Here’s Why General Paper Tuition Should Never Be Overlooked (And why it might be the key to your competitive admission advantage for university)

Here’s Why General Paper Tuition Should Never Be Overlooked (And why it might be the key to your competitive admission advantage for university)

Hey students! In the blink of an eye, it’s already September and you’re more than 8 months into your JC1 / JC2 year.

This means that by now, you’d have realised: 

Even if you’ve scored good grades for English back then during your GCE ‘O’ Level exams ≠ doesn’t mean that you’ll score well for your General Paper (GP) exams. 😂

Compared to English, you face a much steeper learning curve to even score a decent grade for GP.

Here’s why GP is a different ball game…

For GP:

  1. There’s a greater emphasis on your critical thinking skills and depth of thought, and not just your command of the English Language.

(If you ‘winged’ your way through O-level English by memorising essays or practising on assessment books, you will find that these ‘methods’ won’t work anymore!)

  1. GP requires you to spend considerable time reading to expand your general knowledge and be able to present well-researched, well-supported arguments.

Problem is: We understand that JC students’ schedules are both hectic and packed.

Coupled with the steep learning curve that GP presents, it’s no wonder that you might be scoring D’s or E’s despite your best efforts. 😅

That’s a big problem – Even though GP is a H1 subject, it’s also one of your most important but often highly overlooked subjects.

Most students tend to not realise the importance of GP, but instead turn their attention to other H2 subjects, like H2 Maths which require more “urgent attention”.

Now… That’s an ill-advised strategy to adopt. ❌

Your GP grade is used in the computation of your Rank Points (RP)

That means that even if you happen to score well in other subjects, but do poorly in GP… 

Your chances of admission into your preferred university course might be in real jeopardy!

I’m sure you’ve heard many horror stories of students who score ‘A’ for their Maths and Sciences but end up scoring mediocre grades (C /  D / E) for GP or can’t even obtain a pass (S / U). 😞

These students end up in a course that isn’t really what they want… with some even ending up having to retake the whole A-Level exams as a private candidate! 

(Unlike your O-Levels, you can’t retake subjects individually at the A-Levels… You have to retake all of them in a single seating as universities only recognise a full A-Level certificate!)

So as you can see, your GP grades are vital and should never be overlooked. 

And that’s why GP Tuition is necessary in helping students achieve your ideal admission and progression into your university life. 

Considering how tough JC life is, the right GP tuition support will greatly help you shorten your learning curve to master all the skills and strategies to score well in GP.

Wouldn’t you want to work smart? 😊

This is why GP Tuition will give you the competitive edge you need.

Here at EduEdge, we’ve developed a structured method that helps students master the crucial GP concepts and skills, in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step approach that actually makes learning GP easy for any student.

We call this approach the: “Formula-Style” Learning Method!

With this method, we’ve seen students who were previously struggling in the subject (scoring D / E / S / U),

Experience a significant improvement to their GP grades and start scoring their As / Bs within a short time!

Our Junior College General Paper Results:

✅ GP: 82.7% of Our Students Achieved A / B For Their A-Level GP

✅ An Amazing 3-6 Grade Jump From Their Initial E/S/U Grades!

But of course, while EduEdge is able to accelerate any student’s learning, General Paper is still a skills-based subject.

That means that while we can’t promise you overnight success… but if you are willing to follow our proven curriculum and structures,

You’ll be able to quickly develop the key skills to tackle GP more effectively than ever and gain the edge you need in your critical exams. 

WANT TO MASTER GP AND START SEEING A SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENT IN YOUR GRADES QUICKLY?

It all starts here! EduEdge is inviting you to our Fully-Sponsored Private 1-1 Coaching Session (PCS)!

Our team of GP Specialists will dedicate 1 hour of their time to give you an exclusive 1-1 private coaching session to personally experience EduEdge’s “Formula-Style” Learning Method!

