours of application. What percent of active ingredient decays after 36...

Hello!

The rule "an active ingredient to control insects decay in 50% after 12 hours of application" probably holds on not only for the first 12 hours of application, but for the next periods too.

So after the first 12 hours 50% decayed and 50% remains. After the second 12-hour period the remaining 50% lose its 50% (a half), so 25% of the original quantity remains. And after the third 12-hour period, which ends the 36-hours period in question, a half of 25% remains, it is 12.5%.

All except this quantity will decay, this is 100%-12.5%=87.5%. This is the answer.

How does the government influence science research?

The biggest weapons that the government has are funding and policy. Scientific research requires resources and in turn, money. Governments spend billions of dollar each year on research, in various disciplines. For example, National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institute of Health (NIH), Department of Energy (DoE), etc. are some of the governmental organizations who fund research in United States. The government can decide on some focus areas (say, infrastructural development and cancer research or fuel cell and batteries, etc.) and channel more funds into those areas. This will result in more research in these areas, while drying up funds from other areas and reducing the amount of research in them. The government can also make policy changes, such as banning stem cell research, etc., that will change the direction of scientific research in some disciplines.

Hope this helps. 

In The Great Gatsby, what is Jordan Baker's conflict and how does she deal with it?

Jordan Baker's conflict seems to be whether or not to have an actual relationship with Nick Carraway.  He is not her type.  Nick tells us that she "instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men" because she "wasn't able to endure being at a disadvantage."  He also describes her as a liar, and this is probably another reason that she avoids really astute men: a discerning man would be able to tell when she's lying, and Nick can tell, so we'd likely expect her to avoid a relationship with someone of his intelligence.  She confesses, though, that she likes him at the end of Chapter III.  

Then, in Chapter VIII, after the nasty business between Gatsby and Tom and Daisy in the city, as well as Myrtle's death, Jordan and Nick talk on the phone.  He says that her voice is usually "cool, as if a divot from a green golf-links had come sailing in at the office window," but today, it was "harsh and dry."  In their conversation, she claims that Nick wasn't very nice to her the night before but she admits to wanting to see him now.  When he is unwilling to drop his plans for the day to see her, she turns icy with a cold, "Very well."  She seems hurt, and perhaps regretful.  She has broken with her typical pattern of dating rather inept men, and the decision is coming back to bite her now.  

The couple speak once more in the final chapter, and Jordan tells Nick that she's engaged to someone else, though he doesn't believe her.  It seems like a ploy to prove her claim that she doesn't "give a damn about [him] now," and because she references the fact that he was the one to "throw [her] over" it sounds even more like she's bitter about being rejected.  I think Jordan was always at war with herself about how much of herself to give, how far she should let him in, and she seems never to have chosen right.  In the end, she deals with her rejection by trying to wound him and protect herself by saying she doesn't care about him anymore.

Jacquez knows 5 x n but doesn't know 7 x n. Explain to Jacquez how he could use his known fact to to solve for an unknown fact. Include an example...

Jacquez has two equations:

`5*n=X`

`7*n=Y`

He knows the value of X, but not Y. Jacquez can use the first equation to solve for the value of n. Then, he can plug the value for n into the second equation in order to find the value of Y.

Let's say Jacquez is given the following example:

We will choose X = 35 for this example, although you could use any number you like.

`5*n=35`

`7*n=Y`

In this example, both n and Y represent unknown quantities. Now, using the first equation, we solve for the value of n.

`n = 35/5 = 7`

Then we plug n = 7 into the second equation to solve for Y.

`7*n=Y=7*7=49`

This was an example of a problem with two equations and two unknowns (n and Y). As long as the number of equations is at least equal to the number of unknowns, you can solve the problem. 

In Sonnet 29, what are examples of poetic license?

The only example of poetic license in Shakespeare's Sonnet 29 would seem to be contained in the beautiful metaphor:

...and then my state,
Like to the Lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at Heaven's gate;

The poetic conceit here is that the lark flies all the way up to heaven, when in fact the bird can only fly a short distance above the earth. The image is so striking that the reader may momentarily believe the bird has actually soared all the way up to heaven. Heaven is a place that poets can reach very easily in their imaginations.

