“Black hole” Question In science, we learn that time slows down near a black hole. Some questions have the same characteristics and are able to draw the students in to focus all their time and effort working on them.  The outcome is the commitment of too much time and effort on those questions while other easier questions are not attempted due to lack of time or effort.  Students have limited time and focus during an examination and these should be invested wisely. In the tuition centre, when a mock assessment is given, there will always be a few such demanding Read More…

Exploration, Strengthening, Consolidation   Exploration is a stage when the focus is to teach to develop interests of students in the topic. Students will be taught the basics and concepts before demonstrating how this knowledge can be applied to questions for solving science questions during science tuition or math questions during maths tuition. Thereafter students would have to solve basic level questions to exercise the application of the newly learnt concepts. Strengthening is a learning stage when key areas of a topic or knowledge are covered before focusing on knowledge application and problem solving in preparation for formative assessments. The Read More…

Group tuition and customised tuition: Is one superior over the other? They each have their pros and cons. During primary tuition in a group setting, students can feel the comfort and familiarity, not dissimilar from what is happening in a school classroom setting, where you have a tutor or teacher leading the entire learning session instructing what the students need to memorise, how to dismantle the question using tools and concepts, and what need to be practised and how the students should approach the solving of question and presentation of an answer. The student benefits from the familiarity and smaller Read More…

Overload With guidebook, textbook, school notes, learning videos and elearning contents, students are now bombarded with an overload of learning materials. As students plough into these learning materials to prepare for assessments, it would be useful for them to be able to distil what are more important.  These areas of focus can only be identified if students understand the focus of the assessments. Science tuition and maths tuition should therefore serve this purpose. An effective tutor should be able to present to the learners what are the commonly tested topics and sub-topics.  Experienced tutors would be able to pinpoint a Read More…

We spend too much time preparing for an assessment and too little time reviewing the assessment. In the tuition centre, teachers would provide mock assessments during English tuition.  The review that is carried for these assessments would be both thorough and detailed. During the preparation stage of the assessments, the areas to be tested would be reviewed and briefed by the secondary tuition tutor.  He or she would emphasise the knowledge areas to be tested. However, the actual question would not be revealed. Typically, after the assessments and the marking of the papers, there is a report that is written Read More…

Yes, all students do that. In fact, schools and tuition centres do that as well. There was a year that the English PSLE question was spotted by a tuition centre conducting English tuition. So how do you go about spotting questions. Commonly Tested Areas There would be areas that would be tested year after year. The concept is always tested but framed in different forms of questioning or embedded in long structured multi-topical questions. Iodoform test is a commonly tested area for JC tuition students reading chemistry. In every A level tuition revision assessment, the chemistry tuition tutor would put Read More…

Honest Learning When learning a new topic, students need to learn about a new concept and the basis of how such a concept comes about. Understanding how the concept comes about is important, as it gives you clarity based on the concept and how it is derived. In science tuition classes, the first principles approach is how teachers would conduct the class and expound the importance of the underlying principles. However, there are occasions where such first principles thinking would not be able to be done, as certain concepts involving advanced mathematics or science concepts are difficult to explain to Read More…

All students would step into an examination hall psychologically prepared to be assessed. Like a gladiator facing a lion, most would have psychologically convinced themselves that they would survive and prevail. This is the best side of human nature: optimism on display.   Being optimistic and Being realistic Students who prevail are those who are realistic. Realistic in terms of how much work you have put in and how much you have actually prepared yourself. A realistic student would know what topics he is bad in and what topics he is strong in, and what are the topics that he Read More…

Recall how you first learnt to ride a bicycle or play a musical instrument or play a sport. The first hour is probably spent picking up the bicycle or making some shrieking sound or picking up a running ball.  The next 10 hours would seem a bit better. By the next 100, 1000 or 10,000 hours, you would have mastered it and perfected it. Tuition centre serves to provide a safe environment in the presence of coaches who can help you to clock more hours and accelerate your acquisition of experience.  Primary tuition for example, provides the opportunities for learners Read More…