Weekly Question(s) - Week 8.

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Time.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
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How about 10?
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If you could go back in time, what would you do differently with your life?
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If you could go forward in time, where would you go and what would you do?
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Do you think you've spent your time wisely?
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Is it ELO's best album?
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Total votes: 0

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Weekly Question(s) - Week 8.

Post by retrolinkx »

Alright people, to keep some discussion going and for reasons for peeps to come back to look at threads I'm going to be doing weekly questions for one reason or another.

Hey, let's bring this dinosaur of a topic back.

Speaking of which, let's go with time. 17/05/17 - 24/05/17

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
How about 10?
If you could go back in time, what would you do differently with your life?
If you could go forward in time, where would you go and what would you do?
Do you think you've spent your time wisely?
Is it ELO's best album?
Spoiler:
Since the general election is coming up in the UK, and the presidential election is nearing for the US. Let's talk about voting.

Question 1 28/04/15 - 05/05/15

Do you vote? If so, who do you vote for and why?
If not, why don't you vote?
If you're under the legal age to vote, would you consider registering and voting in the future, and if so who would you choose and why?

Results
Spoiler:
In a few days it will be the 70th anniversary of the allied victory over Nazi Germany and the end of World War 2. So this time the question will be about war.

Question 2 05/05/15 - 12/05/15

What is your opinion of war?
Do you feel it is necessary in some regards, or can diplomacy shine through to stop a war?
Would you fight in a war if possible, if not would you try and find a position where you can be of help but not fight? (Medic, Radar control, intercepting enemy transmissions etc.)
Do you think we will have to fight another world war in our lifetime?

Results
Spoiler:
So, since I'm in my exam period and a lot of other people around the world are, let's talk about exams.

Question 3
12/05/15 - 19/05/15

Do you feel exams are useful and necessary?
Do you think that they have become easier or harder over the years?
Got any interesting exam stories? (eg lucky breaks, having to leave due a fire alarm etc.)
If you're currently doing exams, when does it all end?

Results
Spoiler:
You know, let's talk about fighting.

Question 4 19/05/15 - 26/05/15

Ever been in a fight?
What was the outcome?
Your stance on violence? (Pacifist, War-monger etc.)
Do you know how to fight? (Kung Fu, Karate etc.)

Results
Spoiler:
Well, Summer is finally showing it's fine self to us this year, so let's talk about the seasons.

Question 5 26/05/15 - 02/06/15

Your favourite season?
Why is it your favourite?
Your least favourite season?
Why is it your least favourite?
Do you like being Cold, Hot, or a nice place in-between?

Results
Spoiler:
Eh, lets talk about movies.

Question 6 02/06/15 - 09/06/15

Hyped for any movies this year?
What would you say is your favourite film and why?
What would you say is your most hated film and why?
Do you like how many films are seeing reboots these days?
Do you believe there are films that are so bad, they're good?

Results
Spoiler:
Question 7 09/06/15 - 17/05/17

I'm replaying Fallout and just recruited Dogmeat, a canine companion. In doing so I had to google how to and it make me think up this week's question. So let's talk about animals and pets.

Cats or Dogs?
Do you have or did you have any pets?
Favourite animal/s?
Least favourite animal/s?

Results
Last edited by retrolinkx on Wed May 17, 2017 3:13 pm, edited 18 times in total.
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 1.

Post by Pumpkinium »

im not sure if im legal age to vote yet (16?) but if i can i will, and i would vote for hillary

no president is going to be perfect, they will have their flaws, and its kind of sad how voting for a new president is more or less "vote for who is less bad than the other" and the republicans are always **** anyways, and (one of?) the other guys thats supposed to be president on the republican side made a pretty gross wife-beating joke somewhere (it came with gifs and a video but i dunno where it is)

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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 1.

Post by Jeffery Mewtamer »

I only vote in general elections during presidental years. Kinda sucks how many elected positions don't fall during presidental years.

