1) Does the conventional TYS(Ten-year series assesment) covers every single question tested in the actual o level papers or just a selected few?
2) Generally, how many new questions(Never been tested in previous papers) are set for each year's o level paper? (rough % will do)
3) Generally, how many similar but new questions(Basically copies of questions tested before with a little tweaking) are set for each year's o level paper?(rough % will do)
4) Need advice from veterans on doing well for english and combined humanities(SS and History).
Thanks a lot.
1) Conventional TYS (Ten Year Series) assessment book contain all questions from the past years. Usually the most common one is categorized by Year. This one means you're actually looking at the actual questions that came out from the previous years.
There's also another type of 'tys' which is categorized by chapter/topics. For this one, the first few questions of each topic are usually crafted by the publisher.
Applies to biology, chemistry, physics,
2) If you're refering to the 'unique' questions; questions that are really crafted with lots of creativity juice, these are very few like 5 to 20% of each paper. Such questions test on your understanding of a particular topic.
3) For MCQ, close to 50% of the questions are similar to the past years questions. When you do a lot of MCQ, you will notice a lot of similar occurance.
To do well in humanities (SS&History), you not only have to memorise but you have to practice as many possible questions from the topics as possible. You don't exactly have to write out all the essays, but you need to generate the points out and think of the linking, together with your conclusion. The more you practice in generating points for different topics and linking+conclusion, the easier it would be when it comes to the actual exam because it would be likely for you to see a similar question that you have seen before. It is also easier because you have thought of many points while practicing you would definitely be able to use one of those points that is appropriate for the question. Linking+conclusion is important because points can be presented differently in different question/different stands that you are arguing for.
For SBQ (history), you need to study your content well because once you know the content, it would be easier since history SBQ is content based and you need to write down contextual knowledge (which is very important!!)
For SBQ (SS), I guess practicing and seeing the similarity of questions would help because once you get the hang of it, you'll know what kind of answers to produce for the questions :)