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In previous blogpost, we have discussed on the method of revision for GCE ‘O’ Level Examinations.

At this point of writing, students in Singapore would have finished their 1st set of 2010 ‘O’ Level exam paper. Hope everyone reading this blog enjoyed yourself today.

(Photo courtesy of kevinkoonz)

For Chemistry, many of you should have finished revision by now. Let’s see what you should be doing before your chemistry paper.

1. Collect all the stationaries that you will need

a . Two sets of (more…)

In about 2 weeks time, Singapore Students will be taking their GCE ‘O’ Level Examinations.

Many of you are also having your ’study week’ where school lessons has finally ended and you are given the time (2 weeks) to sit down and thoroughly revise through your notes, books, and previous test/exam papers.

For GCE ‘O’ Level Chemistry Exams, you need to know the essential concepts well in order to score the marks you desire. Only about 15% of the exams will be based solely on memorising skills, etc. As such, it is important to know the topics well.

Furthermore, you will be seeing questions in Paper 2 (Written) where one question will be split into many other parts – and each part will test you on a certain concepts i.e. several topics will be tested in one question.

Previously, i have blog before on tips for revising for GCE ‘O’ Level Chemistry Examinations, and you can find them through the links below: (more…)

Greetings everyone!

It has been a while (busy with running revision workshops and classes) since i last blog on this chemistry portal – where international community of chemistry students and educators come together to share thoughts on 3 main points:

1. Chemistry Tips
2. Exam Strategies
3. Chemistry Phenomenon

If you are a Sec 4 / 5 student in Singapore, i hope you are spending time to revise on what you have learned in the past 2-3 years. For Chemistry, many students have this misconceptions and wrong mindset that Chemistry is a “memorising subject” and you can do a last minute revision (i.e. memorising most parts of the chemistry textbook or notes from teachers) before you GCE ‘O’ Level Chemistry Examinations – both Pure Chemistry as well as Combine Science (Chemistry).

This is certainly not true, contrary to the beliefs of many students, fueled by the claims from their friends, peers and seniors – that they should only start revising for their chemistry examinations after their Preliminary Exams (school exams) and when nearer to GCE “O” Level Chemistry papers. Do note you are “digging your own grave”! [sorry if you find my language abit aggressive] I just want to highlight the importance of doing revision immediately NOW! with O Level Chemistry Exams in about 30 days time. I would rather be aggressive and save a few more souls, rather than loosing several of you due to the wrong mindset.

In the next blogposts, i will share with you revision techniques as well as several tricky Chemistry Examination Questions.

PS: if you have been studying very hard for your chemistry, but have yet to score the marks you deserved – it may be due to the fact that your concepts of chemistry are not crystal clear yet i.e. there are misconceptions (and thus mistakes and errors) that prevents you from scoring! The book i wrote last august Up Your Chemistry Grades Now will be the book to address it.

Stay Tuned! =) (more…)

With the GCE O Level Examinations in less than 3 months time, many of you will be asking this question:

“How to Revise Effectively for GCE O Levels Chemistry Examinations?”

(Image by crazybobbles)

You might have heard the following so-called “Revision Techniques” or “Revision Tips” before:

1. Manage your time – develop a regular work schedule
2. Make a timetable! – plan your work well in advance
3. Your best time – revise at a time which suits you
4. Study in groups – encourage and motivate each other
5. Find a conducive study place – avoid distractions
6. Use prompt cards – revision notes in your pocket!
7. Practice more exam papers & assessment books – favourite these days in Singapore Schools

Well, all of the above are good “tips” for revision but there is one more that is neglected by students / school teachers / tutors / parents these days!

The BEST WAY to Revise Effectively is to:

“Review & Learn from Your Mistakes”

I am speaking with experience as i have several classes of Sec 3s and 4s and from the quick survey i have done with the students, close to 85% of them said they do not review their mistakes made.

So often, students are so eager to move on to the next..the next..and the next topic & new content that they neglect the fundamental principles of learning from their mistakes.

When homework assignments, test and examination papers are return to the students, many simply look at their marks, cheer over their good grades or whine over their poor grades, and then chuck their papers aside for dust-collection in the file.

When teachers (some) actually go through the corrections with the class, many students also simply use their green-ink pen and write the correct “standard” answers from the mouth of their teachers – word-by-word! And then, they simply chuck them aside.

How many of you actually look at your mistakes, find out where you had gone wrong (i.e. is it careless mistakes, or you have some misconceptions, etc) and then work towards correcting them, so that if a similar question comes out again in future, you will avoid the same error and get it right!?

