How to prepare child for next week's Selection Test GEP ?

[yellow-dk]

puppylove:

Hi I am first time parent with child selected for selection test. Any experienced parent who has trained their child? Just want to give my child the best i can. Don't want to sit by and not do anything. Read some of your postings already... friends say Olympiad type maths good for practice. What else ?

I don't think parents should prepare the kids for GEP. GEP programme is very tough and if the child is prepared just to get into GEP, they may eventually suffer and not be able to cope with the syllabus.

[Bing_He]

Hi

I agree with yellow-dk.
According to my boys, some of the questions are logic question which there is not way to study.
Just let your child to enjoy the experience.
If your child like to read a lot and widely, he may stand a good stead.
Good Luck.

[CMF]

As your child has already been selected for the 2nd round testing based on his own abilities, you should not really stress at this stage and try to "train" or prepare him further, this will put unnecessary pressure on him. Just tell him to focus and try his best.


There have been much discussions on GEP training - I agree with the view that one really shouldn’t try training or preparing for it, as that will only take you so far. The GEP demands a lot more from a child, it draws from his / her innate abilities, creative awareness and independent thinking skills. which training or preparation courses to enter the GEP will not help much in the long run.

For what it’s worth, just to share that when my dd took the GEP test 6 years ago, I didn’t even know what it was all about. Then I was not in touch with the local educational system etc, and hence had no clue nor inkling at all about the GEP. All I knew was that dd asked for 2B pencils for a test she was taking, and I trooped to Popular and got a box of it for her. Thereafter even when she got to the second round, I was still blissfully clueless!

The first I knew how "important" it all was, was when I got a call from dd’s classmate’s mother (who got my number from the school) to ask me if I was intending to accept the offer to take up the program, and which sch I intended to choose to transfer to (as dd was not in a GEP sch). I had no clue what she was talking about!! She’d found out from the sch who apart from her dd got into the GEP - it was abt 6 of them I recall. So I actually got the news from her than from my dd - cos she had not got back from sch yet!

Thereafter as I slowly learnt more about the GEP I was initially overwhelmed by the whole thing. We had family discussions about it, spoke to others etc, and finally it came down to what dd decided on, she said she would like to give it a try and since she had an option in the first year (P4) to transfer back to her old school, she knew that if she couldn’t cope or didn’t want to continue in the prog or in the new sch, she had that option.

She did manage to cope well and continue on the prog, although it was tough in the first few months adjusting to the new sch and the difference in content and teaching methods of the GEP.

Anyway, this is just my personal experience with the GEP, and from it I learnt that it is best to just let your child go thru the tests "as-is’, if he is successful on his own merits then make the most of the opportunity as best he can. If he is not successful, it doesn’t mean that he is any less worthy than those who were - just means that his talents and aptitude is in a different area. Good luck to your son and all those who are going to round 2!

[nani]

Any examples of what are logic qns? Has it got to do with patterns or Math?


Thanks.

[CMF]

Understand that it’s mostly logic Qs, and where there are maths Qs - it requires some degree of logical analysis.


Understand that the following are some examples of the Qs tested.

(1) 1 cat can catch 2 mice in 3 days. How many cats are needed to catch 100 mice in 30 days?

(2) A and B started at the same point and walked in opposite directions.For every 20 metres A walked, B walked 12 metres. If A walked 1 km, what was the total distance between them ?

(3) This question came with a diagram. It was a square with 2 diagonals crossed at the centre of the square. The length of each diagonal of the square was 8 cm. Find the area of the square.

[Bing_He]

Hi

Coming to what the logic questions, my eldest son actually recall that some of the question ask during the test resemble questions form a book "Brain Math".
However we did not specially "train" him, but is his interest to tackle funny questions and we happend to get hold of this book for him to try.
And recall by my youngest son on this year questions fof the 1st selection, there is not such question.
Hope this help.
Lastly, as say before, let the kid enjoy the experience and do not stress them too much.
Happy learning.

[david59]

yellow-dk:

puppylove:

Hi I am first time parent with child selected for selection test. Any experienced parent who has trained their child? Just want to give my child the best i can. Don't want to sit by and not do anything. Read some of your postings already... friends say Olympiad type maths good for practice. What else ?

I don't think parents should prepare the kids for GEP. GEP programme is very tough and if the child is prepared just to get into GEP, they may eventually suffer and not be able to cope with the syllabus.

I certainly agree. This kid in my student care centre who has just completed PSLE has never had tuition at all. He did not go through any preparatory classes to take the GEP selection test. I would say he is just simply gifted with the ability to analyse complex ideas. Such kids will go very far. Like I said in another thread, he is already given a place in RI, Hwa Chong and NUS High. He is still taking his time to decide which choice to make.
This is why it is called GIFTED Programme. High memory power and analytical brain and self motivation are very essential to thrive in the GEP grilling environment.

[acforfamily]

How to prepare?

Actually I would only recommend that you teach the child what to do when he / she faces questions that stump them. Some of these smart kids are so used to ‘easy’ questions that they may be shocked to see questions that they have not seen before.

My 2 cents worth:
1. Read the questions carefully
2. Do not linger too long on the question if you do not understand it. Move on to the next question. Come back to it only after you have completed the rest of the paper.
3. Answer to the best of your ability. Try not to leave it blank.
4. Sleep well the night before.
5. Do not try to do any last minute cramming of new ideas.
6. If your kid enjoys doing Maths, no harm doing the Maths Olympiad questions. They are actually quite interesting. Even if they are useless as preparation for the GEP test, they do require the kids to think differently.

Most importantly, tell the kid that not going past the 2nd round is not the end of the world.

[ApronMama]

CMF:

Understand that it's mostly logic Qs, and where there are maths Qs - it requires some degree of logical analysis.


Understand that the following are some examples of the Qs tested.

(1) 1 cat can catch 2 mice in 3 days. How many cats are needed to catch 100 mice in 30 days?

(2) A and B started at the same point and walked in opposite directions.For every 20 metres A walked, B walked 12 metres. If A walked 1 km, what was the total distance between them ?

(3) This question came with a diagram. It was a square with 2 diagonals crossed at the centre of the square. The length of each diagonal of the square was 8 cm. Find the area of the square.

Would yoiu pls share how many maths qns, whether there will be open ended short qns or problem sum in rund 2 ? how many GAT qns?

[Rosie]

Heard that not all the questions in selection test are important or carry equal weightage when computing the overall scores. Some of them could be distractors. So even if students who sat for the test could remember and share some of the questions, these may not be the important ones. Last year, my DD found the selection test very difficult and according to her was not able to do some of the questions but to our surprise, she was selected for the programme …this could be because she provided the correct answers to the so called ‘right’ questions. If this is true then it may be difficult to prepare your child for the test and in some cases it may back fire 'cos the child may focus too much on the ‘trained’ but unimportant questions and may actually missed out on the ‘right’ questions. Just my 2cts worth…