Year 2011 Classes

We are open for registration for the Year 2011

Classes and Subjects (Small group tuition)

Primary 1 and 2 - English, Maths
Primary 3 to 6 - English, Maths, Science

We will be starting classes early or mid November.


Taught by a husband and wife team.

Home based tuition, located at Tampines, along Tampines Avenue 5.

For enquiries, you may call Mrs Song at

6260 4258 or 9424 7940

Alternatively, you email us at - FreeMathSample@gmail.com

Time for a Breather

While it is good to be consistently studying, there must also be short break periods to relax. Here are two video clips for you to enjoy.

Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D (rock violin - duet)


(rock violin - solo)

Improve Your Thinking Skills in Maths

The first set in the series, "Improve Your Thinking Skills in Maths" (Primary 3) which I wrote, has been released by Singapore's biggest publisher of school textbooks, Educational Publishing House (EPH). The other 2 series, which I also wrote (Primary 1 and 2), will be out soon.

The above series can be purchased at Popular outlets.

Regards

Officer Cadet School (OCS)

Our son completed his OCS on 19 Dec 09 and was commissioned an officer in the SAF.









Related News
More than 500 SAF cadets commissioned as officers

SINGAPORE: More than 500 officer cadets were commissioned as officers at the SAFTI Military Institute on Saturday evening.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Teo Chee Hean reviewed the commissioning parade for 402 Army, 52 Navy and 50 Air Force officer cadets.

The parade marked the completion of 38 weeks of rigorous training, during which the officer cadets were put through realistic training scenarios to develop their combat, planning and leadership skills.

The newly commissioned SAF officers will assume operational, instructional or staff appointments.

Addressing the graduands at the parade, Mr Teo encouraged them to take responsibility of the training, morale and discipline of their men to ensure that they were operationally ready at all times.

"As their commander, make good soldiers out of them... win over the hearts and minds of your men, for it is the resilience and fighting spirit of our people that will ultimately make the difference," said Mr Teo.

Education Minister and Second Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen, Members of Parliament, senior Ministry of Defence officials and SAF officers, as well as families and friends of the newly commissioned officers also attended the parade.

- CNA/so

Nobody Video Clip

Now that PSLE is over, it's time for some light entertainment.

A funny video clip about mom's advice that you should always check what you need before doing things. That aside, it is a popular video clip judging by the ratings it scored and the number of views it recorded.

Nobody But You Full Music Video - Wonder Girls (HQ)

Tuition Classes for Academic Year 2010

Please note that we will start our new tuition classes for the Academic Year 2010 on 14 Nov 2009.

Our contact details can be found in this link.

Easier Free Item Downloads

Excel Eduservice would like to thank everyone for supporting this website. We are pleased this site has helped many P6 students, parents and tutors the last 2 years.

We have added a new feature that makes downloading of free items easier. You can now download them without sending an email. Simply click the link below.

Free Maths Worked Solutions and PLSE Aggregate Score Calculator

There is a NEW free maths worked solution (Nanyang Pri P6 Prelim 2007) in the free section above.

At Excel Eduservice, we work to serve you better.

You're in good hands when you're with Excel!

Hormat Senjata in 2 moves

Our son completed his BMT today and what a difference NSF is today compared to what it was years ago.

For those who have done NS in the early days when the AR-15 (assault weapon) was in use, you’ll be amazed at how quick the hormat senjata can now be done - in just 2 moves – all because the clumsy AR-15 has been replaced by a shorter weapon.

Watch this video how clean and neat the hormat senjata is done – as compared to the old way.


Take note (picture below) that even in senang diri position (note the feet apart), the weapon is still slung over the shoulder – unlike the AR-15 that has to be put on the ground. This means that the soldiers can now hormat senjata from sedia position, and not from sedia, then rusuk senjata, then hormat senjata.

How things have changed.

MOE to recruit another 3,000 teachers this year

From Channel News Asia

SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Education (MOE) is hoping to recruit another 3,000 teachers this year, but if this target could not be met “so be it”, said Education Minister Ng Eng Hen during the Committee of Supply Debate on Tuesday.

“We will... ensure that only those with the passion, aptitude and commitment to teaching are selected,” said Dr Ng. “We would rather hire less to get the type of teachers we want to maintain a quality teaching force.”

He was responding to concerns raised by some Members of Parliament about bumping up recruitment in the education sector in light of the recession.

Senior Minister of State for Education Grace Fu pointed out that only about half of those who had met MOE’s current academic criteria for teacher training passed the selection interviews.

And while the ministry is moving towards all-graduate recruitment for its teaching force, Ms Fu stressed that current non-graduate teachers need not feel “compelled” to upgrade their academic qualifications. “What is more important is how well they perform as educators,” she said.