Another great English poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), wrote a famous poem about the same bird. It is titled "To a Skylark," and may have been partly inspired by Shakespeare's Sonnet 29. The opening stanza of Shelley's poem also suggests that the skylark has flown almost all the way up to heaven--another example of poetic license. Shelley takes even more poetic license by claiming that the skylark is a spirit and not a bird.

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
     Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it
     Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

What are the short term and long term effects of child labor during the Industrial Revolution?

Child labor was used during the Industrial Revolution. There were various effects both in the short-term and in the long-term with the use of child labor.

There were several short-term effects of the use of child labor. One effect was the kids who were working in factories were unlikely to attend school. Some of these kids had to work because their parent or parents weren’t making enough money to make ends meet. In some cases, the child replaced the parent who had been injured on the job. Sometimes the extra money was used to bring a relative to the United States from their home country.

Another short-term effect was that the use of kids helped to keep wages low for all factory workers. Kids were paid very low wages, and since they were available to work, this helped to keep the pay low because the supply of workers had increased.

There were some long-term effects of child labor. Some of these kids ended up working for the company their entire lifetime until they retired. Some of them continued to work for the company that hired them as children. Unfortunately, some of these kids also developed health issues from working in factories with toxic materials and poorly ventilated buildings. The demanding nature of some of the work also impacted the health of these young workers throughout their lifetime.

Another long-term effect is that when these kids got married and had children, they insisted that their kids get a good education. They understood how important education was to have success later in life. They didn’t want their kids to have to work at as young of an age as they did. They wanted their kids to have a better life than they had.

A third long-term effect was the passage of child labor laws. The Progressives were outraged that companies were exploiting these kids. Under President Taft, a Children’s Bureau was established to investigate problems with child labor. Because of the efforts of the Progressives, child labor laws were passed to restrict kids from working at young ages. Additionally, compulsory education laws were passed requiring kids to go to school. These laws still exist today.

Child labor has been a problem throughout history. Some of the effects of child labor were short term while some effects were long term.

What is important about the verses written by the painter in sentence one of "Self-Reliance"?

What is important about the verses written by the painter is that they were original and unconventional. This first sentence thus helps capture a theme of this essay: that the self-reliant individual has a unique destiny planned for it by God that will show itself in the original and unconventional path this person follows. To be self-reliant is not so much to be self-supporting or self-sufficient or to refuse any help as it is to discern and be true to one's own call. It means rejecting such conventions as what your church denomination might call you to if these norms violate your soul. Instead, to fully find your true self, you need to examine your own conscience and your own heart. "Imitation is suicide," Emerson insists, and a person will not find true peace or contentment until he thrusts aside what the world has decided  is good for him and followed his own path. 

Who gets the quilts at the end of "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker?

In short, Maggie gets the quilts at the end of Walker's "Everyday Use." Mama initially promised the quilts to Maggie, but when Dee turns up on her visit home, she tries to convince Mama that Maggie will simply use the quilts until they turn into rags.  Dee is set on taking the quilts and preserving them as artifacts of her family's heritage, arguing that the scraps of fabric are important because they have been worn by past family members.  Mama does not disagree with Dee on the fact that the quilts are important; however, she believes that preserving family artifacts is not the best way to honor the family members who have made the items.  Mama believes that using the items is a way to "live" in the memory of family ancestors, and Maggie is prepared to do that, so Mama gives her the quilts in the end.

In Chapters 4 and 5 of The Namesake, where does the point of view shift from one character to another?

In Chapter 4, the narration focuses on the teenage Gogol, from the family party to the scene in which he receives his father's precious book, to the long trip overseas, and on into Gogol's high school courses and to a college party he attends. Chapter 5 begins with an unusual paragraph in which the narrator gives us a detached commentary on famous people who have changed their names; it is here that you might say that the narration is truly different than anywhere else in Chapters 4 or 5, where it's focused on something more than a faithful report of what the characters are doing. The chapter then focuses again on Gogol as he completes the process of changing his first name. We stay with him as he attends college at Yale, developing a sense of independence and trying to become the different person that he feels should be "Nikhil" instead of "Gogol." The narrator describes Gogol's brief but intense relationship with Ruth, then ends the chapter with Gogol's heart-to-heart conversation with his father as he learns about the train accident in the past. Even though Ashoke is a key figure in this scene, the narration keeps a spotlight on Gogol, highlighting his feelings and reactions to the revelation.