Our GP Specialists will personally analyse your most recent GP paper to identify and diagnose your key strengths and areas for improvement, 

AND delve deep into the key areas that you must know to score your best ever GP grade.

From just this one session, we’ve seen students who have that AHA moment as they now have a proper Game Plan to improve their failing GP grade to a respectable B / A!

So if you’re looking to improve your grades quickly for GP and find breakthroughs in your overall Rank Points (RP), come by and:

3 Little-Known Tips That Your Child Must Know To Score AL1-3 for PSLE English Compo (Part 3 of 3)

3 Little-Known Tips That Your Child Must Know To Score AL1-3 for PSLE English Compo (Part 3 of 3)

TIP 3: Do Not Turn The Essay Into An “Action Packed” Movie 

ACTIONS are important in an essay as they serve to capture the details of what took place, and serve to make the writing more realistic.

Most students are able to include actions in their writing – however, they tend to have too many actions, resulting in what we call the “action-packed” movie effect.

Consider the following writing:

We were at Orchard Cineleisure. Several of my friends and I were on our way to the café. We were going to celebrate as our examinations were over. Suddenly, I bumped into a teenager. He stared at me and shouted. Then, he stepped closer. I told him that I was not.

As you can see, such a writing style will hardly engage any readers. It is boring and it will be a miracle for any teacher or PSLE Marker to not fall asleep after reading the first few paragraphs.

The problem is that Writing is quite single-dimensional unlike movies where there are sounds, visuals and special effects to complement the actions.

So what your child needs to do is to help their readers & markers see the SCENES in their MIND by creating a MENTAL PICTURE.

Thankfully, there are 2 “Special Effects” which your child can apply in their writing too to add more dimensions or what we call ‘layers’ to their storyline.   

1. THOUGHTS and FEELINGS (emotions): PSLE markers love students who include Thoughts and Feelings into their writing because it proves to them that the student has carefully considered not only the actions of the characters but also how the actions will affect the characters – at the mental and emotional level.

  • I remember this incident vividly still, and I doubt I will forget it for a long time. 
  • I was wondering who this guy was and if I knew him
  • Before I could think of a reply…
  • I became indignant at the accusation  

2. SPEAKING PROCESSES (dialogues): Dialogues add flavour to your writing as they create an immersive experience for your readers. Your readers will feel as if they are really there at the scene!

  • “What do you think you are staring at?”
  • “I-I-I was not staring at you,” I stammered despite my best efforts to sound confident.

When your child has added these additional dimensions, the story will become much more interesting for the PSLE markers to read.

Adding these 2 special effects to the original writing:

I remember this incident vividly still, and I doubt I will forget it for a long time. We were at Orchard Cineleisure. Several of my friends and I were on our way to the café. We were going to celebrate as our examinations were over. 

Suddenly, I bumped into a teenager. He stared at me. I was wondering who this guy was and if I knew him. Before I could think of a reply, he stepped closer. 

“What do you think you are staring at?” he shouted in a gruff voice.

I became indignant at the accusation.

“I-I-I was not staring at you,” I stammered despite my best efforts to sound confident.

Now that you know this secret, here’s how you can boost your child’s writing skills in the shortest time possible in time for the next upcoming exams:

  • Gather a list of mental verbs which your child can use in his / her writing. You should be able to find a basic list of mental verbs by performing a Google Search.
  • Gather a full list of emotive words, phrases and expressions of different varying intensities which your child can use in their writing. The key emotions to pay attention to will be: Anger, Sadness, Fear and Happiness. 

This is just one of the many proven writing techniques that we impart to our students at EduEdge to help them jump 1-2 bands for their Paper 1 essays

There are many more advanced writing techniques which your child can master and apply to their writing to score Band 1!

 

About the Author

Teacher Edwin

During his time as a student, Edwin struggled with the English Language, and was often told by his teachers that he had to “feel the language” or “practise more”… even though he was already ploughing through tons of English Assessment books!

