3 tips to Study SMART not HARD

Exams are round the corner and I am sure most of you are studying hard and preparing for them. Before you dive right into studying, I would like to share with you some tips on how to study smart and not hard. In this article, I’m going to write about 3 ways that you can make use of to study smarter and not harder.

First tip, know the optimum study duration. Well I would say that you are very hard working if you study 8 hours a day. However are you studying smart? Are those 8 hours spent on the books effective or are you just staring at the notes? Let me share with you some research on optimum study duration. Research has shown that the optimum duration is around 40-45 minutes. That’s why most lessons and lectures in school are structured around this optimum time. Each period for a lesson is about 40-45 minutes. After which the lecturer or teacher will give the student about 5 – 10 minutes break before continuing. You should also plan your study schedule according to the optimum studying duration. Focus and study for around 40-45 minutes and then take a 5- 10 minutes break for your brain and eyes to rest and refresh before continuing. Doing that will make sure that when you are studying, you are really learning and not spending your time staring blanking into your notes or books.

Second tip, know which subject to study first. I am sure most of you have many subjects to study. You have Languages, Sciences and humanities etc. So which one do you start first? Well I would advise you all to start with the subject you have the least interest first. In that way, you are fresh when you first start and that energy can help you go through that least interested subject with focus and concentration. Subsequently, move on to the subject that you have the most interest. And by the time you are at your most interested subject, you will be tired from all that studying. But fortunately, you are at your most interested subject and your interest in that subject will spur you to focus and study it.

Tip 3, study in the morning or night. There are researches which show that some person work more effectively during the night than during the day. So find out if you are a morning or night person. See if you can understand and absorb more effectively during the day or night. If you are a morning person, wake up a bit earlier to start studying and if you are a night person, well stay up a bit later to study. Also you can do the intense studying during your effective study time. While spending the less effective study time doing intense work like organizing your notes etc.

So above are the 3 tips to study smart and not hard. So while you are burying yourself in those notes and books, think of these 3 tips and see if you can apply them and study smarter and not harder.

P.S. Kindly contact me if you would like a trial Physics Tuition lesson or if you have any problem studying or tutoring. I will try my best to reply you ASAP. Also please leave me a comment!!! Thanks.... 

How to improve your Physics – Peer tutoring

An effective way to help you improve your physics or in fact any other subjects is peer tutoring. Below is a saying on teaching which I believe dearly:

Tell me and I forget.

Show me and I remember.

Involve me and I understand.

These are the exact words which I lived by during my education. Actually, I am living by these words even now when I am out in the working world. Whenever I have the opportunity, I will always try to teach and share my knowledge with my fellow students or co-worker. Doing this has always to help me understand and learn more about what I am teaching. In fact being a physics tutor giving physics tuition has also strengthened my fundamentals in physics and allows me to understand more of what I may have missed in the past. Peer tutoring is a very good way to get students involve in learning so that they are not just passive learner receiving information. In this article I am going to going to share with you 8 benefits of peer tutoring.

1. More attention given to students – peer tutoring is usually conducted on a one to one/two basis. This means that the student tutor can devote more attention and time to effectively assist the student that needs help.
2. Ease of communication – it is not surprising that the student tutor will be able to understand and communicate with their fellow student better. This can help when they are trying to explain difficult concepts.
3. Regular contact with positive peer model – the regular contact with the student tutor can be beneficial since the student can learn from the positive role model on their studying habits, practices as well as techniques.
4. Stimulated to learn – the student may be stimulated to learn and excel in subjects so that they can be a student tutor and enjoy the process of teaching and being an active learner as well.
5. Reinforcing concepts – Teaching will get you more involved and know much more about the subjects. This will undoubtedly reinforce your concepts and enable you to have a better understanding of the subjects. You will be an active learner and not just a passive one.
6. Improve self confidence and communication skills – As you teach and share with your peers, you will unknowingly develop self confidence and communications skills. These are very useful traits to have as you go on to work.
7. Rewarding and enjoyable – Being able to share knowledge and help your peers is a rewarding and enjoyable experience. Active learning will also greatly increase your interest in a subject.
8. Enhance problem solving and organization skills – Having the opportunity to teach your peers, you will be exposed to a variety of good and difficult questions. This will definitely improve your problem solving skills. Your organizational skills will also be trained as you organize your thoughts clearly to convey to your peers

