Response to the AP exam

     I wouldn't say that the AP exam was much good of an experience for me. I was nervous before the exam, since I always had some timing issues during the practice exams in class. The AP exam was harder than I expected just after the first multiple choice part. The multiple choice section had two 19th century articles, one 20th century article and one modern article. The articles from the 19th century was hard to understand as usual, so I wasn't able to finish all the questions of the multiple choice with about half the questions of the last passage left. There was a couple of questions on footnotes in the multiple choice, which I should have reviewed some more on the footnote part before the exam.
     For the writing part, my thoughts were kind of messed up on the first synthesis essay. I originally had organized thoughts on the essay, but they became a mess as I continued on writing. Similarly, I felt like I messed up on the argumentative essay too. At first, I didn't know what the term "artifice" mean, and I'm still not so sure about it even after reading the whole prompt. I kind of ran short on time in the end of the last passage to write more examples, but I still managed to finish my conclusion. Overall, I think I messed up.

Descriptive Essay

            The picture of my grandma’s house still clearly paints in my head, that house where I use to spend all my summers in. The house is around two stops away from the bus stop, locating on the sides of the road. The house was built by my great grandfather, lasting for nearly a hundred years, the house looked quaint from the outside with grey concrete walls and a conspicuous red colored door although it's quite different from the inside.Inside the wall, a small garden with most of its area covered in soil. 
            Stepping into the garden, you can feel the smell of fresh scent of nature swirling up your nose. The soil was planted with many kinds of vegetables, even some fruits. Just simply taking a glance at the garden, you will probably spot some ripe tomatoes, scallions and some cabbage. Near the doorway into the room lies my grandma's old rocking chair that creaks as it goes back and forth. This is where she usually spends her afternoon basking under the glowing sunlight. If you were to go further inside you would see the living room, which is also has a kitchen. The room is quite plain with simple, white colored wall, wooden dinner table in the middle and a few old-fashioned chairs along its sides. Sometimes in the summer, you will probably find some watermelons rolling below the empty spaces underneath the table (even though it sounds weird). The second floor of the house is connected by a wooden staircase, similar to the one that you usually see in horror movies, squeaking loudly for every step you take.
            Up the staircase is my grandma’s bedroom, which reminds me of the olden times. In the middle of the room lays my grandma’s bed, perhaps what made it special is its old styling blankets embroidered with red flower patterns on top. On the left side stands a drawer that holds an old, microwave looking TV from the late 20^th century along with those old radio players with a rod sticking on top of it. The last piece of furniture to be found in the room ­ —— the closet, in which my grandma not only keeps her old-fashioned clothing, but also her memories from the old times. Just like how she keeps her memories of her past, I will always keep the memories of my times in my grandma’s house. 

Discrimination, Still Alive and Well in Our Society

The idea of race superiority has been going around for centuries. Ever since the Middle Ages, slaves were introduced to the live of Europeans. These slaves were often black Africans, who were thought by the Europeans as an inferior race due to their skin color. Later in the 15^th and 16^th century, these black slaves were traded into the United States.

In the United States, the slaves fought and perused for their freedom, trying to gain equality and the rights that they are supposed to have. Around the 19^th century, they did succeed in gaining their freedom and equality in law, but the reality, was not what they expected.

The concept of discrimination developed; people were treated differently just based on the skin they were born into. Even in the society today, the discrimination still exists, in fact, many controversial topics today are still based of discrimination.

            There are also many things we see or hear in everyday life that signals that discrimination is still alive right now. 

When I walk on the street or in school, I often hear people saying the N word, which is a word used to call black people in an offensive way. In addition, black people are commonly seen as being bad and are more likely to be suspected for crimes too. I’ve heard about parents telling their children to stay away from black people as if every black man will kidnap their child.  All these indications have shown that discrimination still exists in our society

It’s not just in our daily lives that discrimination exist, but in law and government offices too.

Police brutality for example, is quite common to see on televisions or news these days about white police beating up black man or forcing them to stop in the middle of the highway for check-ups simply because they are black. Under severe situation, the blacks get knocked down and beaten up by the white police. This is actual evidence that discrimination is still happening, people are getting physically abused due to their race.

