Got to do another composition for my student. This time, it's not a descriptive or narrative one, it's an argumentative or whatever you call it these days. I opted for a neutral stance, because life is full of grey, and not a lot of white and black.
I did it in 1 hour under 'exam' condition, which is during tuition time while my student is doing other work. Surprised myself when the word count is just 3 words short of the maximum word limit of 500 :) Looks like I've not lost my touch yet.
My hands still ache from writing so many words. Ouch. Computers make my writing hand less muscular, should have written it in, haha :)
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Computer is a menace, not a blessing. (Write within 300 - 500 words)
It is hard to find a household without any computers or access to the internet. In fact, even for those families who are not well to do, buying a computer might be one of their main priorities. Just what is the allure of the computer that makes it a common fixture in every home worldwide?
Since the invention of computers, these gadgets had been used by us to do a myriad of complicated and obfuscating calculations. With the invention of the silicon chips, a small personal computer these days has more computing power than the giant Cray computers which filled entire rooms in the past. With this explosion of computing power accompanied by the exponential decrease in size, each of us potentially have the ability to do calculations right at our fingertips. That surely is a blessing for us.
However, with this increasing reliance on computers, there is a fear that we might lose our ability to think independently. With the aid of computers, it is easy to crunch numerous data in a split second, but we still need a thinking person, all flesh and blood, to analyse the outcome of the calculations. Most people who use computers do not know how they function. All they know is that if they key in certain inputs, they can get the outputs. Are we putting in garbage into a black box and getting garbage out of it?
Internet makes the world grow smaller. With each person potentially able to connect to another person in another part of the world instantaneously, information can be relayed as the events unfold. During the first Gulf war in Iraq, reporters exploited this information technology to relay the latest news to viewers globally. Gone are the days we listen to delayed radio telecasts after the events had happened. With the use of internet, information is transmitted when the event is happening, not after it had happened. Knowledge is power, as the saying goes.
With this power of information at our fingertips, we must temper it with responsibility, otherwise chaos will reign. There had been cases of hackers infringing on the privacy of individuals and institutions and causing a host of mischief ranging from stealing, vandalizing to sabotaging. As the world grows smaller, our private space becomes smaller too. Skype, a popular internet voice calling software, had its lines tapped by Chinese government recently. Who is to safeguard our privacy when all we need to find out about a person is to ‘google’ him or her?
Computers, like all technological advances, are neither inherently good nor bad. There are always two sides of a story, and which side one chooses depend heavily on the individual. Computers increase our computing power, but would increase our reliance on it and make us less skeptical of the calculation results. Computer makes the world smaller through the inter connectivity of the internet, but it also infringes on our personal space. As such, computers are both a menace and a blessing.
(497 words)
O'lvls and A'lvls are coming! Roughly roughly in less than 1 month time, the big battle should start.
Here's the time table for O'lvls:
http://www.seab.gov.sg/SEAB/oLevel/2008GCEOTimetable.pdf
Here's the one for A'lvls:
http://www.seab.gov.sg/SEAB/aLevel/2008GCEATimetable.pdf
Good luck!
I promised to help one of my foreign student to do an English composition. It had been ages since I've done any composition and thought that it might be fun to try it out :) He wanted to see how I would tackle this sort of question, so as to learn from it.
Here's the title of the essay:
Describe a typical scenario during lunch break in your school and elaborate on how you and your school mates feel about this part of the school day. (350-500 words)
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The teacher’s voice started to get softer and softer, as my stomach’s growling gets progressively louder. I struggled to keep my eyes off the clock, waiting impatiently for that final moment of release that will set me free from this starving prison. It was the final one minute of the last lesson before lunch time in school.
“Riiiiinggg!” went the bell. After a mandatory goodbye to the teacher, I ran out to the canteen together with my friends. The bell signaled the release of a massive horde of hungry souls towards the school canteen. As always, all of us jostled towards the stall selling the famous chicken wings of our school. And as always, there will be a long queue of worshippers waiting to pay their tributes to the temple. In the short 30 minutes of our lunch time, only the quick and the devoted will get to taste the divine manna. I had to taste it today, after suffering from withdrawal syndrome during the weekend.
