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Shopping part 2 Vocabulary
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Spanish 2 Shopping Vocabulary Part 2
Spanish 2 Shopping Vocabulary - Part 1
Create me a multiple choice test questions with 4 options on the following topic:Consumer Education for Different Audience 1. Children and Youth: - Focus: Building foundational knowledge about basic consumer concepts, making safe choices, understanding money and value, and recognizing scams and unsafe situations. 2. Teens and Young Adults: - Focus: Building financial literacy, responsible debt management, understanding contracts and agreements, responsible technology use, online safety, and consumer rights. 3. Working Adults and Families: - Focus: Managing budgets, making informed purchasing decisions, understanding credit and debt, finding consumer protection resources, and navigating complex financial products (mortgages, insurance, investments). 4. Seniors: - Focus: Protecting themselves from scams and fraud, understanding common consumer issues like telemarketing, identity theft, and online scams, managing medications and healthcare costs, and accessing community resources. 5. Special Populations: - Focus: Adapting consumer education programs to the specific needs of people with disabilities, immigrants, refugees, and other marginalized communities. 6. Business and Industry:- Focus: Understanding ethical marketing practices, complying with consumer protection laws, and providing clear and accurate information to consumers. 7. Policymakers and Regulators: - Focus: Understanding consumer needs, developing effective consumer protection laws, enforcing regulations, and ensuring a fair and competitive marketplace. Adapting consumer education programs for children, teens, and seniors requires tailoring content and delivery methods to their unique needs and learning styles. Children (Ages 5-12): - Understanding the concept of money: Teaching children about saving, spending, and the value of money. - Developing basic budgeting skills: Helping children learn to make choices about how to spend their allowance or pocket money. EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES •Focus on basic concepts: Introduce core concepts like saving, spending, and budgeting in a fun and engaging way. Use simple language and relatable examples. •Real-life scenarios: Use age-appropriate scenarios to illustrate financial concepts, like buying toys or snacks. •Parental involvement: Encourage parent participation and provide resources to help them reinforce lessons at home. Teens (Ages 13-18): - Building budgeting and financial planning skills: Teaching teens how to manage their money, set financial goals, and plan for the future. - Navigating the digital marketplace: Equipping teens with the knowledge and skills to make safe and informed online purchases, understand digital marketing, and protect themselves from scams. EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES • Practical skills: Focus on skills relevant to teens, like managing money for social activities, saving for college, and understanding credit cards. • Digital literacy: Address the growing influence of online shopping, social media advertising, and financial scams. • Real-world applications: Connect financial concepts to real-life decisions teens make, like choosing a part-time job or making purchases online. Seniors (Ages 65+) - Managing retirement savings and healthcare costs: Providing information and resources on retirement planning, Medicare and Medicaid, and other healthcare options. - Navigating the digital world: Offering technology training and resources to help seniors access online services and information safely and securely. EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES • Addressing specific concerns: Focus on topics relevant to senior citizens, like retirement planning, managing healthcare expenses, and avoiding scams. • Clear and concise communication: Use simple language and visual aids to ensure easy understanding. • Social interaction: Create opportunities for seniors to share experiences and learn from each other. Teaching Financial Literacy in school and Communities In Schools: Curriculum Integration: Financial literacy concepts can be seamlessly integrated into existing subjects, making learning more relevant and engaging. - Math: Budgeting exercises, calculating interest rates, analyzing financial data, and understanding compound interest are all natural applications of math skills. - Social Studies: Exploring the history of money, financial institutions, economic systems, and the impact of financial decisions on society provide valuable context. - Economics: Discussions about supply and demand, inflation, investment, and the role of consumers in the economy enhance financial literacy. Dedicated Courses: Offering elective courses or workshops specifically focused on personal finance provides deeper dives into crucial topics. - Personal Finance: Cover budgeting, saving, investing, credit, debt management, and insurance. - Entrepreneurship: Introduce concepts like business planning, marketing, financial forecasting, and managing cash flow. In Communities: Community Centers and Libraries: Workshops, seminars, and classes tailored to adults and families provide accessible learning opportunities. - Financial Planning: Cover budgeting, retirement planning, debt management, and estate planning. - Homeownership: Provide guidance on buying, selling, and maintaining a home. - Consumer Protection: Educate individuals about their rights and how to avoid scams. Partnerships with Financial Institutions: Collaborations with banks, credit unions, and financial advisors offer valuable resources, workshops, and financial literacy programs. Consumer Education for Low-Income and Vulnerable Populations Low-income refers to individuals or households with limited financial resources, typically below a certain threshold. Low-income individuals may face challenges like: 1. Limited education and job opportunities 2. Poor living conditions and housing 3. Food insecurity and malnutrition Causes of low income: 1. Unemployment or underemployment 2. Low-paying jobs or minimum wage 3. Limited education or skills 4. Single parenthood or large family size Vulnerable population'' is a term that is used to describe a group of people who possess some sort of disadvantage. elderly people, people with low incomes, homeless people, people in prison, migrant workers, pregnant women, Family Consumer Education: Managing Household Finances and Resources Financial literacy is the ability to understand and manage personal finances effectively. 1. Debt Debt is money you spend that isn’t yours. If you borrow money from the bank, use a credit card, or take out a short-term loan, or a payday loan, you are accumulating debt. Good debt is considered money borrowed for things that are absolutely necessary for making a life e.g. a house and for advancing your money-making potential e.g. an education. Bad debt is considered borrowing money or using a credit card to pay for things you don’t need, such as expensive clothes, hi-tech electronics, eating out at restaurants, going on holidays, etc. 2. Saving Saving is an essential part of financial wellness, a secure present, and a happy future. 3. Budgeting Budgeting is the life skill of planning and managing your money. By understanding exactly where your money goes every month, you are empowered to create an actionable plan by which you can spend less, by curtailing those unnecessary expenses and saving more for the things you need and want. 4. Investing Investing is all about creating and growing the wealth you need to enjoy a financially secure and happy future. It’s about putting your money into something that will make you a profit over time, such as property, retirement funds, and unit trusts Integrating Consumer Education into the Home Economics Curriculum. Integrating consumer education into the home economics curriculum can provide students with essential skills for making informed choices about their personal finances, food, clothing, and overall well-being. Here are some strategies and ideas for effectively incorporating consumer education: Financial Literacy Budgeting: Teach students how to create and manage a personal budget, including setting financial goals, tracking expenses, and understanding savings. Saving and Investment: Cover the basics of saving, including different saving accounts, and introduce concepts related to investing. Food and Nutrition Food Label Literacy: Engage students in learning how to read and interpret food labels, including nutrition facts and ingredient lists. Grocery Shopping Skills: Teach students how to compare product costs, understand unit pricing, and make healthy, budget-friendly choices while shopping. Clothing and Textile Education Consumer Choices in Clothing:Discuss factors influencing clothing purchases, such as quality, price, and sustainability. Fashion and Trends: Analyze the impact of marketing and advertising on consumer behavior regarding clothing. Sustainable Purchasing Eco-Friendly Choices: Raise awareness about environmentally friendly products and the importance of sustainability in consumer choices. Project-Based Learning - Assign real-life projects where students must apply their knowledge, such as creating a meal plan within a budget, planning a shopping list based on nutrient needs, or evaluating the cost-effectiveness of different products. Technology Integration - Use technology to teach students about online shopping, price comparison websites, and apps that aid budgeting and financial planning. Collaborative Learning Opportunities - Organize team projects where students work together to solve consumer-related problems, emphasizing teamwork and communication skills. Assessment and Reflection - Incorporate assessments that allow students to reflect on what they have learned about consumer education and how they can apply these skills in their daily lives.
