Updated Homework List (As of 30th August)

MATH

1 E Math mock paper, 1 A Math mock paper and distinction questions. You may skip question 6 of the paper 2 of the E math paper since you haven't learn radians yet. Radians will be taught next term. Remedial for Elgyn, Wei Yang, Benedict, Ivan, Nathan and Niccholas in Library 4th floor on Tuesday 8am to 5pm. 

ENGLISH

The latest two journal entries on the 350 word summary. Due when school re-opens (tentatively).  There are two remedial sessions, Monday 1-3pm and Thursday 9am - 12pm for oral preparation. Attend either one.

PHYSICS

Three mock papers, a mechanics revision worksheet and two heat worksheets due Term 4 Week 1. Remedial is Monday 9am to 12pm. Do the heat worksheets once Mr Yong finishes the syllabus after the remedial.

BIOLOGY

Chapter 10 Worksheet by Term 4 Week 1.

HIGHER CHINESE

Script Checking in the auditorium on Friday 5th September, 9am to 11am. 

CHEMISTRY

Periodic Table Worksheet 2

Don't forget to check out the latest video on the Facebook group. JOIN FACEBOOK if you haven't done so and request for an invitation to the 3-3 group from me. 

Holiday maths 'camp' on Tues Sep 2

This intensive remedial / 'camp' only applicable for students: Benedict, elgyn, wei yang and me.

pls report at 8 in the library area at 4th floor.( venue nt confirmed)

Weekend of Week 9

Sian. After one week the blog becomes dead? 

Anyways homework this weekend.

ADDITIONAL MATHS

Exercise 8.1 Question 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10

Exericse 8.2 Question 3, 5, 6, 8, 9

Revise for test on coordinate geometry, linear law and binomial theorem.

ELEMENTARY MATHS

Worksheet on Mensuration (See Heymath)

PHYSICS

Mid Year Exam 2006 Paper

HIGHER CHINESE

Go do some comprehension practice for the Prelim 3 as well as read through the revision kit that was given. (The one on 热门话题）

ENGLISH

Comprehension that was given out on Friday. I'll collect Monday onwards. The very latest to hand in is on Wednesday. I'll allow you time to settle your Prelim 3 Higher Chinese paper first.

Physics... Just for fun

I hope you guys know that there's a fair bit of homework. To sum it up, there's English Speech Writing, Physics EM Waves and Sound worksheets, Chemistry and E math Files. 

Today's focus is on EM waves. I'll show you my two cents worth on how to memorise the EM Wave Spectrum, from highest frequency to lowest frequency.

As you know, the order from highest frequency to lowest frequency is Gamma, X-ray, Ultraviolet, Light, Infra-red, Microwaves and Radio Waves.

So by replacing the first letter of each type of wave, mnemonics can be used to make memorisation easy. Ok it's an old method i know, but it's effective as long as it's something funny/ridiculous that your brain can easily remember.

G(Insert name that  begins with G here)'s Xylophone Understands Lovely Irish Music Rhapsodies.

And just for your information the way that I remember the colour spectrum is:

ROYGBIV

ROY  Goes Bowling In Vietnam.

Hope it helps a bit for you guys. I use mnemonics a lot (Ivan Ng too! Go ask him for Social Studies Mnemonics)

Announcements For The Week

UPDATE: THERE IS NO PHYSICS TEST TOMORROW AS PREVIOUSLY SPECULATED.

ADDITIONAL MATHEMATICS

Complete exercise 7.4, 

ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICS

Finish all Heymath worksheets and file them up in your green file. You may omit the worksheets that you have handed up to Mrs Long. This is due Friday.

PHYSICS

Three worksheets due on Friday. They are the 40MCQ Retest (Retest people need not do), the Waves worksheet and the National Day Homework (Remember to get graph paper). Two more worksheets that have not been given out are due next week.

There will be remedials conducted this week in lieu of the National Day Holidays. 

Attend one session.

EITHER 

Thursday 3pm - 4.30pm

 

OR 

Friday 3pm - 4.30pm

OR 

Saturday 10am - 12pm

(Sorry this sounds like the EITHER OR question in your biology essay paper)

ENGLISH

Journals hand up by Thursday. Very few have even tried to hand it up yet at this time. You will get your Mastery Review Scripts back on Friday.

