libran269\" post_id=\"1999836\" time=\"1603347950\" user_id=\"46563:

Thanks for the detailed view. It wuill def help parents for next year.. high likely your DC will be selected Good luck

Thank you Libran269. Yep. We just got the good news.

My first post here. Just want to share my experience.

Firstly, there are 2 types of prep programs:

1. Programs that are specifically catered to GEP exams. They have a huge database of questions (that are very similar to the GEP assessments) and they trained the child to work on them repeatedly until its like second nature to them. These courses claimed to have a very high hit rate of getting through both rounds of GEP (some even claimed to have a hit rate of 50% or more). We have gone through some of the assessment rounds for these programs (and my kid always passed them) but we rejected them in the end. I do not pass judgement on parents who send their kids to these courses. It is suitable for kids that are (not completely gifted) but are willing to work very hard to achieve. Some educators believe that kids will suffer later in the GEP classes if they are not completely gifted. However, if the kids can continue working extremely hard, they will still do better then their average peers. Also, if the child is not gifted and lazy, no amount of prep classes will get them through.

2. General enrichment programs, like Math Olympia trainings. These are not targeted towards acing the GEP tests but it does build knowledge and analytical capabilities for your kids and it will benefit them in their future endeavours. We chose this path and has allowed our children to flourish in them.

GEP Round 2 test and verdict:

1. Math: My kid informed me that the questions are not Math Olympiad standards. They are easier and harder at the same time. Easier than olympiad questions that may require some knowledge of advance Math Theorem but harder because there are some logical twist to the questions and its very easy to make a mistake.

2. General abilities: This is a category to test the cognitive capabilities of the child. An example is to visualize the consecutive patterns of objects. I do think that this is an area that kids could trained up but the range of questions are truly wide. There are lots of books in amazon and logic questions in the internet to help. In other words, if your kids are always curious and like to attempt puzzles, by all means, feed them with these.

3. English: The best advise we have here is: Read Widely. Choose English Authors over American Authors if possible. Avoid "DOGMAN". There are English enrichment courses that teaches a lot of more advance words, their synonyms and their antonyms. However, my kid told me that none of the questions are in this category. Does that mean that the courses are not good in preparing the child for GEP. I don’t think so cause the child will still be advancing in his English capabilities that will help them in the GEP tests and beyond. However, we did not put our child through any English GEP prep programs because they have a stronger interest in Math and Science and prefers reading books about the "Empirical Table" over novels sigh.

Additional notes on some of the tuition centres that we attended and our verdict:

1. TLL: They are very good for the core syllabus tuition that our kids do attend. But they are not truly tailored towards training GEP program. This is understandable because their classes are huge and the capabilities of the students in each class could be very different. They do run a GEP boot camp that we did not attend because the feedback we received from other parents were not very impressive. We may not be right here and we certainly hope that other parents who has more knowledge to share more.

2. GATE: Their Math Gifted courses are quite good and the questions are of very hard level. However, there are a few problems to their program. Firstly, there are simply too many P3 students in each class (up to 12) and the teachers simply do not have the time and capability to help each student learn. As the questions they used are much harder, it requires a lot more time and patience from the teacher. Secondly, and this is something that gave me very bad experience, the teachers (perhaps not every teacher) can be very discouraging. My child told me that their teacher "Mr V" kept telling them that "it is very hard to get into the GEP program and most of you will not make it" face palm.
My child attended the GEP boot camp and my verdict is: Complete waste of money and significant negative impact on the kids morale. They set a long list of very hard Math questions that no kids are able to complete. They pride themselves for setting questions that are more difficult than GEP. I checked with my kid again after the GEP Round 2 Math Assessment and he confirmed that none of the questions are like those from GATE’s boot camp.
Also, the boot camp does not go through all the questions with the kids and they do not share the questions with you (for copyright reasons) after. In other words, its a camp where kids are put through a super hard Math test (that is not the same as GEP assessment), and parents do not get the test papers after the camp to understand the areas of their weakness. All you get is an assessment of how good your kid is. The assessment for my child was very good amongst peers who join the camp but it has dealt a significant blow on the confidence. It took us quite a while to rebuild it.

Lastly, wishing all parents and their DCs good luck.