Yes, I read somewhere that changing teachers/tutors all the time will be detrimental for the students’ learning because every child needs some time to adapt to the way each teacher teaches. Even if the curriculum and programme is the same, the child still needs to adapt to the way the teachers communicates. some students may take months before they are familiar with the new teacher

student123456789:

Hello, I just received my O-level results, scored an A1 in English, and now want to share my and my friends’ experience. I primarily wrote this note for my juniors, so I hope parents will forgive my tone


Just like any advice, mine may or may not work for you. As we have 8 months before the O's, I suggest you try out the advice that you like, together with what your teachers and other materials have to offer, and decide how to accommodate it to your needs. Also, since we improved from B4s, B3s to As, the advice will mostly benefit those within such grade range.


1. EDITING:

Buy a book from Popular and practise. After a dozen exercises, you'll begin to notice where you tend to get wrong. Remember them, and train yourself to have a specific course of doing the editing.

This is what I do in the exam hall: I read through the passage, quickly tackle the blatant errors, and read the remaining lines closely-almost word by word. This often leaves me with about 4 lines, some containing words that I'm unsure about. If time allows, I'll try to find rational reasons to prove if they are (in)correct. If I see that the editing session is taking up more than 10 minutes, I will just give 4 sticks, secure my 8, and move on.
My teacher strongly opposed this tactic, though. He argued that even if you felt that there were 9 errors in the passage, just correct them all and give one stick- you would only lose 1 point. However, trying this out only got me 5s and 6, as I decided the wrong lines with the errors. If I aim to get 10, I need to know the exact line, the exact word AND the exact correction- the odds were too high to trust my feelings and risk losing everything. Well, perhaps it's just the cowardly me, so try your luck a few times before the O's.

And also, be extremely vigilant to simple errors, especially those of tense. During my O's itself, for some unknown reasons, I completely had no doubt that the past tense of 'sit' was correctly written as 'sit'!


2. WRITING:

You must have heard this advice for a million times, and yet I will repeat it: READ, READ, READ, because it DOES help, even though the effect is hard to measure.

But read what? As someone who always does expository (sorry that I'm of no use to friends who love the narrative and descriptive. I've never been able to write creative, beautiful essays) I find the Opinions section in The Straits Times extremely helpful. In fact, I spent my Sec 4 reading it almost every day. The articles and letters there not only give you a deeper understanding of Singapore and the world but also teach you to develop your argument coherently- with style. Read articles with contrasting views and take a stand. When you've engaged enough with current affairs, you'll find reading no longer an ordeal but a way to explore life.

After a time and reading and writing, you'll discover your voice of arguing. My close friend's style was objective and scientific. She watched TED videos like crazy, took down statistics and actually learnt them. Her use of 'I' in her essays was minimal. Her examples came from research or fiction. She also had a vocabulary notebook with the most bombastic words.

My style was entirely different. I loved to show my emotions and include anecdotes in my essays, even condemning outright some behaviour. I spent the longest paragraph in my O's essay criticising people who dressed inappropriately in religious buildings with a mocking tone (while restraining myself from being too irrationally offensive). I am more concerned about how my words flow rather than how complicated they are, so you will find few high-level words in my essays.

And the two opposite styles served us well. The point is, try to find your voice. The moment you feel you are writing not just to complete 5 paragraphs but to communicate your ideas and personality, you know you'll ace the writing section. Also, remember that the examiners know that you are fifteen or sixteen- they won't expect you to argue with infallible reasoning, but to state your thesis, then your elaboration and explanation, coherently and sensibly.

One other thing: I advise against reading novels as the main means to improve English. Not that they won't help, but their language and ideas are not as useful as those found in articles, if you are writing expos. And reading a novel takes a lot of time, too. So, if you have free time and want to read novels for leisure, it's great, but to read one and assure yourself that you've spent 12 hours studying English is not.


3. ORAL:

Most of us have some particular pronunciation problems, and they take time to fix. So, unless you scored 9 or 10 last year in Reading Aloud, consult your teacher as soon as possible. Once you've identified your problems, work on them relentlessly.