The outdoor recreation industry represents a new economy. The leaders of this economy will need to have a deep understanding of our local natural resources and integrate the components of innovation, health, and wellness into a vision for what comes next. Everyone wins when you do the right things for the environment, the community, and the venture. We want to offer the young generation a chance to be part of the foundation we are building for adventure tourism in the emirates and the region. Adventure Tourism Is the Fastest-Growing Global Niche. What does this mean? It means that there’s plenty of room for young experts to enter the field. It’s not just the "guides" that the adventure tourism industry needs. It’s everything that goes with it, from adventure tourism accommodations to trip planners, event managers, marketing and finance directors, advertising, public relations, and communications. We want to highlight that adventure tourism requires more than just guides, and various careers within adventure tourism play a big role in attracting high-value customers, supporting local economies, and encouraging sustainable practices. The continued growth of this sector creates net positive impacts not only for tourism, but also for destination economies, their people, and their environment. 1) Understanding Tourism Tourism is one of the world’s fastest-growing industries and a major foreign exchange and employment generation for many countries. It is one of the most remarkable economic and social phenomena. 2) Understanding Adventure Tourism Adventure tourism is defined as the movement of the people from one to another place outside their comfort zone for exploration or travel to remote areas, exotic and possibly hostile areas. Adventure tourism is a type of tourism in which tourists engage in adventure activities such as trekking, climbing, rafting, scuba diving, or the likes. Adventure tourism gains much of its excitement by allowing the tourist to step outside their comfort zone. This may be from experiencing culture shock or through the performance of acts that required some degree of risk whether real or perceived. It is also about connecting with a new culture or a new landscape and being physically active at the same time. It is not only about being risky or pushing your boundaries. In fact, it is especially important to know and respect your limits while you are in an unfamiliar area. Adventure travel is a leisure activity that takes place in an unusual, exotic, remote, or wilderness destination. It tends to be associated with high levels of activity by the participant, most of it outdoors. Adventure tourists expect to experience various levels of risk, excitement, and tranquillity and be personally tested. In particular, they are explorers of unspoiled, exotic parts of the planet and also seek personal challenges. The main factor distinguishing adventure tourism from all other forms of tourism is the planning and preparation involved. 3) Definitions of Adventure Tourism Adventure tourism is a new concept in the tourism industry. The tourism industry adopted adventure tourism, but there is not any specific definition of adventure tourism. Most commentators concur that adventure tourism is a niche sector of the tourism industry, but there are many other niche sectors in tourism that have the same characteristics that overlap with adventure tourism such as ecotourism, activity tourism, or adventure travel. One of them can confuse. Adventure tourism is a complicated and ambiguous topic. Some important definitions of adventure tourism are as following: A) According to the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA): “adventure tourism is a tourist activity that includes physical activity, cultural exchange, or activities in nature.” B) According to Muller and Cleaver: “Adventure tourism is characterized by its ability to provide the tourist with relatively high levels of sensory stimulation, usually achieved by including physically challenging experiential components with the tourist experience.” C) The Canadian Tourism Commission in 1995 defines adventure tourism as: “an outdoor leisure activity that takes place in an unusual, exotic, remote or wilderness destination, involves some form of unconventional means of transportation, and tends to be associated with low or high levels of activity.” D) According to Sung et al: “adventure tourism is the sum of the phenomena and relationships arising from the interactions of adventure touristic activities with the natural environment away from the participant’s usual place of residence area and containing elements of risk in which the outcome is influenced by the participation, setting, and the organizer of the tourist’s experience.” E) According to UNWTO: ” adventure tourism can be domestic or international, and like all travel, it must include an overnight stay, but not last longer than one year.” 4) Types of Adventure Tourism Adventure tourism has grown exponentially all over the world in recent years with tourists visiting destinations previously undiscovered. This allows for new destinations to market themselves as truly unique, appealing to those travellers looking for a rare, incomparable experience. Adventure tourism includes various activities like caving, hiking, sailing, trekking, etc. Adventure tourism is categorized into two categories: • Hard Adventure • Soft Adventure Hard Adventure Hard adventure refers to activities with high levels of risk, requiring intense commitment and advanced skills. Hard tourism includes the activities like climbing mountains/rock/ice, trekking, caving, etc. Hard adventure activities are highly risked in nature. Professional guides and advanced levels of skills are required to perform these activities. Many tourists died during climbing mountains, caving every day. Soft Adventure Soft adventure refers to activities with a perceived risk but low levels of risk, requiring minimal commitment and beginner skills; experienced guides lead most of these activities. Soft tourism includes the activities like backpacking, camping, hiking, kayaking, etc. Soft adventure activities are low-risk in nature. Professional guides lead these activities. Soft adventure is a popular category in adventure tourism as it caters to a wider audience. 5) Adventure Tourism Activities Adventure travellers are early adopters by nature, meaning they are generally more willing to try new destinations, activities, and travel products. Popular activities change rapidly, and it seems there is a new twist on an existing sport every year. Some activities have low risk and some have high. Adventure tourism activities are classified into two types: • Hard Adventure Activities • Soft Adventure Activities Hard Adventure Activities Hard adventure activities are highly risky and dangerous in nature. These activities are as the following: • Caving • Mountain Climbing • Rock Climbing • Ice Climbing • Trekking • Sky Diving Soft Adventure Activities These activities are less dangerous and risk as compared to hard adventure activities. These activities are mostly lead by professional guides. An example of these activities are: • Backpacking • Bird watching • Camping • Canoeing • Eco-tourism • Fishing • Hiking • Horseback riding • Hunting • Kayaking/sea/whitewater • Orienteering • Safaris • Scuba Diving • Snorkeling • Skiing • Snowboarding • Surfing Adventure tourism activities sit well with the environment because the natural world provides us with the resources for many of the activities that provide risk, challenge, sensory stimulus, novelty, discovery, and so on. 6) Characteristics and Features of Adventure Tourism The