After an insufferable wait at the queue, I finally managed to get 3 chicken wings from the stall. As I’m one of the first to reach the canteen, there were plenty of seats left empty. I peered around for my classmates and sat down besides them, at a table overlooking the basketball court. Despite this early into our lunch hour, I already saw a few schoolmates playing soccer on the makeshift field, with the goal posts hastily set up between two big rocks. I wondered where these energizer bunnies get their energy from, skipping lunch and even playing under the smothering heat of the noon sun.
As I sank my fangs into the juicy wings, I listened to the gossip of the day. Peter had a crush on this girl in the class; John was ranked first in class in the recent mid-year examinations; Liz saw another classmate smoking in the toilet, and the list goes on. Never much of a gossiper, I turned my attention to another group of friends who are busily doing their homework and reading at the corner of the canteen. They are the untouchables; nobody sat with them because they are just too smart. Their aura of good grades mixed with social awkwardness makes them the class nerds. It is heresy to be found mixing with them. Sinners will be sentenced to a lifetime of being labeled as one of them, a fate worse than death for impressionable youths like me.
Lunch time is the only time where a little sanity is restored to the otherwise mundane and structured school life. It is the only time where we are allowed to socialize with our peers without repercussions. No matter how we chose to spend this precious 30 minutes of freedom, everyone thought it was not long enough.
“Riiiiinggg!”
(469 words)
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What do you think? Give me a grade yah? haha!
Okay, this isn't the first time I'm drawing a dollar note. I'm very fond of the 'bird' series and the 'ship' series of the singapore dollar, not the current 'president face' series. It's a joy to be able to draw the $5 dollar note again.
I started off with the front side. I had to mark out the dimensions and layout of the note first before adding in the details. Here, I've finished two of the hardest part of the front side - the Majulah Singapura logo on the upper right hand corner and the bird on the left. It's very hard because the details on these two logos and extremely hard to replicate by sketching. I really really hate the logo - the lion and tiger had so much details in it that I can never make it as nice as I would like it to be. Besides, in these details, there's no room for error as I can't erase the errors without erasing other details too - it's just too small a space to erase.
Another closer look at the two hardest part of the front side.
The rest is more easily done. I just had to fill in the details. In my mind's eye, I had to 'translate' the coloured parts into black and white, and yet put in enough contrast so that each components stand out and not become blurred as one. Below is the completed front side.
That took 1.5 to 2 hours already. More on the front side shown below. Well, let's move on to the back side.
Again, I sketched out the layout of the back side before filling in the details. I hate the little oval shaped thingy with the $5 on the bottom right hand corner. It's very hard to get the shape correct and even after that, I've to squeeze in two letter $ and 5, which are surrounded by black shading. Hard to show the contrast.
This is my favourite part of the $5 dollar note - the picture at the back. It shows Sentosa with the cable car tower and cable cars with plenty of trees and a dock like area - very fun to draw. My hand starts to ache from the strain.
Alright, completed the main picture of the back side. The bushes/trees are the most straining on my hands. I've to endure the pain while I painstakingly draw out the details in circular motion to recreate the leafy foliage of the bushes/trees. I love the water backdrop with the mountains. Oh and the cable cars :)
Here's a clearer shot of the completed main picture of the back side. Now I'm only left with the word SINGAPORE and $5 - easy stuff.
Finally, after another 1.5 to 2 hours, I've done the back side completely. Don't ask me, there's no watermark. I'm not doing counterfeit money!
I cut out the dollar note after that. Here's the final picture of how the front and the back looks like. Tsk tsk, there's something wrong with the cropping of the front side...seems like I didn't frame the drawing properly. It looks a little too squeezy on the bottom right side. Aiya, too late already...
The back side looks pretty well done though. Alright, mission accomplished!
