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 list of popular questions that are currently being asked in school assessment papers or national examinations like the PSLE, GCE O or GCE A level examinations.
OverRead
To learn, one has to read. To perform well in Math and Science assessments, one must do and solve questions. Nowadays, students are inundated with lots of questions with worked solutions. Instead of working on and solving the questions independently, some students find it more expedient to read the solutions. Or they solve the questions with constant reference to the solutions and ended up deluding themselves into thinking that they indeed know how to solve those questions. Only during or after the assessments do they realise that they did not fully understand the topic.
For example, during chemistry tuition, students should be given a list of assessment-based questions to evaluate their knowledge competencies. They should work on these questions as per assessment environment and under time constraint. Tutors would then be able to check and evaluate whether the student has mastered those learning concepts and capable of deploying them effectively in a simulated examination environment.
When preparing students for assessments during physics tuition or biology tuition, tutors should provide assessment or mock papers that comprise multi-topic questions simulating the assessment challenges face by the students. Tutors would then mark and debrief the students and identify the areas of weakness for reinforcement.
OverWrite
When answering the questions, many students tend to write more than required. A well-prepared student should be concise in his answer and pay close attention to the marking scheme and the maximum number of marks that is awarded to the question.
During science primary tuition, science secondary tuition and science JC tuition, tutors are focus on marking scheme and teaching the students how to pitch and present the answers. A concise answer comprising all the keywords required in a science assessment would earn the maximum marks. Writing more could backfire as it may expose wrong application of science concepts or misinterpretation in the information or data provided.