How to Get a Perfect 1600 SAT Score, by a 2400 Expert Full Scorer

How to Get a Perfect 1600 SAT Score, by a 2400 Expert Full Scorer SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Updated for the New 2016 SAT! The maximum score on the SATis a 1600. Out of the 1.7 million students who take the test every year, only about 300 get the highest possible SAT score. This elusive perfect score catapults you to the top of high school academic achievement and can be a big boost to your college applications. I scored perfect scores on the SAT. I actually scored two perfect scores- a 1600 in 2004 when I was in high school, and a 2400 in March 2014 when I took it ten years later. Most of the advice out there about how to get a perfect score come from people who didn't get perfect scores. In this exclusive article, I'll be breaking down exactly what it takes, and the ruthless techniques I used to get a perfect score. Quick Disclaimer Let me start with a few disclaimers. I'm a humble person, and I don't like talking about my accomplishments without good reason. I know a lot of you are looking to score the highest SAT score possible, so I've written this guide to help you get there. So whatever I say here, please take it as advice from a mentor eager to help, not as a braggart strutting his stuff. Also,a last note:I co-founded the company PrepScholar- we create online SAT/ACT prep programs that adapt to you and your strengths and weaknesses. I want to emphasize that you do NOT need to buy a full prep program to get a great score. If you follow the principles below and are very driven, you'll do just fine. I do believe, however, that PrepScholar is the best SAT program available right now, especially if you find it hard to organize your prep and don't know what to study. I'll refer to decisions we made in creating the program to flesh out principles I discuss below. What Perfect SAT Scores Look Like For full transparency, let me show you my personal score report. This is a screenshot from my College Board SAT Organizer: I took the two SATs 10 years apart. The 2004 test was in an old format of the SAT and was scored out of 1600. I took the new test in 2014 and scored a 2400. (Yes, I took the SAT as an adult. Besides getting funny looks from high school students, I wanted to go through the experience anew so I knew what my students at PrepScholar were going through.) So that you can see in bleeding detail how I got the 2400, I've attached my unofficial detailed score report from the College Board. You can see exactly how many questions I missed and read my essay (my handwriting could use some work). Using my score report as an example, let's examine what it takes to get a perfect SAT score. While this score report talks about the Old 2400 SAT, the principles are still the same. In the new SAT, there are still Reading, Math, and Writing sections, and you still need to do EXTREMELYwell on them to get a perfect score. What It Takes to Get a 1600on the SAT At the top end of the scoring range, the SAT is not forgiving. You need to aim for perfection. Specifically, here's what you need to do in each section: In Reading, you can only miss 1 or 2 questions. This depends on the curve for that test. It's best to aim for missing 0 or 1 question. In my test, I missed 1 reading passage question. In Math, you need to get every question correct. No question about it.The curve is unforgiving for Math. Miss 1 question and you won't get an 800 on this section. In Writing, you can sometimes miss 1 question at most.In some tests, you have to get a perfect Writing and Language score to have a shot at an 800. Essentially, you need to aim for perfection during your prep. If you're consistently missing one or more questions on each section, you're not performing consistently enough to be safe for a 1600. We'll go into more detail about this below. If you want to confirm my statements here, check out the College Board score charts for official SAT practice tests. One last question to answer before my actual advice: But Wait...Are You Just Smart? Will This Advice Work for Me? You may have heard about top scoring students who just rolled out of bed, strolled to the SAT test center, and scored the highest possible SAT score without any prep. This was not me. Some people like the above may in fact exist, but they're rare.In high school, I was naturally stronger at math- I participated in math and science competitions- and I could reliably get 800's on the math section. But my reading and writing needed work. When I started off, I consistently got in the 700 range. Now, this is already pretty high, but it wasn't enough for the top schools I was aiming for. I just wasn't that accustomed to the SAT reading passages and the types of questions they asked. It took a lot of hard work for me to learn how the SAT works, how it tries to trick students, and how to find a strategy that worked for myself so I could reliably get top scores.My co-founder at PrepScholarhad a similar story. Since I'm older, I also have the benefit of seeing whether my methods worked over time, or just on the SAT. Emphatically, the principles below have worked throughout my academic career. Here's another example. As an undergraduate in college, I planned to attend medical school, so I had to take the MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test). In my view, this is a much harder test than the SAT. It covers many more topics: general chemistry, organic chemistry, physics, biology, and verbal reasoning. Furthermore, you're competing with pre-med's across the nation, people who are naturally driven and competing to get into medical school, not just the average high school student. When I started studying for the MCAT, I scored around the low 30's. The test is scored out of 45, and it's curved very aggressively. Again, this was already well above average, but it wasn't enough for the top medical schools I was going for. So I worked hard. I put in the time, covered all the subjects I needed to know, and was ruthless about my prep. In the very end, I scored a 44: As the testing organization notes, this is in the 99.9 percentile rank, with 0.0% achieving this score (this figure is rounded). I had multiple medical advisers tell me that they had never seen a score this high before, and there might indeed be fewer than three people per year- or none at all- who get a 44.Scoring this high definitely helped me get into the MD-PhD program at Harvard Medical School and MIT. I wish I were talented enough to get these test scores naturally without hundreds of hours of hard work. That would be the cooler thing to say. But it wasn't true for me, and it probably won't be true for you either. With this foundation laid, here's the meat of what I want to say: What Do You Need to Do to Get a Perfect 1600 SAT Score? In broad strokes, it takes a lot of hard work, a lot of smart work, and some amount of luck. But you've heard this before so just this alone isn't helpful. Let's dig deeper. You have to want it. Really, really want it. You need the motivation to push yourself. You need to put SAT prep as one of your top priorities in life, overcoming watching Youtube or hanging out at the mall. In the darkest of days, when you take a practice test and drop 100 points inexplicably, and your parents are freaking out, and you're worried you're never getting into your top college, you need the inner fire to not get depressed. Instead, you need to pull yourself up and objectively rip apart your mistakes so you don't repeat them. People don't often mention motivation, but in my view this is one of the most important pieces that differentiate successful people from not, in all aspects of life. It's much more important than just being smart. Make a list of all the reasons you want to get a perfect score. Write them down. Stare at them when you lose faith. Want to get into Harvard or an Ivy League school? Want to make up for a bad GPA? Want to prove to your parents that you can beat their expectations? Want to compete with your friends?Want to show up your 3rd-grade teacher who said you would never amount to anything? That's all good. Anything that drives you from within is a valid reason to work hard. You'll need this to combat procrastination and laziness. You'll need this to push yourself to execute every strategy I tell you below. If you're not motivated, it's just too easy to brush aside failure and be sloppy about your weaknesses. In my personal case, beyond the academic benefits, I thought the SAT was a dumb test that was impeding my life. I was angry at test writers who devised tricks to fool students. I approached it like a video game- the SAT and the College Board were bosses that I needed to dominate. Plus, my brother had a near-perfect score, and I wanted