I'm a registered Libertarian(assuming my registration hasn't expired) as, of my three favorite political parties(Libertarian, Constitution, and Green), they are the only one with recognition in the state of North Carolina where I live. Since it's impossible to properly research every candidate for every position, I tend to vote for Libertarian candidates when they make the ballot and Democrats when no minor parties make the ballot as Democrats tend to be the lesser of two evils among the major parties. I do try to research presidental candidates, though I usually don't bother until just a few months before the election.

2008 was the first Presidential election I was able to vote in, and I voted for Cynthia McKinley of the Green Party if I remember correctly. Main thing I remember from her stated political views was being outraged at how the Department of Defense had a 700 Million USD budget compared with the Department of Education having a budget of only 38 Million by comparison.

In 2012, I think I voted for the Libertarian candidate, but forget who that was.

Most likely, I'll vote Libertarian, Constitution, or Green in the 2016 Presidental election unless one of the Major parties manages to find an unusually good candidate.

As for those who say voting for a minro party is a waste of a vote: I'd rather waste my vote opposing a status quo I find toxic to the well being of my country(and dare I say, the world at large) than waste it in support of said status quo. Of course, the Presidentareally isn't as powerful as people make the position out to be, but sadly, people seldom think about who their electing to make laws, and even if they do, they usually only care about how their representative or senator's decision affect their home district/state instead of considering the widespread effects.
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 1.

Post by Nano »

Do you vote? If so, who do you vote for and why?
I do actually. I tend to vote for candidates that are liberal, but are still towards the middle. Mainly it's cause the world is full of far right far left people and those are the kinds of people that lead to terrible governments where nobody gets a word in cause there's so much gridlock.

Honestly if people just took the time to vote and research who is running for president/governor/etc. then we'd see a lot more being done in congress (at least for America's sake). It's become such a "are they blue or red?" "man or woman?" "black or white?" nobody cares about their policies, just their appearances. It really sucks that way, and it really sucks how apathetic voters are.

Being a moderate is probably one of the hardest things since you don't want either party in most cases, but you also don't want to vote for an independent since they'll likely get nothing done or be swooped up into either political party if their election ever takes off.

I just wish more people took voting seriously. A representative Republic can't work if we're not sending representatives we want into office. Checks and balances stop us from becoming a mob rule or Unitarian government, but it still needs to be filled with choices by the people. Otherwise you have a Republican or Democrat majority when the country really needs the opposite of one in order to stay afloat.
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 1.

Post by Vaporwave »

I'm going to be voting during the upcoming presidential election as it'll be the first one that I will be of legal age for. As for local governments, I haven't voted because I do not intend to stay within my current area of residence for that much longer.
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 1.

Post by Mamkute »

Fox summarized so much of my opinions on voting and politics. I have yet to be able to vote in a presidential election, but I have had two or three ballots for my state, county, and city. And really, everyone should be much more involved in voting than they are. Truly responsible voting, unfortunately, takes so much time, with all sorts of personal details, and inner workings of propositions being too complicated for the general, non-highly politically versed public. Even still, I have tried my best in all cases to research the propositions and candidates in question.

I am registered with No Affiliation, although I am probably slightly more left leaning.

I am not a fan of the way major party politics are handled, but unfortunately, as Fox covered, voting third party is generally ineffective, although, ironically, it is also that attitude, over a very wide scale that causes such ineffectivity. For example, my friend, who insists he was libertarian, voted for Obama in the most recent presidential election. Not that I blame him for doing it, but if everyone who truly wanted a third party candidate voted for him or her, then third parties would be much more validated.
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 1.

Post by Kausa »

I vote.
I don't feel I have a right to complain about how our country is being run if I don't do the one thing I can to have a say.
And I feel like if you say, "oh my vote doesn't count, everyone else will" well if enough people say that...
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 1.

Post by Jeffery Mewtamer »

Regarding voter apathy, I think a big part of the problem is the voting age. When you spend your entire life being told your opinion isn't important enough to be counted, it's kind of hard to give a damn when you finally reach the age where your opinion can finally be included in the polls.

