GCE O-Levels 2009
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autumnbronze:
I've never heard of any teacher doing that. Students are still expected to read through the entire passage at least twice before attempting any questions.Hi,
Is anyone able to verify this??
With the new format in place for the EL paper 2 ie Passage A and B and questions from each paragraph, is it true that pupils are being trained to just read each paragraph, then answer the questions as opposed to reading the whole passage then attempting the questions paragraph by paragraph?? TIA -
autumnbronze:
My sis is taking her O Levels this year.Hi,
Is anyone able to verify this??
With the new format in place for the EL paper 2 ie Passage A and B and questions from each paragraph, is it true that pupils are being trained to just read each paragraph, then answer the questions as opposed to reading the whole passage then attempting the questions paragraph by paragraph?? TIA
I told her to read the whole passage twice. Then read the questions and identify which questions 'belong' to which paragraph, or rather, which paragraph contains the answer/clue for the question. From there, pick out the key points related to the question and rephrase the answer according to the question.
When I went through the TYS with my sis, I find this method effective as my sis was able to answer most of the questions on her own without help (my sis usually gets Cs in school). After I taught her this method, she's been getting Bs.
Summary writing is another important skill. I made her write summaries for newspaper articles, magazine articles, etc as practise. -
Hi Philosophical_Anarchist and mrswongtuition,
Thx much for clarifying.
The reason why I asked is because I was giving tuition to someone taking her O levels this yr. Sometime b4 her paper, I was really puzzled to see why she wasn’t scoring v high for her Compre. And her low marks were quite consistent. When I questioned her methods, she mentioned that her sch had engaged a trainer to teach them how to ans Compre quests and this was how the trainer had taught them to attempt their paper (see my entry above). The rationale the trainer provided was that pupils would get side-tracked if they read the whole psg and not be able to ans the quest accurately.
I was really shocked and adamantly told her to revert back to my method(I didn’t care if that was going against the teacher’s method) of skimming the psg twice, then going thru the quest and finally doing a thorough reading, picking out key points, clues etc… in the psg b4 attempting the quest. As it is, her EL was not fantastic to start with, I had to undo what the silly trainer had done. Needless to say, her marks improved again once she went back to the old method. And she also agreed that my method was working and it was a more sensible one.
As a former Lit/EL teacher (now a SAHM), I had never encountered such an episode. We always repeatedly drill the pupils to follow the above method, knowing that pupils can get lazy and try to use the short-cut method. Its like doing cloze psg, many pupils don’t realize that the reason why they get low marks (and they blame it on the psg being difficult) is because they don’t read the psg b4 attemting to fill in the blanks. How do they expect to score when they don’t try to understand the context of the psg first.
Really, in focusing on the skills, skills and skills of how to do well in EL, the essence of understanding and appreciating the language is being lost. And to think that we are constantly lamenting on the dearth of good standard of English. -
I always tell my sis to read the passage as it helps to know what’s happening before you give answers. The questions now are not ‘direct’ anymore. Sometimes the answers for 1 question can be spread all over the passage!
I don’t think the external trainer is ‘trained’. By right, the schools should not be getting external trainers to do the teacher’s job. It’s like the teachers are taking pay for doing nothing?
External trainers should be engaged for enrichment (things OUTSIDE the curriculum). Not to teach the kids the basics! -
O levels is completed, all sec 4/5 O levels students can go and play, results out in January 2010.
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Philosophical_Anarchist:
I'll have to disagree with English being easy. English is never easy. If English were easy, the national average for distinction would be much higher instead of a pathetic 23.1%.
well. i agree that english is difficult but i think chemistry is more difficult!
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KSP:
Probably after 10 yrs of Kiasu attitude, the parents also get tired and cool down liao. \"A\" level i think zero participation.
:laugh: That's quite true. -
My dd will take \"O\" level next year
She takes 3 pure sciences and 2 maths, therefore will need to include English and her only humanities subject Geog elective in the L1R5. She did very well in the subjects except in Geog elective in S3.
Anyone can advise how to help her strive for A1 in the Geog elective?? -
I took the o levels.
My subjects offered are: Chinese (in 2008), Higher Chinese, English, Japanese, EMath, AMath, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Comb Humans.
For Higher Chinese: compo was really easy. Compre was hard
I got A2
For English: Oral, letter, compre everything also hard. I got A2
Emath: Chicken feet lah. A1
AMath: Quite tricky, but manageable. A1
Japanese: oral kinda killed me. Compo, compre was easy-peasy. A2
Physics: A weird question involving drawing. MCQ was easy. A1
Chemistry: MCQ was really tricky, lost many careless marks. Paper 2 was ok. A1
Biology: Really easy for both sections. A1
Comb Humans: Hist SEQ was easy, SBQ was tough. SS SEQ was tough, SBQ was ok. Hard to believe I got A1!
It’s said that this year is easier than previous ones… but I feel differently. For example, language papers were much harder. -
Your results very good!
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