Learning Guide
Articles on studying, exams, and mindset.
My learning experience in Singapore, which I hope serves as a guide to students.
For tuition enquiries, contact Samuel or read how lessons work.
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How to approach a new chapter
Students have been asking me how I study. I always point them to this blog but since it's the start of the year, let me summarise some study techniques that I used when I was in school. In this post, I will give a…
education, learning, study -
How To Feel Confident During Examination
Just when we are all preparing for the mid-year examination, let's talk about exam confidence. Students always tell me that they "don't feel confident for tomorrow's exam". The next few questions they ask are: 1) Do you…
confidence, education, exam -
Hunger For Grade or Knowledge?
Over the years, quite a number of students ask me if results are really very important. They know its importance, but have doubts at times and are not sure of the extent of importance. I throw back a question to them,…
learning, motivation, passion, success -
Keep A Notebook
As you may have known by now, writing down my TODO list in a notebook has been part of my life since I was in school. Even when mobile phone calendar and applications were growing in popularity in 2007, I opted to use my…
book, plan, study, success -
Failure Is The Mother Of Success
"Failure Is The Mother Of Success" We have all heard this many times but how many of us feel really demoralised after a failure? How many of us actually believe this statement immediately after we failed? At least not…
education, exam, motivation, success -
Happy Teachers' Day
Happy Teachers' Day to all the teachers and ex-teachers out there! - Teachers form a great part in my growing up years, including university - Without teachers, I won't have the necessary knowledge to be where I am now,…
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Planning For Examination
"Prelim is in one month's time. A Levels will be starting on 1st November. What should I study today? If I study Math, what about Chemistry? But then Physics is my weakest subject. How?" Does the above sound familiar?…
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GCE A Levels H2 Mathematics Book 2nd Edition
I would like to thank everyone who has been supporting me with regards to my JC Mathematics book , since I started selling it in March last year . For the past one year since I launched my book, buyers range from…
book, learning, study, teaching -
Talk In AJC: Effective Learning
I am very honoured to be invited to give a talk to potential students of Anderson Junior College on 7th January 2015. In addition to sharing my AJC life, I touched on adapting to JC life, in particular the learning…
learning, plan -
Ace Or Goal?
"Is it ok for me to just pass A Math so that I can spend more time on Physics?" This is the type of questions which many students, especially the O Levels students, like to ask me. My reply will always be the same: -…
confidence, learning, motivation, passion, success -
Exam Preparation: "Feelingless"
"I love to go to school. It is fun. But I don't like the exam at the end of the year. " Students always tell me this, and I felt the same too. Most of us love going to school. We meet our buddies. We have fun playing…
education, exam, study, teaching -
Exam Preparation: Time Factor
In this post, I will talk about the time factor in the exam preparation series . Daily homework Usually, we sit down comfortably and solve the questions in front of us. Many times, we are able to solve most, if not all,…
education, exam, learning, success -
Exam Preparation: Train In A Harsh Condition
Nearing the end of the year, staring at the "BIG EXAM", let me share my ways of preparing for examination. Points may be repeated from my previous posts, but nevertheless, they are important enough for us to be reminded…
education, exam, learning, study, success -
GCE A Levels H2 Mathematics Book
For those who wonder why I went off the radar for so long without a blog post, this is the reason. I have been writing the GCE A Levels H2 Mathematics Book and finally I have finished writing Part 1, just in time for my…
book, education, exam -
Success Is All In The Mind
In this post, I will share what I have read from articles on how to be successful. There are many methods which people have proposed on this topic, and I realise that most, if not all, actually only revolve around one…
education, success -
Staying Calm To Analyse The Situation
We may have been told that staying calm in the face of adversity is very important, especially so that we can analyse the situation objectively with a clear mind. For students, this is very important, especially for the…
education, exam, study, success -
Take Charge of Your Own Learning
I choose all my subjects own my own, with no outside pressure Since I was young, my parents have never ever dicta te what I should study. I chose the subjects on my own, I chose my schools on my own. They just gave me…
learning, motivation, success -
Incubate The Thoughts
When I was in secondary 4 and was just starting to learn differentiation, I got totally lost and hence got stressed up. This got worse after I received my common test result, mainly in calculus, which I failed. From 90+…
education, exam, learning, study -
Methods of Memorising
As much as I (and I am sure many of us) hate memorising, it is inevitable in school that we need to reserve part of our brain for memory work. At a young age, we need to memorise how to spell words. As we grow older, we…
education, learning, memory, study, success -
Free Physics Education Till 21st September 2013
Quoting from the website " Another great initiative by IOPscience publishing to let their articles go free access for a month or so. Go download, it is free access for another 20+days! Another reason why I send my…
education, physics -
Enjoy The Process of Acquiring Knowledge
Studying is a process of learning new stuff, acquiring new knowledge. The time period for this process varies, from 2 years in Junior College to 6 years in Primary School, or maybe even more for other certifications. In…
education, focus, learning, motivation, study, success -
Tips For Final Year Project
Now is about time for NUS final year students (or students in university with similar academic year) to start their Final Year Project, or Thesis. In this post, I will share about the things that I did when I was doing…
education, exam, final year project, focus, fyp, learning, success -
4 Ways To Motivate Yourself To Study
With passion, we can do wonders. But there are times when we just feel down, feel upset or feel disappointed. This may be due to some setbacks in work or life, or we just simply wake up in the morning feeling lousy.…
education, exam, learning, motivation, study -
My Way of Learning: Understand And Master The Basics
How many of us forget how to do integration the moment we step out of the exam hall? How many of us give back at least 50% of what we have learned to the teacher the moment the chief invigilator announces "Pen Down!"? I…
education, learning, memory, teaching -
"Growing" Passion In What You Have To Do
Continuing from my last post, I am going to talk about how I "grow" my passion on things that I do not like to do in this post. I must say that after "growing", I love the things that I do. Take for example web…
education, motivation, passion, success -
Success Lies In Your Own Hands
I always believe that we control our own fate, although recently I think otherwise, as there are many external factors which will affect us. Nevertheless, we still have the power to dictate our own life. Again, it's all…
education, passion, success -
My Way of Learning: Plan and Set Goals But......
