Make Use Of Your Limited Time For The Best Effects
On 16 August 2017, The Straits Times published an article titled “Too many assessment books, too little time”. It was reported that according to a poll by OpenSchoolbag among a small sample size of 120 parents, primary school students in Singapore had on average 7 assessment books at a time but could only manage to finish 60% of them. Some publishers, educators and parents who were approached for comments responded that there were simply too many assessment books and too little time for the students to complete all of them. This is especially true for JC students studying economics. As an economics tutor, I feel it is my obligation to not only impart to my students the necessary knowledge and skills to tackle economics questions during my economics tuition with them, but also help them make use of their limited time to achieve the best effects in their study of the subject.
Identify Your Strengths And Weaknesses
Before you start working on anything, always set your targets clearly so that you are orientated towards your goals. In order to achieve the best effects, the students must identify their strengths and weaknesses and look for assessment books that can help them best address these weaknesses. In terms of economics tuition, the students must talk to each and every economics tutor and choose one who is most capable of helping them improve in their areas of weaknesses. Ask the economics tutor a question that your school teacher failed to explain to you clearly or help you understand. By doing this, you put the capability of the economics tutor to test. If the economics tutor is able to clear your doubts over a question that has long been puzzling you, you can be assured that he can help you address your weaknesses and improve your grades effectively.
Set Priority
Once you have your strengths and weaknesses clearly identified, set your priority based on your weaknesses. It is more time-effective to improve your grade from D to C than from B to A, where there is less room for improvement.
Learn, Digest And Ask Questions
There are so many passive learners out there who simply take in information from their economics tutor. What is lacking here is the process to digest. After digestion? Ask your economics tutor critical questions. A good and effective learner is able to digest information they receive quickly and know how to ask questions to bring their understanding of the subject to another level.
Relate To Real-life Problems
The ultimate purpose of learning is to help us solve real-life problems. Economics is like applied science which puts a lot of emphasis on application. It is important for students to apply what they have learned in economics tuition to real-life economic events such as the global financial crisis in 2007-2008 caused by sub-prime lending, and most recently, UK’s exit from EU, its impact on the global economy. Please approach your economics tutor for background of these economic events and their impact. A knowledgeable economics tutor will be able to share more about various other economic events taking place around us. Take Singapore for example. Singapore is a small economy that is highly dependent on international trade, which makes it highly vulnerable to international economic environment and economic conditions of its trading partners. Therefore, what kind of policy should the government adopt to best support Singapore’s economic growth? I hope you have learned about this in your economics tuition. In case you have not, please ask your economics tutor to cover this in economics tuition as it will help you a great deal in your examinations.
I hope the above can help students make better use of their limited time left before the Singapore-Cambridge GCE ‘A’ Level Economics Examination. I wish them all the best!
Linda Geng
Economics Tuition Singapore @ Economics Cafe
Principal Economics Tutor: Mr. Edmund Quek