threefold combination of activity, nature, and culture marks adventure travel as an all-around challenge. Some unique characteristics and features of adventure tourism are as the following: • Physical activity, like involving physical exertion or psychomotor skills • Contact with nature, activities bringing contact with the natural world in general, or with specific wildlife • Contact with different cultures, i.e. people, faith, lifestyles • Journeys for example vehicle, animal, or human power • Uncertain outcomes • Danger and risk • Challenges • Anticipated rewards • Novelty • Stimulation and excitement • Exploration and discovery • Contrasting emotions 7) Adventure Tourism Supplier A tourism supply chain is the system of people, products, activities, and materials that get a product or service from its raw state through production and distribution to the consumer. As with any sector, volume discounts drive the mass price point, so major retailers primarily market select trips that sell in high volume. The supply chain for these mass tourism products is often very simple, comprising only transportation and accommodation elements. The adventure tourism supply chain is more complex. Niche products often require specializes in knowledge and operations. Adventure tourism’s supply chain linkages go very deep, and this is one of the key reasons that adventure tourism delivers greater benefits at the local level. Supply chains vary from destination to destination. Without a proper supply chain, the tourism sector cannot survive. Tourism suppliers are the backbone of the tourism industry. Adventure tourism suppliers work at a different, different level like as domestic as well international level. 8) Adventure Tourism Importance and Benefits Adventure tourism is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the tourism sector, attracting high-value customers, supporting local economies, and encouraging sustainable practices. The continued growth of this sector creates net positive impacts not only for tourism, but also for destination economies, their people, and their environment. Some importance and benefits of adventure tourism are: A) Employment Generation Adventure tourism generates jobs. Adventure tourism generates directs jobs to accommodation, transportation sector, and travel agencies or tour operators. Adventure tourism also provides indirect jobs to tourism suppliers. Adventure tourism plays an important role in the generation of employment in the economy. B) Foreign Exchange Adventure tourism attracts foreign tourists on a large scale, as a result, it helps in foreign exchange generation. When tourists travel to another country, they spend a large amount of money on accommodation, transportation, and shopping. Adventure tourism generates foreign exchange and supports the economy of the host country. C) Economy Development Adventure tourism helps in the development of the host country’s economy. Adventure tourism activities directly support the economy in various forms. The more tourists, the more economic growth. D) Support Local Communities Adventure tourism helps in the development of infrastructure and supports local communities. Adventure tourism activities directly contributed to the local economy of the communities and increase local people's living standards. E) Conservation of Natural Resources Adventure tourism activities are nature-based activities. Leaders in the adventure tourism industry are dedicated to making this tourism segment as sustainable as possible. They help in the conservation of natural resources as well as culture. F) Creating Business Opportunities Adventure tourism activities create new business opportunities. Several companies specialize in helping emerging adventure tourism operators market their products. Each new adventure tourism activity creates a new business opportunity. G) Local and Foreign Investment Adventure tourism creates business opportunities; as a result, it attracts local as well as international investors. Investors invest their money in accommodation, transportation, and travel trade organization. Adventure tourism plays an important role in the economy of the host country.
Generate all of these 25 questions Part A: Each correct answer is worth 5. 1. The regular pentagon shown has a side length of 2 cm. The perimeter of the pentagon is (A) 2 cm (B) 4 cm (C) 6 cm (D) 8 cm (E) 10 cm 2 cm 2. The faces of a cube are labelled with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 dots. Three of the faces are shown. What is the total number of dots on the other three faces? (A) 6 (B) 8 (C) 10 (D) 12 (E) 15 3. The equation that best represents \a number increased by _ve equals 15" is (A) n 5 = 15 (B) n _ 5 = 15 (C) n + 5 = 15 (D) n + 15 = 5 (E) n _ 5 = 15 4. The line graph shows the number of bobbleheads sold at a store each year. The sale of bobbleheads increased the most between (A) 2016 and 2017 (B) 2017 and 2018 (C) 2018 and 2019 (D) 2019 and 2020 (E) 2020 and 2021 Number of 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Year Sale of Bobbleheads 2021 Bobbleheads 20 40 60 80 5. Starting at 72, Aryana counts down by 11s: 72; 61; 50; : : : . What is the last number greater than 0 that Aryana will count? (A) 4 (B) 5 (C) 6 (D) 7 (E) 8 6. In the diagram, \ABC = 90_. The value of x is (A) 68 (B) 23 (C) 56 (D) 28 (E) 26 Day of the Week 44° x° A B C x° 7. Which of the following values is closest to zero? (A) 1 (B) 5 4 (C) 12 (D) 4 5 (E) 0:9 Grade 8 8. A jar contains 267 quarters. One quarter is worth $0.25. How many quarters must be added to the jar so that the total value of the quarters is $100.00? (A) 33 (B) 53 (C) 103 (D) 133 (E) 153 9. A package of 8 greeting cards comes with 10 envelopes. Kirra has 7 cards but no envelopes. What is the smallest number of packages that Kirra needs to buy to have more envelopes than cards? (A) 3 (B) 4 (C) 5 (D) 6 (E) 7 10. For the points in the diagram, which statement is true? (A) e > c (B) b < d (C) f > b (D) a < e (E) a > c y x (e, f ) (a, b) (c, d ) Part B: Each correct answer is worth 6. 11. The 26 letters of the English alphabet are listed in an in_nite, repeating loop: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXY ZABC : : : What is the 258th letter in this sequence? (A) V (B) W (C) X (D) Y (E) Z 12. A public holiday is always celebrated on the third Wednesday of a certain month. In that month, the holiday cannot occur on which of the following days? (A) 16th (B) 22nd (C) 18th (D) 19th (E) 21st 13. A circular spinner is divided into three sections. An arrow is attached to the centre of the spinner. The arrow is spun once. The probability that the arrow stops on the largest section is 50%. The probability it stops on the next largest section is 1 in 3. The probability it stops on the smallest section is (A) 1 4 (B) 2 5 (C) 1 6 (D) 2 7 (E) 3 10 14. A positive number is divisible by both 3 and 4. The tens digit is greater than the ones digit. How many positive two-digit numbers have this property? (A) 4 (B) 5 (C) 6 (D) 7 (E) 8 15. A rectangular pool measures 20 m by 8 m. There is a 1 m wide walkway around the outside of the pool, as shown by the shaded region. The area of the walkway is (A) 56 m2 (B) 60 m2 (C) 29 m2 (D) 52 m2 (E) 50 m2 20 m 8 m 1 m Grade 8 16. The results of asking 50 students if they participate in music or sports are shown in the Venn diagram. What percentage of the 50 students do not participate in music and do not participate in sports? (A) 0% (B) 80% (C) 20% (D) 70% (E) 40% Music Sports 15 5 20 17. There are 2 3 as many golf balls in Bin F as in Bin G. If there are a total of 150 golf balls, how many fewer golf balls are in Bin F than in Bin G? (A) 15 (B) 30 (C) 50 (D) 60 (E) 90 18. In the sequence shown, Figure 1 is formed using 7 squares. Each _gure after Figure 1 has 5 more squares than the previous _gure. What _gure has 2022 squares? (A) Figure 400 (B) Figure 402 (C) Figure 404 (D) Figure 406 (E) Figure 408 Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 19. Mateo's 300 km trip from Edmonton to Calgary passed through Red Deer. Mateo started in Edmonton at 7 a.m. and drove until stopping for a 40 minute break in Red Deer. Mateo arrived in Calgary at 11 a.m. Not including the break, what was his average speed for the trip? (A) 83 km/h (B) 94 km/h (C) 90 km/h (D) 95 km/h (E) 64 km/h 20. Equilateral triangle ABC has sides of length 4. The midpoint of BC is D, and the midpoint of AD is E. The value of EC2 is (A) 7 (B) 6 (C) 6:25 (D) 8 (E) 10 Part C: Each correct answer is worth 8. 