Which is why, more than anybody else, he understands the uphill challenges and frustrations your child feels when trying to master English!

This is what motivated him to develop the <Formula-Style> method of learning English to help students learn English in an easier and more effective way, just like solving Math or Science questions!

Together with the EduEdge Team of Language Specialists, this unique and proven method has successfully transformed the grades of more than 2,500+ students from over 150 schools across Singapore to date, with a 94.5% improvement rate and 72.1% achieving Bs and As for the Primary, Secondary and Junior College Levels!

3 Little-Known Tips That Your Child Must Know To Score AL1-3 for PSLE English Compo (Part 2 of 3)

3 Little-Known Tips That Your Child Must Know To Score AL1-3 for PSLE English Compo (Part 2 of 3)

This is the second article of a 3-part sharing series.

TIP 2: Memorising Essays Does Not Help 

For a start, model essays do help your child pick up the Organisation (or what we call the Paragraphing Structures) that is required for the Narrative / Recount styles of writing.

However, a BIG MISTAKE that many misguided parents often commit is to get their child memorise model essays of different themes for ideas.

There are two problems with such an approach:

Firstly, many of you may have noticed that the model essays in guidebooks often vary in terms of the writing quality. 

Guess what? – You are right! These essays are often written by different students with different writing standards. 

Now, let’s assume for a moment that these essays were all written by the same student and they are Band A essays.

This still serves little to help students because the benchmark may be too high for them. What happens in such a scenario is that students may end up even more confused or even demoralised.

The second problem is that when students memorise essays, the natural tendency for them is to regurgitate and “force” what they have memorised into their composition during exams.

BIG MISTAKE AGAIN because once a compo is written out of point or not answering the question, students will be heavily penalised with deduction of marks.

In any case, it is near impossible to try to spot the compo theme / topic that will be tested during the exam. 

Take the 2016 PSLE exams for instance. 

Students were tested on this idea of ‘Secret’, which is a theme which is largely unfamiliar to most students. 

That’s why we’ve heard of stories whereby some students, who normally score A / A* in English, fumbled and scored only a B in the end. While they may be exam-smart, they do not have a FULL understanding of how they should be approaching writing the right way.

Rather than memorise essays and “pray” that the right topic has been spotted, your child has much better luck when they have the Right Thinking Strategy so that they can tackle all writing topics easily.

That’s why at EduEdge, for students on our programme, we do not tell our students what to think, we guide them how to think using our unique methodology of learning English using formulas so that they develop their own thinking skills over time. 

So how can you help your child develop the Right Thinking Strategy?

There are many ways but we’ll share one way in this article.

When your child approaches any essay topic, they have to think in terms of a Problem and a Complication.

Every essay will involve a problem or complication which the characters in the story will seek to solve – this is what makes the essay engaging / interesting for your child’s teachers and PSLE Markers.

Here are some examples:

(1) Theme: Honesty / Integrity
Problem: A school friend visits me late at night.
Complication: He wants to borrow my school assignment to copy.

 

(2) Theme: Thrift / Love
Problem: A school friend visits me late at night.
Complication: He had to scrimp and save to buy the present.

 

A common mistake which many students make is to NOT give proper thought to how they should develop their Problem or Complication.

In other words, the Problem or Complication is solved too easily or simplistically.

Here’s an example:

A Simplistic Storyline without any proper thought
Davis and James were fighting in the toilet. The teacher came and asked them to make peace with each other. End of story.

 

A better approach is to further escalate the problem. Ask your child to ask questions to generate more ideas.

