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<...>Most US current is 60 Hz, (60 cycle), "120 volt" alternating current, or, "AC." Many people still call it 110, meaning 110 volts, but this is in name only, as the standard changed gradually from 110V. to 120V. in fairly recent times. There is 240V available, (called 220), in many homes, but only for (some) air conditioners, most electric stoves, and most electric clothes dryers. <...>Don't bother looking for 220-240V in hotels, or public places, and remember, some homes do not have 220-240V at ALL! <...> -- Anonymous (Aug 2000) |
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<...>People refer to 120V as
110V because that is the actual voltage; 120 is the spec but when
read with a meter (because of the phase of the two lines to each
house - but I wont' get into that), it's around 112, and ALWAYS at
least 110, there are no "oftens" or "sometimes";
it is always available, as is 220V (each house/establishment gets three conductors to it - neutral, 110, and 110). I was an electrician in the States. Whether 220 is "available" simply depends on whether there is a breaker in the panel for it, and a proper receptacle in a wall for it. So if someone were say, renting in the US, the info given would be quite misleading. It's there. If you wanted a 220 receptacle where none existed, it could be installed for about $100~150 US. -- John (Apr 2002) |
| Category | System | Quick Conversion | Example |
| Women's clothing | US vs UK. | Add 2 to the US size to get the UK equivalent. | 10 (US) is 12 (UK). |
| Women's shoes | US vs UK | Minus 1.5 from US size to get UK equivalent. | 8 (US) is 6.5 (UK). |
| Men's shirts | US vs European | Inches to centimetres (ie multiply US by 2.54) | 17 (US) is 43 (EUR). |
| Men's shoes | US vs UK | Minus 1 from US size to get UK equivalent. . | 12 (US) is 11 (UK) |
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<...>Prior military personnel write dates as Day/Month/Year. It's those unenlightened civilians that screw it up, as Month/Day/Year. :-)<...> -- rubyo (Jan 1996) |
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<...>there are a LOT of shops (a majority, I would say) which will not accept anything above a $20.<...> -- Justin Ridge (Feb 1996) |
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<...>they're definitely out there. $50 and $100 are available at banks. you can get them easily by cashing large checks, although many stores, etc, won't take them. convenience stores won't take big bills after dark.<...> -- Eric Hollander (Feb 1996) |
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<...> this certainly is one of the more backward features of the u.s. once talked to a treasury official who said they would love to change but no one was willing to risk the political repercusions.<...> -- al klovdahl (Feb 1996) |
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<...>U.S. currency exists in $50, $100, $500, $1000, and $5000 denominations, but $100 is the largest in current circulation. If you take $500 out of a bank, you'll get $100s. You can get a $50 from a bank, but it's as useless as a 50 cent piece. -- Bryan Henderson (Feb 1996) |
| <...>no such thing as a $5000 dollar bill, not because it isn't in circulation, but because they are out of circulation and always will be. The federal bank did away with them long ago. No $1000's are being printed, either, but they ARE in circulation. They are available from a bank on request, and then only if they have them. Most don't.<...> -- John (Apr 2002) |
| The $1000 bill has been taken out of circulation starting in 1969, only a few remain. It was last printed in 1934 and has U.S. president Grover Cleveland's face printed on it. If you happen to come across one, do not spend it or exchange it for ten $100's, it is worth anywhere from $1300.00 to $3500.00 from a collector depending on condition, year, and issuing treasury. -- Darrin (Jan 2004) |
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<...>External doors don't always open out.. it's pretty random from my viewing<...> -- Julian Elischer (Feb 1996) |
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<...>The doors to businesses open outward for fire safety. (When doors open inward, people trying to escape a fire push the people at the door against the door, preventing exit.)<...> -- csvcjld (Feb 1996) |
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<...>some time back, in the 1930's i believe, a lot of people lost their lives trying to escape a theatre fire because in their panic to exit they pushed up against doors that opened in only. the most sensible doors swing both ways.<...> -- al klovdahl (Feb 1996) |
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This actually makes sense to me!!! When a light switch is on, it points toward the north pole, when off, toward the south pole.-- smolinske-j (Feb 1996) |
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<...>i think the australian way is more logical: if a switch is up when on it seems to me more likely that in a 'wet' room (eg bathroom/shower, where there are switches in the u.s.) condensation would be more likely to flow down into the switch mechanism. whehter this is a real possibility is another question.<...> -- al klovdahl (Feb 1996) |
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<...>Also many places do not have a floor 13.<...> -- Grant Cartledge (actually British) (Feb 1996) |
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The school that I attended as an undergraduate had buildings where the first floor was in the basement. I must admit that it took a few trips to get it straight -- ND (Mar 2000) The uni I went to (in Aus) had a new building attached to the old building. The old building used the English system and the new one used the US system. Talk about confusing! -- donsi. |