HIGHER CHINESE

Continue doing regular practice each day. Revise Mr Suah's revision packages too.

CHINESE

Same as above. 

PURE GEOGRAPHY

Notes have been just uploaded on sharepoint. Check the Sec 3 Level folder under Pure Geography.

TOMORROW

Assembly for Sec 3s in the auditorium (probably). 

BONUS

A highly stupid way to obtain graph paper. Click here to obtain the website that generates graph paper for you. Key in your settings. By default use A4 size, Gridline should be 0.50 points, grid spacing is 5 per centimetre. The problem you'll have is that because of  your printer, you may get grids that are smaller or larger than desired, and you won't get an accurate 5 square per centimetre measurement exactly.

Errata

Qtn 5b. Express the direction of the resultant in terms of the 60N and 70N forces. eg. 50 degrees west of 70N force. This is cause no directions are given. Thanks for your enquiries.

English hand up Tuesday. (Face the wrath of Mr Tan should you fail to)

Geography hand up Wednesday. (Face the wrath of Mr Daniel Yong should you fail to)

Gee.

Happy National Day

Happy National Day to all of you there.

This is an appeal to join Facebook if you haven't done so and then request for a 3-3 group invite from me. The 3-3 Group is a total secret group which is open by invitation only. It has photos and videos of you guys (currently 100 photos and counting). About half of the class has joined Facebook so far, which is quite a good sign.

I missed out some crucial stuff that I should tell you.

ENGLISH HOMEWORK:
Read the story that Mr Tan went through on Thursday. The journal question is: Do you think Catherine Lim is a good Author? Do you think you can be a better Short Story writer than her one day? Why or why not?

PURE GEOGRAPHY
Worksheet on rivers.

Check my previous post for other homework.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Important Stuff

Good day to all.

Some important things to note:

11th August 2008 is a school holiday in lieu of Saturday 9th August. There will hence not be any school, chinese remedials or CCA on that day. 

26th August 2008 is the day of your Higher Chinese FYE (I think the Express Chinese also having FYE on same day) and will be a full O level style paper. Please practice hard and aim to improve your results from the last exam.

Spider Mario's picture has been uploaded onto the Facebook Group. I'm not posting it here due to privacy concerns at the moment. Join Facebook if you haven't done so and request for an invitation from me. Use my email address to find me on Facebook, colinchengw AT gmail DOT com. 

English essays are coming back next week. Everyone should do reasonably well given that Mr Macaleenan is marking our scripts. I've heard nightmares though, beacuse he likes to give high marks for essays that he likes and give low marks for those that he hates. Be careful!

15th August 2008, Friday, is the deadline for submission of Elementary Mathematics files. Please complete all Mathematics worksheets that have been posted on heymath. The topics include Algebra, Sets, Matrices, Ratio Rate Percentage, Statistics, Vectors and Probability. Hand up Additional Mathematics assignments 7.1 to 7.3 as well on the next lesson on Tuesday.

Physics homework to be up on sharepoint soon. Please keep checking. 

As of now, Ivan's calculator IS STILL MISSING. May the damn robber/thief/culprit/idiot return it to him asap?

Lost Calculator

Hey people, anyone seen a white calculator which is not graffitied in anyway? 'Cause typical idiot Ivan Ng has, once again, caused us trouble by losing his calculator. A brief description:
-It's white.
-It does not have any drawing of any sort on it.
-It contains a lot of scratches on the screen.
-It is a Sharp calculator.
So will the one who took Ivan's calculator please return it to him, 'cause today he was already bugging the people around him. Remember what happened the last time he lost his chem textbook? He was on the verge of calling Mr Teo. Now that he lost his calculator, God knows what might he do this time round? So this is calling out to all 3-3ers: Please, for the sake of the class, find Ivan's calculator before he causes more trouble. Thanks.





The above is a post requested from Ivan to be posted. If anyone finds Ivan's calculator, Ivan can be found in class during school period. Thanks.

A pic of Ivan in case you don't know how he looks like.