 

A More Sophisticated Storyline with proper thought
  • Why were Davis and James fighting?
    (reason – perhaps, rivalry at competition / sports meet) 
  • What happened before, during and after the fight?
    (sequence of events leading to the brawl)
  • How were they fighting?
    (e.g. Using a karate chop? Using a flying kick? Defending with a mop? Dodging the punch which was coming towards him?)
  • What were the injuries sustained?
    (e.g. One of the boys had a bloody cut on his forehead; the other had scraped his knees while he fell to the floor)
3 Little-Known Tips That Your Child Must Know To Score AL1-3 for PSLE English Compo (Part 1 of 3)

3 Little-Known Tips That Your Child Must Know To Score AL1-3 for PSLE English Compo (Part 1 of 3)

Paper 1 is an important paper component because it makes up 27.5% of the entire PSLE English Exam.

It has the potential to change a student’s grades by up to 1.5 bands – in other words, from Cs to Bs, and Bs to As.

However, many parents we’ve spoken to often have little knowledge as to how they can help their child excel in Paper 1 writing.

They shared with us that they’ve tried getting their child memorise essays and creative phrases, write essays regularly by practising on assessment books or attend weekly Creative Writing classes – 

Yet, they still see little or no improvements in their child’s writing scores despite their best efforts.

If this describes what your child is facing right now, you need to pay close attention to these little-known tips that we’re going to share with you so that your child can finally ACE their Paper 1 writing exams.

TIP 1: It Is Not Just About The CONTENT (Ideas) 

CONTENT is not king. 

Many students often assume that if they have good ideas, they will do very well in their compositions. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Grammar (or Language) has equal if not, more importance than Content.

Think about this: Have you ever wondered why the subject is called “English Language” and not just “English”? 

Well, the very fact that the subject is named as such already gives us a very clear indication of the importance of Language – but this is a fact that is often overlooked by many students.

If students have a poor grasp of their language, it does not matter how good their ideas are because they will still have difficulty communicating their ideas clearly.

And if their teachers and PSLE Markers cannot understand what is it that they are trying to convey, how then can they award a high mark?

Now that you know this important fact, how can you help your child?

If your child is currently scoring below 15 out of 20 for Language in Continuous Writing and below 6 out of 9 for Language in Situational Writing, then your child has to work on brushing up their Grammar.

Firstly, identify the Grammar Rules in which your child is committing errors. From our experience, students with borderline language scores will benefit greatly from strengthening their Verb Rules such as Subject-Verb Agreement, Tenses and Verb Formation patterns. 

For students who already do not have problems with their Verb Rules, they should strengthen their understanding of punctuation rules – notably the use of their full stops, commas and quotation marks – when and how to use them.

At the same time, they should pay close attention to their Sentence Structures – they must know how to write Simple, Compound and Complex Sentences so that they can add variety to their sentences without ‘sounding’ repetitive.

So how can your child improve his / her grammar?

Well, the most obvious method is to refer to a good Grammar guide. There are several quality titles out there in the market and they will get the job done.

An important point to note, however, is that Grammar is learnt through real application and not just through reading grammar guides or practising on grammar MCQs. 

We’ve seen diligent students working on Grammar MCQ practices after practices, but still haven’t seen improvements in their English grades.

A more effective method is to involve your child with Paragraph Exercises rather than Grammar MCQ practices or even full Essay exercises.

  • Have your child write a paragraph for a particular essay topic – make sure your child checks through her work after writing the paragraph – this habit of Proofreading is invaluable and will be a life skill in time to come
  • Each sentence should be carefully checked to ensure that no grammatical errors are committed.
    • When each sentence is right, the paragraph will be right.
    • When each paragraph is right, the whole essay will be right.

Remember: Content is nothing without good Grammar.

 

How to Avoid Costly, Careless Mistakes for P2 English Comprehension

How to Avoid Costly, Careless Mistakes for P2 English Comprehension

English Comprehension is the nightmare of all students – whether they are in Primary, Secondary or Junior College. 

This problem is exacerbated by the fact that there is a low reading rate amongst the general population (including students). Most people these days prefer online pursuits to reading books. 

According to a National Arts Council (NAC) survey released in 2016, 56 per cent of the general population had not read a literary book over the past one year between March 2014 to March 2015 (sample size: 1,015 Singaporeans and permanent residents).