I hoped that after sharing with you the benefits of peer tutoring, you can see that peer tutoring creates a win-win situation where both the student tutor and the student both benefit. I cannot stop preaching to my student during physics tuition classes that peer tutoring is an effective studying method to adopt and you all should not selfishly hide your knowledge from your peers and hope that you will perform better than them during examinations. I truly believe that by sharing and teaching what you know with peer tutoring, both you and your peers will benefit much more and can all do much better in examinations.

How to study effectively

Welcome to my blog on Physics tuition (A tutor's blog sharing effective studying and examination technique)

I have shared quite a few useful tips on examination and how to study effectively. They are pretty much scattered in this blog and i am sure some of you have difficulty looking for the useful information.

The following list of links are my suggestions on key posts on the above topic. I hope you will find them useful.

Examination tips
How to study for exam. It has a series of 8 posts and you can find the links in the post.

Studying technique
Improve your results in 4 simple steps
3 technique to better physics results 

Physics tuition – Making physics simple 

How to improve your Physics – Peer tutoring

Memory technique
10 steps to mind mapping
6 ways to improve your memory

Motivation
The Last Lecture
The secret to doing well in exam

I will add to this post as i post more useful tips on exam and studying.

P.S. Kindly send me an email: etutionx@gmail.com if you would like a trial Physics Tuition lesson.

Please leave me a comment or email if you have any problem studying or tutoring. I will try my best to reply you ASAP.

The secret to doing well in exams

I am so sorry it has been awhile since i have any posting.

Today in this article I am going to share with all of you, parents and students, the secret to doing well in exams. Well strictly speaking it’s not really a secret. It’s an important aspect of education that most people know but have often neglected. Actually, most schools in Singapore have also failed to realize this important aspect in the past. Recently, some schools have been trying to include this aspect of education into their curriculum. Curious on what it is? Well let me go right into it.

I believe that most of you have read a lot about studying techniques, tricks and tips to help you do well in exams. You may have also learned or heard about them from your teachers, parents and tuition teachers. In fact I have also advocated some good studying/exams tips and techniques to my student during my Singapore physics tuition lesson and in my physics tuition blog. All these knowledge are all good and informative. However, are all these information and knowledge useful to you? It will be if you put them into action. This information will remain as just information if you don’t take any action.

So what’s the secret to doing well in exam? The answer is simple. It is to take action. Not just any action, its action derived from self motivation! Yes this is the most important part of education; the motivation to study and excel. It is only with this motivation that can sustain the student action’s to study when they are faced with other temptation (like television, computers) or difficulties.

I can tell whether my students will score an A in their physics exam or not by seeing if they are motivated to learn. Most of the time during my physics tuition lesson, I will be trying to arouse interest in the students so that they will want to know more about the subjects and from there derive the motivation to learn. It does not matter if the student is clever or not. If he is clever, it will probably be easier for him to understand the things that are taught and it will be faster for him to learn. But for those that are not as clever, it will just take them more effort and longer to learn. But as long as they are motivated to learn and are genuinely interested to learn, they will definitely score well in exams.

So how do you fire up your kid’s interest to study and get them motivated? Or how do you as a student motivate yourself to study? What I can tell you for sure is that It is not easy. It requires constant coaching and reminding. I am not an expert in motivation but some of the common techniques I employ during my physics tuition include making the subjects interesting for my student to learn. Also I encourage them to set goals so that they have a clear target where they can get satisfaction from achieving it.

So this is the secret to doing well in exams. As long as you can motivate yourself to study, I am sure you will excel in whatever subjects you want to.

P.S. Kindly send me an email: etutionx@gmail.com if you would like a trial Physics Tuition lesson.