Doesn't help that, as it stands, the way votes are tallied does a horrible job of determining a winner from voter opinions. Granted, part of the reason we stick to a style of voting that only works for two candidates is that the major parties care more about staying in office than they do about leading the nation and don't want minor parties to gain traction. While no voting scheme is perfect(Google Arrow's Impossibility Theorem if you're interested in the maths that prove why), simply adopting a system of preferential voting with instant run-offs could go a long way to improving how well election results reflect the opinions of voters.

Of course, it would also help if Congressional maps were drawn based on some non-partisan conditions rather than being drawn by partisan committees with a bad habit of rigging districts to ensure minimal risk of the opposing party fielding a candidate. My proposal would be along the lines of:
-Feed a computer Population and adjacency information on a state's counties(or equivalent units) and municipalities.
-Set n to the number of disticts the state has and have a program divide the state up into n districts with as close to state population/n people in each district as possible based on the following rules:
1. If possible, each district should consist of a number of neighboring counties.
2. A county should only be split if it's population exceeds the target population for a district.
3. If a Municipality spans multiple counties, efforts should be made to keep those counties in the same district.
4. A municipality should only be split if either it's population exceeds the target population of a district, or it spans multiple counties that have a total population that exceeds the target population for a district.
5. If a county must be split, the split should try to occur along city limit lines and if a municipality spaning multiple counties must be split, the split should occur along county lines.
6. If a Municipality contained within a single county must be split(splitting the county in the process), the split should be delimited by one of the municipality's major roadways.
-In other words, the goal is the make districts that, instead of having to consult a map to find the boundaries of a district, a district can be defined by listing the counties/municipalities that comprise it.
-This is assuming we stick to a strict 1 representative per district rule, though I think violating such a rule might require a constitutional amendment.
-I actually think this would be an interesting programming problem to figure out, though would probably also need information on multi-county municipalities regarding how their population is divided accross county lines.

Regarding political gridlock: the scary part is how bad the US Congress gets when there is no left wing. In fact, as I understand it, the total sum of mainstream US politics falls entirely within the Authoritarian Right Quadrant of the political compass, so not only do we not have a proper left wing in congress, we don't even have a libertarian section of the right wing. What often gets mislabelled in the US as the left is actually right of center and its more along the lines of moderate democrats versus extreme authoritarian right republicans than true lef vs right, and that's in the extremes of mainstream US politics. By and large, the diversity of opinion among US politicians who actually hold office is so low that most of the disagreements are on par with trivial schoolyard squabbles regarding the seriousness of their subject matter, yet it's still enough to prevent congress from doing anything productive. Of course, the upside to this political gridlock is that it's also hard for congress to do anything that would potentially screw things up royally for the average American dealing with "First World Problems".
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 1.

Post by Tobi »

I'm not exactly sure if you vote for anything different than a president or such in other places, but I am, since I turned 18, allowed to vote for political parties for the local city hall, the province, water management and the entire country. I have made use of this privilege for 1 out of 3 times I've got so far, mainly because the province and water management was on the same day and I was too busy to read into what I would vote on.

Not that it matters too much, they usually draw back whatever they claim to do anyway.
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 1.

Post by retrolinkx »

Alright people, week 1 down. I screencapped the results for whatever reason, so it's time for the second set of questions. I will post the questions in a new post (to bump the thread) and also place them in the first post (just for ease of access).

In a few days it will be the 70th anniversary of the allied victory over Nazi Germany and the end of World War 2. So this time the question will be about war.

Question 2 05/05/15 - 12/05/15

What is your opinion of war?
Do you feel it is necessary in some regards, or can diplomacy shine through to stop a war?
Would you fight in a war if possible, if not would you try and find a position where you can be of help but not fight? (Medic, Radar control, intercepting enemy transmissions etc.)
Do you think we will have to fight another world war in our lifetime?
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 2.