to one-up him. Write down all the reasons you want a perfect score and use it to fuel yourself every study session. Exclusive Blog Bonus: We've written a popular free guide on 5 tips to improving your SAT score by 160+ points. Get a free download here. Step 1: Do High-Quality Practice and Avoid Low-Quality Materials The SAT is a weird test. It's unlike tests that you've taken throughout school. It presents simple concepts in bizarre ways. This is essentially how the College Board makes the test hard- it takes concepts most students have seen before, twists them to be unfamiliar, and counts on students to screw up. To excel at this test, you need the highest quality practice materials. Because the SAT has questions that are twisted in a particular way, you need to train in exactly the way they're twisted so you learn the patterns. As we've said before, by far the best practice material comes directly from the College Board in the form of official SAT practice tests.When I was studying, I devoured every SAT practice test I could find. I took over 15 full-length practice tests and was ruthless about finding my mistakes, as I'll talk about soon. Just like the mantra about your diet and body, what you put in is what you get out. Trash in, trash out. If you train yourself on questions that don't reflect what's on the SAT, you're going to learn the wrong patterns. Using bad materials is like training for baseball by playing tee-ball. Yes, if you spend 1000 hours practicing tee-ball, you'll be a tee-ball pro. But when someone pitches a real baseball at you, you're going to freak out- "why is the ball traveling so fast? Why's it so close to my face? Ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod." And then you strike out. To be frank, most of the books available on the market are trash. They boast about having a lot of questions, but they're written by people who aren't truly experts on the test. This means the questions don't test concepts in the same way; the answers are sometimes ambiguous; the questions don't trick you in the same way the SAT does. In my company PrepScholar, we hire only SAT full-scorers and 99 percentile scorers to craft our thousands of test questions. You need to have mastered the test to really understand the intricacies of how the SAT works. We've turned away dozens of applicants who scored below a 2300since they really don't understand the test well enough. If you likestudying with books, here's my list of the top SAT prep books available. There are some pretty high-quality books written by true experts, though they can get pricey- buying the top five books will cost you at least a hundred dollars. Collect good prep materials and study using only these. Step 2: Focus on Quality First, Quantity Second Now you have a lot of materials. Some students focus hard on getting through every single page of every book they have. They might not know why they're studying what they're studying, but at least they sure put in a lot of time and effort! This is the wrong idea. You don't want to pound your head against the wall and use a brute force approach. Improving your SAT score is about quality first, and quantity second. It's so tempting to just focus on getting work done, because that's the easy part. Understanding your weaknesses, as we discuss below, is what takes real energy and insight. Think about it this way- let's say you're learning to throw a football with a perfect spiral. You can pick up a football and, by trial and error, if you throw it 1,000 times, you'll make some progress. Now imagine you have New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady standing by your side. You throw the ball once, and he corrects your technique. Move your foot back this way, have your hand follow a certain motion, and follow through. You try again, and it's way better. In throwing 50 balls this way, I'm certain you'd end up doing better than 1,000 by yourself. I'm not suggesting that Tom Brady is a tutor, and you must have a tutor. You can be your own Tom Brady, and we discuss below how to do that. But you need to make sure you get the most out of your studying and make it as efficient as possible. You need your own SAT Tom Brady. Step 3: Be Ruthless About Understanding Your Mistakes On the ground level, when you're actually studying, this is by far the most important way you'll succeed over other students. EVERYmistake you make on a test happens for a reason. If you don't understand EXACTLYwhy you missed that question, you will make that mistake over and over again. If you're performing at the 700 level, you're missing around 10% to 15% of all questions. This means you have some consistent errors that are holding back your score. This is what you need to do: On every practice test or question set that you take, mark EVERYquestion that you're even 20% unsure about. When you grade your test or quiz, review every single question that you marked, and every incorrect question. This way even if you guessed a question correctly, you'll make sure to review it. In a notebook, write down the gist of the question, why you missed it, and what you'll do to avoid that mistake in the future. Have separate sections by subject and sub-topic (reading- passages vs sentence completion, writing- sentence errors vs improving paragraphs). It's NOT enough to just think about it and move on. It's NOT enough to just read the answer explanation. You have to think HARD about why you specifically failed on this question. By taking this structured approach to your mistakes,you'll now have a running log of every question you missed, and your reflection on why. Everyone who wants to get to an 800 on a section has different weaknessesfrom you. It's important that you discover for yourself what those are. No excuses when it comes to your mistakes. Go Deeper- WHY Did You Miss It? Now, what are some common reasons that you missed a question? Don't just say, "I didn't know this material." Always take it one step further- what specifically did you miss, and what do you have to improve in the future? Here are some examples of common reasons you miss a question, and how you take the analysis one step further: Content: I didn't learn the skill or knowledge needed to answer this question. One step further:What specific skill do I need to learn, and how will I learn this skill? Incorrect Approach: I knew the content, but I didn't know how to approach this question. One step further:How do I solve the question, and is there a general rule that I need to know for the future? Wrong Guess:I was stuck between two answer choices, and I guessed wrong. One step further: Why could I not eliminate one of the last answer choices? Knowing the correct answer now, how I can eliminate it? Does this suggest a strategy I can use for the future? Careless Error: I misread what the question was asking for or solved for the wrong thing One step further:Why did I misread the question? What should I do in the future to avoid this? Does this seem hard? It is- you have to think hard about why you're falling short and understand yourself in a way that no one else can. But few students actually put in the effort to do this analysis, and this is how you'll pull ahead. By the end of my studying, I had notebooks filled with practice questions that I'd missed, and when eating breakfast I could thumb through them to review them, like flashcards. Adopt a no-mistake-left-behind policy toward your mistakes. Letting one slip through can mean you make the same mistake on your real SAT. Five Why's Here's another useful trick when reviewing mistakes: ask yourself "Why?" five times? This is a revolutionary technique developed by Toyota to figure out the root cause of manufacturing problems. The point is that when you ask yourself "Why?" five times, you'll dig deeper and deeper to understand what the underlying cause is, and how to fix it. Here's an example. Let's say you miss a Reading passage question. Everyone does this. Starting point: I missed a Reading question about the big picture summary of the passage. Why? I picked the wrong answer choice, out of the two I had left. Why? The wrong answer choice had a phrase that was in the passage, but otherwise the meaning was wrong. I got tricked. Why? I didn't fully understand the passage when I was reading it. Why? I read the passage too quickly. Why? I was scared about running out of time. Wow- you see how a single question can give you a TON of information about where you went wrong? Now you have a lot of opportunities to improve- on how you read passages, how you eliminate answer choices, and how to process big picture questions. Again, very few students actually have the discipline to go through this reflection. And this is why YOU'REgoing to get a better score. Step 4: Find Patterns