21. The positive factors of 6 are 1, 2, 3, and 6. There are two perfect squares less than 100 that have exactly _ve positive factors. What is the sum of these two perfect squares? (A) 177 (B) 80 (C) 145 (D) 52 (E) 97 22. In the list p; q; r; s; t; u; v, each letter represents a positive integer. The sum of the values of each group of three consecutive letters in the list is 35. If q + u = 15, then p + q + r + s + t + u + v is (A) 85 (B) 70 (C) 80 (D) 90 (E) 75 Grade 8 23. The net shown is folded to form a cube. An ant walks from face to face on the cube, visiting each face exactly once. For example, ABCFED and ABCEFD are two possible orders of faces the ant visits. If the ant starts at A, how many possible orders are there? (A) 24 (B) 48 (C) 32 (D) 30 (E) 40 A D B C E F 24. The number 385 is an example of a three-digit number for which one of the digits is the sum of the other two digits. How many numbers between 100 and 999 have this property? (A) 144 (B) 126 (C) 108 (D) 234 (E) 64 25. Student A, Student B, and Student C have been hired to help scientists develop a new avour of juice. There are 4200 samples to test. Each sample either contains blueberry or does not. Each student is asked to taste each sample and report whether or not they think it contains blueberry. Student A reports correctly on exactly 90% of the samples containing blueberry and reports correctly on exactly 88% of the samples that do not contain blueberry. The results for all three students are shown below. Student A Student B Student C Percentage correct on samples 90% 98% (2m)% containing blueberry Percentage correct on samples 88% 86% (4m)% not containing blueberry Student B reports 315 more samples as containing blueberry than Student A. For some positive integers m, the total number of samples that the three students report as containing blueberry is equal to a multiple of 5 between 8000 and 9000. The sum of all such values of m is (A) 45 (B) 36 (C) 24 (D) 27 (E) 29
1. What is the meaning of the word "Izhaar"? A) To hide the sound B) To make it clear C) To change the sound D) To merge two letters 2. Which part of the body is used to pronounce Izhaar Halqi letters? A) The lips B) The tongue only C) The throat D) The nose 3. How many letters are there for Izhaar Halqi? A) 4 letters B) 6 letters C) 15 letters D) 2 letters 4. When do we apply the rule of Izhaar Halqi? A) When any letter comes after Meem Sakinah B) When an Izhaar letter comes after Noon Sakinah or Tanween C) When we see a Shaddah D) Only at the end of a Surah 5. Which of the following is NOT an Izhaar Halqi letter? A) Hamzah (أ) B) Haa (هـ) C) Baa (ب) D) 'Ayn (ع) 6. Which pair of letters comes from the deepest part of the throat (closest to the chest)? A) ع and ح B) غ and خ C) ء and هـ D) ق and ك 7. When you do Izhaar, do you make a long Ghunnah (nasal sound)? A) Yes, a very long one B) No, we pronounce the Noon clearly without extra Ghunnah C) Only if we want to D) Yes, for 2 counts 8. Which letter comes from the top part of the throat (closest to the mouth)? A) Khaad (خ) B) Haa (ح) C) Hamzah (أ) D) Meem (م) 9. What are the middle throat letters? A) ء and هـ B) ع and ح C) غ and خ D) ت and د 10. In the phrase "مَنْ عَمِلَ" (Man 'Amila), which rule is applied? A) Idghaam B) Ikhfaa C) Izhaar Halqi D) Iqlaab 11. Why do we do Izhaar in "مَنْ عَمِلَ"? A) Because the letter 'Ayn (ع) comes after Noon Sakinah B) Because it is easy to say C) Because Meem has a Fathah D) Because the Noon has a Shaddah 12. What does "Noon Sakinah" mean? A) A Noon with a Fathah B) A Noon with a Kasrah C) A Noon with no vowel (has a Sukoon) D) A double Noon 13. What is Tanween? A) A double vowel sign (Fathatain, Kasratain, Dammatain) at the end of a word D) A small Meem on top of a letter C) A stretching sign D) A stop sign 14. Can Izhaar Halqi happen within a single word? A) No, never B) Yes, it can happen in one word or between two words C) Only in short words D) Only in Surah Al-Fatihah 15. Look at the word "وَانْحَرْ" (Wanhar). What is the Izhaar letter here? A) Waw (و) B) Noon (ن) C) Haa (ح) D) Raa (ر) 16. In the Quran, what sign is usually placed on the Noon Sakinah to show it is Izhaar? A) A small circle or head of a Khaa (Sukoon sign) B) A Shaddah C) Nothing at all D) A little Meem 17. What happens to the Tanween vowels when there is Izhaar? A) They are written far apart from each other B) They are aligned perfectly parallel above/below each other C) One vowel is deleted D) They change color 18. Which of the following words contains an Izhaar Halqi rule? A) أَنْعَمْتَ B) مَنْ يَقُولُ C) مِنْ بَعْدِ D) كُنْتُمْ 19. Choose the group that contains ONLY Izhaar Halqi letters: A) ي ، ر ، م ، ل B) ء ، هـ ، ع ، ح ، غ ، خ C) ك ، ق ، ج ، د D) ب ، ت ، ث 20. In the phrase "عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ" ( 'Adhaabun Aleem), why is there Izhaar? A) Because Tanween is followed by Hamzah (أ) B) Because it ends with Meem C) Because the word is long D) Because of the letter Laam 21. What is the correct way to read "مِنْ حَكِيمٍ"? A) Mi---hakeem (hide the Noon) B) Min Hakeem (read Noon clearly and quickly) C) Mih-hakeem (mix them together) D) Mim-hakeem (change Noon to Meem) 22. "Ghain" (غ) and "Khaa" (خ) come from which part of the throat? A) Deep throat B) Middle throat C) Top throat D) The lips 23. If a Noon Sakinah is followed by the letter "هـ" (Haa), how do we pronounce it? A) Clear Noon B) Hidden Noon C) Double Noon D) Silent Noon 24. Which of these is a middle throat letter? A) ء B) خ C) ح D) هـ 25. Complete the sentence: Izhaar Halqi means to pronounce the Noon Sakinah or Tanween cleanly from its articulation point without any ________. A) Breathing B) Vowel (Harakah) C) Extra Ghunnah (nasalization) D) Stopping