Post by Jeffery Mewtamer »

I personally favor a scaled down version of what Star Trek calls the Prime Directive: More advanced civilizations should try to minimize interference in the affairs of less Advanced Civilizations. In Star Trek, the threshold for Species that are members of the Federation to interact openly with non-Federation civilizations was that the other civilization be technologically advanced enough to build Starships. Scaling down to something that would work on the scale of a single planet, I'd say Post-Industrial nations like the US, Japan, and large parts of Europe should avoid interferring with pre-industrial nations unless mitigating circumstances make that impossible(For example, I'd say the US and Mexico are too far apart on the Human Development Index, but being next door neighbors, a policy of non-intervention simply isn't viable.)

As for war itself, I consider it a state of affairs that should be avoided at all costs. I also believe that most people find the concept of war revolting to the point that I doubt War on a scale greater than a family feud or tribal warfare could ever occur without people in positions of authority to incite the people to violence. War is a crime against humanity and the only truly noble individuals in war are those who refuse to fuel the cycle of violence. As for WWII, I'd say it was the last war the United States fought in were the US's involvement could be considered a necessary evil, though I'm not convinced the US was the least of 3 Evils out of itself, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan.

As for facing another World War, I'd argue that we've never seen a World War and that while WWI and WWII are probably the largest scale conflicts in human history, they are nowhere near being of truly global scale. As far as I know, WWI never had combat spill far outside the European Continent and was hardly the first time that Europe as a whole had erupted in War. As for WWII, it was actually two completely unrelated wars: Another European Continental Flareup) and what was called the Second Sino-Japanese War prior to Pearl Harbor and the US Federal Government letting Japan drag them in). While warmongers have had influence in the US Federal Government for most of the countries Existence, to my knowledge, there hasn't been actual war waged on American soil since the US Federal Government finished up rooting the Native Americans and claim everything that makes up the Continental US(The Louisiana Purchase was relatively painless and paid in money, but as I understand it, most of the Land the US gained in it's western expansion was paid for in blood, mostly of groups that have been traditionally subjugated by "rich white men").
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 2.

Post by Tobi »

I don't see how getting people killed over an argument will solve anything. If a war in which we would bomb each other to the death, there would be no more places left with the explosion technology of today.
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 2.

Post by Nano »

What is your opinion of war?
I wouldn't say it's a good thing, not ever. However, sometimes it's necessary to stop people like Hitler who pose a threat to the entire world if left unchecked. Things like communism also require war sometimes in order to keep in check and ensure the rest of the world doesn't go down in flames. I don't think war should be used for resources or "just cause", and I also don't think we should use war as a way to push our political agenda onto other countries.

Do you feel it is necessary in some regards, or can diplomacy shine through to stop a war?
If the threat is crazy enough, no amount of diplomacy can stop a war from happening. You can leave them to do their own thing, but eventually they'll start threatening you and if you're not prepared they'll slaughter you and your country. For the most part though, diplomacy is definitely a great way to avoid war and I believe it's applicable in most situations.

Would you fight in a war if possible, if not would you try and find a position where you can be of help but not fight? (Medic, Radar control, intercepting enemy transmissions etc.)
I don't think I'd ever fight front lines, that's just... I couldn't. Even pilots or medics would be terrifying. If we absolutely needed more people in the war I think I'd join in, but definitely not for the fighting on the front.

Do you think we will have to fight another world war in our lifetime?
I don't wanna say it's not a possibility, but it kinda is. China, North Korea, Russia, even the Middle East all pose a threat to the NATO countries and one missile or nuke or ground invasion could toss us all into WW3.
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 2.

Post by Enzo03 »

What is your opinion of war?
Something that should be avoided as much as possible, but when fought, performed as efficiently as possible, such as to ensure as much effect as possible with as little loss as possible in as little time as possible.

Do you feel it is necessary in some regards, or can diplomacy shine through to stop a war?
It is necessary because there is no limit to human stupidity.

