Good luck

I have read a similar article by Scott H Young. He had tried a 1-year MIT course on its own which he has already completed. Learning by ourselves can actually be faster, after discounting all the travel time etc, but you need to be very motivated to do so. Of course, it is still not the full uni experience, and going to a uni really doesn’t only mean we need to learn the content knowledge alone.

If I’m not wrong, CCA points are also awarded when you represent your school in various competitions like SMO, IMO or IPhO. Participation in your CCA alone would give minimal CCA points if you don’t participate in competitions or events etc.

bandmate:

Herbie:

Dr Daniel

Under wat circumstances do we use sin r/sin i for calculation of refractive index? Can advise? Tq

The textbook do not show the full version of Snell's law and it is taken that the circumstance only involve water and air(where the refractive index is approximately 1). For sin r/sin i situations, the circumstance is usually when light have to travels from an optically denser medium like water, to an optically less dense medium like air. So in this case, they reversed it so that you have the angle to the normal from the optically less dense medium to be always at the top of the fraction. When light travels from water to air, the angle of incidence (of the water) is always lesser than the angle of refraction (of the air) with respect to the normal, unless the light travels perpendicular to the plane on which the light hits. Therefore, by using sin r/sin i, sin r is always bigger than sin i which gives a value of greater than 1 usually. This tallies with the fact that n is always t1 or greater than 1. Hope this helps.

insanePaPa:

Hi bandmate, is it true that students from the affiliated primary school occupies the last 2 classes of the Express Stream? That leaves only 5 other classes for the other schools?

From what I know, most of the students from the last two classes of the lower sec express stream comes from the affiliated primary school. However, there are also other students from the affiliated primary school that are not in the last two classes. A possible conclusion is that it ultimately depends on the aggregate score of the students. For the upper sec express stream, it depends on the student's performance during sec 2.

jowee:

Hi, does anyone know what is the official school time for this school? Heard it starts at 8am and all students shld be in the compound by 7.50am latest. Wed, it starts at 9am. Anyone can confirm? TIA

Don't try to be in the compound only 7.50 AM. Students should be sitted in the hall by 7.50am. 9 AM for Wed, yes.

Ngee Ann Sec is one of the pioneer schools who use a lot of ICT in engaging the students to learn. The school has noticed that students nowadays prefer to use ICT and I think that is why the school tries to use ICT to get the attention of students to learn. During the open house, various programmes like games like an online space -race-mini-quiz are being displayed so visitors get to view how the game is actually like, and experience it for themselves personally to know if it is effective. Of course, main point is not as much as letting students to use the ICT only than letting them clear misconceptions. Sometimes, the teachers would bring students to the ICT studio, and let them use the school’s laptops or their own smartphones and use the programme. The programme consist of a mini quiz created by teachers to assess the understanding of students and also let them clear misconceptions at the same time. The school also hosts many other rooms like IRIS for art students or to be used for photography.


Of course, one of the popular programmes many parents always ask about is the SPARKS programme. If you have heard of it, you would have known that it is actually a programme targeted at students more adept in math and science. The school offers many enrichment opportunities for SPARKS students to learn many things beyond the textbooks. For instance, SPARKS Students are given reserved seats or privileges to attend certain science enrichment courses, and for some courses, they are exclusive to SPARKS students only. This also includes overseas trips to places like Brisbane, Australia for Math Modelling or Sans Francisco to visit the NASA. These trips, however, are not exclusive to SPARKS Students only although most of the places are still reserved for SPARKS students. FYI, math modelling is like a skill which students learn how to use mathematical skills to solve real world problems, hence letting them learn the relevance and importance of mathematics. SPARKS students are also given priority to the top triple science class when choosing their subject combination after streaming in sec 2. However, the academic results still matter and if a SPARKS student don’t do as well as the other non-SPARKS students, they can be relegated to other classes. Of course, a non-SPARKS student can also join the SPARKS class if he does well in his sec 2 exams. For admission to the SPARKS programme, if I’m not wrong, the criteria is an ‘A’ in Math and Science and a PSLE T-score of 240 and above.

The teachers in Ngee Ann Sec are very friendly too, and they are flexible in their teaching. For instance, some students who have exceptional skills in Math have asked their teachers for extra materials apart from the ones being taught in lessons, That is, of course, provided that they do well for their exams and learning these extra materials do not compromise their other subjects.

However, the point is that even the school offers a myriad of ICT and programmes for students, it ultimately depends on the attitude of students in their learning if they want to excel.

Herbie:

Dr Daniel

Under wat circumstances do we use sin r/sin i for calculation of refractive index? Can advise? Tq

The textbook do not show the full version of Snell's law and it is taken that the circumstance only involve water and air(where the refractive index is approximately 1). For sin r/sin i situations, the circumstance is usually when light have to travels from an optically denser medium like water, to an optically less dense medium like air. So in this case, they reversed it so that you have the angle to the normal from the optically less dense medium to be always at the top of the fraction. When light travels from water to air, the angle of incidence (of the water) is always lesser than the angle of refraction (of the air) with respect to the normal. Therefore, by using sin r/sin i, sin r is always bigger than sin i which gives a value of greater than 1 usually. This tallies with the fact that n is always 1 or greater than 1. Hope this helps.

In my opinion, I think using acronyms is very suitable for memorizing things in geography, and sometimes you don’t really have to come up with fancy acronyms. The acronyms may make sense at all like (HBN or VISE) but if you memorize these short acronyms for awhile they are really useful for the exams. For instance, I used HBN and VISE as two of my many acronyms I use for geography. They represent Health (H), loss of Biodiversity (B) and loss of Natural Species (N) as the disadvantages of GM food. Whereas for VISE, it represents nutritional Value (V), increase in Income (I), increase in Supply (S), and reduced Environment impact (E) as the benefits of GM Food. Notice that they all represent the keywords of the factors, so don’t include amorphous terms like Loss (L). It doesn’t represent clearly the loss of what. Of course, if you choose to use this tactic you have to be really clear with your factors. Most of the time, I realise that the understanding of the topic is there but the difficult part comes when you have to memorize the factors and keywords. For me, I think it’s rather effective because I forgot to memorize one of the key development chapter for my geography exam and I spent 30 minutes revising that chapter, which my teacher had only gone through once, and still managed to score well. I hope it works for you as well!

I think for most schools, sec 1s and sec 2s boys wear short pants while sec 3 and 4s wear long pants. However, some IP schools allow their upper secondary students to continue wear short pants as well (that’s what i heard from my friends)