Total time taken: 4 hrs! That's about the average time I needed - 2 hours for each side :) For those who wanted to take a closer look at the pictures, look at my flicker account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25065597@N06/
Okay, to be fair, the pictures are taken from my hp, so the quality is sucky at best. Should have used my digital camera..next time? :)
This weekend had been a fun one for me :)
For the first time in my life, I ate durians! I even sent a mass email to my best buddies, asking them if they wanted to see me eat durians for the first time. My maiden voyage, so to speak. Well, don't ask me why I didn't eat durians before. I seriously don't mind the smell (it's quite nice-smelling) but I just didn't eat it before today.
Perhaps I've been passing by some durian stalls on my way to work. Perhaps it's the durian seasons. Perhaps I've seen those pictures of these spiky crowns of the king of fruits posted on huatopedia that got me interested in trying.
No, not this 'durian':
It's this one:
I've also tried eating mangosteens for the first time in my life! Swa-ku hor? I find durians manageable. I don't like it and don't mind eat it. But after eating a total of 5 seeds for the past 2 days, I think I've got enough durian poisoning in me to last me 1 full year! Someone suggested to me durian puffs, which is nicer and not so strong compared to durians. Perhaps next time?
Mangosteens, on the other hand, taste much nicer. A little like oranges, with a sour-ry after taste. I love it! Eating the king of fruits and the queen of fruits together makes the king a little easier to manage :)
When is the last time you did something for the first time?
Oh man, I was so waiting for Hellboy2 to come out. Wanted to watch this, but in the end, ended up watching Red cliff. Wasted 2h 30 min of my life in the cinema like that, hoho!
Recently (okay, not so recent), there is an article on straits times regarding the tuition nation. It's here, for those who wants to read it.
The article talks about Singapore having such a high tuition penetration rate, that for every 100 students, there are 97 students have tuition. Ignoring all the sampling biasness and sampling method, it's a whopping 97% tuition penetration rate. This phenomena is exacerbated by the fact that many of these students have multiple tuition, so in fact, we're looking at a penetration rate of more than 100% (if say, each student takes more than 1 subject for tuition).
Why had we come to this stage? I do not wish to comment on it in this posting.
Here, I just want to talk about the ironies of tuition/education/school.
1. Ex or current teachers are the preferred choice for parents when choosing tutors. These are highly paid, perhaps to the tune of twice the normal rate (I'm talking about $80 to $150 per hour). Students are sent to schools to be taught by MOE trained teachers. They didn't perform well enough, so they were sent to tutors who are preferably MOE ex or current teachers. If school teachers can't help them, will these teachers-cum-tutors help?
2. Classes in school have class size of around 30-40, with the norm being 40. Some of the tuition group classes I knew have class size close to 30. Yes, it's cheaper than private tuition (can be half the price of private 1-1 tuition). School is cheap too - that's why the class size swells up so much. Thus, the poor students go from one formal school to another informal school. Does it help?
3. Elite schools draw in the best students. They get the best results, which attracts the best students in. Chicken and egg problem? Which comes first - good schools or good students?
4. Elite schools with specialised programs (IB/IP) have teachers who think like this - students are so smart, I'll just give them worksheets and let them learn themselves. School fees range from a few hundred, easily a few multiples of government schools. Almost all of them have tuition because (I dare say) the teachers can't teach. Many parents have told me about that many of their kid's classmates are have tuition, and learn way in advance of school. In fact, teachers expected their kids to have tuition to 'supplement' school work.
5. Parents select their tutors based on their academic results. I'm guilty of being positively discriminated because of it. Does having good results mean that they can teach well? No, of course not. But most people think so. Perhaps lacking any other way of selecting good tutors, parents go for the overall packaging, much like people will buy a brand of salt because it looks more attractive. Academically good tutors, naturally self-motivated, might not have a way of dealing with unmotivated students because they might find it hard to understand why a student isn't motivated.
Can I offer a better way to select tutors? Yes.
Look for those who failed miserably and managed to stand up and high and tall in the academic world. Look for those whom teachers branded as failures yet return to the teaching force to save more students. Look for those nameless applicants who wanted to go into MOE to teach but their results are not good enough to even be called up for interview. If they don't mind their poor grades, why should MOE mind?
In the end, all I've mentioned here will still not be followed. That's why I still have a job.