She went by the name of Belisa Crepusculario, not because she had been baptized with that name or given it by her mother, but because she herself had searched until she found the poetry of "beauty" and "twilight" and cloaked herself in it. She made her living selling words. She journeyed through the country from the high cold mountains to the burning coasts, stopping at fairs and in markets where she set up four poles covered by a canvas awning under which she took refuge from the sun and rain to minister to her customers. She did not have to peddle her merchandise because from having wandered far and near, everyone knew who she was. Some people waited for her from one year to the next, and when she appeared in the village with her bundle beneath her arm, they would form a line in front of her stall. Her prices were fair. For five centavos she delivered verses from memory, for seven she improved the quality of dreams, for nine she wrote love letters, for twelve she invented insults for irreconcilable enemies. She also sold stories, not fantasies but long, true stories she recited at one telling, never skipping a word. This is how she carried news from one town to another. People paid her to add a line or two: our son was born, so-and-so died, our children got married, the crops burned in the field. Wherever she went a small crowd gathered around to listen as she began to speak, and that was how they learned about each others' doings, about distant relatives, about what was going on in the civil war. To anyone who paid her fifty centavos in trade, she gave the gift of a secret word to drive away melancholy. It was not the same word for everyone, naturally, because that would have been collective dece it. Each person received his or her own word, with the assurance that no one else would use it that way in this universe or the Beyond. Belisa Crepusculario had been born into a family so poor they did not even have names to give their children. She came into the world and grew up in an inhospitable land where some years the rains became avalanches of water that bore everything away before them and others when not a drop fell from the sky and the sun swelled to fill the horizon and the world became a desert. Until she was twelve, Belisa had no occupation or virtue other than having withstood hunger and the exhaustion of centuries. During one interminable drought, it fell to her to bury four younger brothers and sisters, when she realized that her turn was next, she decided to set out across the 2 plains in the direction of the sea, in hopes that she might trick death along the way. The land was eroded, split with deep cracks, strewn with rocks, fossils of trees and thorny bushes, and skeletons of animals bleached by the sun. From time to time she ran into families who, like her, were heading south, following the mirage of water. Some had begun the march carrying their belongings on their back or in small carts, but they could barely move their own bones, and after a while they had to abandon their possessions. They dragged themselves along painfully, their skin turned to lizard hide and their eyes burned by the reverberating glare. Belisa greeted them with a wave as she passed, but she did not stop, because she had no strength to waste in acts of compassion. Many people fell by the wayside, but she was so stubborn that she survived to cross through that hell and at long last reach the first trickles of water, fine, almost invisible threads that fed spindly vegetation and farther down widened into small streams and marshes. Belisa Crepusculario saved her life and in the process accidentally discovered writing. In a village near the coast, the wind blew a page of newspaper at her feet. She picked up the brittle yellow paper and stood a long while looking at it, unable to determine its purpose, until curiosity overcame her shyness. She walked over to a man who was washing his horse in the muddy pool where she had quenched her thirst. "What is this?" she asked. "The sports page of the newspaper," the man replied, concealing his surprise at her ignorance. The answer astounded the girl, but she did not want to seem rude, so she merely inquired about the significance of the fly tracks scattered across the page. "Those are words, child. Here it says that Fulgencio Barba knocked out El Negro Tiznao in the third round." That was the day Belisa Crepusculario found out that words make their way in the world without a master, and that anyone with a little cleverness can appropriate them and do business with them. She made a quick assessment of her situation and concluded that aside from becoming a prostitute or working as a servant in the kitchens of the rich there were few occupations she was qualified for. It seemed to her that selling words would be an honorable alternative. From that moment on, she worked at that profession, and was never tempted by any other. At the beginning, she offered her merchandise unaware that words could be written outside of newspapers. When she learned otherwise, she calculated the infinite possibilities of her trade and with her savings paid a priest twenty pesos to teach her to read and write, with her three 3 remaining coins she bought a dictionary. She poured over it from A to Z and then threw it into the sea, because it was not her intention to defraud her customers with packaged words. One August morning several years later, Belisa Crepusculario was sitting in her tent in the middle of a plaza, surrounded by the uproar of market day, selling legal arguments to an old man who had been trying for sixteen years to get his pension. Suddenly she heard yelling and thudding hoofbeats. She looked up from her writing and saw, first, a cloud of dust, and then a band of horsemen come galloping into the plaza. They were the Colonel's men, sent under orders of El Mulato, a giant known throughout the land for the speed of his knife and his loyalty to his chief. Both the Colonel and El Mulato had spent their lives fighting in the civil war, and their names were ineradicably linked to devastation and calamity. The rebels swept into town like a stampeding herd, wrapped in noise, bathed in sweat, and leaving a hurricane of fear in their trail. Chickens took wing, dogs ran for their lives, women and children scurried out of sight, until the only living soul left in the market was Belisa Crepusculario. She had never seen El Mulato and was surprised to see him walking toward her. "I'm looking for you," he shouted, pointing his coiled whip at her, even before the words were out, two men rushed her -- knocking over her canopy and shattering her inkwell -- bound her hand and foot, and threw her like a sea bag across the rump of El Mulato's mount. Then they thundered off toward the hills. Hours later, just as Belisa Crepusculario was near death, her heart ground to sand by the pounding of the horse, they stopped, and four strong hands set her down. She tried to stand on her feet and hold her head high, but her strength failed her and she slumped to the ground, sinking into a confused dream. She awakened several hours later to the murmur of night in the camp, but before she had time to sort out the sounds, she opened her eyes and found herself staring into the impatient glare of El Mulato, kneeling beside her. "Well, woman, at last you've come to," he said. To speed her to her senses, he tipped his canteen and offered her a sip of liquor laced with gunpowder. She demanded to know the reason for such rough treatment, and El Mulato explained that the Colonel needed her services. He allowed her to splash water on her face, and then led her to the far end of the camp where the most feared man in all the land was lazing in a hammock strung between two trees. She could not see his face, because he lay in the deceptive shadow of the leaves and the indelible shadow of all his years as a bandit, but she imagined from the way his 4 gigantic aide addressed him with such humility that he must have a very menacing expression. She was surprised by the Colonel's voice, as soft and well-modulated as a professor's. "Are you the woman who sells words?" he asked. "At your service," she stammered, peering into the dark and trying to see him better. The Colonel stood up, and turned straight toward her. She saw dark skin and the eyes of a ferocious puma, and she knew immediately that she was standing before the loneliest man in the world. "I want to be President," he announced. The Colonel was weary of riding across that godforsaken land, waging useless wars and suffering defeats that no subterfuge could transform into victories. For years he had been sleeping in the open air, bitten by mosquitoes, eating iguanas and snake soup, but those minor inconveniences were not why he wanted to change his destiny. What