I teach a lot of students, from both the top schools RI, HCI, and other JCs as well (SAJC, PJC etc)…

Students in the top schools aren’t necessarily smarter, but they cope better under stressful conditions, like in the exams. probably because of the school competition and environment.

Of course, there are the brilliant ones who will do well no matter which school they go to… but these are outlying minorities so this probably belongs to a separate discussion altogether.

just an observation from my experience

ilovelaksa:

:goodpost:

khotl73:

Actually to be honest, H2 Maths is only the same standard as C Maths in the old syllabus. The material tested in Calculus, Vectors and Complex Numbers are not really Further Maths standard. Calculus is no different from C Maths at all(implicit differentiation, parametric differentiation, applications of diff, maclaurin series, integration by substitution, by parts, area and volume). We were not even given what to substitute for integration by substitution. We had to see by ourselves. Reduction formula, further applications of integration are not taught at all. The same goes for D.E. Only 1st order DE by Separation of Variables is taught. Method of Integrating Factor, 2nd Order DE all not tested.


Vectors(equations of lines and planes) were taught in C Maths for those who took A levels in the 90s. I learnt all the H2 Maths Vectors in C Maths when i was a student. Further Maths Vectors were more complicated and abstract. Most questions require students to prove results in vector form. Shortest distance between two skew lines was taught in Further Maths.

For Complex Numbers, questions in Further maths involve series of trigo functions using de Moivre's theorem and Geometric series or binomial series. This is not found in H2 Maths at all. We also learnt transformation of loci in complex plane(conformal mapping).

Moreover Further Maths syllabus involve Mechanics and Statistics questions which are not in H2 Maths at all. All the H2 Maths statistics question are so elementary. Use of graphic calculators make the learning of statistics become more of just robotic calculations. The essence and theory are lost in the syllabus.

The H3 Maths syllabus covers most of the Further Maths topics. However Linear Algebra is only in NUS/NTU H3 Maths. It is not in Cambridge H3 syllabus. H3 Maths is different from S paper in the past. S paper focused on in depth analysis of the topics in C Maths and F Maths. In most JC, you only see a couple of students taking Further Maths S paper . A lot of JC didnt even have students who dare to take F Maths S paper.

In conclusion, H2 Maths is equivalent only to C Maths with less than 10% Further Maths. We will get to see Further Maths back in syllabus next year in 2016 and hopefully those students with aptitude and potential in maths will take it.

:goodpost:
I was lookg at my ds h2 maths work out of curiosity and I must say I agree with this

I totally agree - the coverage of H2 math is largely similar to Math C, and H3 math is not the same as the S papers we had back then... the design and objective of the math syllabus seems to have changed.

my experience teaching students these days is that they are simply not confident - maybe from lack of practice, or too many distractions in school. Even top school students are facing a huge problem these days (maybe because their last major exam was back during PSLE...)

Gifted tests are still very steeped in mathematics, but food for thought:


http://qz.com/245054/how-to-turn-every- ... th-person/