in Your Weaknesses, and Drill Them to Perfection Now that you're collecting mistakes in a notebook, you'll be able to start finding patterns to your weaknesses. This might be a content area- like problems with math circle problems, or a specific grammar rule. Or it might be a personal habit of yours, like misreading the passage or eliminating the wrong answer. Focusing on your weaknesses is CRITICALbecause you have a limited amount of time to study, and you need to spend that precious time on the areas that will get you the biggest score improvement. I've worked with students who just love drilling their strong points because it's comfortable. Of course, this is a waste of time- you have to confront your demons and pick at where you're weak, which is uncomfortable and difficult. When I was studying for the SAT and MCAT, I kept track of my mistakes in an Excel spreadsheet. I found, for example, that I consistently missed Reading passage questions about inferencesbecause I was reading too far into what the author was saying. I then focused on drilling those specific types of questions until I had developed my own strategy for solving the questions. As another example, back when the SAT emphasized vocab more, I needed to study thousands of vocab words, any of which could show up on the test. I developed my own method onthe best way to study SAT vocab words- what I call the Waterfall Method. This method forces you to review words you don't know over 10x more than words you already know- efficient studying. You don't need to use this for the New 2016 SAT, but you may still find it helpful for any class you need to use flashcards for- foreign language, history, or English. Find the weak link in your chain. When you find your weakness, you need to find resources to drill that content area. If you're weak in Trigonometry questions, you need to find a lot of SAT Trig questions to really drill those skills. If you're weak in subject/verb agreement, you need to find grammar questions to drill. Doing all of this well is tough for many students, because you have to at once: Do practice questions Diagnose your weaknesses Find more practice questions Understand whether you're improving or not Adjust your plan continuously This is the backbone of every effective study method, but it takes a lot of mental energy to do well. This is actually why we started PrepScholar- we wanted to build an online prep program that would do all the heavy lifting for you, so that you can concentrate on learning.In our PrepScholar program, we detect your weaknesses andautomatically organize your quizzes by skill so that you can focus on learning and not on the higher-level activities of analyzing your own progress. By the way, a quick side point- be suspicious of any content-level strategies that promise you results. By content-level, I mean strategies that tell you how you must solve a type of question. At your level, you need to focus on what works best for you. For example, people approach reading passages differently. Some read the passage first, then answer questions. Some skim questions first, then go back to the passage. I know what works best for me, but that's not necessarily what works best for you. What you will have to do is aggregate strategies for your weaknesses, then test them out yourself to see if they work for you. Specific strategies for each weakness is out of scope of this article, but we'll post examples later. Step 5: Eliminate Careless Errors These types of mistakes are by far the most frustrating. You know the content, you know how to solve it, but because of a misreading of the question, you don't get the question right. This can already disqualify you from an 800 on Math. In my own SAT, I made careless errors because I was trying to finish early and save time for the end, so I would rush through questions too quickly. I hated myself every time I made a careless error. But when I focused on the two things below, I was able to claim back my lost points. #1: Double-check that you're answering the right question.The SAT is designed to ask you tricky questions.You might find the area of the square, but the question actually asks for the perimeter. To eliminate this, always underline what the question asks you to solve for. Don’t stop your work until you solve for the correct thing. Another strategy is to write what the question is looking for in your scratch area. For example, if it asks for seconds instead of minutes, write â€Å"= ____ seconds† and circle it before you start your work. This might sound like extra work, but how you defeat careless errors is by having a reliable, failproof system. #2: Be wary about choosing the "No Change" option.For Writing, a common careless error is choosing "(A) NO CHANGE"in grammar questions. That's because when you read the question, it seems grammatically correct to you because the grammar rule just isn't ringing a bell. Whenever this happens, make sure you double check the other answer choices to make sure that NO CHANGEis absolutely the best answer choice. You should check especially for grammar rules that are easy to overlook, like Subject-Verb Agreement and Misplaced Modifier. By analyzing your mistakes, you'll be able to find patterns in grammar rule weaknesses that you have. You can then build your own system for grammar rules that you often miss- for example, for Subject-Verb Agreement, identify the subject and the verb, and then make sure they match. Step 6: Develop AmazingStudy Habits If you're highly motivated and aiming for a top score, you're likely to spend at least 200 hours studying for the SAT. Your job is to get the most out of every hour you can. Learning how to study more effectively has huge returns on your time. Think about it- if you can learn some techniques to improve your study efficiency by 20%, this will effectively give you back 40 hours of your life. Here are my best recommendations on great study habits, all of which I follow myself. Habit 1: Create a Schedule and Force Yourself to Stick to It It's important to have a plan. You need to understand when you're going to do what, and then you need to follow that plan. Here are questions to ask yourself: How much time do I have until my next test? How much time will I spend studying every week? How many practice tests should I take before then? When will I take them? During each week, what specific times and days will I be studying? What will I actually be studying each day? Why? How should my schedule change based on the info I receive from practice tests? Do NOT approach SAT prep without a plan like this. You'll wander aimlessly from book to book, test to test, without actually focusing on what is going to get you results. We designed PrepScholar to take care of all this hard work for you. Every week, we create customized lesson plans so you know exactly what to study and when. We schedule practice tests for you at the best moments leading up to your test date. We ask you for your weekly study schedule,then text you reminders to study. We send you progress reports so you know how well you're doing and whether you need to study more. If you feel like you don't know how to create your own study schedule or aren't confident you can stick to one, you might like PrepScholar's SAT program. Habit 2: Eliminate All Distractions You have so many distractions at your fingertips- Snaps, texts,YouTube, games, and more. All of these are super fun and super easy to consume for hours on end. All of these will improve your SAT score by ZERO. If you're studying and you glance at your phone every 3 minutes, you are NOT STUDYING. The brain is actually terrible at multitasking, and every time you lose attention, you take minutes to go back to full concentration. I know how tempting it is to stay up to date with everything your friends are doing. There's major Fear of Missing Out. You don't want to miss a hilarious joke or be late to a scandalous story. The thing is, in the long term, these little interactions don't actually make a big difference. Think about the last time responding to a text within 3 minutes was VITAL to your friendship. You are not missing out on anything important if you text back an hour later.Maybe you'll call me an old man and just claim I don't get it, but a friend who gets mad at you for not replying within a few minutes doesn't sound like a good friend to me. I once sat in a coffee shop next to a girl who was trying to study chemistry. Every few minutes she would look at her phone, laugh, and return a text. She got through two pages in an hour- I kid you not. Instead, here's what you need to do: Go to a quiet place where you won't be interrupted. Wear earplugs if it helps. Turn your phone off or leave it another room. Don't listen to music where you actively have