Would you fight in a war if possible, if not would you try and find a position where you can be of help but not fight? (Medic, Radar control, intercepting enemy transmissions etc.)
I probably would only fight if drafted. I'd probably be most likely to wind up somewhere behind the line in the chair force. I'd almost want to become a pilot except my vision is too poor to even bother (20/20 is barely good enough and I'm massively near-sighted, so I'd have no chance whatsoever) and I'm a lazy **** who is massively disinclined to put enough effort into any sort of skills anyhow, and anyone who says "lol, military training will fix that up and you *will* get better whether you like it or not" massively underestimates me (/s, cause I'm very self-deprecating).

Do you think we will have to fight another world war in our lifetime?
I have little enough faith in humanity to assume we will, and for petty reasons.
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 2.

Post by Jeffery Mewtamer »

I don't think China poses as much threat as most people think. China owns the lion's share of the world's manufacturing sector, which creates a co-dependence between them and the countries they export to. We depend on them for making the consumer goods we enjoy, and they depend on the jobs those exports provide. While human stupidity should never be underestimated, it would take some very dumb warmongers coming to power in China for China to risk a status quo that employs a large number of their excessive population, especially since lost of those jobs might see China having to fight both a international war and having to put down a peasant's revolt.

As for Hitler(and the Nazi party in general), I am personally of the belief that, if the Treaty that ended WWI hadn't been so lopsided that it sent Germany into the Great Depression a decade ahead of the rest of the world, the German people might not have been desperate enough to fall for the Nazi propaganda.
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 3.

Post by retrolinkx »

So, since I'm in my exam period and a lot of other people around the world, let's talk about Exams.

Question 3 12/05/15 - 19/05/15

Do you feel exams are useful and necessary?
Do you think that they have become easier or harder over the years?
Got any interesting exam stories? (eg lucky breaks, having to leave due a fire alarm etc.)
If you're currently doing exams, when does it all end?
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 3.

Post by Tobi »

Do you feel exams are useful and necessary?
I feel like they are necessary, because the difference between a test and an exam is the amount of stuff you need to know and the amount of time in which you have to remember it. When making a test, you could just be a sponge. Suck up all the knowledge then wring it out on the test and forget it forever. You didn't learn anything, you just remembered something for a few weeks then completely forgot it. Exams are an insurance that you still know about everything you've been thought.

Do you think that they have become easier or harder over the years?
It really depends, school and exams change over the years, constantly. I'm almost done with my first 4 years of college, and don't have to do exams, which I think is stupid. I just have to go to internship, write an essay and do a presentation. That's it. It shouldn't be that easy to finish college. They don't know whether I remembered everything they taught me.

Got any interesting exam stories? (eg lucky breaks, having to leave due a fire alarm etc.)
I did have this exam we had to do before getting into highschool and I puked in the toilet, partly on my pants as well.

If you're currently doing exams, when does it all end?
My 'exam' ends the 27th of May, that's the day of my presentation. By then, I should be done. I get my certificate the 22th of June.
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 3.

Post by Jeffery Mewtamer »

@Tobi: maybe the terms test and exam have distinct meanings where you come from, but around here, they're used more or less interchangeably.

That said, in general, I find projects are usually a better measure of how much you've learned. Most exams you can get away with just remembering what you've heard in lecture or read in assigned texts, whereas most projects require actually understanding the material and being able to apply it. Contrary to popular belief, memorization is not all that important a mental skill and is actually the lowest level in many cognitive models. After all, in a real world setting, you aren't going to be penalized for checking a reference book when you need a piece of information you don't use frequently enough to memorize, and if you truly understand the material, it is often trivial to derive the elementary results many instructors insist students memorize. Sadly, at least in the US, there seems to be an unhealthy obsession with memorization over developing more important, higher-level cognitive abilities.

Anyways, Last week was Exam week and this week is the break between Spring and Summer classes, but I didn't have any exams last week. The professor for my Computer Architecture class(finished with a B) decided to have the final exam on the last day of class, my Database professor(finished the class with an A) decide to turn our last in-class discussion into a verbal exam, and my Discrete Math Professor(still waiting on my grade to post) decided to cancel the final in favor of making the 2 exams we had earlier in the semest carry more weight.
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 3.