Please leave me a comment or email if you have any problem studying or tutoring. I will try my best to reply you ASAP.

3 techniques to a better physics results.

Again I am going to share some simple studying techniques and methods that I have encouraged my physics tuition student to adopt. These are studying and revision techniques that can help you study more effectively and efficiently.
The 3 methods are as follows:

Revision - Always do constant revision. If you have the time, do it consistently, everyday if possible. If not, at the minimum I will tell my student to at least understand the previous topics taught before the lesson on the next topics begins. This is so that you can catch up with the lesson. You don’t want to sit in class and not understand anything that the teacher is saying because you are unsure about the previous topics. You will be wasting your time if that’s the case. Then you will be spending more time to catch up with the previous topics and the current topics. That will be more ineffective and inefficient right?

Marking down – Always mark down questions that you find challenging and you have difficulty doing. This can really help you saves a lot of time when it comes to revision. You can zoom right to the question that you find difficult and challenging and recap what you don’t quite understand the last time round. You can then quickly remember how to solve these problems. Usually you can learn a lot from questions that you have difficulty doing as they exposes the concepts that you are unclear of. So going straight to those questions can help you revise those concepts faster and easier.

Make notes – Always make notes as you are studying and revising. You can also start making your own notes as the teacher is teaching. Write down small notes to help you understand that concepts or topics. When you are revising and studying, you can reinforce these notes with more points to strengthen your understanding. Doing these not only helps you to understand and remember a concept more clearly, it also helps you to create your own study notes where you can get the main points on any topics quickly and efficiently.

The methods above may require some practice and getting used to. I would suggest trying it slowly for maybe one subject and get used to it first. When you get accustomed to these techniques, you can then adopt them for other subjects. The 3 methods above which I often inculcate in my physics tuition student may seem to be little things. But I am sure that they can help you to save time and study more effectively which means you will have more time for yourself.

P.S. Kindly send me an email: etutionx@gmail.com if you would like a trial Physics Tuition lesson.

Please leave me a comment or email if you have any problem studying or tutoring. I will try my best to reply you ASAP.

Improve your results in 4 simple steps

I am sure many students and of course parents would like their kids to improve on their current results. Today i am going to share some tips on how students can improve your results and how parents can help them in doing that in 4 simple steps.


First step to improving your results - Goal setting
Before you can improve your results, you have to know what improvement you want to see. If you don't have a target, you don't know what you are aiming for and how can you hit the target. It like shooting an arrow blind folded. Putting in alot of energy but not getting the outcome. Parents can work with their childern to come up with a reasonable goal to achieve. Remember, the goal must be reasonable. For example, if you are constantly getting C for physics test, try setting a goal for B in the next test.


Second step to improving your results - timeline setting
After you have set a goal or target to achieve, you have to set a timeline to achieve that. It can be the next class test, next exam or 2 months from now. Whatever the timeline is make sure it is reasonable for you to achieve that target you have set. Similarly, parents will have to be reasonable on the timeline and cannot expect their kids to improve their results overnight.


Third step to improving your results - Doing up a plan
With the target and time all sorted out. The next step will be come up with a plan to achieve the target in the timeline given. This plan will include how much time you will spend on that subjects and what are the things you will do to help you with achieving that target. For example, if say your target and timeline is to get a B in the next class test in a weeks time. Your plan will be something like:

Day 1: Spend 2 hours revising the test topics
Day 2: Spend 2 hours revising the test topics
Day 3: Spend 2 hours doing questions on that topics
Day 4: Spend 2 hours doing questions on that topics
Day 5: clear any doubts in school with teachers or classmate
Day 6: Spend 4 hours revising the test topics
Day 7 Spend 2 hours practicing on questions

The plan need to be as exact and detailed as possible so that you can follow exactly.
I would advice using a planner to help organizing that.


Fourth and the last step to improving your results - Excute
This is obviously the most crucial step as no changes will happen if there is no effort to make the changes happen. You can have a perfect target and timeline and beautifully organized planner, but without sticking to what's plan. All of that will be useless. Parents will be crucial in this stage to work with their kids and encourage them to stick to whats planned.