Many people might argue that these people of the black race have already received their equality, even if they didn’t, there are government programs such as the affirmative action to help them. In reality, affirmative action does actually help the minority races to retrieve their education, however, it also shows a denial of the ability of the minority (black) races. The idea of affirmative action is just like saying that they did not reach their accomplishment through hard work like everyone else, but through “cheating” with external help from the government. In fact, the affirmative action actually shows some type of discrimination toward the minority races.

We often hear that our society has changed and advanced through time, and we the people, as a part of the society have been changing too. The way we think and act has changed, and that’s what led us to our society now, a society where we call equal and fair. But is this society really what we’ve thought it to be? Will it become what we have imagined of, equal, fair and free? Society is we as whole, there will always be those who accepts and follows the new ideology and those who will stick to their obsolete views. You might not have seen, but there are still those people who are discriminating and being discriminated against.

Perhaps right now, as you are reading this passage, there’s someone in this world around you being discriminated against. 

Rhetorical Analysis on Corn- Pone Opinion

     


     Corn- Pone Opinion is an essay written by a well-known novelist- Mark Twain adressing the affects of public opinion to the human society. In this peice of writting, Mark Twain tries to convince his readers that much of the popular cultures and decisions made by human is based on the public opinions. To further develope on this principle, Mark Twain implemented the use of various rhetorical techniques. Twain introduces his argument with an anecdote, which allowed him to become more approachable and understandable to the readers. Twain begins with an story from himself as teenager, he mentioned a friend who constructed the main phrase of this essay, "corn pone opinion". Then, Twain continues to elaborate on this idea, mentioning his own views and provided some examples from his own experience on the issue. " A new thing in costume appears— the flaring hoopskirt, for example— and the passsers- by are shocked and the irreverent laugh. Six months later everybody is reconciled; the fashion has established itself;"(Twain, 718). The use of anecdote, allowed Twain to establish his main idea and provided actual examples on how the public opinion may affect the choice of the society and of individuals.
     In addition to the use of anecdote, Twain also used logos. The use of logos helps to clarify and strengthen Twain's argument. " We are creaturs of outside influences; as a rule we do not think, we only imitate...We may continue to admire them, but we drope the use of them." (Twain, 219). This sentence establishes logos, which allowed the readers to clearly understand Twain's perspective and position on the issue of conformity in public opinion. Twain consider conformity as a natural characteristic of human, and showed reverence towards all that human has immitated by mentioning that it's admired althought no longer in use.
     I do agree with Twain's beliefs that human are the creatures of immitation and of conformity. We tend to follow the action, fashion, culture and even habits of others. Whether it's out of  admiration or being "forced" to follow the wills of the majority, many people does not stand a ground for themselves. However, there's also this other population of people, who brought changes to this society, changes to what it's considered popular culture, and eventually change the opinion of the public. Therefore, I do not totally agree with Twain's opinion on people always immitates the actions of one another. There's always those who caused the conformity of others and causes the change in what they immitate.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/most-influential-people-linkedin-strickland-ph-d-cmsp-asep

Animal Testing

Animal testing is the use of animals in experiments and researches for the creation of medicine, cosmetics, and biological courses. During the process of animal testing animals are often treated brutally; the tested animals often suffered through the injection of medicine, poisoning, burning skin, brain damage, blinding, and in the end, death.

Although many believe that animal testing allowed advances in researches and successions in the creation of medicine, only few of these did succeed. According to an article from the Journal of the American Medical Association, most medicines developed from animal testing do not work on human, and those that do work, are not necessarily safe to consume. The PETA organization, an American animal right organization, estimated that in 2014, the United States used around 1 million animals and 100 million mice for animal testing. Nevertheless, all that accompanied the death of the millions of lives was the failed and useless products in the trashcan. Are the cost of these millions of lives really worthed for their price?

In the paragraphs, I implied some of Zinsser’s advices in writing. One advice that I used is the avoidance of the little qualifiers such as “a little” and “pretty”. In the paragraph, I did not include much of these little qualifiers because they may weaken my point and style. Another advice that I used from Zinsser was the short paragraphs.  I kept my paragraphs short because it is easier to read and it makes my point clearer. Lastly a device that I used from Zinsser is period. In the end of the first paragraph, I used period after the word death because it shows how serious the issue of animal testing gets.   

Bibliography
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-experimentation/animals-used-experimentation-factsheets/animal-experiments-overview/
Picture Sites 
http://animalsinlabs21stcentury.weebly.com/facts.html
https://www.thinglink.com/scene/761315144121712642