Archive of ‘Uncategorized’ category

The Other Side – Identities Paragraph

People always see news articles about police shootings with an innocent bystander as the victim, and automatically side with the victim. Yes, they are innocent, and it is a misunderstanding, but no one ever wants to hear what the police officer has to say. The short story Identities by W.D. Valgardson tackles a similar topic. The story tells of a man who goes for a Saturday drive through a seedy neighbourhood unbeknownst to societies stereotypes. During a misunderstanding the man is shot by a police officer who thinks he is reaching for a weapon opposed to his wallet. The policeman is justified when he kills the man because the officer tells him to “halt,” the officer feels threatened, and the officer is not trained properly. In Identities, the police officer shoots the man because he believes the man is reaching for a weapon. This comes about when the officer tells the man to “halt,” and expects the man to automatically freeze. In this case however the man decides to reach for his wallet that is hidden in his shirt pocket. In the neighbourhood this takes place, it is assumed that the man is of the troublesome type which only adds to the assumption that the man has a concealed weapon. Police officers are trained to stop a person before they can hurt anyone, and the man looks to be reaching for a weapon he will use to harm others. People will argue that he should not shoot him even though he moves his hand towards his pocket. If the officer waits a split second longer and it is a gun, the officer will be dead. Furthermore, this officer should not be stationed in that neighbourhood. The officer “is inexperienced, [he] is nervous because of the neighbourhood, [he] is suspicious because of the car and has been trained to see an unshaven man in blue jeans as a potential thief” (p.3 paragraph 4). Already faced with the pressures of having a new job and being positioned in a high crime area alone would make any person nervous. Seeing as this story takes place in the 1900s, this officer does not have the stress-relief and profiling training that officers of today receive. This training would have helped the officer stay calm under pressure and not assumed the man’s identity. This officer has not received proper training from his station and is not to be blamed completely for the station’s faults. The officer is not at fault for the shooting of the man and is justified because the officer tells the man to “halt” and stop moving, the officer feels threatened by the man, and the officer does not have proper training.

Identities Paragraph-Sarah Lilley-Block C-19pwqsw

Week 15 – Adding and Subtracting Rational Expressions

This week we learned how to add and subtract rational expressions. These are a bit harder than multiplying and dividing because the denominator has to be the same throughout the expression.

Steps to simplify:

  1. determine lowest common denominator (LCD)
  2. rewrite each fraction as an equivalent fraction with LCD
  3. Combine numerators by adding/subtracting
  4. reduce if possible

For example: \frac{x-9}{2x}-\frac{3x}{x-4} where “x” cannot equal 0 or 4.

  1. For this expression, the least common denominator would be 2x(x-4) because neither denominator can be simplified any farther or multipled to create a common denominator, so we multiple the two denominators together to create one LCD.
  2. Since we’re multiplying the bottom, we also have to do the same to the top, so the equation becomes: \frac{(x-9)(x-4)}{2x(x-4)}-\frac{(3x)(2x)}{(x-4)(2x)}.
  3. This simplifies to \frac{x^2-13x+36-6x^2}{2x(x-4)}
  4. The final simplified expression will be \frac{-5x^2-13x+36}{2x(x-4)}

Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, and Royal Romance

Link to article:https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/21/prince-harry-meghan-markle-and-royal-romance

I chose this article because the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is right around the corner, and i wanted more insight about the couple. The author writes in a very descriptive way, giving the reader facts and knowledge about past royal couples and the controversy with certain pairs based on race, religion, ethnicity, etc. I knew of Meghan Markle from the tv show she starred in, Suits, but was not made aware of her attachment to Prince Harry until the past year. The article addressed the past women of the royal family and how race, class, and marital status is becoming less important, replaced with wealth. The pairs love story will be receiving a tv movie called “Harry and Meghan”, which will follow their romantic journey over the years.

Week 13 – Graphing Quadratic Reciprocal Functions

This week we learned how to graph quadratic reciprocal functions, and learned some new vocabulary.

quadratic reciprocal functions will look one of three ways when graphed:

  1. the parent function only touches the x-axis in one spot
  2. the parent function doesn’t touch the x-axis at all
  3. the parent function crosses the x-axis in two places

When graphing the parabola, you first find the asymptotes, invariant points, and then the location of the hyperbola.

Asymptotes are located at where the parabola crosses the x-axis. At the x-intercept(s) you can drop a dotted line vertically, and a dotted line horizontally. Depending on how many x-intercepts you have will dictate how many asymptotes you have.

Dotted in red:

Invariant points are located where your parabola meets the points on the y-axis 1 and -1. The parabola can have 0-4 invariant points. These dictate where you’ll draw the hyperbola.

Circled in blue:

Your hyperbola is the graph of the reciprocal of your original equation. For example: 2x^2+4 becomes \frac{1}{2x^2+4}

When you graph the hyperbola, there’s no need to graph each individual point. Instead, you can just draw a curved line going through your invariant point and approaching zero.

Colored in purple:

 

 

Week 12- Solving Systems Algebraically

This week we learned how to solve systems algebraically with more than one variable.

For example: x+6y=4 and 0=x-4y

In these types of systems you used steps.

  1. Isolate a variable
  2. Plug the equation for that variable into the second system
  3. solve for that variable
  4. plug variable into original equation, solve for the missing variable
  5. Check!

This may not make complete sense in steps, so I’ll demonstrate using the first example.

  1. x+6y=4 can be rearranged to make x=4-6y
  2. next you plus your new equation x=4-6y into your second equation: 0=x-4y which turns into 0=(4-6y)-4y. This becomes y=2/5.
  3. Next, we plug our value for y into our original first equation x+6y=4, which becomes x+6(2/5)=4
  4. Simplifying the equation: x=1.6
  5. Check y=2/5 and x=1.6: x+6y=4 -> 1.6+6(2/5)=4 Yes! 0=x-4y -> 0=1.6-4(2/5) Yes! So we know we did it correctly

Week 7-Using the Discriminant

While solving quadratic equations, it’s useful to take a look at the discriminant.

The discriminant is area under the square root in the quadratic formula:

if you have a quadratic equation (equation equal to zero with 3 distinct parts), you can use the quadratic formula to solve. Depending on the answer, we can figure out whether the equation will have 1,2 or 0 solutions.

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Let’s find the discriminant of the equation: x^2-3x+6=0

In a quadratic equation, the parent would be ax^2+bx+c

following the parent, in our equation, a=1, b=-3, and c=6

using this information we can plug in the numbers to our equation to find the discriminant.

If b^2-4ac is our equation, we just put our numbers we found in the spots of the letters, and simplify.

b^2-4ac

 

-3^2-4(1)(6)

 

9-4(6)

 

9-24

 

-15

 

using this we know that since the discriminant is -15, the original quadratic equation does not have any solutions, and using the quadratic formula would not work.

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