I got A LOT of problems with both my pronunciation and intonation, because my 1st language isn't English. I had to train myself again almost entirely in Sec 4, using Better English Pronunciation by D.H O’Connor, practicing every vowel and consonant. (The book is quite expensive, but it’s worth the money). Once I've made sure that I read with fairly competent articulation, I worked on expression, using Voice and Speaking Skills for Dummies, borrowed from NLB.
Some of you might learn best from books, like I did. However, some might prefer videos- one of my friends watched speeches and tried to mimic the speakers. That’s helpful, too.
The picture discussion is where reading the Straits Times will save your life, really. Most topics deal with Singaporean issues, so if you read ST’s Opinions page every day and make sure you cover most aspects of current affairs, you’ll have a lot to discuss.
I also suggest you have a friend to practice Oral. From Jan to August, every morning, my partner and I would choose an article from ST to take turn to read and discuss. We gave earnest advice, always checked the dictionary/Internet/with teachers if we were unsure, and took one another’s advice seriously.
It’s important that you have the right partner. I had friends with good English but of no help. They pointed out one or two errors, and commented: ‘You have improved, but this part your intonation is quite weird- I don’t know how to fix, or perhaps it’s your voice’s problem?’ Some even gave ridiculous advice, like to not have my intonation go up and down wrongly, I should practice… not going up and down at all(!). So, all friends are equal, but when it comes to work, some are more equal than the others.


Phew, I guess that’s all. I don’t really have any advice on comprehension, except practicing, which applies to everything.

But how do you have so much time in Sec4? Well, you’ll have to consider what English grade you REALLY want and whether it is worth sacrificing other subjects (Yes, I did extra compos and compres at the expense of compulsory Math and Science homework, because I desperately wanted a distinction). Improving English means putting in tremendous hard work and time, and it can be frustrating, too. Also, please know that your score won’t improve steadily- it may even drop to some abysmal grade at some times, but hold on. Hard work will pay off, in results and in life (which no examiners can take away from you)

Hope this helps all the best for Sec 4!

wow this is a really good and informative post. I think this is going to be really inspiring for many students about to take the O Levels this year and even the next few years. And from the tips here, we can see that its really important to have a so-called partner-in-learning; in other words a good friend who we can share tips and our problems with. this really reminds me of my old student days where we have a group of 3 to 5 people and we would share notes and resources with each other.

more importantly, what a student stands to gain most from this post is not the methods or techniques, but your drive to achieve! If our kids can have this sort of work ethic towards every single thing they do, I would have no worries already. A well-deserved achievement!

There may be some regular customer-rich areas which may be a good options. Every time I get back to Singapore especially at night, I see a really long queue of taxis at the airport. That might be a good option because i see hundreds and hundreds of taxis there. I have always wondered if it made sense for a taxi driver to wait so long just for a customer, but it could be because the passengers fee may be worth it. Worth a try

Maybe the best investment will be education. Because with education and knowledge, a person will have the wisdom to know which other investments to invest in. Education does not only have to come from school, it can come from books and courses and seminars. Most importantly, life experience is also a form of education. Knowledge is very powerful and can save you a lot of wrong steps or wrong moves. For business decisions, it is also very important to make informed decisions, in order to steer the company in the right direction

in many cases, PSLE is considered by many employers to be ‘informal’. In a way that it is not an internationally-recognized standard. I have also never heard of employers who look at PSLE certs.

Bullying (on a victim) can have very long-term effects on the child psychology. In a way, a parent approaching another student can be considered bullying as well because the parent or teacher has a much higher authority than the kid. Incidents like this can really affect the victim’s self-esteem in the long-term. And we won’t be able to see the psychological effects on the child till many many years later

Would be happy to know more!

Typically for Chinese, the need to look ‘good’ to relatives is a never-ending cycle. You have to weigh the cost/benefit. If giving a big ang pow is within your means, then by all means spread the wealth. But if giving nice ang pows is going to burn a big hole in the pocket, then it may be better to give what is most comfortable. Most importantly, its the thought that counts.

I think if you are going to be roaming, it may be better to use your local line and activate the roaming, rather than getting a new line/number. This way, depending on the service you activate, you can call your contacts in SG and they will know its you from the Caller ID

The curtain options at ikea are quite alot and you can get some very good ‘clean’ designs of curtains over there (really good if you are aiming for the zen feel) If you happen to use the curtains from one maker, it will be good to use the same curtain maker for all the other windows/doors on the same floor because then the design will seem more matching.