Networking Group - JCs General
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Hi!
We are group of undergraduates who graduated from Raffles Institution Junior College with excellent A Level results. Collectively, various academic competitions and programmes we have participated or enrolled in include the: International Liguistics Olympiad, Singapore & International Physics Olympiad, Singapore Chemistry Olympiad, Singapore Biology Olympiad, Singapore Math Olympiad, Science and Engineering Fair, Science Mentorship Programme, Gold Division HC(JC) History and Current Affairs Competition, NUS Chancellor’s Challenge Shield Competition, United Nations Association of Singapore Young Diplomat Scheme, EDB Youth Competition; studied various H3 courses, as well as received various school awards for academic recognition etc. Many of us also received early university admission invitations and offers, scholarship application invitations and offers etc.
Our common teaching philosophy of No-Nonsense, Exam-Focused approach to studying brought us together to form a tuition group. We want to impart our study shortcuts, exam techniques and skills to help our students ace their subjects. We especially utilize the teaching method of Learning From Examples to deliver content knowledge more efficiently, improve understanding and memory retention.
Visit http://rijctuition.blogspot.sg/ for free notes, model answers to common questions, other exam hacks, and enquire about tuition classes. -
micko07:
Reading is a habit that's hard to come by in students today. They prefer to be glued to their gadgets, so I've modified my approach to my upper secondary and JC students. I get them to download quality news apps and tell them to use the apps for about 30 minutes a day. The apps I recommend are: BBC News, News Republic and NewsLoop (NewsLoop covers local news as well).
The Atlantic, BBC and the Guardian are freebakababa:
@micko07, grateful thanks for your encouragement and suggestions. Will look into subscribing to some of these magazines. If you had to pick one, which would you choose? You are right about the practice. Will get her to speak with her teachers.
I'm tempted to say New York Times because I really enjoy their articles, but it's a personal preference. I think NYT might have broader coverage compared to the Economist (which obviously focuses more on economics-related issues). In any case, some articles are free so maybe your DD can have a go at those first and see which one she prefers? For example, this is an excerpt from an article in the Economist on democracy: http://www.economist.com/news/essays/21 ... -can-be-do
I'm not really sure if writing every week is necessary to be honest (although I can see why it would be helpful) - in my case, reading a lot and having discussions with my classmates worked out just fine. Perhaps your DD can ask if her tutor is willing to mark additional essays? She'd be getting good practice and feedback in that case, and you wouldn't need to send her to tuition.
I've always found doing well in Lit to be significantly harder (and more unpredictable) but it might just be me. It's not just contingent on how well you write, but more importantly, your analysis of the unseen poem/ prose and set texts. I never really found a \"magic formula\" to doing well in Lit, but having notes and thinking about major themes/ characters/ ideas helps for the set texts. Possibly more practice for the unseen bits? Don't know really.
The Economist is a good magazine, but I think it is too tough for most JC students. They write for an audience who is well-informed about current affairs so the articles does make some assumptions that the reader will know certain things. Many of our current students are unfortunately not very well-informed, so they will struggle with the content.
The Atlantic and New York Times are also in my favourite reads list. The only problem with New York Times is that they will deny access after you have read ten stories for the month, and you have to pay to read more. I have a way to overcome that, though. Just make sure you use Private Browsing (Firefox) or Incognito (Chrome) modes when you read NYT. They use cookies to determine the 10 article limit and private browsing/incognito modes discard cookies data the moment you close them, so you get to read another 10 articles again!
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Teacher Aaron:
Well the important thing is that you've gotten your students to read! I'm very fortunate in that my mother forced me to read the newspapers when I was in primary school, so I grew to like current affairs early on. I haven't tried Newsloop and News Republic, but I have the BBC app on my phone and it's great.
Reading is a habit that's hard to come by in students today. They prefer to be glued to their gadgets, so I've modified my approach to my upper secondary and JC students. I get them to download quality news apps and tell them to use the apps for about 30 minutes a day. The apps I recommend are: BBC News, News Republic and NewsLoop (NewsLoop covers local news as well).
The Economist is a good magazine, but I think it is too tough for most JC students. They write for an audience who is well-informed about current affairs so the articles does make some assumptions that the reader will know certain things. Many of our current students are unfortunately not very well-informed, so they will struggle with the content.
The Atlantic and New York Times are also in my favourite reads list. The only problem with New York Times is that they will deny access after you have read ten stories for the month, and you have to pay to read more. I have a way to overcome that, though. Just make sure you use Private Browsing (Firefox) or Incognito (Chrome) modes when you read NYT. They use cookies to determine the 10 article limit and private browsing/incognito modes discard cookies data the moment you close them, so you get to read another 10 articles again! Their coverage is decent and normally quite fair-handed (as with AP and AFP).
I agree that the Economist is pretty difficult to read, but it's well worth the effort if people are interested! It's also a good way of demonstrating how economics can be incorporated into an analysis. They do target the well-informed audience though, and it helps if one understands the basics of Economics as well. NYT is more accessible to the average JC student.
!!!! That is an amazing tip! I will give it a go - thank you for sharing!
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Really appreciate your sharing, micko07. Thanks.
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Thanks, Teacher Aaron for sharing the Apps. Will definitely get DD to download them!
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micko07:
Since you appear rather well-informed, let me throw a spanner into the works. Be mindful that all these publications you read are very American-European centric and they very subtly reinforce certain ideologies in their content to normalise them. If you've not been trained in critical thinking, then think about what I'm trying to say about all these publications you've been reading.