So here are 4 simple steps to improving your results . When i say "simple" i don't mean easy. These steps are definitely not east to do, especially the last step. However if you can do these with faith, i am sure you will see improvement in your results.

I strongly recommend using this strategy in planning for major exams. Spend some time in setting the goal, timeline and planning. Make sure you are convinced that they are reasonable so that you will stick to the plan.

P.S. Kindly send me an email: etutionx@gmail.com if you would like a trial Physics Tuition lesson.

Please leave me a comment or email if you have any problem studying or tutoring. I will try my best to reply you ASAP.

10 steps to mind mapping

I remember in my previous posting on How to study for exam lesson 4, I have advocated mind mapping as a great study tool to help you remember stuff. Well here are 10 simple steps to creating your mind maps. You all can make use of the holiday to practice creating mind maps for past topics.

1.Start with a blank sheet of paper. It can be any size. A blank one not the one with lines to restrict how your mind map grows.

2.Start with the Central topic at the center of the paper. E.g Kinematics. Use images to enhance the idea.

3.Branch out the Main ideas from the Central topic. E.g Dist/ Disp, Speed/velocity, Acceleration. Use thick branches for the main ideas. Subsequently, use thinner branches for sub ideas.

4.  Use different colours for different branches. This will make it easier to link and connect ideas.

5. Maintain one word per branch and keep the word on top of the branch. Keeping it to one word will allow generation of additions ideas.

6.Add images whenever you can instead of words. You know a pictures speaks a thousand words and you can remember pictures better than words.

7.Add arrows or connectors between branches and ideas showing the linkages between related concepts.

8.Use capital letters and be creative with your mind map to help you retain it much better and easier.

9.Don't be too bother by repeated ideas or points. you can link them up later.

10. Lastly HAVE FUN DOING IT. if not you will not do it the next time.

Below shows an example of a mind map. Yours don't have to be the same as it. Don't restrict your creativity to this example. Enjoy creating your first mind map!!!

So the above are the 10 simple steps to creating your first mind maps.
Below is a pretty good book for mind mapping.



If you are keen in furthering mind mapping and use it to help you in your studies or business you can get the book and learn more on mind mapping.



P.S. Kindly send me an email: etutionx@gmail.com if you would like a trial Physics Tuition lesson.

Please leave me a comment or email if you have any problem studying or tutoring. I will try my best to reply you ASAP.

How to study for exam lesson 8

How to study for exam lesson 8: Look Forward

How to study for exam lesson 1
How to study for exam lesson 2
How to study for exam lesson 3
How to study for exam lesson 4
How to study for exam lesson 5
How to study for exam lesson 6
How to study for exam lesson 7

Now i suppose many of you are in the mist of your examination already.
Many times after exam, students like to compare answers and see if they got things right or to find out how to do a particular question. Well its good to find out what your mistakes are and how to do question. But..... don't do this if you have got other paper coming!!!

Look forward and concentrate on the next paper. I understand its difficult.... I do it as well when i was taking my Os and As.... Hahaha easier said than done. But a tutor got to preach the right thing to do what...

This is the last installment on How to study for exam.
Enjoy the examinations!!! Be focus!!! Energy flows when and where you focus!!!

P.S. Kindly send me an email: etutionx@gmail.com if you would like a trial Physics Tuition lesson.

Please leave me a comment or email if you have any problem studying or tutoring. I will try my best to reply you ASAP.

How to study for exam lesson 7

How to study for exam lesson 7: How to tackle MCQ

How to study for exam lesson 1
How to study for exam lesson 2
How to study for exam lesson 3
How to study for exam lesson 4
How to study for exam lesson 5
How to study for exam lesson 6

MCQ is a very important and curcial part of the examinations. It is one of the part that the student should aim to score as much as possible.
Why? because there are options for your answers. So it is relatively easier to answer than the structured and essay type question.
But dun think thats it easy and hence you can dun study too much for it. In fact, because its easy, thats why you got to study more and make sure you get the most marks out of this section!!!