Throughout the novel, the narrator is a particularly interesting voice; she follows individual characters for a while, then flits to others as the story heads in a different direction. Chapter 1 follows Ashima, then Ashoke; Chapter 2 follows them both but focuses more on Ashima and her growing relationship with the infant Gogol; Chapter 3 focuses on the little family as a unit, then veers off to follow Gogol on his school field trip. Like I described above, Chapters 4 and 5 are really all about Gogol, but further chapters veer off to follow other characters. The narrator even spends time on Moushumi alone when she's having her affair, toward the end of the novel, and later on Ashima again, middle aged and alone.

Throughout these transitions, the narrator's voice is smooth and factual, describing objects and characters and movements with minute precision, offering subtle cultural insights along the way. And while it's startling at times for readers to be given information by the narrator that none of the characters has access to--like whether or not something will ever happen again in a character's future--perhaps an even more fascinating thing that the narrator does is continue to call Gogol by his pet name ("Gogol") long after he changes it to his good name, Nikhil. It's as if the narrator has sided with Gogol's sister Sonia, insisting that government paperwork means nothing and that Gogol cannot ever change his name because it's who he is.

I mention all of this because we should consider the narrator's tendency to switch the focus from one character to another as one interesting and enduring aspect of The Namesake's narration, rather than a fluke or an error in the storytelling.

How important is "trust" in real estate sector worldwide? What are some of the best practices that businessmen should adopt in real estate sector?

Trust: The Social Virtue and the Creation of Prosperity by Francis Fukuyama was first published in 1995. In this work, Fukuyama argues that societies can be classified along a spectrum from high-trust to low-trust societies. In high-trust societies, people are generally willing to give others the benefit of the doubt, trusting and engaging in business relationships with strangers, a social habit that is the foundation of modern capitalism and large-scale business dealings. He cites Japan, Germany, and the United States as examples of high-trust societies and Italy and China as examples of low-trust societies.

For global real estate, this would imply that best practices vary depending on where societies fall on the trust scale. Although Fukuyama obvious sees the high-trust model as superior, someone engaging in global business needs to adopt the practices that work within local cultural environments. Thus while people in the real estate business in the United States can rely on large scale marketing and the strength of powerful institutions, such as the banking sector, dealing with clients from other nations or real estate transactions in other nations may rely far more heavily on building up networks of contacts and dealing through intermediaries trusted by potential clients. Rather than, for example, having a western sales team deal with Chinese or African clients, it might make more sense to develop partnerships with firms with strong local roots and family or tribal connections.

In Fahrenheit 451, what does Montag mean when he says that he wants to hold onto the world?

Montag has undergone a profound transformation. For much of his life, he had been a passive, thoughtless citizen who took satisfaction in doing what he was told. Over the course of the events with Clarisse and Faber, Montag has changed completely. He is no longer an automaton, simply acting out the orders of his superiors. He is now an agent with free will. He intends to experience the world as much as possible and with little to no interference from any authority or outside influence. 

Look at the world out there, my God, my God, look at it out there, outside me, out there beyond my face and the only way to really touch it is to put it where it's finally me, where it's in the blood, where it pumps around a thousand times ten thousand a day. I get hold of it so it'll never run off. I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning. 

He says he will he will hold on to the world "some day." What he means is that he has only just begun to apprehend and observe the world with this new, willing, fresh perspective. Just as he had been doing with Faber, he will have to continue to learn to think more speculatively and creatively. He will likewise have to continue observing the world and more genuinely and compassionately interacting with others. This will all be a learning process. And then, "some day," he will really be able to understand the world. He will then be able to hold on to it: to fully "grasp" it. But at this point, he is a novice; he is just beginning. 

How does the Wife of Bath in The Canterbury Tales represent the semi-independent women of the Middle Ages?

The Wife of Bath represented a semi-independent woman of that time period in the sense of her career, wealth, and relations. 

She worked as a seamstress, which seems fitting as she came from the town of Bath. Bath is an English city situated along the Avon River that is known for its woven and sewn creations. 

Because of her job, the Wife of Bath had money and wanted all to know it. When Chaucer stated that no one passed her on the altar steps, he was indicating that the Wife ensured this happened so that she could show off what kind of money she had and how much she gave to the church. During this time period, people wishing to present offerings to the church did so by walking to the front and dropping their contribution into the offering collection plate. By going first, the others behind her would see exactly how much she left in the empty collection plate. She was wealthy and she wanted others to know it. 