From our experience, almost all (9 out of 10) students have a hard time trying to understand what they have read and how to go about answering comprehension questions.

That’s why it is not uncommon to hear of students struggling to pass Comprehension, and it gets worse as they move up the levels because the proportion of Higher Order Thinking (HOT) Questions increases correspondingly. 

HOT Questions are much more demanding as they require students to read within and between the lines to unpack the hidden meanings of the writer. In other words, students need to infer and not just merely copy and paste their answer from the passage. 

For Primary School students, Comprehension is an important component of Paper 2.

The Total marks for Paper 2 is 95 marks – of which: Visual Text Comprehension is 8 marks and Comprehension OE is 20 marks. 

This means that Comprehension makes up 28 out of 95 marks or close to 30% (one-third) of the entire paper.

Any student who is gunning for their Distinction (AL1-3) must therefore do well in the Comprehension component.

Having worked with thousands of students over the last 8 years, my Team and I have developed deep insights into the careless and costly mistakes which are often committed by students.

So if you are a concerned parent who wants to help your child do much better in Reading Comprehension, you must advise your child to avoid these careless and costly mistakes.

Careless Mistake 1: Jumping The Gun When Answering The Questions

One of the common mistakes which students make when answering Comprehension Questions is that they jump to their own conclusions without any basis for their conclusions.

What this means is they are not answering the question at all even when they think they are.

Let’s take a look at the following example:

Text
Sam did not dare to face his parents. He had let them down once more. Maybe he should not have played computer games the night before. Maybe he should have paid more attention to what his teacher was teaching in class
Question: Why do you think Sam did not dare to face his parents?
Answer (Wild Guess): He was playing computer games the night before when he should be doing his homework.
Teacher’s Comments: 

This answer (“he should be doing his homework”) is not accepted because there are no CLUES in the text which supports this idea. 

In other words, it is a WILD GUESS (“anyhow” guess) – the student gives an answer based on his own knowledge or perhaps personal experience (maybe the student often plays games when he should doing his homework) instead of an answer which is based on the CLUES given by the Writer in the text.

Given CLUES are: 

  • “did not dare to face” →  fear 
  • “let them down” → disappoint
  • “once more” → not the first time
  • “the night before” → perhaps the eve of a test or exam?
  • “should have paid more attention… in class” → distracted / unfocused when he should be learning 

Therefore, a LOGICAL ANSWER which is accepted will be:

  • His exam grades had fallen short of his parents’ expectation again. OR
  • He had probably failed his exams again.

Note: A Logical Answer is an answer which is supported by clues from the passage.

 

So now that you know this, how can you help your child?

When answering comprehension answers, your child needs to give an answer that is based on the clues given in the text and not based on their own knowledge, experiences or thinking.

Remind your child not to be too quick in giving an answer until he/she has read the text closely for all the given clues.

Careless Mistake 2: Giving Vague Answers

The second careless mistake which many students often commit is a ‘spin-off’ from the first mistake.

Let’s take a look at the following answer for the same question:

Text
Sam did not dare to face his parents. He had let them down once more. Maybe he should not have played computer games the night before. Maybe he should have paid more attention to what his teacher was teaching in class.
Question: Why do you think Sam did not dare to face his parents?
Answer (Vague): He had done something wrong
Teacher’s Comments: 

In this instance, the word “something” is vague and imprecise.

The “something” could mean different scenarios here to different people:

  • Maybe he broke his parents’ favourite vase?
  • Maybe he stole his parents’ money?
  • Perhaps he snuck out late at night when he was supposed to be asleep?

As you can see, there are a whole lot of possibilities here and that’s why such answers will not be accepted by the PSLE markers.

If your child is making such mistakes in his comprehension, advise him/her to:

  1. Eliminate the use of imprecise words from their answers (e.g. “someone”, “something”, “somewhere” and even the word “how”.)
  2. Be super specific when giving an answer – and that means to give an answer which is clear to the PSLE markers and gives no room for doubt or misinterpretations.

