Originally posted by Kuali Baba:I just read this. Maybe some parents weren't educated to the levels that are now being taught to kids earlier, or weren't good at it (so they majored in something else). I remember that my form teacher in P6 held a one-day seminar for parents on how to solves Maths problem sums.
How do tutors keep abreast of the syllabus, besides looking at what their pupils are given? Will tutors eventually need to go for upgrading courses?
Some parents want to prove that their children is "gifted", while others want theirs to avoid the former EM3/Normal Stream route. All this is contributing to the high migration and low birth rates.
How do tutors keep track of the changing syllabus?
Once I came across one whole section in my cousin's A Maths syllabus regarding some 'secant-secant' rule and 'secant -tangent' rule.
I swear that I have never, ever seen that crap before for my O Levels, A Levels, and all four years of my B.Eng. I've just finished my first postgrad year, and I still haven't learnt it.
In the end, I gave my cousin four dollars, told her to photocopy the whole chapter for me, and taught her that chapter the following week - after giving myself a one-week crash course in it.
2009 "O" level E.Maths Syllabus (Paper 4016) has excluded the calculation of the angle between two planes and angles between a straight line and a plane.
Originally posted by fudgester:How do tutors keep track of the changing syllabus?
Once I came across one whole section in my cousin's A Maths syllabus regarding some 'secant-secant' rule and 'secant -tangent' rule.
I swear that I have never, ever seen that crap before for my O Levels, A Levels, and all four years of my B.Eng. I've just finished my first postgrad year, and I still haven't learnt it.
In the end, I gave my cousin four dollars, told her to photocopy the whole chapter for me, and taught her that chapter the following week - after giving myself a one-week crash course in it.
Secant-secant rule and secant-tangent rule: sounds darn familiar to my A levels.
Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:
Secant-secant rule and secant-tangent rule: sounds darn familiar to my A levels.
I sure as heck didn't learn that in Maths C.
Tangent-Secant Theorem and Intersecting Chord Theorem have not appeared in "A", "O" and "N" Level before (ie from 1960 to 2008).
These two theorems first appeared in the new syallbus of "O" Level Additional Mathematics (Paper 4038) now.
The maths syllabus is like MOE's fastest changing syllabus and every few yrs you see major changes already
Originally posted by fudgester:I sure as heck didn't learn that in Maths C.
It wasn't in F-Maths in my time either!
Originally posted by Kuali Baba:It wasn't in F-Maths in my time either!
With that in mind, as idiotic as it may seem to be, I kinda understand why some parents would want to go for tuition themselves. I would blame the system and not the parents for creating the current situation.
After all, the stupid syllabus keeps changing, and there's nothing wrong in parents wanting to have the ability to help their kids with their schoolwork. There really was nothing wrong with the syllabus when I took my Os in 1999, but MOE seems to have not have heard of 'If it ain't broke, then don't fix it'.
But tuition for nursery and kindergarten..... now that's absolutely ridiculous.
never heard of secant-secant rule either.
And I've taken more than normal number of maths courses. Other than probably maths majors that is............
the education system here has become a big joke and students now study for the sake of passing the exams and not because they want to
no wonder school kids take education for granted, it's thrown at them from all 4 corners since they hit primary 1
yeah... the problem with.. some of these 'newer' educational implementations is....... good intention bad execution.
That time, a friend of mine put up some primary 6 maths questions on his blog and asked us to solve WITHOUT algebra.
Never good at maths at the best of times - it really stumped us.
The sheer amount of stuff that kids need to cover in ONE year... its.. just.. amazing. Without tuition - i doubt the kids can actually do MORE than rote learning. MOE Teachers are challenged to be creative - but with 35 kids in a class with differing standards, a huge syllabus to cover and only 1 teacher... more learning less teaching is really an uphill task. Really think life is tough for our mainstream teachers!
Originally posted by fudgester:How do tutors keep track of the changing syllabus?
Once I came across one whole section in my cousin's A Maths syllabus regarding some 'secant-secant' rule and 'secant -tangent' rule.
I swear that I have never, ever seen that crap before for my O Levels, A Levels, and all four years of my B.Eng. I've just finished my first postgrad year, and I still haven't learnt it.
In the end, I gave my cousin four dollars, told her to photocopy the whole chapter for me, and taught her that chapter the following week - after giving myself a one-week crash course in it.
It's all on the SEAB website
E.g. for H2 Physics Lasers and Semiconductors.... It wasn't in my A levels Physics...
I managed to find a first printed 1981, reprinted 1995, textbook which contains semiconductors, and compiled some questions on this chapter from the book.
But none for lasers so far.
Luckily.... I studied a little of all these in B.Eng...
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