Ok end of How to study for exam lesson 7. Best of luck for the Exams again!!

How to study for exam lesson 8

P.S. Kindly send me an email: etutionx@gmail.com if you would like a trial Physics Tuition lesson.

Please leave me a comment or email if you have any problem studying or tutoring. I will try my best to reply you ASAP.

How to study for exam lesson 6

How to study for exam lesson 6: Answer Smart

How to study for exam lesson 1
How to study for exam lesson 2
How to study for exam lesson 3
How to study for exam lesson 4
How to study for exam lesson 5

How much should i write, especially for science questions? Another common questions from most of my student.

My answer..... look at the marks given and see how much time its worth spending on. Don't write an essay for a 2 marks question. Make sense? Answer smartly and save the time for more 'valuable questions'.

But theres an official answer to that. Go Google and search for the O/A level syllabus for the subjects and look for the glossary of terms used. They have a guide for how you should answer when the question is phrased in a certain way.

For example, look at the 2009 chemistry syllabus below.

Few more weeks to go!!! Final lap for the year!!!! GO GO GO. This is the end of How to study for exam lesson 6. All the Best!!

How to study for exam lesson 7
How to study for exam lesson 8

P.S. Kindly send me an email: etutionx@gmail.com if you would like a trial Physics Tuition lesson.

Please leave me a comment or email if you have any problem studying or tutoring. I will try my best to reply you ASAP.

How to study for exam lesson 5

How to study for exam lesson 5: Study Smart

How to study for exam lesson 1
How to study for exam lesson 2
How to study for exam lesson 3
How to study for exam lesson 4

Sciences
When studying for science subjects, look out for key words in the concepts. These are the words that the marker will be looking out for in answers. For example, in the chapter on types of bonding for O level. For ionic bonding, some key words are transfer of electons, strong electrostatic attraction between + and - ions. You don't have to spend time memorizing the whole paragraph on ionic bonding. Just understand the concept and remember the key words.

Maths
Perfect practice makes perfect. Always practice. Unfortunately, there are no short cut to mastering maths. However, there are some things you can do to speed up your practice. What i usually advice my student is for the questions done durig school work/homework, mark down those questions that you find difficult or had problem doing. Then during revision for the final year paper or O/A level, you can zoom in right to those difficult question and see if you can solve them. As for those simple questions, just choose a few representative ones to make sure you still remember the formula and stuffs.

Hope this helps. Do drop a comment if you have other better studying technique. Different technique may be more suitable for different people. Share them with one another and learn more from each other.

That's the end of How to study for exam lesson 5. Bestest of luck for the Exams!!!!

How to study for exam lesson 6
How to study for exam lesson 7
How to study for exam lesson 8

P.S. Kindly send me an email: etutionx@gmail.com if you would like a trial Physics Tuition lesson.

Please leave me a comment or email if you have any problem studying or tutoring. I will try my best to reply you ASAP.

How to study for exam lesson 4

How to study for exam lesson 4: Mind mapping

How to study for exam lesson 1
How to study for exam lesson 2
How to study for exam lesson 3

I believe many of you out there have heard of mind mapping and its common being taught in school. However, this is an under emphasized and under utilized learning technique among students in Singapore.

The reason being that its not being practiced in students daily work. As a result, students are not very proficient in it and hence find it time wasting and not very useful.

However, mind mapping is a very powerful tool if being used properly and efficiently. It can help you link up different chapters and topics of the subject together and allow the students to have a clearer view of the entire subject. This will enable kids to understand the subject better and remember what they have learnt better.

I refer to all of you an easy to read book which can help you all in mind mapping technique and some tricks to power memory. The book is by Adam Khoo titled "I am Gifted, So are You!". An easy and good book to read.

Ok thats the end of How to study for exam lesson 4. Stay tune to more.