The MOE is also looking into hiring 500 Allied Educators - who support teachers in areas like counselling and teaching - as well as professionals with strong language skills for a new Language Facilitator Scheme to boost language proficiency among students.

Mid-career professionals with leadership experience can consider applying to be vice-principals, while MOE also hoped to recruit “high-calibre young graduates” to join as education policy analysts, said Dr Ng.

To meet demand in the preschool sector, a new diploma developed by the Singapore Polytechnic will be introduced to provide shorter training duration for kindergarten teachers, at half the time taken to obtain a specialised diploma in early childhood care.

All this will make an estimated 7,500 teaching and teaching-support jobs available in the education sector this year.

Appeal for Aid on behalf of war victims

http://www.dec.org.uk/item/200

The situation

After an 18 month blockade of Gaza and three weeks of heavy shelling the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is now completely overwhelming.

- Thousands of people are struggling to survive with many having lost their homes and most down to their last supplies of food and only limited amounts of fresh drinking water.

- Just £25 can buy warm blankets for 8 children

- Just £50 can provide a Food parcel for a family for one month

Electricity - supplies to Gaza are erratic at best with 75% of the area cut off completely. There is a significant public health risk arising out of the almost collapse of Gaza’s water and sewage system, the running of which is dependent on electricity.

Water - Around 500,000 people are without running water with 37% of Gaza’s water wells not working effectively and fuel reserves depleted due to restrictions on access and damage to pipes.

- At least 412 Children have been killed and 1,855 injured

- 60% of the population is living in poverty

- 1.1 million people are dependent upon aid to survive.

Health - The capacity of the health system has been significantly reduced due to the damage of at least 21 clinics. Ten primary health care clinics are functioning as emergency clinics and hospitals and intensive care units continue to treat the mass casualties.

http://www.dec.org.uk/donate_now/

http://www.dec.org.uk/faq/

Students, watch your handwriting

Fittingly, just before the exams, the Straits Times publishes an article about the atrocious state of handwriting of some students. (The full article can be found at the end of this post.)

For whatever reason, some students never learn. Even after much advice from teachers and nagging from parents, some students simply would not write legibly. They believe that the world is able to read their handwriting, and even will argue with markers that they deserve the marks, after the exam is over.

The rule is simple. If the marker cannot make out what you write, he/she will not be able to give you the marks.

The importance of handwriting cannot be under-emphasized. For example for Science, key words must be spelt correctly. It is useless arguing with markers after the exam that what you wrote is “stomata”, when what it looks like to everybody else, as “stomota”.

The student may argue all he wants that the marker mis-read his writing. From the marker’s viewpoint, the student did not know the correct spelling of the keyword. If the marker awards the student the mark, it would be unfair to students who genuinely got the answer right.

For the PSLE, although there is an avenue for appeal, students will NEVER get to see their papers after the exam. What this means is that if the markers cannot read your handwriting, and if you lose marks for that, you will have no one to blame but yourself.

The saddest part is that you will never know if you lost marks because you got the answers wrong, or because no one understood what you wrote.

From the Straits Times

Wired teens = 'Ant' writing
Students don't see need to improve handwriting because of tech tools but teachers hate it

BLAME technology for 'ants' - or what teachers call bad teen handwriting.

The Straits Times collected samples from 186 teens aged 13 to 17, which threw up 52 scripts covered with 'ants'.

They needed a lot of deciphering, typical of handwriting of the wired generation, said handwriting expert William Pang, 60.

Mr Pang, a handwriting consultant who began studying the science of handwriting analysis in the 1970s, blames this 'degeneration' on the lack of focus on penmanship in classrooms.

Students are not taught to grasp the pen properly, he said. 'Some of them even slump on the table as they write.'

They do not see the need to improve, either. After all, 'technology helps to make homework neater for students', Mr Pang pointed out.

Modern practices like downloading notes from the school's website and submitting typewritten assignments lessen the need for legible handwriting.

Teachers, who have to wade through an average of 100 to 200 scripts each week, say they especially hate the type of handwriting they call 'ants'.

'The tiny, ant-size writing makes it difficult for teachers to read what is written,' lamented Mrs Kang Yeok Lung, 59, a senior teacher at St Andrew's Junior College.

She has been a teacher for 27 years, and points out: 'When students write like that, they don't realise that the teacher's eyesight is affected and it makes marking a chore.'

The cure?

'I think assignments should be handwritten and not sent to the teacher as an e-mail attachment,' Mrs Kang said.

After all, when teachers have to guess what students write, she added, 'the student loses out'.

Especially during examinations, when essays are still handwritten, it can cost them grades. When markers cannot understand the scripts, 'there is a higher risk of misinterpretation'.

Augustus Set, 17, a second-year student at St Andrew's Junior College, said his parents feared his bad writing so much, they bought him handwriting practice books, 'so that I can write more legibly for my A level examinations'.

Still, other students are recalcitrant - they say they are expressing themselves.

