Help understanding the stock market please

I don't know if this is the appropriate subreddit for this, but I just need some basic help understanding the stock market.

So my AP Macroeconomics class is currently playing the stock market game, which is just a virtual stock exchange on the website called marketwatch.com. We all start off with $250,000 and we have until January 20 to make money on the stock market. I'm more of a science and engineering person than anything related to business and economics, so I'm pretty much completely lost when it comes to how to turn a profit in this game. My teacher briefly introduced the concepts of short-selling and buying into businesses that are going public, but that's about it. She also told us it's best to invest in volatile stocks, but I don't know what she really means by that.

Does anybody have any tips or tricks for how to make money in such a short amount of time? Are there any companies I should invest in or are there certain times that are the best to invest? Anything is appreciated. Thanks a lot!

Submitted December 19, 2016 at 11:32PM by jRawr13 http://ift.tt/2i3FekC