Well the important thing is that you've gotten your students to read! I'm very fortunate in that my mother forced me to read the newspapers when I was in primary school, so I grew to like current affairs early on. I haven't tried Newsloop and News Republic, but I have the BBC app on my phone and it's great.Teacher Aaron:
Reading is a habit that's hard to come by in students today. They prefer to be glued to their gadgets, so I've modified my approach to my upper secondary and JC students. I get them to download quality news apps and tell them to use the apps for about 30 minutes a day. The apps I recommend are: BBC News, News Republic and NewsLoop (NewsLoop covers local news as well).
The Economist is a good magazine, but I think it is too tough for most JC students. They write for an audience who is well-informed about current affairs so the articles does make some assumptions that the reader will know certain things. Many of our current students are unfortunately not very well-informed, so they will struggle with the content.
The Atlantic and New York Times are also in my favourite reads list. The only problem with New York Times is that they will deny access after you have read ten stories for the month, and you have to pay to read more. I have a way to overcome that, though. Just make sure you use Private Browsing (Firefox) or Incognito (Chrome) modes when you read NYT. They use cookies to determine the 10 article limit and private browsing/incognito modes discard cookies data the moment you close them, so you get to read another 10 articles again! Their coverage is decent and normally quite fair-handed (as with AP and AFP).
I agree that the Economist is pretty difficult to read, but it's well worth the effort if people are interested! It's also a good way of demonstrating how economics can be incorporated into an analysis. They do target the well-informed audience though, and it helps if one understands the basics of Economics as well. NYT is more accessible to the average JC student.
!!!! That is an amazing tip! I will give it a go - thank you for sharing! -
Teacher Aaron:
Fair comment, although I'd say that most publications in the world reveal some sort of inherent bias, some more blatantly than others (cough Fox News cough). I read more widely than the publications I mentioned and I definitely don't buy everything they say either (one does spend an awful lot of time deconstructing and criticizing arguments as a Humanities student after all). That said, I agree that students should definitely be made to examine and evaluate an article's arguments (and if memory serves me right, isn't that exactly what the AQ portion of the comprehension section in GP requires?)
Since you appear rather well-informed, let me throw a spanner into the works. Be mindful that all these publications you read are very American-European centric and they very subtly reinforce certain ideologies in their content to normalise them. If you've not been trained in critical thinking, then think about what I'm trying to say about all these publications you've been reading.
If anyone is keen on non-Western perspectives, I personally find Al-Jazeera to be a good complement - it generally provides an interesting but quite fair-handed perspective. Xinhua's probably the Chinese equivalent, although they can be pretty biased in certain areas.
The purpose of my original post was to cherry-pick a few good magazines/ newspapers to recommend to bakababa; I don't think the average JC student would have much time to explore other resources and so didn't bother mentioning them. I did, but that was because I liked reading (I also justified it on the basis that I was \"studying\" for GP) and my Humanities tutors didn't believe in piling on tons of homework. -
micko07:
Your comment already speaks volumes of your critical thinking and writing abilities. I'm impressed. Your foundation is strong and will serve you well through life.
Fair comment, although I'd say that most publications in the world reveal some sort of inherent bias, some more blatantly than others (cough Fox News cough). I read more widely than the publications I mentioned and I definitely don't buy everything they say either (one does spend an awful lot of time deconstructing and criticizing arguments as a Humanities student after all). That said, I agree that students should definitely be made to examine and evaluate an article's arguments (and if memory serves me right, isn't that exactly what the AQ portion of the comprehension section in GP requires?)Teacher Aaron:
Since you appear rather well-informed, let me throw a spanner into the works. Be mindful that all these publications you read are very American-European centric and they very subtly reinforce certain ideologies in their content to normalise them. If you've not been trained in critical thinking, then think about what I'm trying to say about all these publications you've been reading.
If anyone is keen on non-Western perspectives, I personally find Al-Jazeera to be a good complement - it generally provides an interesting but quite fair-handed perspective. Xinhua's probably the Chinese equivalent, although they can be pretty biased in certain areas.
The purpose of my original post was to cherry-pick a few good magazines/ newspapers to recommend to bakababa; I don't think the average JC student would have much time to explore other resources and so didn't bother mentioning them. I did, but that was because I liked reading (I also justified it on the basis that I was \"studying\" for GP) and my Humanities tutors didn't believe in piling on tons of homework.
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Augmum:
Are students allowed to drop from H2 to H1? If so, at which point? J1? J2?[Zbear,
Oh yr dd intends to drop to 3 H2? U mean now or wait till end of the yr?
Which subj she wanna to drop ?
For subj like econs, heard fr their T that it is not \" worth\" to drop to H1...
as scope n content is abt the same as H2 if u compare to other H1 Subjs which are usually Half the content of H2...
Has she talk to her FT yet ?
Also, it depends on what are the courses she wanna to read in Uni as some of these courses do require certain H2 subj as prerequisite ....(i think u know abt it)...
Both my children are taking 4 H2s, 2 of which are Sciences. I wonder if it is wise. -
Fairy:
Yes you can drop to H1 from H2. Usually at the end of J1, if you can't cope, the school will not allow you to continue with the subject at H2 level.
Are students allowed to drop from H2 to H1? If so, at which point? J1? J2?
Both my children are taking 4 H2s, 2 of which are Sciences. I wonder if it is wise.
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