Forget the haze. Take a break from your studies and find the following song, and learn a bit of history. : )
WE DIDN’T START THE FIRE (by Billy Joel, 1989)
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray,
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television,
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
Rosenberg, H-Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye,
Eisenhower, Vaccine, England’s got a new queen,
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiov,
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron,
Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around the Clock
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn’s got a winning team,
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev,
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac,
Sputnik, Zhou Enlai, Bridge On The River Kwai
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball,
Starkweather Homicide, Children of Thalidomide
Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia,
Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy,
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it
Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land,
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion
Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatle mania,
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex,
J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again,
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline,
Ayatollah’s in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide,
Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China’s under martial law,
Rock and Roller cola wars, I can’t take it anymore
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning since the world’s been turning.
We didn’t start the fire
But when we are gone
It will still burn on, and on, and on, and on…
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6POmPgeLW2U
Btw, do you know what PSI stands for?
Cheers,
Ilyasa
A good Indices question for you to try (answer given)
My P5 daughter topped her class in a recent science test.
She obtained 28 out of 30 marks. Of course immediately I asked her about the missing two marks (as though the 28 are not important, but hey, i’m Singaporean u know).
Rahmah has formal science tuition once a week, taught by Mr Lim at my home centre. But almost everyday, she gets to ask her elder sister, my wife and me about science. She’s not really interested in science, except for rocks and minerals which she buys and collects.
My technique is to teach my children science whenever and wherever I can, as my time with them is not much (when I’m free, they would be in school and when they are ‘free’, I would be giving tuition to other people’s children).
Of course it helps that I’m a physics tutor, with lots of knowledge about chemistry as well. I only get irritated when my children ask me about factual biology questions, such as the parts of a plant cell. For that, I normally ask them to use the internet. This is to develop them to be more resourceful and not to immediately rely on others for answers.
If you want your children to be good in science, ask them to read a lot about science and make them think about what they see around them. For eg, ask them why is it easier to cut chicken with a knife than with a metal ruler. In science, you can’t just say it is because the knife is sharper; the scientific answer has to do with force and surface area, or pressure.
Rgds,
Ilyasa
===============================================================
For our latest timetable, click here => 
The real cause of stress in our education system …
The cause of stress in our education system is not from within the education system itself. It is not the amount of homework, tests, exams or tuition. It is also not the level of difficulty of our exam papers.
The real cause of stress in our education system, if you have not already realized, is found in the following paragraph (taken from yahoo s’pore): “Overall, the top 10% of Singapore households had incomes of $10,543 per member. The bottom 10% had earnings of $422 per member. Note that the top 10% earns almost 25 times the bottom 10%. The disparity seems mostly related work QUALIFICATIONS.”
That’s why parents here push their children very hard to excel in exams, and not in the children’s area of interest. In many developed countries, it’s ok not to go to college. Here, doing that means choosing to suffer financially in life.
Ilyasa
Is the hero the student or the tutor?
Well, the answer lies in the following lyrics by Mariah Carey:
“And then a hero comes along
With the strength to carry on
And you cast your fears aside
And you know you can survive
So when you feel like hope is gone
Look inside you and be strong
And you’ll finally see the truth
That a hero lies in you.”
: )
Rgds,
Ilyasa
Go to the type of school that caters to your strengths
Recently I met an enterprising young man who was trying to sell to me fire extinguishers. He’s studying in a polytechnic and does sales part-time. He speaks very good English so I asked him about his educational background.
He was from the Normal Academic stream and knowing himself, he felt that he wouldn’t survive another year studying for the O-levels in Sec 5. So he went to the ITE instead and eventually obtained a Higher Nitec cert which allowed him to be admitted into a local polytechnic.
This is what I’ve been trying to tell some parents. If, after so many years, your child still cannot sit still to study, please don’t force him or her to do the O-levels or the A-levels. There are so many pathways to success, including academic success, in Spore now. And there’s no shame in going to the ITE to pick up a vocational skill; the ITE is not a lesser school compared to a JC or an IP school. It’s just a different kind of school where you can acquire a different set of useful skills.
Rgds,
Ilyasa
_______________________________________
TUITION CLASSES:
_______________________________________________________________
EDUCATIONAL SERVICES:
______________________________________________________________
By EX-MOE TEACHERS & EXPERIENCED TUTORS
@ BLK 644, BUKIT BATOK CENTRAL, #01-68. S(650644).
CALL 65694897 OR SMS 98530744 OR 97860411.
An important PSLE math concept to understand (Part 1)
Let me share with you a difficult concept normally tested in P5 or P6 Math. I’m not sure if it has a name. It makes use of the concept of difference between two values but it’s not the same as the Constant Difference concept, which refers to the idea of a particular difference between two values being the same despite making changes to other quantities. The concept that I’m about to introduce actually makes use of TWO differences, the difference between individual values and the difference in their total values. Quite a number of tough P6 qns are actually testing whether students know that there is a relationship between the difference between two individual values and the difference in their total values.