to listen to words. Don't study with friends. It's more fun but everyone does a crappy job of studying. If you're using a program like PrepScholar on a web browser, use tools like StayFocusd to keep yourself off of distractions. Treat this seriously.One hour spent studying at full concentration is better than three hours at 50% concentration. Habit 3: Have a Positive Mindset. Your Job Is to Grow. When you're trying to get a perfect 1600 SAT score, you'll get frustrated when you make mistakes. I was the same way, and I got mad at myself for making careless mistakes or for forgetting something I used to know. The important thing is to channel that frustration into learning and growth. Treat every mistake as a learning opportunity. Every mistake tells you exactly where your weakness is, and what you need to do to fix it. You are allowed to get upset, but not so much it paralyzes you. Instead, treat your primary goal as getting better- not as getting a specific score. Step 7: Get Fast Enough to Always Double Check Your Answers Now that you’re aiming for a top score, you need to finish each section ahead of time to give yourself time to double check your answers. A good rule of thumb is to finish the section with at least 5 minutes to spare. As you get better at the SAT, this will be easier to accomplish since you’ll solve each question in less time. When I took the SAT, I reliably finished each section with 5-10 minutes to spare. I would mark any questions that I felt I had to return to and double-check. I had enough time to review all my answers twice. The real time-killers are questions you get stuck on. It’s very easy to get sucked into a question for five minutes, frustrated that the SAT is taking a point away from you. Avoid this temptation. Follow this rule: if you’ve spent 30 seconds on a question and can’t see how you’re going to get to the answer, circle the question, and skip it. You’ll have time at the end to come back to it. For now, you need to work on the other questions.How do you double check effectively? It varies between sections. For math, you should try to re-solve the question quickly in a different way. For some questions, you’ll be able to plug the answer back in. For others, you’ll just need to check your steps you took the first time around.For writing, confirm that the sentence has the error you think it does. Again, for No Error answer choices, make sure you aren't missing something in the question.For reading, confirm that there is no other better answer ch oice than the one you picked. For passage questions, make sure you rule out four incorrect answers. For sentence completion questions, plug the words back into the blanks to make sure they fit perfectly. As you get better at the test, you'll have more time left. Aim for at least 5 minutes left after each section, and use that time to double-checkyour answers. Stay calm during the test, even if you get confused on a question. Step 8: Don't Get Inside Your Own Head During the Test If you're vying for a perfect 1600 score, you'll face pressure during the test. You know how little room for error there is. This means that if you're having trouble with a question, it's easy to psyche yourself out. "Oh no! I'm having trouble with this math question. If I don't get this right, my 800 in math is gone!" This will make you nervous, which makes you even less likely to answer the question, which makes you more nervous, and so forth. This vicious spiral can suck you down for the rest of the test. Controlling your mental status is important during the test. Just like a pro athlete or performer, you need to be confident about your skills. You already put in a ton of work, and you've learned most of what the College Board has to throw at you. The last thing you want to do now is ruin more of the test. So it's a single question you're unsure about- this doesn't affect your performance on any other question. Try your best and clear your head, then move on. Does All of This Really Work? I can say from personal experience that these are the principles that I used to excel in academics. If you follow these principles for your own classes and in college, you'll do an amazing job. I would also be hard-pressed to find any top scoring student who doesn't agree wholeheartedly with the advice above. This advice also works if you're not aiming for a 1600. If you want to improve from a 1200 to a 1500, you can use these principles to power your learning. These principles also work in life. As a startup founder, I adhere to lean principlesto constantly analyze where my weaknesses are, how to build them, and how to focus on what's really important for our company. While the SAT tests specific skills that you may not use in everyday life, the process of preparing for it can teach you a lot about yourself, your limits, and your ambitions. This sounds a little hokey, but take it from this old man, you can learn a lot about yourself. Finally, keep in mind that you don't need a 1600to get into top colleges! A 1520+ will make you more than competitive for top schools like the Ivy League. If you get a 1540, your time is better spent building up the rest of your application than eking out a few more points. Quick Plug:I've mentioned my company PrepScholar a few times. If you agree with what I say above, you'd like my course. I designed our SAT course around the principles above, knowing that most students don't have the energy or expertise to diagnose their own weaknesses. PrepScholar automatically figures out what you need to work on and focuses your learning by drilling your weak skills. It also builds in motivational features so you're up to date on your progress and commit to more study time. Check out our SAT program here. What's Next? If you liked this article, you'll also like my expert guides on getting an 800 in each of the SAT sections. Each one goes further into deeper details on how to ace each section. Check out: How to get an 800 in SAT Math How to get an 800 in SAT Reading How to get an 800 in SAT Writing Aiming to get into Harvard and the Ivy League? Read my How to Get Into Harvard guide. Youmight learn that you're headed straight to the rejection path. Finally, check out our online SAT prep program.We have a 160+ point money back guarantee: if you finish our course and don't improve by 160 points, you get all your money back, no questions asked. I designed the PrepScholar program around the principles in this article. Thousands of students have used PrepScholar to improve their score by hundreds of points, which is why I'm confident it'll work for you too. Try our program with a 5-day free trial today:

The Epic of Gilgamesh Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Epic of Gilgamesh - Assignment Example There is always a kind of terror from being at the mercy of the whims of a person who may not always act rationally or for the best interests of those whose lives they have control over. Certainly in the case of Gilgamesh to the very notion of the existence of Enkidu has premised on Gilgamesh the flawed human and part god acted in ways that made his subjects suffer. It is in this kind of backdrop that the fears of Enkidu relating to death are founded. Thehas premise decreed that he must die, and there is no arguing with the gods once they have decided that he must die. This notwithstanding the fact that it was Gilgamesh after all who did the killings, and it was Enkidu who did warn Gilgamesh against going through with killing Humbaba. No, all these mitigating circumstances did not matter. What mattered to the gods was that someone should die and that in this case, they chose Enkidu to pay for the lives of the Bull of Heaven and of Humbaba (â€Å"The Epic of Gilgamesh†; Brown; SparkNotes; Annenberg Foundation; Hooker). This whimsical nature of the ways of the gods and of the way they arrived at Enkidu’s death sentence, however, is not the primary reason why Enkidu feared death. Sure he was bitter to the point of even regretting having crossed paths with the people who ultimately led him to his encounter and friendship with Gilgamesh, but this bitterness is something that is separate from what made him fearful about death. He was fearful of passing away primarily because of the visions that he had of death, grim and full of dark foreboding, and the opposite of the happiest days that he had known on earth. He feared death first and foremost because it was the end of all that he had lived for, and the beginning of what could be described as an eternal harrowing experience in a world that is bleak and devoid of sunshine, dark, a world of dust, as he described in the vision that he shared of life after death. The vision of death and what it was like cam e to him in a dream, that he shared to his friend Gilgamesh.