Throughout her life, the Wife of Bath had a total of five husbands. Chaucer adds that the husbands were in addition to the "other company" she had during her youth years. In other words, she had many relations in youthful days. 

Always worthy to note is the fact that the Wife's Tale contains the theme of female dominance.

All of these factors are rare for a woman during the Middle Ages, who mostly depended on a man for all things in life. 

Is "The Signalman" by Charles Dickens a disturbing or a mysterious story?

Charles Dickens's story, "The Signalman," is a disturbing story, as are most ghost stories.

There is a certain eeriness to this story in the exposition as the narrator's appearance at the remote spot where the signalman works is unexplained other than his mentioning to the reader that he has been isolated for some time and now has "a newly awakened interest in these great works [trains]." That he wishes to speak to the signalman is also rather strange; the reply is equally odd. As the narrator descends, he remarks,

When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent...His attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness, that I stopped a moment, wondering at it.

Further, the narrator notes that there is something about the signalman that "daunted" him; in fact, when he examines the man's face, the "monstrous" thought enters his mind that the lonely man may have an "infection in his mind." Then, too, the ghost tale of the apparition that appears each time before a catastrophe that the signalman relates to the narrator is disturbing indeed. The signalman is haunted by the unnerving thought that some dreadful calamity will happen as he has seen this figure again. 

Tragically, it is his own death about which the signalman unknowingly wonders.

A ball is thrown downwards from the top of a 40.0 m tower. It takes 2 sec to hit the floor. What is its initial and final speed?

We can use equations of motion to solve this problem. Let us first solve for the initial speed of the ball, by using the following equation:

s = ut + a/2 at^2

here, s is the distance traveled (= height of tower = 40 m), u is the initial speed, t is the time taken (= 2 s) and a is the acceleration of the ball and is equal to acceleration due to gravity or g.

Substituting these values in the equation, we get:

40 = 2 x u + 1/2 x 9.81 x 2^2 

solving this, we get: u = 10.19 m/s

Using  v = u + at

v = 10.19 + 9.81 x 2 = 29.79 m/s

Thus, the ball was thrown with an initial speed of 10.19 m/s and reached the ground surface at 29.79 m/s.

Hope this helps. 

Was it wise for Jem to tell Scout not to tell Atticus about Bob Ewell?

In the end, it wasn’t wise for Jem to keep the threats of Bob Ewell quiet.  If Jem or Scout had told Atticus, he might have taken the revenge Bob Ewell wanted more seriously.  Atticus was a little naive in this situation; it was especially uncharacteristic of the Atticus who seemed to have so much insight into people throughout the story.  Atticus should have taken the break in at Judge Taylor’s home seriously.  Atticus had been working hard and was worn out and tired from the trial and his trips to the state capitol as a representative.  Atticus probably never thought that someone would take his revenge out on his children rather than him.  However, that was exactly the type of coward Bob Ewell was.  He abused the weak like Mayella and Tom, and it was natural for him to look for an innocent target like Scout and Jem to carry out his demented vengeance. 

If Jem had told Atticus that he heard from Miss Stephanie that Bob Ewell said, “One down, two to go,” the traumatic episode where Scout or Jem were attacked by Bob Ewell might not have happened.   However, there was no better way for the book to end but with the poetic justice of Bob Ewell’s death and the extreme heroism of Boo Radley.   

Two men come to the inn. What do Lyddie and Triphena overhear them talking about?

The answer to your question can be found in chapter four of Lyddie.  Lyddie is struggling with the workload being piled upon her at the inn, but her hard work and determination have earned her the respect of Triphena.  Triphena tells Lyddie the story of a frog that fell into a pail of milk and kicked and kicked so much that it churned some of the milk into butter and climbed on top to avoid drowning.  Lyddie is a "kicker" according to Triphena.  

Toward the end of the chapter, Lyddie is continuing her hard work around the customers, and she overhears a pair of men talking about slavery and slaves.  She hears them mention that there is money to make in the finding and returning of runaway slaves.  The conversation foreshadows Lyddie's coming encounter with Ezekial Abernathy, a runaway slave.  

In the final paragraph in "Salvation" by Langston Hughes, Hughes is now a different person than he was before the events in the story happened....