Said Sayyed Amir Zaini, 16, a Secondary 4 student at Pasir Ris Secondary School: 'I tried to change my handwriting but I just can't. Anyway, I don't think I should change it just because others say so. I will change my handwriting only because I want to.'

Handwriting in the 1970s was of a better quality, said Mr Pang, who was then studying close to 300 handwriting samples as an amateur analyst. Tidier scripts showed that Singaporeans were more patient and considerate then.

'People were in less of a rush,' he said. 'They took more pains with their handwriting and the letters were more well-formed... to ensure others could read what they had written.'

The Straits Times' survey, on the other hand, revealed that many of the wired generation are disconnected, individualistic, more rebellious and non-conformist than their predecessors.

Mr Pang believes that teens will change their handwriting as they grow older 'to create their own identity'.

But that might not be for the better, he warned: 'A person's handwriting is likely to get worse with age if at work, he types more than he writes.'

Free Ai Tong P5 2006 CA2 Maths Section C Worked Solutions

A brand new free copy of Section C Maths worked solutions for P5 is now available.

To get your free copy (in PDF format) of the above, email us -

freemathsample@gmail.com

Send us a message “Free Ai Tong P5 Maths Solutions”.

Please allow a working day or two for us to reply you.

Below are sample screenshots of the free copy. You may click on the images to enlarge them.

Glitch fixed

A particular visitor-counting widget was giving problems around midnight of 1 Aug 2008 to 0800 hours on 2 Aug 2008, blocking visitors from this site.

The widget has since been removed and we are back up.

Apologies for the inconvience caused.

Regards
Excel Eduservice

Update 3 Aug 2008, 0810 hr - the abovementioned widget has been fixed. Widget has been reinstalled.

From the ST Forum

'Sure fail' exams: Apply them sparingly

AS A 16-year-old, I have been through my fair share of examinations. It is no myth that national exams are becoming more difficult as the years go by. Schools, including mine, are setting more difficult internal exams to prepare their students for these rigorous national ones. Advantages of this practice include equipping students with the necessary practice and skills to successfully attempt more challenging questions.

Singaporeans must realise the world is becoming more competitive. Nowadays, an average student is not one who scores Cs but one who scores As and Bs. Educational qualifications are gaining importance and schools are only trying to give their students enough experience to tackle national exams with ease.

However, schools must justify setting these 'sure-fail' exams, implying they must have prepared their students for the difficulty of internal exams. While difficult questions are known as a test to discover the most able students, the average student must be sufficiently prepared to sit for difficult internal exams and pass. Schools with an average mark of 40 per cent in a certain subject have evidently not prepared their students for the difficulty of such exams.

While this scare tactic may have worked in the past, it does not any more. Students can deal with failure once or twice, but when the average student fails constantly, he will probably give up completely. This will destroy his love of learning and the education system will have failed him.

Schools have every right to maintain high standards and push their students to achieve academic excellence. A small amount of pressure can be helpful in any pursuit. However, this tactic should not be overdone and not at the price of students' well-being. Schools have to prepare their students sufficiently for challenging internal exams to provide a healthy learning environment and inculcate a zest for learning. This can be achieved only with positive motivation. I am confident this will boost not only students' confidence, but their results as well.

Thara Rubini Gopalan (Miss)

Majestic Niagara Falls

Besides being a tourist attraction, Niagara Falls is also known to generate electricity for both Canada and US.

Hydro Electric Power is electricity generated by water. A dam is built to increase the height of the water. As the height of the water increases, gravitational potential energy increases. Water at the bottom of the dam thus experiences high pressure. This causes the water to be released at a high speed, with a lot of kinetic energy.

The kinetic energy is then used to turn the turbine, which then turns the generator to produce electricity.

Pictures of Niagara Falls.

Rainbow Falls, on the US side of the border

Horseshoe Falls, on the Canadian side of the border. Yes, we all got wet as the boat approached the falls.

A couple more shots of the falls below.







Picture shot of the dam at the Hydro Electric Power Plant, on the Canadian side of the border. (below)



The dam is situated a few kilometres downstream of the falls.

That's all for now.

In the countryside – Midlands, Ontario, Canada

Trees and other plants play an important part in our environment. When they make their own food through photosynthesis, they produce oxygen for all living things to respire.


In the winter, most trees lose their leaves.


In the summer, green leaves are everywhere in sight.



Earthworms are important to the environment. They help aerate the soil and aid plants by dragging leaves into the soil – which will serve as nutrients for the plants.




Here are some other things you can find in Midlands. Fairytale Land!






That's all for now.

Holiday Update - Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada

It's not just cold in Toronto, the air is also very dry. That means humidity is low. Guess what happens to the rate of evaporation when humidity is low, students. Remember your science? Yes, the rate of evaporation is higher when humidity is lower.