Stop This Biofuel Nonsense !!!!! ---summary/excerpt

In the Amazon, there is a land rush, accelerated by the most unlikely source – biofuels. An explosion of demand for farm-grown fuels has raised global food prices to a record high.

Propelled by mounting environmental concerns, biofuels has become the trendy way for politicians and corporations to show that they are serious about finding alternative sources of energy and in the process slow global warming.

Biofuels has done the opposite.

By diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks, biofuels are jacking up the world’s food prices, and endangering the hungry. The grain it takes to fill up the tank of 1 SUV can be used to feed a person for 365 days. Harvest are being plucked to feed our cars instead of our stomachs, and the U.N. declared it was a global emergency. Soaring corn prices has sparked tortilla riots in Mexico, flour prices have destabilized Pakistan, which was not exactly tranquil when flour was affordable.

Researchers have ignored the amazingly simple problem with biofuels, that using land to grow fuels lead to the destruction of forests, wetland, and grasslands that store enormous amounts of carbon. U.S. farmers are selling one-fifth of their corn to ethanol production, so U.S. soybean farmers are switching to corn, so Brazilian soybean farmers are expanding into cattle pastures, so Brazilian cattlemen are dispatched to the Amazon, where they clear new grazing lands in the Amazon rainforest or the Cerrado savanna, releasing vast amounts of carbon. In fact, only sugarcane based ethanol is efficient enough to cut emissions by more than it takes to produce the fuel, the rest of the ‘green’ fuels are net carbon emitters. U.S. leads the world in corn and soybean production, but even if 100% of its crop are turned into fuel, it would be only enough to offset just 20% of on-road fuel consumption.

The price of soybeans goes up, an the forests go down.

HCL

Guys...ok...I must be fair to you. You guys did well for the Physics so good job for that. HOWEVER, do you realize something? This year, we ain't taking other subjects for o level. We are only taking Chinese O level.....yea....some of you neglect CHinese....well let me tell you something for those of you who are still in la-la-land.

You can use Chinese O level to count in your R5 (L1R5). Yep! You get A1 this year for CHinese, you got an A1 secured out of the 5 subjects.

Secondly, should YOU SCREW UP, you shall be forced to drop HCL. Guess what? You will be greatly disadvantaged (no offense to the express Chinese). You know why? HCL people can take their HCL as L1 (L1R5). Yes!!!! You can jolly well substitute English for Higher CHinese instead. In such a case, you play higher chances of scoring better cos you have two subjects to choose from. You got the freedom of choice....

Thirdly, ALL UNIVERSITIES AND SCHOLARSHIPS NOW REQUIRE AT LEAST A PASS IN HCL DURING O LEVELS. If you screw up this year CL O level Chinese, you HAVE TO CONTINUE TO TAKE CHINESE IN JC!!! If you get your distinction for CL, then you get to continue with HCL. Then JC you need not take CHinese. In other words, now, you MUG for few more months, you save yourself A WHOLE GODDAMM LOAD OF TROUBLE FOR THE NEXT 3 YEARS COS YOU NEED NOT STUDY CHINESE IN JC!!!

Everything is in your hands. Let others call you a MUGGERTOAD. GO AHEAD!!! So what if we are muggers now? Ask yourselves who will be the one laughing next year in the auditorium when we get back the CHinese O level results?

So DO YOUR BEST AND LET OTHERS SUAN YOU.....WHEN THE TIME COMES, ITS YOUR TURN TO SUAN THEM BACK.... remember the chinese saying 不是不报，时辰会到.

Phy Re-review

Guys there phy re-review tis thu and PLeasse..............study hard for it. Its our last chance to get an acceptable grade, lets try not to have any failures tis time okay? ( I gonna mug phy nw)

HCL PREP

Ok. Now that you've had your weekend of relaxation, it's time you get working for chinese. Really, work hard for Chinese.

Here's the suggested plan for the next three months:
Purchase TYS/Assessment books/other school's mock papers
Do one short exercise (one section of any paper) every weekday, it should take 15 to 30 minutes. Make sure you devote equal time to each section of the paper. Eg. MONDAY xuancitiankong TUESDAY comprehension MCQ WEDNESDAY Comprehension open ended THURSDAY xuancitiankong.