Firstly, one should ask what Hughes perspective was before his so-called salvation and how this had changed. We learn that before the revival service he was, as he calls it, 'a sinner' and that his aunt had convinced him that he needed redemption. The service would change all that because

... when you were saved you saw a light, and something happened to you inside! And Jesus came into your life! And God was with you from then on! She said you could see and hear and feel Jesus in your soul.

Throughout the service, the twelve-year-old Langston waited for something to happen to him. Nothing happened, whilst all around him, other youngsters went forward to the pulpit to be saved. Langston sat, as he said, 'waiting to see Jesus.' He was convinced that he would actually see Christ and could not understand the metaphoric sense of what his aunt had said. 

Only he and another boy (Westley) had resisted the urgings of the congregants. Eventually, his temporary companion went up to be saved and he was alone on the mourner's bench.

'I kept waiting serenely for Jesus, waiting, waiting - but he didn't come. I wanted to see him, but nothing happened to me. Nothing! I wanted something to happen to me, but nothing happened'. 

He later felt pressurised since it was getting late and the preacher had personally urged him. His aunt was also literally begging him to go forward. What finally made up his mind was the following observation:

I began to wonder what God thought about Westley, who certainly hadn't seen Jesus either, but who was now sitting proudly on the platform, swinging his knickerbockered legs and grinning down at me, surrounded by deacons and old women on their knees praying. God had not struck Westley dead for taking his name in vain or for lying in the temple.

Langston then decided to save further trouble and to lie as Westley did. He went forward to be saved, much to the jubilation of the churchgoers. 

In bed, that evening, he was overcome by an unstoppable grief. He cried copiously and could not stop himself. Langston was experiencing overwhelming remorse. His aunt believed that he was crying because the spirit of God had entered him. He, however, knew differently: 

But I was really crying because I couldn't bear to tell her that I had lied, that I had deceived everybody in the church, that I hadn't seen Jesus, and that now I didn't believe there was a Jesus anymore, since he didn't come to help me. 

Hughes was overwhelmed by the realisation firstly, that he was a greater sinner than before since he had lied in the church. He had been dishonest to his aunt, the preacher and the congregation. Secondly, he believed that he would see Christ. When that did not happen, he lost his faith, for Jesus did not come to save him from lying. The thought that the Saviour was not there to help him from committing sin was devastating. Previously, at least, even though he was a sinner, he had faith, but now he has also lost that.

How is the Berlin Conference from 1884 still causing problems in Africa today? And there anything that can be done in present day to remedy the...

You can argue that the Berlin Conference is still causing problems in Africa because that conference split the continent up into countries without any rhyme or reason and because it gave those countries to various European powers to rule for their own benefit, and not for the benefit of the natives.

Countries seem to work best when their people have something to hold them together.  This is often a shared language, ethnicity, and/or history.  The African countries that were created by the Berlin Conference lacked these things at the time and they generally lack them today.  Instead of being made up of people with something in common, they were made up on the whims of Europeans.  This means that today’s African countries are full of various ethnic groups who do not necessarily get along with one another.  The more horrific evidence of the problems this causes was the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s, which was caused by ethnic tensions.  While this was the worst problem caused by the drawing of boundaries at the Berlin Conference, there have been many others.  The tensions between the various ethnic groups within countries makes it so that those countries are not united and it often makes their governments as each ethnic group seeks power simply to improve its own lot, not to help the country as a whole.

In addition to creating these ill-conceived countries, the Berlin Conference gave those countries to Europeans to run.  The Europeans ran the countries entirely for their own good, not that of the natives.  This means that they created economies that extracted resources from Africa to help Europe.  It means that they trained Africans only to do relatively menial work.  It means that they did not give Africans any role in governing themselves.  When the Europeans were forced to leave Africa in the wave of decolonization in the 1960s, they left behind countries with poorly developed economies and with populaces that were not trained or prepared to run modern economies or governments.  These problems persist today.  Thus, the Berlin Conference created tremendous problems that continue to make it difficult for African countries to prosper today. 

In what ways does Jane Austen present Elizabeth's feelings towards Darcy in Pride and Prejudice?

In Pride and Prejudice, author Jane Austen uses her characterization of Elizabeth Bennet to depict Elizabeth's initial sentiments towards Darcy as well as the progress of her feelings.