Careless Mistake 3: Not Knowing The Difference Between Literal v.s. Inference Questions

Comprehension Questions are not made equal.

Questions may be broadly categorised into Literal and Inferential levels.

  • Literal Level Questions: answers may be found directly from a careful reading of the text (passage) itself – such answers are often obvious because of the surface meanings.
  • Inferential Level Questions: clues may be found in the passage but not the answer itself – answer has to be inferred from the given clues because of hidden meanings. In other words, the answer will come from our mind (via logical guesses) but not directly from the passage

The problem we’ve noticed is that many students have not been taught to differentiate questions between the Literal and Inference levels. 

Many students do not know how to recognise different question types, and as a result, they simply answer comprehension questions as if they were all literal in nature.

As you can imagine, this “copy & paste” strategy, without any thinking strategy, will result in precious marks being lost for your child!

Let’s take another close look at the same question so that we know why this may be an area of concern:

Text
Sam did not dare to face his parents. He had let them down once more. Maybe he should not have played computer games the night before. Maybe he should have paid more attention to what his teacher was teaching in class.
Question: Why do you think Sam did not dare to face his parents?
Answer (Obvious): He had played computer games the night before. OR

Answer (Obvious): He did not pay attention to what his teacher was teaching in class.

Teacher’s Comments: 

The phrase “Why do you think…” already suggests to us that this question is Inference in nature and not Literal – not to be confused with the Literal “WHY” Question – the word “THINK” is a hint that students must give an answer from their MIND / THINKING.

Another phrasing which is commonly used for Inferential Level Question is “How do you know” – again, the word “know” suggests that the answer must come from our mind and not from the passage.

Therefore, both answers above will be marked as wrong because students have just ‘copied’ and ‘pasted’ an answer from the passage, when they are actually expected to come up with an answer from their mind.

 

Likewise, students should not make the question more difficult than it is when they are tackling a Literal Question where a direct answer is expected of them; they should not up the difficulty of the question to an Inference level by putting themselves through the whole thinking process of making a logical guess.

Parents, as you can see, it is highly important for your child to be able to identify the Question Level so that they can answer to the requirements/demands of the question.

All these mistakes are extremely costly and students will lose a lot of marks in the process!

So parents, if your child ever tells you that they were just being careless, you need to rationalise with them that there’s no such thing as a careless mistake – only a right answer or a wrong answer. A careless mistake results in a wrong answer. 

As the saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice, shame on me”.

The next time your child receives his Comprehension test or exam paper from school, go through the questions carefully with them so that they can LEARN and GROW from their mistakes.

When your child starts cultivating a habit of avoiding these mistakes in his comprehension, it will save them precious marks – and these marks could mean the difference between a B from a C or an A from a B.

At EduEdge, all our students taught how to identify the different comprehension questions and how to answer them effectively

On top of that, all our students are equipped with a Comprehension ‘Cheat’ Sheet which helps them easily recognise the different Comprehension Levels! 

So if you would like to learn more about how we can support your child on their English mastery journey, chat with us on WhatsApp by clicking HERE.

 

About the Author

Teacher Edwin

During his time as a student, Edwin struggled with the English Language, and was often told by his teachers that he had to “feel the language” or “practise more”… even though he was already ploughing through tons of English Assessment books!

Which is why, more than anybody else, he understands the uphill challenges and frustrations your child feels when trying to master English!

This is what motivated him to develop the <Formula-Style> method of learning English to help students learn English in an easier and more effective way, just like solving Math or Science questions!

Together with the EduEdge Team of Language Specialists, this unique and proven method has successfully transformed the grades of more than 2,500+ students from over 150 schools across Singapore to date, with a 94.5% improvement rate and 72.1% achieving Bs and As for the Primary, Secondary and Junior College Levels!