I think this is best explained without any unknown values. Let’s say a pencil costs $1 and a pen costs $1.50. The difference in their values is $0.50 right? Let’s call this the Individual Difference. Let’s say you purchase 10 of each, costing a total of $10 and $15 respectively. The difference in their total values is $5 right? Let’s call this the Total Difference. Is there a relationship between the Individual Difference (ID) and the Total Difference (TD)? Yes. Notice that if TD is divided by ID (5 / 0.50), what you’ll get is 10, which is the number of each item you purchased. If this is easy for you to understand, it is likely because all values are known and you were working forwards to find the total difference, and not working backwards to find the number of each item bought.
Let me now show you how a typical P6 question looks like:
John bought an equal number of pens and pencils. Each pencil costs 50 cents less than a pen. John paid a total of $5 more for the pens than for the pencils. How many pencils did John buy? (using TD/ID, the answer is 10. but notice how intriguing the question has become?)
Please also realise that the concepts of ratio, decimals, fractions and percentages are all related and interchangeable. So let’s make the above question harder:
John bought some pens and pencils. The ratio of the number of pencils he bought to the number of pens is 1:1. Each pencil costs $1 and each pen costs 50% more than a pencil. John paid a total of $5 less for the pencils than for the pens. What is the total number of pens and pencils that John bought? (answer: 20)
Another way of looking at the above problem is to see that since each pencil costs 50 cents less than each pen, it must have taken 10 of them to be a total of $5 less than the SAME quantity of pens.
Rgds,
Ilyasa,
Founder, Singapore Learner; Director, Concept Learning Pte Ltd
Related links:
(1) Challenging PSLE Math Programme for Medium to High Ability Students
(2) P6 MATH & SCIENCE, March & June INTENSIVE REVISION For PSLE 2013
===============================================================
For our latest timetable, click here =>
It’s your fault that you failed.
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
Cassius, in Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141)
: )
Yay, my sec 3 NA student topped his class in A. Math.
Congratulations to Daniel Lam, from BPGHS, who obtained 39 out of 40 marks for his recent A. Math class test on Quadratic Equations.
I’m still not used to publishing testimonials from current or past students for my teaching or tutoring. In fact, I hardly record or remember their pre-tuition and post-tuition marks. It is sufficient for me that my students have stayed with me for as long as they have needed my guidance (or nagging), and that they continue to do well all the way to university.
Yes, I’m not good at marketing. Even my website is not dazzling enough. It’s ok for now, as I still get a sufficient number of students every year. I don’t even produce my own materials (but I know where to get the good ones).
So without aggressive marketing, testimonials and “own materials”, how have I been able to attract students to come and learn? And in what ways do I add value to a student’s learning? Well, you have to attend my tutorial sessions to know what thinking looks like. : )
Rgds,
Ilyasa
Reflections on PSLE Math Intensive Revision recently held at Concept Learning
I’ve been wanting to write abt this for some time. For the four days of the PSLE Math Intensive Revision we covered topics such as Remainder Concept, Constant Difference Concept, Internal Transfer Concept and so on, with each worksheet having questions of increasing difficulty involving whole numbers, decimals, fractions, ratios and percentages. For most of the questions, I showed more than one method of solving them, for eg., by using model drawings, units, or the branch method and so on.
So what did I discover from conducting the course? I’m surprised to learn from the students that schools do not cover all the methods I demonstrated, maybe due to a lack of time. And the students, who were abt medium to high ability in math, could solve difficult questions if the question involves only one concept or one method. If the question involves fractions, ratios, decimals and percentages all at the same time, or the question is best done using the branch method first followed by models drawing, then many of the students could not completely solve the problem.
How to overcome the above problem? Students need to understand that fractions, ratios, decimals and percentages all just different forms of the same proportion of quantities, and are thus easily convertible from one form to the other. But students must first understand each concept properly first; for example, what does it mean if the problem has the phrase “John has 25% percent more marbles than Alvin”? If a student is comfortable with using the ratio method to solve problems, but is unable to rewrite the above phrase in ratio form, then he may not be able to proceed with solving the rest of the problem.
Some questions involve more than one concept. For example, it contains a phrase such as “Alvin sold some marbles and gave 40% of the remainder to Susan and Eugene, with Susan getting 20 more marbles than Eugene.” A well-trained student would be able to use a number of methods to solve a difficult problem.
I’m also surprised that some students do not know how to check whether their answers are correct. Since most tough questions require students to work backwards to find some unknown starting quantity, then the student can verify the correctness of his answer by working “forward” with the now known starting quantity and try to obtain all the other quantities given in the question.
The key to solving PSLE math problems is to understand that either a quantity has remained unchanged, or is equal to another, or can be made equal to another. Then the different methods (models, units, branch etc) can be applied.
A very bright student once said to me – “Whether you draw models or use units or use algebra is not important. You must first understand the nature of the problem.”
Good luck.
Ilyasa.
Mr Ilyasa is the Principal Tutor at Concept Learning and Singapore Learner. He can be contacted at 97860411, or ilyasa@conceptlearning.sg.
* If you are medium or high ability student preparing for PSLE Math, you may want to attend my weekly workshop: Challenging PSLE Math Programme for Medium to High Ability Students. In this programme, I will also include P6 Math Olympiad problems that are relevant to the PSLE.
_______________________________________
TUITION CLASSES:
_______________________________________________________________
EDUCATIONAL SERVICES:
______________________________________________________________