A Comparison between Islamic and Non-Islamic banks and companies in Research Paper

A Comparison between Islamic and Non-Islamic banks and companies in terms - Research Paper Example The key difference of the two banks is that, The Islamic Banking is based on Sharia foundation. And therefore, all its transaction, business approach, investment focus, product feature, responsibility and many more are derived from the Shariah law, this lead to the significant difference in many part of its operations with as that of the conventional banks.Furthermore,the foundation of Islamic bank is based on the Islamic faith and tends to stay just within the within the limits of this Islamic Laws or the Shariah to be specific in all of its operations and decisions. The Arabic word Shariah has means; the way to the source of life Being the first National bank in Qatar, The Qatar national bank was the first bank to launch a financial services subsidiary. The bank then launched the launch of QNB Financial Services in the year 2011. Through this project, the bank has offered a range of financial services to both the domestic and international institutional investors. As it continues to grow, the QNB is determined to place itself as a leading financial institution that is able to use its assets in making positive difference throughout its market ,the bank therefore seems to be the pace setter for the other Banks like the Commercial Bank of Qatar The financial market of Qatar is considered small and hence relies on its regional dimension. The GCC investments contributes on the Qatar Stock Exchange estimated at 62.5 billion ($17 billion) Qatari riyal .Generally the Qatar economy depends on its neighbors when it comes to trade, more specifically Saudi Arabia, in consideration to export and import and also marketing of Qatar products. The Qatar economy really depends on its Gas. The Qatar gas is the worlds largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) company. It produces annually and supplies the globe with over 42 million metric tons of LNG from across its four

All of our Choices are Predetermined Essay Example for Free

All of our Choices are Predetermined Essay The Universe appears to be governed entirely by laws, studies of physics seem to show that atoms follow an extremely predictable pattern of cause and effect. This presents a difficult problem for philosophy; if all physical matter is governed by the laws of cause and effect, and we ourselves are comprised of physical matter, how could it be so that any choices we make could be seen to be free? The suggestion that our choices are set out by cause and effect is known as Determinism. Philosophers such as Ted Honderich have argued for determinism and for the consequences that it cancels out free will. It seems insensible to argue that we are not in the least bit determined, and almost all people know from personal experience that people act in a relatively stable and predictable way. For example, if I were to ask my father if he wanted tea or coffee, I would know that he would want coffee based on his love of coffee, and hatred for tea. This preference could not be argued in any way to be a choice made by him, we do not choose what we like, but simply do. Whether our preferences are based on nature or nurture is an ongoing debate, but regardless of the final conclusion, as long as our opinions are based on either of the two options, we would be seen to be determined. Nature is not in our control, neither on the other hand, is nurture. If our personalities are based on environmental or genetic factors and nothing else then our actions are surely determined. This position is extremely convincing and was famously used by Clarence Darrow to prevent two murderers from receiving the death penalty, he argued that they where a product of their upbringing and as such could not be held morally responsible for their actions. This meant, while they could be jailed to prevent threat to society, they could not be punished with the death penalty. The viewpoint of Determinism, while convincing, is by no means universally accepted. The argument seems to go against our intuitions that we are free -although it is notable at this point that our intuitions themselves are philosophically worthless, we cannot argue for an element of truth on the grounds that we feel it is true- and is seemingly incompatible with the view of a God who punishes and rewards his creations with heaven and hell. If our actions are predetermined, then it seems that punishment in hell would be arbitrary. God would simply be creating people in a flawed way, and then punishing them for his poor skills of creation. Needless to say, this viewpoint is not accepted by many Christians and so there have been many arguments for a lack of determinism in philosophy. The belief of Libertarianism, is that we are completely free; in the words of Jean-Paul Sartre I am not free not to be free. Though Sartres beliefs on free will were more assertions than arguments of proofs, he summarises the Libertarian view point perfectly. All our actions are completely freely chosen, our only confinement is that we cannot be confined. Libertarianism has the difficult task of explaining how it is possible to defend non-determined choices in an environment where all things seem to be determined by cause and effect. As already stated, if our personality is held to be nothing but a result of nature of nurture, then determinism must be accepted as a matter of logical consistency. From this, many Libertarians would stipulate the existence of a super-natural element to our personality. For example, if one were to believe in a soul, then it is possible to argue the physical laws of cause and effect have no bearing on our actions. This does seem to contradict fairly obvious observable evidence. Psychology has frequently found causes for human behaviour, and it is difficult to explain the consistency and successes of this particular scientific discipline if we do not accept that our choices are determined in some way. One of the more successful attempts of Libertarianism to discredit Determinism is the pointing to laws of physics that do not seem to obey causality. Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle shows distinct examples of elements of nature acting randomly, and not due to cause and effect. There are two main criticisms that can be made of this argument; One, that this principle only functions on an minute level, while actual objects such as people still obey determined laws of physics (although science has proven the principle can be amplified to affect people), and; Two, that even where actions random, there would still not be free will, while we would not live in a predetermined environment, we would still live in a (randomly) determined environment. If one was to roll a dice in order to decide the actions a prisoner should take, they would not be considered free by any means. The fundamental flaw of Libertarianism, is that when we examine how it would work, it seems to collapse. As all choices are made according to our personality, a serial killer, is only so because he has a serial killers personality. This statement would suggest determinism and could only be argued against in two ways: Firstly, we could state that the serial killer has no personality, this however, seems nearly impossible to uphold. Without personality, we would have no preferences and without preferences we could not make any choice at all. Asking someone who has no preference of good over evil, or pleasure over pain, to make a moral decision would be rather like asking someone whether they prefer white to white. Without personality, we would not be able to make any choice at all, as no options would appeal to us over others. It could be argued, that decisions can still be made according to rationalism, but as rationalism and logic are consistent discipline this would make our actions even more predictable and un-chosen than determinism suggests. So this argument cannot be used to defend Libertarianism. Secondly, we could suggest that the Serial-Killer was in some way in control of his personality. That he chose his preference of evil over good. This again fails. As we have already stated, choices cannot be made without personality, so to choose a personality we would require a personality for us to choose, this initial personality would determine the personality we chose. We could attempt to argue that this initial personality was chosen, but very soon we would have to give way to infinite regression. With this in mind, Libertarianism and the suggestion that our choices are anything but pre-determined or random, is not only completely incompatible with the current model of physics and psychology, but more importantly is incompatible with choice itself (as choice requires preference, preference designates personality which in turn suggests determinism). Libertarianism is a self defeating system in that it requires an absence of will to prove free will, which would be rendered useless without will. There is also a logical argument against Libertarianism. J.J.C Smart points out that there are two possible states of things, i.e. determinism or indeterminism. Either determinism is true, or indeterminism is true, these exhaust all possible philosophical options. Determinism would prevent a Libertarian view as our choices are predetermined, indeterminism would seem to prevent Libertarian view also, as our choices are random and thus not controlled or free. From this argument, we can see that a Libertarian argument for free will is impossible. It seems undeniable therefore, that all our choices are pre-determined -or in the least part random, whether our choices are in fact pre-determined or random is largely down to physicists to discover, currently it seems to be that we are in fact pre-determined, but this cannot be assured without knowledge of all physics. Even if our choices are not predetermined, what they are not -as has been argued in the course of this essay- is freely chosen, at least according to the viewpoint of free will presented by libertarianism. But what would the effects of this be? Hard determinism would argue that we cannot claim to possess free will in a deterministic environment. The problem with this position seems to be that we have defined free will incorrectly. The view of free-will as indifference, has in the course of this essay been demonstrated as problematic, and if we adopt this view of free-will then hard determinism would seem an agreeable viewpoint, the problem is, that this seems an utterly meaningless way of discussing free will. Free will does not appear to refer to the ability of will to change itself, when we refer to a free lion, we do not mean it is free to change to a tiger or a bird, we simply mean it is free to act according to its nature. It would therefore seem to be more useful to discuss free will in the sense of a will being able to act itself out, we are free if we could have chosen otherwise HAD our will been different. This Compatibilist approach adopted by David Hume seems to allow us to discuss free will in a meaningful way, within what seems to be a predetermined environment.