Elizabeth is extremely frank in expressing her disapproval of Darcey, a frankness that Darcy actually finds very attractive since her frankness is so very different from the way other women behave. Besides being frank, Elizabeth is characterized as being a very playful person who has no qualms about laughing either at herself or at others. Her frankness in combination with her playfulness is first observed when she is insulted by Darcy, who openly refused to ask her dance at the Meryton assembly. Other women might feel deeply mortified by such an insult, but Elizabeth laughed it off and openly ridiculed Darcy's character, as we see in Austen's following description:

She told the story, however, with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous. (Ch. 3)

Other instances of frankness are seen when, while staying at Netherfield during Jane's illness, she openly accuses him of trying to insult her by asking if she felt like "dancing a reel," openly asserts his excessive pride is a fault, and in her very direct response to his proposal later at Rosings.

Austen even uses verbal irony to paint Elizabeth's initial negative feelings towards Darcy. For example, when Sir William pushes Darcy to ask Elizabeth to dance at Lucas Lodge in Chapter 6, Elizabeth sarcastically replies, "Mr. Darcy is all politeness." Since we already know that Elizabeth has judged Darcy to be the exact opposite of polite, we know Elizabeth means the exact opposite of what she is saying, making it a perfect example of verbal irony.

As the novel progresses and her feelings for Darcy change, she is also very frank about her change in feelings, as seen in her forthright display of gratitude towards what Darcy did to save Lydia and the Bennet family and in her direct statement that her feelings had changed a lot since Rosings.

What equipment would I need to investigate and compare the quantitative effects of changing 1.) the duration of light physical exercise, and 2.)...

As far as equipment is concerned, you would only need a watch. You can use your fingers to take a person's pulse rate. There are devices which will measure pulse rate, but they can be expensive and your fingers will suffice. 

To calculate pulse rate, find the person's heartbeat on the inside of the wrist with your fingertips. Keeping your eye on your watch, count the beats for fifteen seconds, then multiply the number of beats by four. This will give you pulse rate in beats per minute (BPM). 

Chose several durations of light exercise. For example, you could ask your subject to jog in place for 5, 10 or 15 minutes. Before he/she begins, find their BPM at rest. As soon as the subject finishes the exercise period, find their BPM again. Continue to do so at regular intervals (for example, every two minutes) until their heart rate returns to the resting rate.

To examine the quantitative effects, it might be interesting to plot your results on one graph. You should have BPM on the y-axis and time on the x-axis. Graph your results such that t=0 is equal to the end of the exercise period. You should have three curves on the graph. 

Some interesting characteristics to compare between the three curves will be maximum BPM and time to return to normal BPM.

When was 'The Lovely Bones' filmed? And how long did it take for the director to film the whole movie?

The film, The Lovely Bones, was directed by Peter Jackson and adapted from the 2002 novel written by Alice Sebold. The film began shooting in 2007 and was released in 2009, which means the director filmed the whole movie during the two year period. The Lovely Bones was primarily shot in New Zealand and Pennsylvania. The main stars were Mark Wahlberg, Susan Sarandon, and Rachel Weisz. Much of the film's action takes place outside, in the woods. The plot centers around the murder of 14 year old Susie and her parents' quest to find her killer. There are supernatural elements in the film as Susie is in an in-between place, not heaven and not the living world, but she can see what is happening with her loved ones. This film won many awards including a Golden Globe.

What are the themes of Swerve by Phillip Gwynne?

In Swerve by Phillip Gwynne, the main character, Hugh Twycross, makes a significant journey in the form of a road trip with his grandfather, Poppy. The two of them share interests, especially for muscle cars. There are several integral themes in this story. One is the importance of family. As Hugh travels with his grandfather, he realizes that his parents support him despite the way he feels they try to control him. As he matures, he will see this as parental love and not oppression. He also realizes that it’s vital to know about your family’s past.

Another theme that is connected to this one is the idea of coming of age. The journey motif is a good way for the reader to see how Hugh grows and changes on the road trip. The risks Hugh takes are necessary for his growth. Another theme is the significance of place. Although Hugh may not realize how strong of an effect the landscape can have on a person, he begins to get an idea on this trip. He is amazed at some of the things he sees out in the world beyond Sydney. These are some of the key themes in Swerve.