truly troubled him was the terror he saw in people's eyes. He longed to ride into a town beneath a triumphal arch with bright flags and flowers everywhere, he wanted to be cheered, and be given newly laid eggs and freshly baked bread. Men fled at the sight of him, children trembled, and women miscarried from fright, he had had enough, and so he had decided to become President. El Mulato had suggested that they ride to the capital, gallop up to the Palace, and take over the government, the way they had taken so many other things without anyone's permission. The Colonel, however, did not want to be just another tyrant, there had been enough of those before him and, besides, if he did that, he would never win people's hearts. It was his aspiration to win the popular vote in the December elections. "To do that, I have to talk like a candidate. Can you sell me the words for a speech?" the Colonel asked Belisa Crepusculario. She had accepted many assignments, but none like this. She did not dare refuse, fearing that El Mulato would shoot her between the eyes, or worse still, that the Colonel would burst into tears. There was more to it than that, however, she felt the urge to help him because she felt a throbbing warmth beneath her skin, a powerful desire to touch that man, to fondle him, to clasp him in her arms. All night and a good part of the following day, Belisa Crepusculario searched her repertory for words adequate for a presidential speech, closely watched by El Mulato, who could not take his eyes from her firm wanderer's legs and virginal breasts. She discarded harsh, cold words, words 5 that were too flowery, words worn from abuse, words that offered improbable promises, untruthful and confusing words, until all she had left were words sure to touch the minds of men and women's intuition. Calling upon the knowledge she had purchased from the priest for twenty pesos, she wrote the speech on a sheet of paper and then signaled El Mulato to untie the rope that bound her ankles to a tree. He led her once more to the Colonel, and again she felt the throbbing anxiety that had seized her when she first saw him. She handed him the paper and waited while he looked at it, holding it gingerly between thumbs and fingertips. "What the shit does this say," he asked finally. "Don't you know how to read?" "War's what I know," he replied. She read the speech aloud. She read it three times, so her client could engrave it on his memory. When she finished, she saw the emotion in the faces of the soldiers who had gathered round to listen, and saw that the Colonel's eyes glittered with enthusiasm, convinced that with those words the presidential chair would be his. "If after they've heard it three times, the boys are still standing there with their mouths hanging open, it must mean the thing's damn good, Colonel" was El Mulato's approval. "All right, woman. How much do I owe you?" the leader asked. "One peso, Colonel." "That's not much," he said, opening the pouch he wore at his belt, heavy with proceeds from the last foray. "The peso entitles you to a bonus. I'm going to give you two secret words," said Belisa Crepusculario. "What for?" She explained that for every fifty centavos a client paid, she gave him the gift of a word for his exclusive use. The Colonel shrugged. He had no interest at all in her offer, but he did not want to be impolite to someone who had served him so well. She walked slowly to the leather stool where he was sitting, and bent down to give him her gift. The man smelled the scent of a mountain cat issuing from the woman, a fiery heat radiating from her hips, he heard the terrible whisper of her hair, and a breath of sweetmint murmured into his ear the two secret words that were his alone. "They are yours, Colonel," she said as she stepped back. "You may use them as much as you 6 please." El Mulato accompanied Belisa to the roadside, his eyes as entreating as a stray dog's, but when he reached out to touch her, he was stopped by an avalanche of words he had never heard before; believing them to be an irrevocable curse, the flame of his desire was extinguished. During the months of September, October, and November the Colonel delivered his speech so many times that had it not been crafted from glowing and durable words it would have turned to ash as he spoke. He travelled up and down and across the country, riding into cities with a triumphal air, stopping in even the most forgotten villages where only the dump heap betrayed a human presence, to convince his fellow citizens to vote for him. While he spoke from a platform erected in the middle of the plaza, El Mulato and his men handed out sweets and painted his name on all the walls in gold frost. No one paid the least attention to those advertising ploys; they were dazzled by the clarity of the Colonel's proposals and the poetic lucidity of his arguments, infected by his powerful wish to right the wrongs of history, happy for the first time in their lives. When the Candidate had finished his speech, his soldiers would fire their pistols into the air and set off firecrackers, and when finally they rode off, they left behind a wake of hope that lingered for days on the air, like the splendid memory of a comet's tail. Soon the Colonel was the favorite. No one had ever witnessed such a phenomenon: a man who surfaced from the civil war, covered with scars and speaking like a professor, a man whose fame spread to every corner of the land and captured the nation's heart. The press focused their attention on him. Newspapermen came from far away to interview him and repeat his phrases, and the number of his followers and enemies continued to grow. "We're doing great, Colonel," said El Mulato, after twelve successful weeks of campaigning. But the Candidate did not hear. He was repeating his secret words, as he did more and more obsessively. He said them when he was mellow with nostalgia; he murmured them in his sleep; he carried them with him on horseback; he thought them before delivering his famous speech; and he caught himself savoring them in his leisure time. And every time he thought of those two words, he thought of Belisa Crepusculario, and his senses were inflamed with the memory of her feral scent, her fiery heat, the whisper of her hair, and her sweetmint breath in his ear, until he began to go around like a sleepwalker, and his men realized that he might die before he ever sat in the presidential chair. "What's got hold of you, Colonel," El Mulato asked so often that finally one day his chief broke 7 down and told him the source of his befuddlement: those two words that were buried like two daggers in his gut. "Tell me what they are and maybe they'll lose their magic," his faithful aide suggested. "I can't tell them, they're for me alone," the Colonel replied. Saddened by watching his chief decline like a man with a death sentence on his head, El Mulato slung his rifle over his shoulder and set out to find Belisa Crepusculario. He followed her trail through all that vast country, until he found her in a village in the far south, sitting under her tent reciting her rosary of news. He planted himself, spraddle-legged, before her, weapon in hand. "You! You're coming with me," he ordered. She had been waiting. She picked up her inkwell, folded the canvas of her small stall, arranged her shawl around her shoulders, and without a word took her place behind El Mulato's saddle. They did not exchange so much as a word in all the trip; El Mulato's desire for her had turned into rage, and only his fear of her tongue prevented his cutting her to shreds with his whip. Nor was he inclined to tell her that the Colonel was in a fog, and that a spell whispered into his ear had done what years of battle had not been able to do. Three days later they arrived at the encampment, and immediately, in view of all the troops, El Mulato led his prisoner before the Candidate. "I brought this witch here so you can give her back her words, Colonel," El Mulato said, pointing the barrel of his rifle at the woman's head. "And then she can give you back your manhood." The Colonel and Belisa Crepusculario stared at each other, measuring one another from a distance. The men knew then that their leader would never undo the witchcraft of those accursed words, because the whole world could see the voracious-puma eyes soften as the woman walked to him and took his hand in hers. Copyright © 1989 by Isabel Allende From The Stories of Eva Luna, Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden
“There’s No Such Thing as Sound Science” by By Christie Aschwanden was a lead science writer for FiveThirtyEight. FiveThirtyEight, Science, Dec. 6, 2017 Science is being turned against itself. For decades, its twin ideals of transparency and rigor have been weaponized by those who disagree with results produced by the scientific method. Under the Trump administration, that fight has ramped up again. In a move ostensibly meant to reduce conflicts of interest, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has removed a number of scientists from advisory panels and replaced some of them with representatives from industries that the agency regulates. Like many in the Trump administration, Pruitt has also cast doubt on the reliability of climate science. For instance, in an interview with CNBC, Pruitt said that “measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do.” Similarly, Trump’s pick to head NASA, an agency that oversees a large portion the nation’s climate research, has insisted that research into human influence on climate lacks certainty, and he falsely claimed that “global temperatures stopped rising 10 years ago.” Kathleen Hartnett White, Trump’s nominee to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a Senate hearing last month that she thinks we “need to have more precise explanations of the human role and the natural role” in climate change. The same entreaties crop up again and again: We need to root out conflicts. We need more precise evidence. What makes these arguments so powerful is that they sound quite similar to the points raised by proponents of a very different call for change that’s coming from within science. This other movement strives to produce more robust, reproducible findings. Despite having dissimilar goals, the two forces espouse principles that look surprisingly alike: Science needs to be transparent. Results and methods should be openly shared so that outside researchers can independently reproduce and validate them. The methods used to collect and analyze data should be rigorous and clear, and conclusions must be supported by evidence. These are the arguments underlying an “open science” reform movement that was created, in part, as a response to a “reproducibility crisis” that has struck some fields of science.1 But they’re also used as talking points by politicians who are working to make it more difficult for the EPA and other federal agencies to use science in their regulatory decision-making, under the guise of basing policy on “sound science.” Science’s virtues are being wielded against it. What distinguishes the two calls for transparency is intent: Whereas the “open science” movement aims to make science more reliable, reproducible and robust, proponents of “sound science” have historically worked to amplify uncertainty, create doubt and undermine scientific discoveries that threaten their interests. “Our criticisms are founded in a confidence in science,” said Steven Goodman, co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford and a proponent of open science. “That’s a fundamental difference — we’re critiquing science to make it better. Others are critiquing it to devalue the approach itself.” Calls to base public policy on “sound science” seem unassailable if you don’t know the term’s history. The phrase was adopted by the tobacco industry in the 1990s to counteract mounting evidence linking secondhand smoke to cancer. A 1992 Environmental Protection Agency report identified secondhand smoke as a human carcinogen, and Philip Morris responded by launching an initiative to promote what it called “sound science.” In an internal memo, Philip Morris vice president of corporate affairs Ellen Merlo wrote that the program was designed to “discredit the EPA report,” “prevent states and cities, as well as businesses from passing smoking bans” and “proactively” pass legislation to help their cause. The sound science tactic exploits a fundamental feature of the scientific process: Science does not produce absolute certainty. Contrary to how it’s sometimes represented to the public, science is not a magic wand that turns everything it touches to truth. Instead, it’s a process of uncertainty reduction, much like a game of 20 Questions. Any given study can rarely answer more than one question at a time, and each study usually raises a bunch of new questions in the process of answering old ones. “Science is a process rather than an answer,” said psychologist Alison Ledgerwood of the University of California, Davis. Every answer is provisional and subject to change in the face of new evidence. It’s not entirely correct to say that “this study proves this fact,” Ledgerwood said. “We should be talking instead about how science increases or decreases our confidence in something.” The tobacco industry’s brilliant tactic was to turn this baked-in uncertainty against the scientific enterprise itself. While insisting that they merely wanted to ensure that public policy was based on sound science, tobacco companies defined the term in a way that ensured that no science could ever be sound enough. The only sound science was certain science, which is an impossible standard to achieve. “Doubt is our product,” wrote one employee of the Brown & Williamson tobacco company in a 1969 internal memo. The note went on to say that doubt “is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’” and “establishing a controversy.” These strategies for undermining inconvenient science were so effective that they’ve served as a sort of playbook for industry interests ever since, said Stanford University science historian Robert Proctor. The sound science push is no longer just Philip Morris sowing doubt about the links between cigarettes and cancer. It’s also a 1998 action plan by the American Petroleum Institute, Chevron and Exxon Mobil to “install uncertainty” about the link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. It’s industry-funded groups’ late-1990s effort to question the science the EPA was using to set fine-particle-pollution air-quality standards that the industry didn’t want. And then there was the more recent effort by Dow Chemical to insist on more scientific certainty before banning a pesticide that the EPA’s scientists had deemed risky to children. Now comes a move by the Trump administration’s EPA to repeal a 2015 rule on wetlands protection by disregarding particular studies. (To name just a few examples.) Doubt merchants aren’t pushing for knowledge, they’re practicing what Proctor has dubbed “agnogenesis” — the intentional manufacture of ignorance. This ignorance isn’t simply the absence of knowing something; it’s a lack of comprehension deliberately created by agents who don’t want you to know, Proctor said.2 In the hands of doubt-makers, transparency becomes a rhetorical