Post by Nano »

Do you feel exams are useful and necessary?
I assume you mean things like AP tests, standardized testing, etc? School tests are good review for the big exams, but I still hate them for being tests. I think standardized testing is good if they don't change it as often as they have been doing. I get that the system changes every year, but it feels like they're constantly doing a complete overhaul without warning and for no reason. AP tests are really great I think, especially since they help you avoid expenses in college if you do well in them. I don't like taking tests or exams, but I think they help a lot in measuring our growth and are necessary to keep us thinking.

Do you think that they have become easier or harder over the years?
I wanna say harder, but I can't say so with complete certainty. I certainly would guess so, as government tries to focus more and more on education and making us more and more educated on everything they can.

Got any interesting exam stories? (eg lucky breaks, having to leave due a fire alarm etc.)
One time I had no idea what the answer to this test question was (That was today). I panicked and just gave my friend this look of sheer terror. Most of the time though I think my tests have been pretty normal. If I think of any, I'll edit this.

If you're currently doing exams, when does it all end?
My AP tests ended today and it feels so good to be FREE. Finals are in a few weeks though so it'll be only a few days rest until it's back to studying.
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 3.

Post by Mamkute »

Exams are very necessary, even if they aren't necessarily testing what they should. A good example is the SAT, or similar admission exams, which have content largely irrelevant to how well you will actually do in college, colleges still need something to go off on, and a good SAT score at least implies something good, even if it is just willingness to repeatedly practice the test, or pay several hundred dollars for prep. school (which I find silly.)
Exams within classes are much more helpful, although it is unfortunate that doing poorly on one midterm in college can completely ruin a grade, they are still a more or less necessary evil.
As Fox pointed out, AP tests are definitely helpful things, and similar to my comment on exams within classes.

Exams get harder. Generally the material being learned is more complex. I used to always be good at math, but my last two math courses in college have been quite the struggle, or at least requiring much more work than I ever had to put in during high school.

I don't think I have any stories. I am not an exciting person.

I am currently not doing tests, but I will being going into more midterms in a week, and finals and three weeks for finals. They shouldn't be too bad.

Fox, being done with AP tests is one of the greatest feelings in high school. What classes did you take?
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 3.

Post by Nano »

I would've felt even better if I hadn't gotten stumped on one of em, but yeah it was one heck of a weight lifted off my shoulders. This year I took my AP Gov and Lit exams, and last year I took the AP US History and Language exams. Scored a four on APUSH and APLang and I think I scored a four on the ones I took this year as well, though I'm iffy about AP Gov haha.
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 3.

Post by Jeffery Mewtamer »

I only ever took one AP course back in highschool(I graduated a decade ago this month) and did so poorly in the course that I didn't even bother taking the AP Exam. Did get a 1330 on the SAT I Reasoning Test(this was before they added the writing section) without any prep courses or much SAT-specific study.
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 3.

Post by Gondi »

I'm currently taking my AS exams after changing subjects completely last year so because of that I'm a year behind where I should be for my age. That means I can't afford to fail here or I would've wasted two years. Due to those circumstances I've been revising for these exams more than I usually would (but still less than I should be), and I think I've felt the benefit for the most part. I've taken three exams so far with another three to go and out of the the ones I've taken, I'm only unsure about me doing well in one of them.
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 4.

Post by retrolinkx »

You know, let's talk about fighting.

Question 4 19/05/15 - 26/05/15

Ever been in a fight?
What was the outcome?
Your stance on violence? (Pacifist, War-monger etc.)
Do you know how to fight? (Kung Fu, Karate etc.)
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Re: Weekly Question(s) - Week 4.

Post by Nano »

Ever been in a fight?
I punched a kid in the face once, and sometimes me and my brother get into fights, but nothing serious.

What was the outcome?
I won

Your stance on violence? (Pacifist, War-monger etc.)
Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not, y'know whatever the situation calls for.

Do you know how to fight? (Kung Fu, Karate etc.)
Pffffffft, naw.
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