How to study for exam lesson 5
How to study for exam lesson 6
How to study for exam lesson 7
How to study for exam lesson 8

Best Luck All of your Exam!!!!

P.S. Kindly send me an email: etutionx@gmail.com if you would like a trial Physics Tuition lesson.

Please leave me a comment or email if you have any problem studying or tutoring. I will try my best to reply you ASAP.

How to study for exam lesson 3

How to study for exam lesson 3: Doing the exam paper is also an important aspect of studying. So lets see what's the strategy in that.

How to study for exam lesson 1
How to study for exam lesson 2

Usually the questions in exams are divided into few types.

1. simple and straight forward. Its just straight forward applicaiton of formula or knowledge. not much thinking involve. This includes definition questions as well

2. Slightly more difficult questions that require some thinking and applicaiton of knowledge

3. Super difficult question to differntiate out the A1 students.

And these 3 different levels of questions are spread out throughout the entire papers.
So when you are doing the exam, dun be intimedated or stuck at 1 difficult question.
Skip the question first and move on. do those that you know how to do first and after that go back to those difficult one.

Doing this will ensure that you will not miss out any level 1 and 2 questions which are easier to tackle and secure you marks first.

This marks the end of How to study for exam lesson 3

How to study for exam lesson 4
How to study for exam lesson 5
How to study for exam lesson 6
How to study for exam lesson 7
How to study for exam lesson 8

P.S. Kindly send me an email: etutionx@gmail.com if you would like a trial Physics Tuition lesson.

Please leave me a comment or email if you have any problem studying or tutoring. I will try my best to reply you ASAP.

How to study for exam lesson 2

How to study for exam lesson 2: How should i study?

How to study for exam lesson 1

Most of the time students will not know whether to study the text books, guide book, notes or just practice the assesment book.

My tips for student is revise what your teacher uses to teach you. If your teachers use notes/powerpoint slides, uses them as the main guide to your revision. If you don't understand whats in those notes/powerpoint, then refer to your textbooks/guide book.

The reason is because usually your school teacher will have a very good idea of what's in the syllabus and what are the main things that will be tested. Hence, they will tend to emphasize those points in their notes and teaching aids. So for those who wants to do well in their test or exam, the best and efficient way is to pay attention in class to what your teacher is teaching you.

This will end my How to study for exam lesson 2. Please look at more tips on how to study for exam below.

How to study for exam lesson 3
How to study for exam lesson 4
How to study for exam lesson 5
How to study for exam lesson 6
How to study for exam lesson 7
How to study for exam lesson 8


P.S. Kindly send me an email: etutionx@gmail.com if you would like a trial Physics Tuition lesson.

Please leave me a comment or email if you have any problem studying or tutoring. I will try my best to reply you ASAP.

How to study for exam lesson 1

For the first few installament of my post,I will be posting some useful tips on How to study for test or examination for students . Some of them from my own experiences, others from the feedback from my tuition students. (Note: may not be useful to everyone. Its important to fine whats suitable and comfortable for you).

How to study for test lesson 1: How to plan the study time table.
Well it is usually more effective to revise a few topics of different subject daily.

For example, you can plan 2 chapters of A math (5 hours), 2 chapters of chemistry (5 hours) and 1 chapter of humanities (2 hours) for a day. Usually i spend 12 hours or more for revision during the examination peroid. it will be good if you have more.

However please always get ample rest so that your brain can function optimally every new day. This is expecially important on the eve of your exam. Usually, a revision on a mixed of subject daily is good so that you will not get bored with 1 subject and lose interest in your revision.

So this is my first installment on How to study for exam lesson 1. Good luck people for your coming examination!!!

How to study for exam lesson 2
How to study for exam lesson 3
How to study for exam lesson 4
How to study for exam lesson 5
How to study for exam lesson 6
How to study for exam lesson 7
How to study for exam lesson 8

P.S. Kindly send me an email: etutionx@gmail.com if you would like a trial Physics Tuition lesson.

Please leave me a comment or email if you have any problem studying or tutoring. I will try my best to reply you ASAP.