Questões Militares Para aspirante da escola naval

     American Students Test Well in Problem Solving, but Trail Foreign Counterparts 

      Fifteen-year-olds in the United States scored above the average of those in the developed world on exams assessing problem-solving skills, but they trailed several countries in Asia and Europe as well as Canada, according to International standardized tests results released on Tuesday.

      The American students who took the problem-solving tests in 2012, the first time they were administered, did better on these exams than on reading, math and Science tests, suggesting that students in the United States are better able to apply knowledge to real-life situations than perform straightforward academic tasks.

      Still, students who took the problem-solving tests in countries including Singapore, South Korea, Japan, several provinces of China, Canada, Australia, Finland and Britain all outperformed American students. 

      "The good news is that problem solving still remains a relatively strong suit for American students," said Bob Wise, former governor of West Virginia and president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, a national policy and advocacy group focused on improving high schools. "The challenge is that a lot of other nations are now developing this and even moving ahead. So where we used to, in an earlier era, dominate in what we called the deeper learning skills — Creative thinking, criticai thinking and the ability to solve problems — in terms of producing the workers that are increasingly needed in this area, other nations are coming on strong and in some cases surpassing us ." 

      The new problem-solving exams were administered to a subset of 15-year-olds in 28 countries who sat for the Program for International Student Assessment, a set of tests every three years commonly known as PISA and given by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based group whose members include the world's wealthiest nations. Almost 1,275 American students took the exams. 

      Critics of the rankings on International tests have tended to characterize the high performance of Asian countries in particular as demonstrating the rote learning of facts and formulas. But the problem-solving results showed that students in the highest-performing nations were also able to think flexibly. Even on Interactive tasks, the American students' strength, all the Asian countries that participated in this round of exams outperformed the United States. 

      "To understand how to navigate a complex problem and exercise abstract reasoning is actually a very strong point for the Asian countries," said Francesco Avvisati, an analyst on the PISA team at the O.E.C.D.

                                                                     (Adapted from http://www.nytimes.com) 

                  How to Exercise While Sítting At Your Computer

      Is your work stressing you out? Is your work making you fat? Of course, it is. If you are in a relationship with your work like me (I hate the word "workaholic") , then maybe you are also dealing with some relationship issues like stress and weight gain. Every person who has a desk job does not need to indulge in a tub of ice-cream after a particularly stressful day at work to gain the pounds. In fact, the downside of being a way too dedicated employee is that it will make you fat! The stress to perform plus the inactivity of a desk job will definitely increase your waist size. What's more, you will become lethargic once four hours of inactivity can seriously send your metabolism leveis to an all-time low. If you think that a 30 minute walk every day is enough cardio activity in a week to maintain your metabolism, you are wrong! Yes, I was surprised too! The mathematics of this is that when you perform any cardio activity, it elevates your metabolism rate for a span of time, but not the entire day. Because the rest of the day you are sitting idle on your chair without much activity, the 30 minute walk is not enough, nor is the 1-hour intense workout. What you need to do to keep yourself from pilling on the pounds is to keep your metabolism rate high all day long. For that, you need to break the no physical activity routine from 9 to 5 by exercising while sitting at your desk!

      Here are simple exercises that take 5 minutes of your day and prevent you from feeling stiff.

    A) Neck: To stretch your neck, slowly flex your head forward and backward, side to side and look right and left. This can be done almost any time to lessen tension and strain. Never roll your head around your neck— this could cause damage to the joints of the neck.

    B) Shoulders: Roll your shoulders forward around 10 times, then backward. This helps release the tension off your shoulders.

    C) Wrists: Roll your wrists regularly, around every hour or so. Roll the wrists 10 times clockwise, then 10 times counterclockwise. This will help minimize the potential for getting carpal tunnel syndrome if you spend a lot of time typing.

    D) Ankles: Roll your ankles regularly. As with your wrists, roll the ankles in a clockwise motion three times, then counterclockwise. This helps improve blood circulation, and prevents that tingling feeling you can get when blood circulation is cut off, also known as "pins and needles".

                         (Adapted from http://www.buzzle.com and http://www.wikihow.com) 

PART 1: READING COMPREHENSION

                  The War at Home: The Struggle for Veterans to Find Jobs 

      In today's tough and competitive job market, it can be challenging for any adult to land a decent job. Though education can definitely improve outcomes, sometimes it's not just abont the degree. Experience can also play a major role in helping people find jobs. Yet in some cases, if you do not have the right kind of experience, this may be of little help. Just ask one of the many college-educated military veterans who serve their country only to return to find a job market that will treat them as rookies.

      Army veteran John Lee Dumas said he had zero anxieties about finding a job after graduating college and had been told that his military experience would give him a leg up on other candidates. But things did not turn out that way. 

      "I quickly found out that I was lumped together with recent college grads for entry-level positions, and that an employee that had two years' experience at a job in a similar industry was considered way more qualified than I was despite my four years as an officer in the army", Dumas said.

      When Dumas did find work, he said it was difficult to acclimate to the civilian Office environment.

      "I often found that my peers and above had a hard time dealing with my direct approach and attitude about tackling problems head on, often asking for forgiveness rather than permission", he said.

      One issue is that veterans are too modest when it comes to stating their accomplishments in the military. 

      "For some reason, I've had veterans not tell me about their awards and honors, but it should all be listed - from commander' s coins to medals of honor," Hurwitz said.

      Navy veteran Tom Graves, who has a career in world force development helping companies understand the benefits of hiring skilled and experienced military veterans, agreed.

                                                             (Adapted from http://www.onlinecollege.org)