singaporeolevelmaths

Simple Tips for Better Maths Results!

Learning Tools

The Visualization Tool Revisit


Hi everyone,

Recently I was reading through the last few months of blogpost and I came across this post "The Visualization Tool" so I decided to write about the "Visualization Tool" revisited :)

Now this visualization is so powerful that anyone can apply it to any areas of your life, be it school, work, relationships, success ... It's simply seeing and experiencing how you want your future to be like...

Recently I was interested in the advertisements I saw, even one of the banks is using the visualization technique : "Dreaming of the future;Preparing For it Today" and there is the iconic symbol of a red arc which looks like a umbrella. *Guess the name of the bank?

ad.jpg

To do well in any areas, it is exactly the same. First you must be clear of what you want at the end and you got to see YOURSELF achieving it, how did you feel, who was with you, what were you saying, what were you doing?

[Read more...] about The Visualization Tool Revisit

Differentiation Basic Techniques


calculus.jpg

The big thing for Sec 4 A-Math ( Oh yar, since this blog has quite a number of visitors from other countries, I think it is important for me to mention that Secondary 3 - 4 is known as Grade 9 - 10 in other countries) is CALCULUS.

Well, you will hardly find this word in your A-Math textbook but you see a bulk of the chapters dedicated to Differentiation & Integration. These 2 topics are like freezing and melting processes.

Why? Because they are simply opposite of each other !

I am going to talk about the techniques of differentiation.

There are 3 main types for Sec 4 level ; you ought to learn these techniques real well and know when to apply each one of them as application problems follow after the basics.

  1. Chain Rule
  2. Product Rule
  3. Quotient Rule reserved for fractions. * But some fractions can skip this rule

My personal favourite is No. 2 - Product Rule. Well, let's see the technique in action.

Differentiate  with respect to x:

Now to do this, you can apply Product Rule - Differentiate Copy + Differentiate Copy

so

Now from this example, we notice some patterns, if you have a constant ( a fixed number) in front, you can simply focused on differentiating the portion with x involved. For example in this case, Focus on Differentiating so now, we don't even have to use product rule :

  1. Leave the constant in front
  2. Differentiate the portion with x involved by Power Front - Power Down by 1-Differentiate within also known as your Chain Rule. BINGO!

By realizing this pattern, it will save you some time and less pen ink as well.

Certainly hope it is useful.

:-)

alwaysLovely

Photo by just another paul

Need graph paper but had none at home!


Need graph paper but had none at home!

This was the situation I faced yesterday. I needed some graph papers urgently for plotting of some cumulative frequency graphs but they simply ran out when I check my drawers.

I am sure some of you had the same experience like me before.

This incident reminded me of another funny thing that happened back during my old school times.

We had this very fierce Math teacher whom everyone was very fearful of. We were learning something about graphs during that time and she was returning us our graph assignments. She made a "special mention" to a classmate of his remarkable! effort of creating his own graph paper! Really drawing out the squares manually!

:)

Lesson learnt : " Go Google and type in "Free Graph Papers". You will get an endless list of sites which provide all the different kinds of graph papers that you will need.

Cheers to technology!

This "C" word, the secret weapon that allows this student to enjoy exams.


It is once again the start of the school term. Perhaps a new environment, new school compound, new faces, new aspirations, new books, new look! haha! At the same time, some whined about the new level of "Desserts" (Spelt it backwards to get the true meaning) from school work, teachers faces (yeah, some faces can really give you a different meaning to life tsktsk).
I guess most students are still adjusting to the sleep late-wake up early lifestyle as compared to the sleep late-wake up late.

I was on msn with one of my students when I was so impressed with her attitude towards school work. She is a totally changed person compared to when she was P6. She used to whine on every single thing. Now just a few days back, though she still commented about how tough A-Maths was , it was in the positive sense as she knew that for her to Conquer this mental block, she has to do something. And do you know what she told me. I was shocked.
[Read more...] about This "C" word, the secret weapon that allows this student to enjoy exams.

You can't memorize Maths!


Yes, it's the truth!

You can't memorize Maths! Rote learning has been deemed as "study dead books" in chinese : du si shu. Yes you can have really good memory but knowledge learnt by pure memorization doesn't get retain long enough and most importantly, it is simply a waste of time and resources since you can't really apply what you have memorized to questions unless you have completely understand the fundamentals and the linkage.

The reason for me posting this up is that I was shocked to find one math tutor with this approach

[Read more...] about You can't memorize Maths!