To summarise:

“The BEST revision strategy is to learn from your errors and mistakes, and make sure you don’t repeat them again!”

I hope you find this post useful and motivating! I would love to hear your comments on it.

PS: Feel free to leave down your comments below.

For Singapore-based O Levels’ students (both Pure Chemistry and Combine Science Chemistry), you will be taking your GCE ‘O’ Levels Chemistry Examinations in approximately 3 months time, for both Paper 1(Multiple Choice Questions, MCQ) & Paper 2 (Written Exam on Chemistry Theory) .

(Picture adapted from David Scarlett)

With your school’s Preliminary Examinations (2 weeks – 1 month time) coming, i understand that most of the O Level students are frantically trying everything to revise through what your school has gone rush through for the past months. Many are feeling lost because for the last months, you have been spending most of your time in Co-Curricular Activities (CCA) and Singapore Youth Festivals (SYF) 2009. I am glad you have stepped down on all of these activities. Many have also struggled understanding on the topics of Ammonia & Air / Atmosphere (most school skipped them totally) as well as Organic Chemistry (rushes through to finish syllabus in school). GCE O levels Examinations is just 3 months away! Let’s FOCUS!!!

For the next 3 months, i will be sharing with you on specific tips and strategies on how to Revise for your O Levels Chemistry Exam and Score your As!

Let us see what you need to know =)

The GCE ‘O’ Level Chemistry Examination not only tests the number of chemical facts and definitions you have remembered, but also if you know how to apply the chemistry concepts and solve application problems.

About 20-30% of the marks are given for recall of facts and definitions, the rest are for understanding and applications of chemistry concepts. This is contrary to the many beliefs by parents (and students) that by plain memorising at the eleventh hours, you can score well in Chemistry exams by rote-learning and memorising your way to victory. This is a definite NO-NO!

Following are Skills required to DO WELL in GCE ‘O’ Level Chemistry Exam:

• Knowledge of DEFINITIONS, CHEMICAL FORMULAE, UNITS & SYMBOLS
• Knowledge of CHEMISTRY CONCEPTS such as Reactivity Series of Metals & Its Applications
• Knowledge of FACTS such as Uses of Petroleum Fractions
• Knowledge of OBSERVATIONS that occurs in many experiments
• Ability to use FLOW-CHARTS to solve questions related to Qualitative Analysis
• Ability to SKETCH, PLOT and (more…)

Hi students,

As mentioned in my previous blogpost, Organic Chemistry is of extreme importance in GCE ‘O’ Levels Chemistry Exams, due to 2 main reasons (based on my analysis of Past Years Exam Papers):

1. High weightage about 18 – 25 marks (15 – 21%) of your written O Level Chemistry Exams
2. In Year 2008 O Level Chem Exams, the last Question (Either/Or Question worth 10marks) in Paper 2 are both Organic Chemistry. This means there is no way you can escape Organic Chemistry

Need MORE reasons (that i observed last 3-4 years) why you need to MASTER Organic Chemistry????

1) Organic Chemistry is an independent component that you can master on its own, regardless of how you have fared for other previous chapters

2) Organic Chemistry is in fact VERY EASY - all the 5 chapters/topics in Organic Chemistry are inter-linked and once you master 1 topic, you will be able to master the other topics, with ease once you have the correct methodology

3) Contrary to many students believed that Organic Chemistry needs lots of memorisation, Organic Chemistry DOES NOT need lots of memory work. You just need to associate it to our everyday life and be clear of how each topics are interlinked with each other – and you will score well for it!

4) Majority ALL schools in Singapore (Both GCE O Levels and IGCSE/IB) rushed through Organic Chemistry chapters in June / July in order to finish the syllabus and welcome the School Prelims Exams. Many of the teachers only glanced through it with their students (“surface learning”) in order to finish the syllabus. There are even 1-2 schools (my students are in these schools) that actually asked them to READ ON THEIR OWN!!!! Gosh! You can’t learn Organic Chemistry just by reading textbook? cos concepts are required.

If you are of these students that aim to do well for your GCE ‘O’ Levels Chemistry Exams, i urge you to master Organic Chemistry. Spend time mastering it, please.

If you are facing the following problems in mastering Organic Chemistry, do check out the Early Bird Registration (by 15th July 2009) for our annual O Levels Organic Chemistry Mastery Workshop 2009

I will see you at the workshop! =)

Sean

>> Click HERE to find out more about Organic Chemistry Mastery Workshops (more…)