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study guides
An important concern of NEOabsas (those would be "newbs" to the site, such as your fine self :-), is to acquire knowledge to use in forging connections among our twelve ABSAdomains. The first designation is, of course, being classified as one of our ABSAdomains.
Still, twelve units to organize knowledge about the ABSAdomains proved a bit daunting, so we've decided to place them into uber-categories called SUPERdomains. The ABSAdomains break out into four categories, each encompassing three ABSAdomains. SUPERdomain01 [(dis)orientations] encompasses no ABSAdomains, being devoted entirely to the underground classic, Principia Discordia. For further clarification, please refer to the table below.
Below the table, you'll see links to what we call study guides. These guides are easily the best, most brilliant, and most misunderstood technique of the many created by ABSAprime.
Here's what you get: you are instructed to know "whether or not" a statement is true, based a verbatim quote (or near quote) from the article you are studying.
Now, ABSAprime, in her (40-year-long!) career as university professor used this technique with incredible success for more than fifteen years. But, she has been accused of providing the answers to students in almost the exact wording used in the article (and phrased exactly that way on the exam), appear that way on an objective examination, thereby "giving away" the exam. Apparently making sure that you use obscurity to "trip up" a student on an exam is considered an impressive achievement for some instructors. Not ABSAprime: she knows what we want you to know, how to dig to get it, and how to use the often impenetrable language in a professional way. Once she could prove this through students' performance on an exam, and that, she says, is all she really ever cared about.
What actually happens is that the students (at least as we usually perceive them), armed with solid knowledge they can have, literally in their hands (far more substantial than just vague impressions), is more focused. In addition they have the assurance of not being blindsided by some strange wording in a test question (and haven't we, both as student and teacher, all been there?). Instead, the student arrives at the exam confident and in command...if they want to be. And that's another huge plus: no room for student complaints about not being privy to key information, since it is all up to them! 🤭
Were there negative effects from this technique, reflected in the overall total grades for the course, whose like we have never heard of, before ABSAprime invented it, or since? Not really. Consistently the overall exam scores track a fairly standard distribution, excepting that there were almost no "F's" and a few less "A's," close to what you'd get with a more conventional question-answer dynamic. BTW, this distribution is one ABSAprime's perfectly comfortable with!
But the ancillary benefits? Incalculable. ABSAprime was so confident in her method that she would often allow students constant access (even during exams!) to their study guides (with the inevitable multicolor scrawls and highlights. A big reason why they didn't get all the questions correct is that each question's phrasing is taken directly from the reading itself. So, to know the answer you've got to understand the technical jargon (usually quite extensive) used in the quoted material. Rote memorization of all the items is simply impossible: you've got to know what the language means, not mindlessly repeat it.
Don't worry...you'll see!
Superdomain01: [Dis]orientations
Study Guide01a-D
Principia Discordia
Study Guide01e
Makela et al., Liquid Religion
Superdomain02: Augury [Direction]
Study Guide02a
Cornelius, Divivation
Study Guide02b
Lilly, Horary Astrology
Study Guide02c
Zeng, Jung and Synchronicity
Study Guide02d
Crowley, book of thoth
Superdomain03: Creating Reality
Study Guide03a
Kawada, Soka Gakkai International
Study Guide03b
Wikipedia, "The Firesign Theater"
Study Guide03c
Besant, Man of the world
Study Guide03d
Heindel, Where are the dead?
Study Guide04a
Phulwani, Alinsky/ Machiavelli
Study Guide04b
PJR, Arrogant Dragon
Bartunek et al., 3rd Order, Mysticism
Study Guide04c
McCabe, location, location, etc.
Study Guide04d
Superdomain04: Organization
Study Guide05a
Gidley, cosmology
Study Guide05b
Pasi, three Crowley bios
Study Guide05c
Youvan, Eternal Beings
Study Guide05d
Vaidman, Many Worlds
Superdomain05: The Universe
"As Below, So Above"
[Graphics by Descript's Overlord and Microsoft's Powerpoint. Background videos by Wix.com].
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