http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32UGD0fV45g

ridcully:

jamestancx997:

1. It is acceptable but not the best answer, because of ambiguity. It could also be taken to mean all of them were given just one goodie bag, without the word \"each\" at the end of the phrase. Since you don't need to stretch it so far from the original, just pluralize \"goodie bags\".

Wrong. All of them, with the exception of Jason, were indeed given just one goodie bag each: look at the source sentences.

jamestancx997:

2. Acceptable. \"Sign up\" is terminology in common parlance. No reason why \"for it\" should be absolutely compulsory.

True that 'sign up' is informal, but wrong about referents. See my answer to the original poster.

jamestancx997:

3. For clarity of clausal separation a comma is strongly recommended.

Possibly true, but are you sure that 'much to the children's amazement' is a clause?

Hope you feel more enlightened.

Rgds
R

1. You are mistaken about the meaning of my sentences. I mean the same thing as you: that everyone was given 1 goodie bag, so for clarity it should read \"one goodie bag each\", failing which it is perfectly acceptable to say they were collectively given goodie bags.

2. I didn't say anything about referents or antecedents. My response was concerned with practical usage.

3. My mistake here. I meant phrasal, not clausal.

See, instead of making strange comments like \"I leave it to everyone decide whose answer was more helpful,\" I own up to mistakes when I make them. Nobody is perfect, and it should be a cooperative effort on all our parts to arrive at the best answers.

Since I sense that I am conspicuously omitted from acknowledgement lists on a pretty consistent basis so far, I think I shall just leave this roost to forum old-timers.

1. It is acceptable but not the best answer, because of ambiguity. It could also be taken to mean all of them were given just one goodie bag, without the word "each" at the end of the phrase. Since you don’t need to stretch it so far from the original, just pluralize "goodie bags".


2. Acceptable. "Sign up" is terminology in common parlance. No reason why "for it" should be absolutely compulsory.

3. For clarity of clausal separation a comma is strongly recommended.

Oh yes, good catch.

I will just let the considerable number of past students I've taken, some of whom had gone through a string of unsuccessful MOE/NIE-trained tutors before encountering me, enjoy the fact that I do not boast -- I state.


Sure, of course some will have higher qualifications than myself. That's hardly the point, as you correctly note, ridcully. The true winning combination is the academic knowledge, as indicated partly by the qualifications, and the actual teaching ability.

Let me reiterate: based on my observation over the years, an MOE/NIE background confers no particular advantage on the tutor. It does not serve as an indicator of skill and tutoring ability.

Another ancillary point: a fair number of tutors out there who are competent, i.e. the kind who will not say \"fairs\" when they mean \"fares\", know the so-called marking scheme as well as the teachers themselves.

I have never been afraid of being misunderstood as being arrogant. I know where I stand, I know what I am capable of, and I know that I have helped many students and parents who remain grateful. I know that I am able to continue doing this, and this gives me my sense of self-belief and my driving passion to take what I do, and develop it to the next level.

Self-promotion? Of course. I want my services to benefit as many people as possible. I have been transparent about this from my very first post: I have nothing to hide. I've opened my centre, and I am confident of bringing the very best out of every student I have.

Hi pixiedust,


That is considerably less important than one might think for Language components at the PSLE level. It would be extremely relevant for topics such as GP, or other humanities subjects where the focus undergoes a sea-change from time to time, e.g. History, Social Studies, etc.

The exam requirements for languages, however, take considerably longer to change in a significant way, because language itself takes very long to evolve. If someone is good at English, he or she will score well, regardless of whether the exam is taken in 1990, 2000 or 2010. The minor alterations to the marking scheme are completely negligible, even for GP. If you knew of someone who took the exam in 2001 and won an Angus Ross prize, do you suppose that if today he or she were to write another GP essay, it would not be of a similarly high standard?

This "time-sensitive" component is very much overrated, especially when weighed against the reality that firstly, MOE teachers are generally harassed and overworked, and thus unlikely to prove the best tutors one could find for the money; and secondly, that in many cases, the MOE system is the cause of the problem in the first place.

I was very lucky. I came under the tutelage of perhaps the single best GP tutor in the whole of Singapore. My other schoolmates in JC were not so lucky. Whenever I compared my notes to theirs, I would feel a strong pang of sympathy, that was how bad some of that "official" teaching material could get.

The vast majority of tutors out there do not teach with a system in mind, and hence their tuition lacks direction and FOCUS.


A lot of them are also, frankly, unable to teach the subject properly.

Seriously, parents, I know the kind of people teaching your kids right now in schools. I know many of them personally. Just because someone is MOE or ex-MOE does not necessarily mean he or she is going to be a good tutor for your child. I know the good ones who were my peers before, and I can count them on the fingers of one hand, compared to the ones who seriously are incompetent.

A moment’s thought will make this clear: if MOE/NIE training is so credible, then why is Singapore a tuition nation? Why are the students having trouble in school in the first place with various subjects? Who are the people who are actually teaching in MOE right now?

I will now share my very frank answer to all that, because this is something people really need to know. I have a 1st Class Honours degree. I also have a track record of pulling up students’ failing grades to As in record time. So I have the knowledge, and I have the teaching ability. Most – not all! – but most of the people that MOE has been accepting all this time are the ones who get Cs in university where I get As. They pass with a normal degree, and some in fact don’t even have a degree. When they come out into the schools to teach, is it any wonder their teaching is substandard?

So, I just want to ask, why do you parents still think that being MOE-trained is still necessarily a marker of credibility? Also, some parents I have encountered clearly overestimate their ability to judge the merit of the tutor.

It’s worked to my favour before, but I would still always get a slightly bad taste in my mouth, when the tutor I replace is denigrated a bit unfairly by the parent. Honestly, parents, tutors do not claim to be experts in your own fields, so when you engage them, why do you claim to be able to judge if they are "any good"? Unless of course your own background is in education, but a parent who uses only the Singlish patois is clearly not in such a position.

Sentence conjugation and rephrasing skills. Testing if your child can rearrange the subjects and predicates in a sentence, or a series of sentences. Testing also if your child can switch between active and passive voices.


Even the offer of a high salary did not tempt Melvin to take up the job.

Hello yingxuan


your 2nd one is correct.

for the first, you need the past perfect.

The salesgirl would not have admitted to the theft if the footage had not been captured on the security camera.

There's another aspect of praising.


Parents, please praise your children for hard work and diligence and perseverance, not \"intelligence\" or \"talent\" or performing a task easily.

http://brain21.net/blues/blog/?p=284

https://www.stanford.edu/dept/psychology/cgi-bin/drupalm/system/files/Intelligence%20Praise%20Can%20Undermine%20Motivation%20and%20Performance.pdf

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-medina-phd/praising-childs-intelligence_b_773678.html

I sincerely believe if I had been praised for the correct things in my early childhood, I would be a much better person today.