Social Justice In Education :: essays papers

Social Justice In Education â€Å"Social Justice in Education† by R. W. Connell discusses the role of education in society and the implications that social justice issues have on education. Connell begins by establishing that education and social justice can be examined separately yet they are inescapably linked through the social medium of their implementation. â€Å"Education concerns schools, colleges and universities, whose business is to pass knowledge on to the next generation. Social justice is about income, employment, pensions or physical assets like housing.†(Connell, 1993) Three points validating the equal importance of social justice and the education system to people of all delineations are: 1.) in Western society public schools are key forums of social interaction and comprise some of the largest social institutions 2.) educational institutions are highly economic bodies and have become â€Å"major public assets† (Connell, 1993) 3.) teaching becomes a vehicle by which so ciety is ultimately determined and has a great influence over society’s morality. Connell describes the meaning of justice in education as being â€Å"a question of fairness in distribution†¦ equality.†(Connell, 1993) â€Å"Justice cannot be achieved by distributing the same†¦ standard good to†¦ all social classes.†(Connell, 1993) By stating this, Connell summarizes that in the attempt to achieve equality, unequal means must be employed. The implications for teaching presented by Connell’s article are immense. The concept of equality in education and the equality of access to education are matters that are determined by the social constructs of the society in which we live. The notion of equality in education means that educators must approach all material and subject matter with a premise of unbiased predetermination. Music, math, science, fine arts, English, Japanese, history, etc†¦ must all be considered on a par. Our current educational system does not treat all subjects as equal in our public education system. The stereotypical reading, writing and arithmetic (primary subjects) take precedence over the fine arts and like subjects (secondary subjects). Social justice criteria as presented in this article, establish that economic variables are a means of determination for favouritism within the educational institution. Where the primary subjects receive ensured funding, the secondary subjects rec eive funding when deemed viable. This creates inequality at the very base of the institution itself. The result is degradation to all facets of the educational system. â€Å"The moral quality of education is inevitably affected by the moral character of educational institutions.

Laws of England and Wales Essay

â€Å"The defendant who seeks to avoid criminal liability on the basis that s/he was suffering from a mental disorder at the time of the alleged crime must have a defence that falls within one of the following, legally recognised, categories: Insanity, Diminished Responsibility or Automatism. While, at one level or another, these â€Å"mental disorder defences† share common characteristics, they each differ significantly. Unfortunately, this point does not appear to be fully appreciated in English Law.† Discuss the validity of this statement. Inherent in our legal system is an idea of culpability. The word itself embodies notions of moral responsibility and blame. There are two elements that will allow us to determine whether or not someone is to be considered culpable. The first is that the person on whom we wish to apportion blame is an actual agent of harm as opposed to a mere causer. That is to say that they are instrumental in an action and are not simply a victim of a spasm or similar associated condition. The second is that he/she has the capacity to understand the laws and moral order that exist within society. Hart’s principles of justice assert that ‘a moral license to punish is needed by society and unless a man has the capacity and fair opportunity or chance to adjust his behaviour to the law, its penalties ought not be applied to him.† Such deep-rooted notions of culpability have necessitated development in the area of defences to ensure that those who fall outside of the legally recognised parameters of accountability are afforded ‘protection’. Amongst such defences are Insanity, Automatism and Diminished responsibility. This essay will identify the similarities and differences of these defences by exploring their theoretical foundations and determine whether, in practice, they are sufficiently understood by the courts to achieve their desired end. The theoretical basis for an insanity defence is embedded in the notions of fair opportunity as discussed above. It is felt that the insane man is ‘too far removed from normality to make us angry with him’. The impetus of the law and its functions might well be considered outside of his comprehension and similarly, so too might the moral implications of his act. Therefore, it would not be either ‘efficacious or equitable’ to hold such a man criminally  responsible . As Duff remarks of the potential insane defendant â€Å"if she cannot understand what is being done to her, or why it is being done, or how it is related as a punishment to her past offence, her punishment becomes a travesty?†. Therefore, if a defence of insanity is successful the defendant will be given a ‘special verdict’ namely ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’. Although this special verdict may bring indefinite detention (a fact which is reconciled in theor y by ‘compelling considerations of public interest’ ) it still serves to reflect a lack of culpability and therefore, blame. The basis on which the non-insane automatism defence is founded is somewhat more fundamental than that of insanity. It was developed to exculpate those who had been the victim of events rather than those who had fallen foul to circumstance . A plea of automatism is ‘not merely a denial of fault, or of responsibility. It is more a denial of authorship’ in the sense that the automaton is in no way instrumental in any criminal act. Lord Dilhorne remarked in Alphacell that â€Å"an inadvertent and unintended act without negligence? might be said, not caused’. Others have described such acts as ‘acts of god’. It is with this class of act that the defence of automatism is concerned – acts which might be said seen as ‘inconsistent with the requirement of an actus reus’ . This lack-of-instrumentality concept is reflected by the fact that on a finding of automatism a defendant will be granted an unqualified acquittal by the courts. Detenti on is unnecessary for as well being blameless, the automaton presents no future threat to society. Whilst Insanity and Automatism serve as general defences in law, Diminished responsibility operates only as a defence to murder. It offers those ‘bordering on insanity’ the opportunity to argue that at the time of the killing they were ‘suffering from such abnormality of mind’ so as to ‘substantially impair their mental responsibility’. If such an argument is successful (all other things being equal) the potential murderer will be convicted of manslaughter and hence will escape the mandatory life sentence that a finding of murder brings. The defence’s existence is justified (much like insanity) by notions of responsibility and blame. The doctrine, it was felt, ‘was needed to reflect the view that where there was less responsibility there ought to be less punishment.† Despite some clear differences in the three defences’ theoretical foundations and intentions, it could be said that technically they have become somewhat confused in law. Discussion will now turn to the two automatism defences before then going on to examine diminished responsibility in context. Whilst both automatism defences are grounded in the idea that ‘where there is no responsibility there should be no blame,’ policy reasons have necessitated their independent development. Because of this, the person who seeks to raise automatism as a defence is subject to a very tight definitional distinction. This tight definitional distinction between automatism and insanity is highlighted by Glanville Williams when he describes non-insane automatism as ‘any abnormal state of consciousness†¦.while not amounting to insanity.’ Such statements offer little definitional worth, as to understand automatism we must first understand insanity and this, as will become clear, is no easy task. The contemporary framework of the insanity defence can be found in M’Naghten’s Case where Lord Tindal authoritatively ruled that?: â€Å"?to establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong.† Subsequent development of a non-insane automatism defence, for reasons discussed above, necessitated judicious refinement of these insanity parameters to insure that those who sought to invoke the former were deserving . Therefore, considerable onus was placed upon the meaning of the rules, especially the phrase ‘disease of the mind’. First, it was decided that ‘mind’ referred to the mental faculties of reason, memory and understanding and not simply the organic mass that is the brain. Then, in Sullivan, (the defendant was charged with assault which, he  claimed, was the result of the post-ictal stage of an epileptic seizure) the definition expanded to catch transient and intermittent impairment of the mind. It was held that the permanence of a disease ‘cannot on any rational ground be relevant to the application by the courts of the M’Naghten rules’. This finding ran contrary to contemporary medical definitions and began to impinge upon the design of the non-insane automatism defence: that being to catch one-off, faultless incidents of automatism. Perhaps more significantly, Sullivan continued to develop Quick on what is now thought to be the defining boundary between the two defences, that of internal and external causes. This distinction was cemented in Burgess where Lord Lane explicitly referred to the difference between internal and external causes as the point on which the ‘case depends, as others have depended in the past’ The defendant in Burgess was a sleepwalker who assaulted a friend whilst in a somnambulistic state. It was held that somnambulism was a disease of the mind under the M’Naghten rules largely because it was considered a ‘pathological’ (and therefore, internal) condition by expert witnesses in cross-examination. While, to some, this internal/external distinction ‘makes good sense,’ to others its effect is wholly inappropriate, as it fudges the boundaries between the theoretical rationales of insane and non-insane automatism. Irene Mackay, for example (as well as pointing to contradictory obiter ) attacks the distinction with reference to its effect. She contends that sleep ‘can hardly be called an illness, disorder or abnormal condition. It is a perfectly normal condition.’ Of interest here, Graham Virgo points to anecdotal evidence that cheese might cause sleepwalking. If such evidence could be substantiated, the somnambulist could potentially escape a special verdict by virtue of the fact that eating cheese would be considered an external cause. Such a consideration is far from easily reconcilable with the aforementioned notions of blame and responsibility as expounded by Hart’s principles of justice. Mackay continues to attack Burgess on a second defining point. She contends that the court failed to properly adopt the definition of ‘disease of the  mind’ as put forward by Lord Denning in Bratty – namely that it is â€Å"any mental disorder which has manifested itself in violence and is prone to recur.† Considering statistical evidence showing that no one had ever appeared before a court twice charged with somnambulistic violence, Mackay remarks ‘something which is prone to recur must be at least ‘inclined to recur or have a tendency to recur or be to some extent likely to recur.’ Despite such protestations, current medical opinion is that sleepwalking is caused by internal factors and may be likely to recur . Therefore it is suitable for M’Naghten insanity as defined. The result of these calculated distinctions between the two defences is that ‘epileptics, sleepwalkers, those suffering from arteriosclerosis and diabetics during a hyperglycaemic episode, may all now be regarded as insane.’ This is surely an unacceptable position. After all, such people appear to fit far more comfortably within the (theoretical) realms of automatism than insanity. They are rational people, capable of recognising rule following situations, who are (largely) the victims of one off incidents of involuntariness. If we are to label a diabetic insane because they neglected to take their medication, are we to do the same with one who gets a migraine from omitting to take aspirin? The difference of cause is the resultant harm and the need for the courts to protect society. Incidentally, close scrutiny of the M’Naghten rules leads us to conclude that where a defendant’s inability to recognise he was doing something wrong was due to something other than a defect of reason caused by a disease of the mind he would generally have no defence at all. Things do not get any clearer when the defence of Diminished Responsibility is brought into the frame. The statutory provision for the defence is found in Section 2(1) of the Homicide Act 1957 and provides that a person shall not be convicted of murder: â€Å"If he was suffering from such abnormality of mind (whether arising from a condition of arrested or retarded development of mind or any inherent causes or induced by disease or injury) as substantially impaired his mental  responsibility for his acts or omissions in doing or being a party to the killing.† The problems begin with semantics and normative questions of degree: what qualifies as ‘abnormality of mind,’ how much is ‘substantially’ and what is ‘mental responsibility’? Even debates on the questions have offered little assistance. For example, the Government, in an attempt to explain the key term, said that ‘abnormality of mind’ referred to conditions ‘bordering on insanity’ while excluding ‘the mere outburst of rage or jealousy’. Such an explanation is obviously of little worth considering that ‘the response of judges and psychiatrists?[to the section]? have ranged from the very generous to the very strict’. In fact the courts it seems, have entertained ‘practically any ground where it was thought morally inappropriate to convict the defendant of murder’. For example, psychopaths, reactive depressives , alcoholics and those in ‘disassociated states’ or suffering from ‘irresistible impulses’ have all been brought within the protective scope of the section. Lord Parker in Byrne, also attempting to clarify the section’s ambit, said that it dealt with ‘partial insanity or being on the border line of insanity’. He went on to add that ‘Inability to exercise will-power to control physical acts? is? sufficient to entitle the accused to the benefit of this section; difficulty in controlling his acts? may be’. Confusions are evident here for, as Smith and Hogan note: ‘A man whose impulse is irresistible bears no moral responsibility for his act, for he has no choice; a man whose impulse is much more difficult to resist than that of an ordinary man bears a diminished degree of moral responsibility for his act’ It would appear then, that the former should be acquitted as insane rather than have his punishment mitigated. However, if the inability to control his acts is not caused by a ‘defect of reason’ or ‘disease of the mind’ then the defendant has no defence in insanity. In this respect therefore, the defence of diminished responsibility appears to be patching up the deficiencies of M’Naghten; acting as ‘a device for circumventing the embarrassments that flow from a mandatory sentence,’ or the stigma attached to a finding of insanity, by allowing judges to â€Å"follow in a common sense way their sense of  fairness.† Greiw, writing in 1988 comments on the section. He suggests that the section is not to be seen as a definitional aid rather it is ‘to be seen as legitimising an expression of the decision-maker’s personal sense of the proper boundaries between murder and manslaughter’. The result of the lax and open wording has allowed the defence of diminished responsibility to be used almost as a catch-all excuse, spanning, and adding to, the defences of insane and non-insane automatism. It has been able to accommodate states of mind and circumstance that would be insufficient for either automatism or insanity whilst at the same time justifying this accommodation by virtue of the increased severity of a murder charge. To some this position is considered entirely unacceptable and contrary to the theories of blame and responsibility discussed hereto. Sparks for example, comments ‘to say that we are less willing to blame?a man if he does something wrong, surely does not mean: we are willing to blame him less, if he does something wrong.’ It would seem however, that due to the inadequacies of M’Naghten and the acceptance that some states of mind falling short of insanity should be considered mitigatory, the courts had little choice but to develop the defence of diminished responsibility in this way. From the issues discussed in this essay it is clear that whilst, in theory, the three defences of Insanity, Automatism and Diminished Responsibility, do indeed exhibit differences, in practice they have become somewhat amalgamated. This is probably due to two factors: First, it must be accepted that ‘there is no sharp dividing line between sanity and insanity, but that the two extremes? shade into one another by imperceptible gradations.’ This proposition leads us to conclude that first, the problem is one of definition. Second, the courts are aware that ‘pleading a blackout is one of the first refuges of a guilty conscience and is a popular excuse’. Therefore, they have tended to view the problem of involuntariness ‘with great circumspection and have adopted a restrictive approach as to when there should be a complete exemption from liability’. In order to balance this definitional problem with the requirement of  certainty, whilst ensuring that only the deserving are completely acquitted, the law has had no alternative but to define distinct parameters. It is these parameters which have both caused the fudging of the two automatism defences and necessitated the creation of a diminished responsibility defe nce. Whilst, in some respects, this amalgamation is unacceptable, its effect has been to provide blanket coverage for those defendants suffering from either a mental disorder, disassociated condition or episode of sudden involuntariness. Far from saying that the law has failed to ‘fully appreciate’ the differences it appears that the courts, due to restrictions, have simply created ad hoc a range of defences whose purpose is to reflect, on a continuum, impeachable notions of culpability. Bibliography. Books 1. Ashworth, Principles of Criminal Law (2nd ed., Oxford, 1995) 2. Clarkson. C.M.V. & Keating. H.M. Criminal Law. Text and Materials. (4th ed., 1998, Sweet & Maxwell) 3. Hart. H.L.A., Punishment and Responsibility, (1968, Oxford) 4. Smith , J.C. B. Hogan., Criminal Law (6th Edition, 1988, London, Butterworths.) 5. Williams. G., Textbook of Criminal Law (2nd ed., Stevens & Sons. 1983) Articles Dell, Diminished Responsibility Reconsidered. [1982] Crim.L.R. 809 Duff. R.A., Trial and Punishments J.L.S.S. 1986, 31(11), 433 Goldstein. A., The insanity Defense (1967) Griew. E., The future of Diminished Responsibility. Crim. L.R. 1988, Feb, 75-87 Laurie. G.T., Automatism and Insanity in the Laws of England and Scotland. Jur. Rev. 1995, 3, 253-265 Mackay. I., The Sleepwalker is Not Insane. M.L.R. 1992, 55(5), 714-720 Padfield. N.,Exploring a quagmire: insanity and automatism. C.L.J. 1989, 48(3), 354-357 Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, Cmnd. 8932 (1949-1953) Smith. J.C., Case and Comment. R. v. Hennessy. (1989) 86(9) L.S.G. 41; (1989) 133 S.J. 263 (CA) Smith. K.J.M. & Wilson. W., Impaired Voluntariness and Criminal Responsibility: Reworking Hart’s Theory of Excuses ? The English Judicial Response. O.J.L.S. 1993, 13(1), 69-98 Sparks. Diminished Responsibility in theory and Practice (1964) 27 M.L.R 9 Virgo. G., Sanitising Insanity ? Sleepwalking and Statutory Reform C.L.J. 1991, 50(3), 386-388 Cases 1. Alphacell [1972] 2 All ER 475 2. Burgess [1991] 2 W.L.R. 106 C.O.A. (Criminal Division) 3. Byrne [1960] 3 All ER 1 4. Cooper v. McKenna [1960] Q.L.R 406 5. Hennessy (1989) 89 Cr.App.R 10, CA 6. Kemp [1956] 3 All ER 249; [1957] 1 Q.B.399 7. M’Naghten’s Case (1843) 10 C & F, 200, 8 Eng. Rep. 718. 8. Quick and Paddison [1973] Q.B. 910 9. Seers [1985] Crim.L.R, 315 10. Sullivan [1984] A.C. 156 (House of Lords) 11. Tandy [1988] Crim.L.R 308 12. Tolson (1889) Legislation 1. Homicide Act. 1957. 2. Trial of Lunatics Act 1883

The Spinning Mule Invention by Samuel Crompton

A spinning mule is a device that is an essential part of the textile industry. Invented in the 18th century  by Samual Crompton, the innovative machine spun textile fibers into yarn using an intermittent process that transformed the way yarn was manufactured, making the process much faster, easier—and more profitable. The History of Spinning Fiber into Yarn In early civilizations, yarn was spun using simple handheld tools: the distaff, which held the raw fiber material (such as wool, hemp, or cotton) and the spindle, onto which the twisted fibers were wound. The spinning wheel, a Middle-Eastern invention whose origins can be traced back as far as the 11th century, was the first step toward the mechanization of the textile spinning industry. The technology is thought to have traveled from Iran to India and was eventually introduced to Europe. The first illustration of the device dates from about 1270. The addition of a foot pedal has been credited to a workman from the town of Brunswick, located in the Saxony region of Germany in the year 1533. This allowed a spinner to power the wheel with one foot, leaving the hands free for spinning. Another 16th-century improvement was the flyer, which twisted the yarn as it was being spun, speeding up the process considerably. Europeans, however, were not the only ones to come up with innovations for spinning textiles. Water-powered spinning wheels were common in China as early as the 14th century. Samuel Crompton Puts a New Spin on Spinning Samuel Crompton was born in 1753 in Lancashire, England. After his father passed away, he helped support his family by spinning yarn. Soon enough, Crompton became all too familiar with the limitations of the industrial textile technology currently in use. He began to think of ways he could improve the process to make it faster and more efficient.  Crompton supported his research and development working as a violinist at the Bolton Theatre for pennies a show, plowing all of his wages into his realizing his invention. In 1779, Crompton was rewarded with an invention he called the spinning mule. The machine combined the moving carriage of the spinning jenny with the rollers of a water frame. The name mule was derived from the fact that like a mule—which is a cross between a horse and a donkey—his invention was also a hybrid. In the operation of a spinning mule, during the draw stroke, the roving (a long, narrow bunch of carded fibers) is pulled through and twisted; on the return, it is wrapped onto the spindle. Once perfected, the spinning mule gave the spinner great control over the weaving process, and many different types of yarn could be produced. In 1813, the mule was upgraded with the addition of a variable speed control invented by William Horrocks. The mule was a game changer for the textile industry: It could spin thread of much finer gauge, better quality, and at a higher volume than thread spun by hand—and the better the  thread, the higher the profit in the marketplace. The fine threads spun on the mule sold for at least three times the price of coarser threads. In addition, the mule could hold multiple spindles, which greatly increased output. Patent Troubles Many 18th-century inventors encountered difficulty over their patents and Crompton was no exception. In the more than five years it took Compton to invent and perfect his spinning mule, he failed to obtain a patent.  Seizing on the opportunity, famed industrialist Richard Arkwright  took out his own patent on the spinning mule, even though he hadnt had anything to do with its creation.   Crompton filed a complaint regarding his patent claim with the British Commons Committee in 1812. The committee concluded that the method of reward to an inventor, as generally accepted in the eighteenth century, was that the machine, etc., should be made public and that a subscription should be raised by those interested, as a reward to the inventor. Such a philosophy may have been practical in the days when inventions required little  capital  to develop, however, it was decidedly inadequate once the industrial  revolution got underway and investment capital became crucial to the development and production of any substantial technical improvement. Unfortunately for Crompton, British law lagged far behind the new paradigm of industrial progress.   Crompton was eventually able to prove the financial harm hed suffered by gathering evidence of all the factories that relied on his invention—more than four million spinning mules were in use at the time—for which hed received no compensation. Parliament agreed to a settlement of  £5,000 pounds. Crompton attempted to go into business with the funds he was finally awarded but his efforts were unsuccessful. He died in 1827.