"Failing to plan is planning to fail" We were repeatedly told this phrase since young. We have seen this phrase many times. So what is planning? How to plan so that we can effectively work our way through? Personally, I…
education, goals, plan -
4 Unorthodox Methods For Tackling Examination
Examination at the end of a course tests what we have learned. Although it may not be a true reflection of what we know (a few questions can never truly test our knowledge), we must recognize that examination still plays…
education, exam, success -
4 Tips For Effective Teaching And Learning
Since my last post, some of you commented to me that I never really describe what is my approach of teaching and learning at the same time. So here you go, below are some of my approaches. Teach in la yman terms In other…
education, learning, success, teaching -
My Way of Learning: Share The Knowledge
"Givers get. The more you give, the more you get" This bookmark was given to me by my JC Physics teacher, Mr Sng Peng Poo, just before A Levels. Receiving this gift, I actually stared at the quote for some time. How can…
education, success, teaching -
My Way of Learning: Stay Humble, Stay Hungry
It is easy to be the top, but never easy to stay up there. I have been living by this quote for many years. I have never seen anyone who can stay top for long, not to say forever. In sports, we have Barcelona which used…
education, learning -
Build On Your Strengths, Not Forgetting Your Weaknesses
"Not bad, but Samuel n eeds to improve on his English." "Samuel should spend more time on reading English books." "Samuel did very well, but he needs to brush up on his English. " These were what my parents used to hear…
education, learning, success -
Guide to Learning 1: Focus
I'm sure all of us know that focus is the key element to complete any task effectively and efficiently. But why is it that we know but we never really practise it? There are many reasons and personally I feel that the…
education, focus, goals, learning -
Guide to Learning: Introduction
Motivation During my upper Secondary School days and Junior College days , my classmates have been saying to me things like "Why are you so free to mug all the time?", "Don't you have life? Stop mugging! " and "Don't…
education, learning, success -
Loss And Grief (By Megan Gressor)
Stages of grief - Shock:- Numbness, disbelief. Serves as the mind's way of protecting itself from too much bad news all at once. - Denial:- Refuses to accept the loss. Declines with time. - Intense emotions:-…
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Introducing Psychology Part 3
The hierarchy of needs - Physiological needs - Safety needs - Love and belongingness - Esteem needs - Cognitive needs - Aesthetic needs - Self-actualization Each need must be satisfied before the next need can motivate…
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Introducing Psychology Part 2
2 'laws' of learning - The law of exercise - Repetition strengthens learning - The law of effect - The effect of reward is to strengthen learning Infant's 3 basic emotions - Fear - Caused by loud noise, sudden loss of…
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Introducing Psychology Part 1
Methodology: Study of methods of research 5 methods of research - Experiment - Observation - Survey - Case study (case history) - Correlation (significance) * * Correlation doesn't show causation and also may occurs by…
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Product Strategy
Product - Good, service or idea consisting of tangible or/and intangible features which satisfies consumers and isreceived in exchange for money or some other unit of value. Core - Main function of a product, allows…
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Market Segmentation
Market Segmentation - Dividing consumers into groups according to 1)response to marketing actions 2)identity, needs and characteristics Why segment? 1)To understand consumers better 2) To respond faster and better to…
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Logic Gates in Real Life?
Can real life be analogous to a logic gate? On/off, true/false, 1/0, high/low, yes/no? Can our life be dictated by just 2 clear cases? Never, as we live in a complicated world where everything is analog instead of…
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The world is changing...
Get ready for traffic jams on the Moon It might be time to consider traffic lights on the moon. In the past week, governments, space agencies, and even a company from the Isle of Man announced plans to land on the moon.…
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How To Overcome Your Difficulties (Part 3)
•He who expects to secure satisfaction on life from others is worse than the beggar who kneels and cries for his daily bread. •There are no stars which we could trust, There is no guiding light, And we know that we must…
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How to Overcome Your Difficulties (Part 2)
•Man must be strong enough to know when he is weak, brave enough to encounter fear, dignified and having moral courage in honest defeat, humble and gentle in victory. •When you know yourselves that these ideas are…
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How To Overcome Your Dfficulties (Part 1)
By Ven. Dr. K.Shi. Dhammananda •Fear and worry, born of the imaginings of a mind that is influenced by worldly conditions, are rooted in craving and attachment. •From craving springs grief, From craving springs fear, For…