Hi ,


Any mummy able to help my DD with this History questions ?

1) How did Singapore become a booming trading port (before Raffles ) ?
2) How did Raffles / Farquhar contribute to Singapore ?

TIA

I’m not a mummy, but I can attempt to answer these.

1) Singapore was a booming trading port because of Sang Nila Utama and his descendants’ rule. It went on decline after Parameswara founded Melaka, until Raffles discovered us again.

2) Raffles’ major contribution was founding Singapore and striking a deal with Tengku Hussein. He left Singapore in the hands of Farquhar after he got promoted and took a post in Bencoolen. Farquhar basically helped Singapore take off from the ground and introduced a series of laws and reforms.

Unfortunately, a lot of Sec 1 History is about memory work.


It is helpful for him to develop an interest in the subject so memorising facts become easier.

Learning the basic SBQ skills will help a lot, as the SBQ section takes up a big part of the paper. Just need to follow the structure given by the teacher.

Answering the open ended section (‘essays’) is a bit trickier. He needs to be on track and not go off topic. If the question asks about the Singapore river and its founding he should only talk about that. It doesn’t matter if his essay is short - answering the question is key. Many students don’t get this.

Once they get to upper secondary things become easier as it all boils down to answering the question and memory-work is less important.