I hope you got some time to think about this GED question:

Which direction do you need to travel around the world to arrive on what seems to you is Tuesday, when everyone where you land thinks it’s Monday?

1. North

2. South

3. East

4. West

This is a GED question that makes you think about what you already know. And, you’ve got to visualize what’s going on. That means, like, picture it in your head. You’d be surprised how much, on GED questions, it helps to picture the problem in your head.

The good news is you can use another easy GED strategy, too… eliminating wrong answers. Answers 1 and 2 are north and south… going north and south doesn’t change the time zone you’re in, and you won’t go over the International Date Line. I mean, the sun is what causes the time change, since the sun’s in a different place in the sky, depending on where you are on Earth. But the sun doesn’t go north and south… so you can get rid of answers 1 and 2. You’ll be able to eliminate a lot of wrong choices on the GED.

So, the two choices are east or west. On the GED, that’s a fifty-fifty chance if you have to guess. But let’s figure it out. Which one will make you GAIN a day? Arrive on Tuesday, when everyone thinks it’s Monday? The sun goes from east to west… picture it in your head going across the Earth.

Now, think about traveling west. This is easy if you’re like me, and traveled a lot. If you start in California and go east to New York, are you going to gain time or lose time? You’re traveling in the opposite direction from the sun, so the sun gets closer and closer to you, or farther and farther behind you, as you travel. Like two trains going in opposite directions. You get closer to the sun faster than if you were standing still. So you lose time, like time is sped up. It SEEMS like the sun is moving faster, cuz you’re going toward it. Get it?

Or maybe it will help to think like this. It’s three hours ahead in New York, according to time zones. I don’t know how long it takes to travel to New York, but say it takes 8 hours in a plane. So, you have to set your watch ahead 3 hours… so your watch will say 11 hours. You’re LOSING time. It’s later than you thought, not earlier.

So the opposite is true going the other way. Think trains again. You and the sun are both moving… east to west… so it SEEMS like the sun is going slower, cuz you’re going westward with it.

Or same thing with the time change. If you go from New York to California, you set your watch BACK 3 hours. So if it takes 8 hours to travel, your watch will say it took 5 hours. So to everyone in California, it’s 3 hours EARLIER than it seems to you. Since Monday is earlier than Tuesday,we’ll looking for the answer where it seems earlier when you arrive than if you hadn’t changed your watch. So, traveling west is the answer…answer 4. Did that confuse you? It’s just about thinking it through, like a lot of stuff on the GED. Try going over it in your mind until you can get it straight. That helps me when I study for my GED. Let me know what you think…

To find out more about the GED test and GED test preparation, visit The GED Academy at passGED.com.

So, here’s the story, “Chiggers and Other Challenges” by Joan Heberger. I thought it was real interesting. I know clean water is a problem all around the world… but you can’t help people if they can’t help themselves! Engineers can come up with great solutions to all sorts of problems, but if people don’t get educated and figure out how to work together… I was surprised the people in the town didn’t want to learn about how to get water. I mean, I guess learning math is pretty hard, cuz it’s hard to see how useful it is… but learning how to get clean water for your town seems pretty important. It’s hard to put myself in the people’s place, and I guess putting yourself in people’s place is part of what social studies is all about. What do you think? Could you put yourself in their place?

Anyway, I promised a practice question… here goes…

Almost a year ago, I visited the community for the first time to examine the town’s potential water source. I explained to the residents that I could help them by providing a topographical study of the land and a design, proposal, and budget for a water system. Over the next few months, I began this process, which involved walking about 10 hours a day in mountainous terrain, looking for a semi-level route back to the houses. Sometimes I was terrified with the responsibility of designing this water system, as I am not an engineer. A nearby Peace Corps engineer helped me in the beginning of the process, but because of the timing and his other commitments, I ended up doing the survey without his presence, which was another mistake. I was mentally and physically exhausted, and I kept getting chiggers! For those of you unfamiliar with warm, moist woodsy environments, chiggers are minuscule red mites that dig into your skin and give you itchy red bumps.

Here’s a geography GED question… Why was the writer looking for a semi-level route back to the houses?

A) She was looking for an easy route to walk through the mountains.

B) Water can only flow over level ground.

C) It’s easier to do a topographical study of level ground.

D) She was looking for a route to pump water through the mountains.

E) Chiggers don’t live in level ground.

So, what do you think?

This is the story of the Peace Corps volunteer, Joan Heberger, trying to get a plan together to get water to the village.

http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/stories/stories.cfm?psid=49&gid=3

Read the story, and I’ll have a GED practice question for it next week.

http://www.investopedia.com/university/economics/economics3.asp

The Basics

• As the price goes up, demand goes down.

The cheaper something is, the more people want it. The more it costs, the less people want it. Right? If something’s only a buck, you’re more likely to buy it than if it’s 10 bucks. That’s easy. More people will buy an item if it’s cheap.

• As the price goes up, supply goes up.