| <...>this is not true. Most tall buildings I've been in on the East Coast do have G and B on the elevator. I've never even heard of starting a basement or ground-floor at 1. This is supposed to be an American standard? I'd check agian on that. More likely, it's a California thing, they're always trying to be like Europe. I'd sooner bet it's a Europe thing and not American. -- John (Apr 2002) |
| <...>Ha! This is quite variable in one respect. How one starts. Only rarely will the "European" usage be followed, with the first floor one floor up. The floor closest to ground level is almost always considered one. However hotels, especially, often do funny things with this, and may well have a G (or L, for lobby) either instead of, or in addition to, the number one. Have you ever seen "E" in Germany? Similar usage. I also went to a school where the "first" floor was almost fully a basement. If it is a government building, that floor may well be called number 1, for parallelism among the room numbers, where the floor is a prefix to the room. So you can find both 1-200 and B-200 for a room in the basement. You also can also see B2 (and even B3) in very large buildings with many basements. The most COMMON system is still starting with 1 and going through all the numbers. I did stay at a hotel last week which skipped 13, though, for the first time I have seen that in some time. It was mostly dropped after WW2 (the skipping of number 13). . -- HAL B (Sept 2003) |
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Americans continue their general education for an extra four years. Consequently they are about 2-6 years behind the rest of the world in the time it takes to get a professional qualification. Their Year 12 is about equivalent to an Australian Year 10. The American Bachelor Degree is a 4 year general degree where the "major" accounts for only one quarter of the work and is equivalent, in many cases, to the work which Australians do in Years 11 and 12. What Australians study in professional Bachelor degrees Americans study in doctoral degrees: medicine, dentistry, vetinary science, chiropractic, law, etc. American PhD's are 3-5 years in length and include course work and substantial internships. Australian PhD's are 2-3 years in length, are purely research orientated and include little or no course work or internships. Unfortunately almost all Americans equate foreign degrees with their own on a "same-name equals same-level" basis. Most American credential evaluation businesses and academic institutions will do the same. If you need your degree or HSC properly equaluated then you must provide these people with lots of disconfirming evidence. You'll find references to it on my Web Pages. -- Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM (April 2000) http://www.neurognostics.com.au/AcademicEquivs/OzziePsychoCringe.htm http://www.neurognostics.com.au/AcademicEquivs/PsychPaths.htm |
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<...>re differences in High school educational standards and have to say that this
has not been our experience. We are Australian, living in California. Prior to
leaving home we had heard both on a personal and professional level
(I'm a
teacher) that Americans are behind Australia educationally. As our boys are
extremely bright and as we arrived mid year (for America) we argued very
strongly that they go to the next year level up, rather than
repeat.
The intermediate school obliged and one son has been finding the standard of work reasonable, but challenging. The work that he's doing seems on a par with the same Year level at home, though some aspects of the subjects (e.g. textual analysis of literary works) seem to be far in advance of what I'd be expecting of a similar age student back home. Older son was not allowed to start half way through Year 11 and so is repeating the last half of Year 10, much to his disgust. From what I am seeing, though there may be some transitional and emotional effects in play, the actual work he is being asked to do is again of a very similar level/standard as at home and in some cases quite advanced. For the first time in his schooling he is not getting all "A"s. The differences in education that stand out to me are:- the organisation of the day, year long subjects, the evaluation/assessment systems, a restrictive curriculum (all teachers in the area using the same texts and presumably expected to be at the same spot in the same chapter on the same day...) and the teaching methodology( a lot more rote learning seems to be expected than back home). The other big difference I've noticed over here is the apparent lack of computer equipment for students. Although we have only been here a few months, it seems to me that education, within this area at least, is of a very similar standard to Australia. I guess the other factor in all this is that education over here is local and in Australia it is run at a state level. If we look at the variance in standards between states in Australia, and then consider the huge number of local education systems within the states of America, it is no wonder we find it hard to compare.<...> --Beth Young (May 2002) |
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<...>the Third International Mathematics and Science Study [TIMSS] which provides comparative information on Australian and US school systems. The US has a four-year High School sequence, Australia has a 6-year sequence. A US High School graduate will rarely have more than 4 years of study in the same
language, and usually a lot less than that. An Australian student will have up to six years of study in the same language. There are similar examples in Mathematics and Sciences subjects.