move. “It’s really difficult as a scientist or policy maker to make a stand against transparency and openness, because well, who would be against it?” said Karen Levy, researcher on information science at Cornell University. But at the same time, “you can couch everything in the language of transparency and it becomes a powerful weapon.” For instance, when the EPA was preparing to set new limits on particulate pollution in the 1990s, industry groups pushed back against the research and demanded access to primary data (including records that researchers had promised participants would remain confidential) and a reanalysis of the evidence. Their calls succeeded and a new analysis was performed. The reanalysis essentially confirmed the original conclusions, but the process of conducting it delayed the implementation of regulations and cost researchers time and money. Delay is a time-tested strategy. “Gridlock is the greatest friend a global warming skeptic has,” said Marc Morano, a prominent critic of global warming research and the executive director of ClimateDepot.com, in the documentary “Merchants of Doubt” (based on the book by the same name). Morano’s site is a project of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, which has received funding from the oil and gas industry. “We’re the negative force. We’re just trying to stop stuff.” Some of these ploys are getting a fresh boost from Congress. The Data Quality Act (also known as the Information Quality Act) was reportedly written by an industry lobbyist and quietly passed as part of an appropriations bill in 2000. The rule mandates that federal agencies ensure the “quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information” that they disseminate, though it does little to define what these terms mean. The law also provides a mechanism for citizens and groups to challenge information that they deem inaccurate, including science that they disagree with. “It was passed in this very quiet way with no explicit debate about it — that should tell you a lot about the real goals,” Levy said. But what’s most telling about the Data Quality Act is how it’s been used, Levy said. A 2004 Washington Post analysis found that in the 20 months following its implementation, the act was repeatedly used by industry groups to push back against proposed regulations and bog down the decision-making process. Instead of deploying transparency as a fundamental principle that applies to all science, these interests have used transparency as a weapon to attack very particular findings that they would like to eradicate. Now Congress is considering another way to legislate how science is used. The Honest Act, a bill sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas,3 is another example of what Levy calls a “Trojan horse” law that uses the language of transparency as a cover to achieve other political goals. Smith’s legislation would severely limit the kind of evidence the EPA could use for decision-making. Only studies whose raw data and computer codes were publicly available would be allowed for consideration. That might sound perfectly reasonable, and in many cases it is, Goodman said. But sometimes there are good reasons why researchers can’t conform to these rules, like when the data contains confidential or sensitive medical information.4 Critics, which include more than a dozen scientific organizations, argue that, in practice, the rules would prevent many studies from being considered in EPA reviews.5 It might seem like an easy task to sort good science from bad, but in reality it’s not so simple. “There’s a misplaced idea that we can definitively distinguish the good from the not-good science, but it’s all a matter of degree,” said Brian Nosek, executive director of the Center for Open Science. “There is no perfect study.” Requiring regulators to wait until they have (nonexistent) perfect evidence is essentially “a way of saying, ‘We don’t want to use evidence for our decision-making,’” Nosek said. Most scientific controversies aren’t about science at all, and once the sides are drawn, more data is unlikely to bring opponents into agreement. Michael Carolan, who researches the sociology of technology and scientific knowledge at Colorado State University, wrote in a 2008 paper about why objective knowledge is not enough to resolve environmental controversies. “While these controversies may appear on the surface to rest on disputed questions of fact, beneath often reside differing positions of value; values that can give shape to differing understandings of what ‘the facts’ are.” What’s needed in these cases isn’t more or better science, but mechanisms to bring those hidden values to the forefront of the discussion so that they can be debated transparently. “As long as we continue down this unabashedly naive road about what science is, and what it is capable of doing, we will continue to fail to reach any sort of meaningful consensus on these matters,” Carolan writes. The dispute over tobacco was never about the science of cigarettes’ link to cancer. It was about whether companies have the right to sell dangerous products and, if so, what obligations they have to the consumers who purchased them. Similarly, the debate over climate change isn’t about whether our planet is heating, but about how much responsibility each country and person bears for stopping it. While researching her book “Merchants of Doubt,” science historian Naomi Oreskes found that some of the same people who were defending the tobacco industry as scientific experts were also receiving industry money to deny the role of human activity in global warming. What these issues had in common, she realized, was that they all involved the need for government action. “None of this is about the science. All of this is a political debate about the role of government,” she said in the documentary. These controversies are really about values, not scientific facts, and acknowledging that would allow us to have more truthful and productive debates. What would that look like in practice? Instead of cherry-picking evidence to support a particular view (and insisting that the science points to a desired action), the various sides could lay out the values they are using to assess the evidence. For instance, in Europe, many decisions are guided by the precautionary principle — a system that values caution in the face of uncertainty and says that when the risks are unclear, it should be up to industries to show that their products and processes are not harmful, rather than requiring the government to prove that they are harmful before they can be regulated. By contrast, U.S. agencies tend to wait for strong evidence of harm before issuing regulations. Both approaches have critics, but the difference between them comes down to priorities: Is it better to exercise caution at the risk of burdening companies and perhaps the economy, or is it more important to avoid potential economic downsides even if it means that sometimes a harmful product or industrial process goes unregulated? In other words, under what circumstances do we agree to act on a risk? How certain do we need to be that the risk is real, and how many people would need to be at risk, and how costly is it to reduce that risk? Those are moral questions, not scientific ones, and openly discussing and identifying these kinds of judgment calls would lead to a more honest debate. Science matters, and we need to do it as rigorously as possible. But science can’t tell us how risky is too risky to allow products like cigarettes or potentially harmful pesticides to be sold — those are value judgements that only humans can make.