On the weekends, do at least one full paper from beginning to end, within 1 hour 45 minutes.

And, before you get delving into papers, make sure you have the model answers. Mark yourself when you're done and check for any mistakes. LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES.

You don't have to do a lot each day. 30 minutes of chinese practice a day is enough to boost your grades substantially. Rumour has it that our FYE for BOTH EXPRESS AND SPECIAL CHINESE SYLLABUSES are in week 10 of term 3, same time as the Secondary 4 Prelim 3s. IT'S ONLY A RUMOUR THOUGH. If it's true, your aim must be to improve by AT LEAST one grade, and PREFERABLY two grades. Set your targets. Those scoring C5 should aim to get at around 65 for prelims in order to secure your A1 in your O levels.

Now what about essays? For essays you really have to read a lot. Practicing for essays is simply not enough. Newspapers are sufficient. You can probably survive on just the current affairs for the O level Express Chinese. What you can revise is basically the FORMAT of the essays. Refer to pages 13-18, 24-26, 31-33, 44-46, 49-52, 57-62. The model essays are too long for the exam though, unless you have super fast fingers. Aim to write about 500 to 700 words (about 3 sides of your chinese foolscap.) 

Does anyone still remember that super thick stack of worksheets on the xuan ci tian kong? It has the practices for the contents of the Sec 1 to Sec 4 Express Chinese Textbooks. If you have that, note that it doesn't come with model answers, but if you have a tuition teacher you can ask him or her to mark for you. I'll ask Mr Suah about that booklet soon.

WORK HARD AND REMEMBER WHAT TEDDY NUTS SAID
MAKE IT

OR

BREAK IT

PS. IF YOU STILL DON'T FOLLOW THESE SUGGESTIONS, I'M GOING TO START POSTING ON THIS BLOG IN CHINESE.

hello peoples.

The CommonTests are over!

let's enjoy our weekend, while we can.
a perilous week lays ahead...

Too Complacent?

Is our class getting too complacent? I really do not know. I have changed the whole blog subtitle as you can see above. It is really demoralising. I mean so what if our other subjects pull us up? This year, most of us will be taking CHINESE O Level only. Furthermore, Chinese is an essential fighting tool in today's competitive world.

I am not going to say more; I know that you most probably feel how I am feeling now. I just leave you with one phrase.

You MAKE IT or BREAK IT.

Everything is in your hands. If you want to see our blog subtitle to change and not get humiliated by others, you know what to do.

Higher Chinese?

Ok. I know I know. Yet another paragraph of wise words from de cam addict. Higher Chinese results i know weren't decent. Our class was 2nd weakest in the entire level for Higher Chinese, pretty much of a big shock. Many people scoring Cs when they should have gotten Bs. Currently, we don't know enough information yet but wait till your scripts are back first before you check what you've gotten wrong.

It's not too late to fail now, because you all know the failure is the mother success. Really, i'm not joking. You have three more months to the actual exams. That's enough time to do lots of assessment books, mock papers and trial papers. Honestly, you will need to do more practice than what Mr Suah gives you, unless you're one of those exceptionally talented people in HCL. This is especially for the borderline scorers and mere passes. YOU HAVE TO DO ASSESSMENT BOOKS FOR PRACTICE AND IMPROVE YOUR READING AND COMPREHENSION ANALYSIS SKILLS. Practice makes perfect. I find that I do well ONLY if I do lots of assessments several weeks before the exams.

Ok. Don't think too much about your scores. You have one more Prelim to find out where you truly stand in the crowd. Meanwhile this message goes out to Express Students. Study hard for tomorrow's CL Oral and get notes from sharepoint and do read them carefully. Also note the structure of your responses. You have to say your opinion, reasons for your opinion, reasons for why so-and-so is happening and suggestions that could improve the situation. Vocabulary is also paramount too. If you really have problems at this stage focus more on content first and pleasing the teacher with your manners. Greet the examiner, only sit when asked too, maintain eye contact during the oral discussion and smile =D

So there. That's all there is to it. And please, express ppl, work harder than any one of us ever has. We failed to do well, you should never end up like us. Practice during the holidays!

Good luck and work hard everyone!