The US NCES (National Center for Educational Statistics) acknowledges that US students are about 2 years behind the rest of the developed world from about Year 7. They believe the problem is contained in the Middle School years. These years have been described by the researchers of the TIMSS as containing material which is "a mile wide and an inch deep". You will find pointers to the information at http://www.fitpsy.org/cached/TIMSS/TIMSS.html <...> -- Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM (April 2003) |
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I think it a bit out of order to take the research done by one Australian individual to be the sole determinant of educational standards. I've been to University in three different countries (one wonders by what miracle someone who was supposedly so many years behind my foreign counterparts was able to finish the coursework required for the degree), Master's Degree included and somehow my Australian wife's year 11 and 12 are somehow equivalent to my 4-year baccalaureate degree? It appears that your "expert" at least has an active fantasy life.
I also find it strange that the website that sponsors such information (which is written in such petty, often emotional language) is operated by none other than the same person who is responsible for the nonsense printed here. <...> -- Chris Lewis (Jan 2005) |
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<...>These are very problematic, and quite unfair. Because the US educational system uses the Bachelor degree to complete general education, professional education is provided in degrees labelled "Masters" and "Doctorates". Because the "PhD" is used to provide basic professional education, research work of the type done in Australian PhD degrees is undertaken in "post-doctoral research programs". Unfortunately the degree evaluators in the US do not acknowledge this difference in terminology usage. The end result is that professional programs which are accredited by Australian professional bodies for the purposes of a license to practice the profession are not recognised by US credential evaluators who insist that they are not at the right "level". The US assessors will only evaluate professional degrees which are named "Masters" or "Doctorate". All material studied in the Bachelor degree is excluded!
This results in the US prescribing degrees [such as a research PhD] which are not professionally accredited in Australia, while proscribing those which are accredited [such as professional Bachelor and Masters degrees]. Currently, the only way to practise your profession in the US is to do a course of study which won't get you registered in Australia, or to do a very expensive US degree with a Masters or Doctoral name-tag, which will not be accepted in Australia as being any higher than the qualification which the US won't accept. If Australia applied the same "name" logic to American qualifications all American professionals with PhD's would be excluded from practising in Australia. Professional evaluation in the US is done, in the first instance, by commercial bodies with vested financial interests in down-grading "foreign" qualifications and, only then, by members of the profession in question. Professional licensing boards and Academic Admissions offices generally specify the use of the NACES group of credential evaluators [who are affiliated with College Admissions Boards and/or provide their own "up-grade" courses]. The NACES group, and the professional licensing boards are under the mistaken belief that NOOSR [the Australian Government's National Office of Overseas Skills Recognition] is responsible for the evaluation and accreditation of professional qualifications in Australia. They are not. NOOSR evaluates and accredits overseas qualifications only for immigration purposes and for placement in non-professional employment. The Australian professional associations are responsible for setting standards and evaluating international professional qualifications. These are the very groups which the US evaluators ignore - because they are not government bodies! You can read more about this at: http://www.fitpsy.org/information.html <...> -- Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM (April 2003) |
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<...>The average American Primary Care Physician (PCP) with a standard MD is not as broadly trained as the Australian counterpart. They work from "offices" instead of "surgeries" because the MD, unlike the Aussie double Bachelor [Medicine AND Surgery] does not include training in surgery. They are basically a pill-presribing factory. If you need minor surgery [eg a bone set, a papaloma burnt off, a piece of glass removed from your foot] you have to front up to a hospital Emergency Room (ER) or wait for weeks to see a specialist. The PCP doesn't even deal with kids. If your child is ill you have to book him in to see a Paediatrician. Like American professional training in general, medicine is a set of hyper-focused specialities obtained on the top of a very narrow general basis. You have to know a lot about your particular disorder so that you can figure out which specialist you should be seeing. Since they know very little about the rest of medicine you can sit in front of one and die of a heart-attack before they realise you are having one [unless they happen to be a cardiac surgeon].
According to one of the primary articles of the US National Faith |
| Information gathered (thanks to Chad Williams & David
Murray) due to a notice on the
Noticeboard for Aussies abroad:
Most people who have transferred from an Australian
University were allowed to transfer based mostly on an interview. |
| If you have foreign academic qualifications which you do not know whether they will be accepted in the United States, we are in a position to help. We are member of the American Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO), National Association of International Educator (NAFSA), and the American Council on Education (ACE). Therefore, our assessment reports are accepted by most, if not all, American universities, major employers, licence bodies, professional associations, and after all, the Immigration and Nationalization Services in the United States. For more information, please contact "The Independent Reseacher" by email: bc692030@icarehk.com or by fax: (+852) 3019 6873. Thank you! -- bc692030@icarehk.com (May 2004) |
Comments from Australian readers are in green whereas comments from American readers are in red [comments for Americans are in grey].. All other opinions expressed on this page are my own and accept no responsibility for any interpretations or uses made of these opinions.
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