Saturday, March 21, 2020

SQ3R Method of Reading †Retain More Information

SQ3R Method of Reading - Retain More Information Throughout college and graduate school, you can expect to be assigned a great deal of reading,  and students who arent comfortable with reading or who feel like their skills are deficient will find it hard to succeed.  Attend class without having read and youll hurt only yourself. The most efficient students read with purpose and set goals. The SQ3R Method is designed to help you read faster and retain more information than ordinary reading methods. SQ3R stands for the steps in reading: survey, question, read, recite, review. It might seem like it takes more time to use the SQ3R method, but youll find that you remember more and have to reread less often. Lets take a look at the steps: Survey Before reading, survey the material. Glance through the topic headings and try to get an overview of the reading. Skim the sections and read the final summary paragraph to get an idea of where the chapter is going. Survey - dont read. Survey with purpose, to get a background knowledge, an initial orientation that will help you to organize the material as you read it. The surveying step eases you into the reading assignment Question Next, look at the first heading in the chapter. Turn it into a question. Create a series of questions to be answered in your reading. This step requires conscious effort but is worth it as it leads to active reading, the best way to retain written material. Asking questions focuses your concentration on what you need to learn or get out of your reading  -   it provides a sense of purpose. Read Read with purpose - use the questions as a guide. Read the first section of your reading assignment to answer your question. Actively search for the answers. If you finish the section and have not found an answer to the question, reread it. Read reflectively. Consider what the author is trying to say, and think about how you can use that information. Recite Once you have read a section, look away and try to recite the answer to your question, using your own words and examples. If you can do this, it means that you understand the material. If you cannot, glance over the section again. Once you have the answers to your questions, write them down. Review After reading the entire assignment, test your memory by reviewing your list of questions. Ask each one and review your notes. Youve created a set of notes that provide an overview the chapter.  You likely will not have to reread the chapter again. If youve taken good notes, you can use them to study for exams. As you review your notes, consider how the material fits with what you know from the course, experience, and other classes. What is the informations significance? What are the implications or applications of this material? What questions are you left with? Thinking about these bigger questions helps to place what youve read within the context of the course and your education - and is likely to lead to better retention. The extra steps of the SQ3R method may seem time-consuming, but they lead to a better understanding of the material so youll get more out of the reading with fewer passes. How many of the steps you follow is up to you. As you become more efficient you may find that you can read more - and retain more - with less effort. Regardless, if an assignment is important, be sure to take notes so that you dont have to reread it later.

Thursday, March 5, 2020

History of the Apollo 1 Tragedy

History of the Apollo 1 Tragedy On   January 27, 1967, three men lost their lives in NASAs first disaster. It occurred on the ground as Virgil I. Gus Grissom  (the second American astronaut to fly into space),  Edward H. White II, (the first American astronaut to walk in space) and Roger B. Chaffee, (a rookie astronaut on his first space mission), were practicing for the first Apollo mission. At the time, since it was a ground test, the mission was called Apollo/Saturn 204. Ultimately, it would be called Apollo 1 and it was going to be an Earth-orbiting trip. Lift-off was scheduled for February 21, 1967, and would be the first of a series of trips to train astronauts for the moon landing slated for the late 1960s.   Mission Practice Day On January 27th, the astronauts were going through a procedure called a plugs-out test. Their Command Module was mounted on the Saturn 1B rocket on the launch pad just as it would have been during the actual launch. The rocket was unfueled but everything else was as close to reality as the team could make it. That days work was to be an entire countdown sequence from the moment the astronauts entered the capsule until the time that launch would have occurred. It seemed very straightforward, no risk to the astronauts, who were suited up and ready to go.   A Few Seconds of Tragedy Right after lunch, the crew entered the capsule to start the test. There were small problems from the beginning and finally, a communications failure caused a hold to be placed on the count at 5:40 p.m. At 6:31 p.m.  a voice (possibly Roger Chaffees) exclaimed, Fire, I smell fire! Two seconds later, Ed Whites voice came over the circuit, Fire in the cockpit. The final voice transmission was very garbled. They’re fighting a bad fire- let’s get out. Open ‘er up or, We’ve got a bad fire- let’s get out. We’re burning up or, I’m reporting a bad fire. I’m getting out.The transmission ended with a cry of pain.   The flames  spread quickly through the cabin. The last transmission ended 17 seconds after the start of the fire. All telemetry information was lost shortly after that. Emergency responders were dispatched quickly to help. The crew most likely perished within the first 30 seconds of smoke inhalation or burns. Resuscitation efforts were futile. A Cascade of Problems Attempts to get at the astronauts were stymied by a host of problems. First,  the capsule hatch was closed with clamps that required extensive ratcheting to release. Under the best of circumstances, it could take at least 90 seconds to open them. Since the hatch opened inward, pressure had to be vented before it could be opened. It was nearly five minutes after the start of the fire before rescuers could get into the cabin. By this time, the oxygen-rich atmosphere, which had seeped into the materials of the cabin, had ignited and spread flames throughout the capsule.   Apollo 1 Aftermath The disaster put a hold on the entire Apollo program. Investigators needed to probe the wreckage and figure out the causes of the fire. Although a specific point of ignition for the fire could not be determined, the investigation boards final report blamed the fire on electrical arcing among the wires hanging open in the cabin, which was filled with materials that burned easily. In the oxygen-enriched atmosphere, all it took was one spark to set off a fire. The astronauts couldnt escape through the locked hatches in time.   The lessons of the Apollo 1 fire were tough ones. NASA replaced cabin components with self-extinguishing materials. Pure oxygen (which is always a danger) was replaced by a nitrogen-oxygen mixture at launch. Finally, engineers re-designed the hatch to open outward and made it so that it could be removed quickly in the event of a problem. Honoring those Who Lost their Lives The mission was officially assigned the name Apollo 1 in honor of Grissom, White, and Chaffee. The first Saturn V launch (uncrewed) in November 1967 was designated Apollo 4 (no missions were ever designated Apollo 2 or 3).  Ã‚   Grissom and Chaffee were laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, and Ed White is buried at West Point at the US Military Academy where he studied. All three men are honored throughout the country, with their names on schools, military, and civilian museums and other structures.   Reminders of Danger The Apollo 1 fire was a stark reminder that space exploration is not an easy thing to do. Grissom himself once said that exploration was a risky business. If we die, we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us, it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.   To minimize risks, astronauts and ground crews practice relentlessly, planning for almost any eventuality. as flight crews have done for decades. Apollo 1 wasnt the first time NASA had lost astronauts. In 1966, astronauts Elliott See and Charles Bassett were killed in a crash of their NASA jet crashed on a routine flight to St. Louis. In addition, the Soviet Union had lost cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov at the end of a mission earlier in 1967. But, the Apollo 1 catastrophe reminded everyone  again of the risks of flight.   Edited and updated by  Carolyn Collins Petersen.