The more something will sell for, the more the businesses want to sell. Right? They want to make as much money as possible. So, if something will sell for $100,000, they want to sell LOTS. (Wouldn’t you?) If it only sells for a buck… well, they just don’t care as much.

• As the price goes up, demand goes down, but supply goes up.

I’m just putting this all together… When you show the supply and demand ideas together on a graph, they go in opposite directions. As price goes up, more sellers want to sell, but fewer buyers want to buy.

The buyers want a cheap price, and the sellers want an expensive price. That’s just human nature, right? If the price is too high, there will be more sellers and less buyers, so the sellers can’t sell all their stuff. If the price is too low, there’ll be more buyers and less sellers, so the sellers will run out.

• Supply and demand meet in the middle… at “equilibrium.”

If you look at a supply and demand chart, the two lines cross in the middle. That point is called “equilibium.” Maybe because supply and demand are the same–equal. That’s the point where there are exactly the same amount of buyers and sellers at a certain price. The idea is, because of how much people value an item, the price will end up at the equilibrium point, and all the items will get sold.

Of course, real life isn’t always perfect like that. It’s oversimplified… but prices do tend to work this way. So, what do you think? Next time, I’ll come up with a practice question about supply and demand.

Clara Barton settled in Danville, N.Y., where for several years she was a semi-invalid. In 1877 she wrote a founder of the International Red Cross, offering to lead an American branch of the organization. Thus, at 56 she began a new career.

In 1881 Barton incorporated the American Red Cross, with herself as president. A year later her extraordinary efforts brought about United States ratification of the Geneva Convention. She herself attended conferences of the International Red Cross as the American representative. She was, however, far from bureaucratic in interests. Although wholly individualistic and unlike reformers who worked on programs for social change, she did a great social service as activist and propagandist.

Question: According to the information, Clara Barton was most interested in:

1. founding organizations.
2. having an important position.
3. attending conferences.
4. ratifying conventions.
5. social activism.

What did you answer? If you look at answer 1, founding organizations, it sounds like it kinda might be right. She did found the American Red Cross. But I don’t think she was interested in founding organizations just to make more organizations, you know? It says she was “far from bureaucratic in interests.” In other words, she wasn’t all about the paperwork and making organizations!

Answer 2 says “having an important position.” She was president of the American Red Cross. That’s pretty important. But was she really interested in being an important person? It sounds to me like she was more interested in helping other people.

Answer 3 says “attending conferences.” There’s another thing that the she did. But I don’t think her real goal was just to attend conferences! That can’t be the most important thing to her.

Answer 4 says “ratifying conventions.” She helped ratify the Geneva Convention, it says. There’s a word I had to struggle with–it basically means to sign and approve. See how all these answers are things in the reading that she did? So you might think they’re the right answer. But really the question is asking you what was important to her… why she did all those things.

I go with answer 5. “Social activism.” That means, being active to make changes in society. All the things Clara Barton did, she did to help people. So, which answer says it was important to her to help people? The closest one is “social activism,” helping people by making social change. Did you get that? Part of it is interpreting the words, and figuring out which one shows the main idea.

How did you do? Let me know if you have any questions.

Here’s the GED social studies for the day… and I mean “day.” A “day” is the time the sun takes to travel around the world (or look like it is, cuz it’s really the Earth going around the sun)… so each part of the world is at a different time of the day. The sun is rising on one side of the world and setting on the other, all the time. At any moment, it’s some time of day at some place in the world. Someplace, it’s 3:00 a.m. right now, and across from that, it’s 3:00 p.m., so it’s like the time travels around the world. Weird, right?

If you go all around the world, you can gain a whole day or lose a whole day, depending on which way you’re going. That’s what used to be called the “circumnavigator’s paradox.” There’s a three-dollar word… circumnavigator. “Circum” is like “circumference” in geometry… around the outside of a circle. And “navigator” is like navigating the direction you’re going, so a “circumnavigator” is someone who goes around the globe… and loses or gains a day. It’s because you’re moving across the world faster than a day goes by. Do you see what I mean? Think about it… like traveling from one time zone to another, you could lose or gain an hour. Traveling through the whole world… you could lose or gain a day. This happens whether people have time zones in place or not!

So, here’s your GED question:

Which direction do you need to travel around the world to arrive on what seems to you is Tuesday, when everyone where you land thinks it’s Monday?

1. North

2. South

3. East

4. West

Okay… a lot of GED test questions don’t need any outside knowledge, but this one does. What do you already know? Why do you lose or gain time traveling around the world? Make a connection between the GED and your real life to answer this one…

To find out more about the GED test and GED test preparation, visit The GED Academy at passGED.com.

And maybe there’ll be stuff about Spain three hundred years ago or something, but the most important thing is figuring out how to think about what you’re reading. That’s why I say, read about anything that interests you! Because you’re learning to read about stuff, learning to learn new information. That’s the most important thing for the GED social science test.

