Ai Ling Ong

Quadratic Equations Song by St Margaret's Girls

Recently in my Secondary 3 Additional Maths Weekly Tuition Class, I was checking with my students if they have learnt the Quadratic Formula. One boy 'excitedly' pointed out the YouTube video done by three St Margaret Girls! It was shown to his class by his Maths teacher. I came across this video many years ago but could connect with what he was referring to.

Though it's a very simple song, it's useful especially if you're an auditory and kinesthetic learner.

I applaud the effort by the girls!

Direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS56N94Sllc

A-Maths Students' Wishlist: This Amazing Calculator

The school term has just started and it was exciting to meet familiar faces and new ones in our weekly tuition classes for both O-Level Maths, O-Level Chemistry and A-Level H2 Chemistry.

While I was teaching in my Secondary 3 Additional Mathematics class on the usage of their Scientific Calculator to solve linear simultaneous equations, one student pointed out there was a new calculator which is much more powerful in terms of functions. Another student in the O-Level class mentioned it too. I was excited about this new calculator!

I went searching for calculators in our centre and managed to find one in the cupboard! Casio fx-95ES Plus. It looks exactly like my current Casio model except it has additional functions like:

Displaying answers in surd forms! (Useful for Trigonometry, Surd!
Solving quadratic inequality! (Many students can't seem to get this right!)
Setting your base in logarithm! (You can forget about change base formula in logarithm!)

A Maths Tuition

These are the new features that I observed, there could be more!

However, when I went to the Ministry of Education Approved Calculator List, Casio fx-95ES Plus wasn't in that list. Since this calculator was bought by my colleague Sean Chua from Popular bookstore last November, I was thinking maybe MOE has yet to update the list so I emailed them to confirm. And attached was their reply.

Lesson learnt:

Not all calculators sold in Popular bookstores are approved for usage in major examinations.
We must still learn our concepts well instead of relying only on calculator to help us!

Well, I'm going into the topic of Quadratic Inequality in a few weeks time, join me in my weekly O-Level A-Maths tuition classes before it's too late! Go to www.WinnersEducation.com NOW for the details!

A Maths Tuition

GCE O-Level Results Released on 10 January 2013

The results of the 2012 Singapore-Cambridge General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level (GCE ‘O’ Level) Examination will be released on Thursday, 10 January 2013.

Press release by Ministry of Education: http://seab.gov.sg/publicCommunications/pressReleases/2012_GCE_O-LevelExamResults.pdf

May all students achieve what they have aimed for or at least close to their goals.

I have come across this diagram on Pathways after O-Levels on Ministry of Education Facebook and would like to share with you.

There is also a very informative brochure on Post-Secondary education:

http://moe.edu.sg/education/post-secondary/files/post-secondary-brochure.pdf

For students who are sitting for your O-Levels this year, do you have in mind which route you are determined to take and what actions are you going to take?

Or are you like many students who wait for release of results and decide their next step which could be too late since they might not be doing what they like?

The academic year has just started so are our Maths tuition classes. I'm eagerly looking forward to meeting new faces and sharing the strategies to master O-Level Maths.

Be the best!

Ai Ling Ong :)

(Click on the image to zoom in)

Errors in SEAB 2014 O-Level Additional Maths syllabus formula sheet

I was looking through the 2014 GCE O-Level Additional Maths new syllabus (4047) to find out the changes when I spotted several typo errors in the formula sheet.

Can you spot the errors?

I have contacted Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board (SEAB) about it and hopefully they quickly update the copy.

Original file: http://seab.gov.sg/oLevel/2014Syllabus/4047_2014.pdf

screenshot of SEAB A-Maths errors