Conquering Singapore's Education System

    “ Pattern, pattern, pattern .” Can you see it? By far, this is the most controversial mathematics question appeared in year 2019 PSLE . It is shown below too. Some primary 4 students have encountered such question in the school test. Among the 12 famous schools, “ seeing pattern through figures ” question appeared only 5 times out of total 24 test papers. The schools are: (1) Nanyang Primary School (SA1 test) (2) Tao Nan Primary School (SA1 & SA2 test) appeared twice ! (3) Henry Park Primary School (SA2 test) (4) Catholic High School (SA2 test) The above 4 primary schools have early exposure with such topic to be quizzed. Nanyang Primary School 2018 SA1 Mathematics, question 42.   Part (a) is easy. The pattern is obvious. 4, 6, 8, 10. You need to find the pattern carefully for the number of matchsticks, 12, 19, 26, etc. It has the pattern of ( number of triangles x 3 + n ) . Alternatively, you can draw the figure 4 to find out the answer easily.

You can buy past year test papers at the bookstore or newspaper stall easily. I  bought those test papers from Carousell at more than 50% discount instead. Alternately, you can also download FREE from the websites below: (1) https://www.sgtestpaper.com/ (2) https://bestfreepapers.com/   (3) https://www.singapore-exam-papers.com/ He is attending Primary 2 at Qi Fa Primary School (West Coast).   He just completed the last SA2 P4 Mathematics test paper today and in my eyes, he had graduated from Primary 4 Mathematics class. He completed all 2018 Primary 4 Mathematics test papers on June 24, 2020 with an average score of: SA1: 88.67% and SA2: 93.36% . Total 34x test. He also completed all 2018 Primary 3 Mathematics test papers on December 15, 2019 with an average score of: SA1: 85.08% and SA2: 85.25% . Total 34x test as well.  A total height of 9 cm test papers had been completed. Doing past year test papers is much more effective than assessment books.

    I teach science at home with the 2 books above only. That's what he had learnt today.       Cell – smallest unit of life . It is a able to grow, take in food, reproduce and respond to changes in the environment. Cells come in different shapes, sizes and structures to suit their specialized functions. The simplest living organisms have only one cell ( unicellular ) or single-celled, e.g. bacteria, yeast, paramecium, amoeba, euglena . Organisms made of many cells are called multicellular organisms. Cell -> Tissue -> Organ -> Systems An animal cell has a nucleus, cytoplasm, cell membrane and vacuole (they are small if present) . It has no chloroplasts and cell wall . A plant cell has a nucleus, cytoplasm, cell membrane, vacuole, chloroplasts and cell wall . Not all plant cells contain chloroplast (e.g. root cells & onion skin cells ). Plant cells that are not green do not contain chloroplast. Not all cells contain a nucl

Singapore MOE is very proud of their mathematics modeling , which I do not understand why. The modeling can be solved by algebra sometimes. I also heard many good primary school students in mathematics meet difficulties in secondary school as they could not understand the algebra logic. That is very dangerous. I think they probably did too many modeling questions in primary school until their brain cannot switch or comprehend the simple algebra. I teach both concepts to my boy. Don’t worry, it will not confuse them.  He is going to finish all 32x test papers of Primary 4 (left 3x more papers). I hand-picked 14x nice modeling questions from the year 2018 SA1/SA2 test questions that he had completed. He got about 70% right. These 14x questions are very good questions for Primary 4 students. If you can get them all correct, your standard is, surely and definitely in the range of 95%-100%. You probably wonder why I only show the modeling questions of Primary 4 but not other topics.