That is correct. That means your clothes dry faster, and your body loses a lot of water through perspiration. Toronto is the first place I've been where the average daily temperature is around 12 deg C, yet even after drinking over a 2 litres of water, I still feel thirsty. All other cities/countries where I have had to drink lots of water, had average daily temperatures above 30 deg C.

Well, that is Science in action - the lower the humidity, the higher the rate of evaporation.

That's the PSLE Science part. Here is the holiday part. Toronto is a big city. You don't have to miss your home food, because Chinatown in Toronto offers you value for money Asian food and spices. For those who prefer Indian food, there are also many outlets selling such food.

Here is a couple of Toronto photos.



Scenic view of Toronto Harbour View, from CN Tower, the world's highest free standing structure.



Downtown Toronto.

That's all for now.

If Cambridge can release “A” and “O” Level Exam Qs, why does MOE not release PSLE Qs?

An interesting letter regarding MOE’s decision not to release PSLE Questions to the public was published in the Straits Times.

http://www.straitstimes.com/ST%2BForum/Story/STIStory_240616.html
Release all exam questions, says tutor

AS A private maths tutor, I wish to share three perspectives with worried parents like Ms Jessica Chong.

First, schools should not be blamed for setting unusual questions, which usually involve challenging maths IQ and Olympiad-style methods. Past questions of this nature are not released for publication in the PSLE question papers sold in bookshops.

When I asked the Ministry of Education last year why these questions were not available publicly, I was told that these questions were required for research, benchmarking and re-use.

I am certain schools do not have access to these questions either.

Second, it is prudent for parents to help their children master 'tricky maths questions' by studying additional books or attending additional classes, instead of relying only on school textbooks or school teachers.

Do not be surprised to find that even some school teachers have difficulty solving some of these tricky questions. Self-help is better than waiting for miracles to happen.

My estimate is that there are about 10 exam questions, or 20 per cent of a total of 48 each year, which are not released each year.

Finally, rather than endure the annual bouts of complaints, I urge the ministry to release all PSLE questions to the public.

Schools and teachers should be given the chance to find solutions to help their students.

Holding back examination questions is unproductive and creates unnecessary stress among schools, teachers, students and parents.

Lim Boon Tong

A Big Thank You to our loyal supporters

Excel Eduservice started this blog in November 2007 with the purpose of helping its average students. What started off as a small project intended for a small localized target in Tampines, has turned into a bigger project helping PSLE students nationwide.

The success of this blog can be attributed to our supporters who have been returning to this site consistently, thus creating a situation where search engines have diverted keyword searches like “PSLE, Maths, Science” etc to this blog.

Here are some statistics. (Click on images below for a clearer view)


From Sitemeter

Based on the past month's statistics, the projected number of visitors for the next month is 2499.



From Google Analytics

This site registered 2681 visits for a period over the last one month, out of which 1576 came from search engines.



Excel Eduservice would like to thank everyone for making this site a success.

Letter from a parent to the ST

Exam offers troubling peek into school attitude

I SIGH with resignation as I write this letter. For the past few days, my daughter has been distracted and subdued. The school examinations have just ended and her usual celebratory mood is clearly absent.

I found out that half her classmates in this top, all-girls' school had flunked mathematics. Another class managed four passes. I have not seen the paper. Nor do I know if my daughter has passed. All I know is this: She studied very hard, prepared herself well, especially for maths; she was determined and motivated to excel.

For any parent, that's all that matters: a self-motivated child who is willing, diligent and conscientious.

Regardless of her marks, I am disheartened that the school set an overly challenging paper which bore such atrocious results, that the matter was raised as an issue during the parent support group meeting.

Please spare me the usual 'it was challenging but we expect the girls to manage it well', or 'this is to make the girls buck up for PSLE'. These garden-variety remarks reflect a school's way of shifting blame onto the pupils and to pressure parents to get additional tutorial help for their children.

Surely if the paper was challenging, the maths teachers should have prepared their pupils better. Such poor results must also put the ability of the maths teachers in doubt.

This paper affected my daughter's desire to study hard, her creativity and her self-confidence.

As an active parent who works as a school facilitator to support the parenting programmes of the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, I believe in reaching out to as many families as possible. But, I find myself asking now: 'Why bother?'

This is not about a frantic parent who is hurt because her daughter has suffered a setback. It was, after all, only a maths paper.

This is about the attitude of a school, school leadership and teachers. It is about an education system, which, in a bid to fuel an extreme race to excel in academic achievement, douses the spark and enthusiasm of learning.

I appeal to the Ministry of Education to compare the disparity between the simplicity of published primary maths textbooks and worksheets with the difficulty of exam papers set by schools, if my daughter's school is any yardstick. The disparity is unrealistic, places an unfair burden on pupils and parents, and may end up making a mockery of the education system.

Jessica Chong (Ms)