It’s like how I was interested to read about Clara Barton. As I said, you can read about her at: http://www.civilwar.com/content/view/257/53/
Here’s part of what it says about her:

Clara Barton settled in Danville, N.Y., where for several years she was a semi-invalid. In 1877 she wrote a founder of the International Red Cross, offering to lead an American branch of the organization. Thus, at 56 she began a new career.
In 1881 Barton incorporated the American Red Cross, with herself as president. A year later her extraordinary efforts brought about United States ratification of the Geneva Convention. She herself attended conferences of the International Red Cross as the American representative. She was, however, far from bureaucratic in interests. Although wholly individualistic and unlike reformers who worked on programs for social change, she did a great social service as activist and propagandist.

The social studies test might have a reading like that, and probably it’s something you’ve never read about before! Then, there’s a question, and you can probably answer it just by reading the passage carefully. Try it!

Question: According to the information, Clara Barton was most interested in:

1. founding organizations.
2. having an important position.
3. attending conferences.
4. ratifying conventions.
5. social activism.

What do you think?

One guy I met while I was truckin’ did civil war reenactments, where they go out and dress up and replay battles from the civil war. Not somethin’ I’d want to do, but it’s pretty cool to watch and talk to the people. Maybe there’s a group like that where you live. You can talk to them about what they do and see the costumes… and it’s a lot better than learning about the civil war from books! And you can go and watch and actually see battles from the war.

Every year around the 4th of July, there’s a civil war reenactment at Gettysburg, that’s where there’s a real famous civil war battle. Here’s a web link to some information: http://www.gettysburgreenactment.com

But there are civil war reenactments all over the country. If you get interested in a topic and just start finding out about it, you find all sorts of interesting things. For example, did you know that a civil war nurse named Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross? Think about that… back in 1881, over a hundred years ago, before women could even vote, a woman started this important relief organization that helped people during Hurricane Katrina and all kinds of disasters. Here’s a good place that you can read about her: http://www.civilwar.com/content/view/257/53/

So, what interests you about the civil war? How did it change the place you live or affect your family?

How do you think local Indians felt about the California missions?

One of the links I posted last time said the missions wanted to “train them for life in a European colonial society.” It also said, “Conversion was seldom an entirely voluntary process.” That sounds like the Spanish came and started pushing the California Indians around, right? If I lived somewhere and people from a different country came and started building mission towns, I might be kind of mad. I mean, the Spanish were taking the land where the Native Americans lived. And they already had their own religion. I mean, I don’t want someone coming to my door and trying to change my religion. I learned that Native Americans helped build the missions. Then the Mission Indians had to live at the missions and learn to be Catholic. I bet they didn’t like that too much. I know I wouldn’t!

Why was it important for Spain to build missions on the coast?

It seems like Spain wanted a few things. Everyone who came to California came by boat. That means having missions on the coast was important. It showed that Spain already owned the land, and it gave them towns to trade with ships. Then, it gave them a way to control the local native Californians by making them “Mission Indians,” who lived in the missions and learned to be Catholics. All this sounds like it’s about control. Spain wanted to control California, and the best way was to make missions all along the coast.

That’s what I think. What do you think? And let me know about any interesting places and people nearby you!

I know, I know, someone says “history” and you just turn it off. I hated social studies in school. All that memorizing stuff and dates and names. But it really is about people, how they act, and what they do. And the GED social studies isn’t really about memorizing things, that’s what’s good about it.

One of the things I like most in life is meeting people, talking to people. It’s all learning about people! So, I thought I’d work on social studies in my blog… learning about people.

Here’s a great idea for social studies. Find a local place near you with some history about where you are, and go visit it. Take your kids. Maybe you’ll learn something new about where you live.

I’ve been all over the U.S. driving my truck, and I like to find out about different places. When I’m in California, one thing I always look for is missions. I’ve been to a few of them.

California missions go all the way back to 1769, and they were started by Catholic priests from Spain. Did you know Spain used to own California? It’s true. And it explains all those Spanish names, right? “Los Angeles” means “the angels,” and “San Francisco” means “Saint Francis.” Of course, back then, the Spanish didn’t care that there were already Indians on the land. King Charles of Spain wanted the land for Spain. So, he had missions put on the coast to create towns and to convert Indians to be Roman Catholics. Each mission was a day’s walk from the next one, so it covered the whole coast. Each mission has a central square, a church, and a bell tower–tall enough so you could see it from all around back then.

The important thing is to think about what information about missions means, to ask questions. So, I’m going to ask some questions, and I’ll go back and give my best answers to them in my next post. You can let me know what you think by adding comments.

• How do you think local Indians felt about the California missions?
• Why was it important for Spain to build missions on the coast?

The best way to find out more about a California mission is to visit one, if you ask me! But, not everyone is in California. Here’s some more information about California missions on the web.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cbhtml/cbmissio.html

http://www.calgold.com/missions/

http://www.ca-missions.org/links.html

So, what interesting places are near you? What can you find out about where you live? Let me know what you find out by posting a comment, and maybe I’ll write some about the interesting places where you live.