Frankly speaking, I was quite sad as I felt sorry for those who replied with the above and yet I sincerely hope that one day they will be exposed to such possibility and they will realise the potential that each and everyone of them has, which is waiting to be unleashed!

From a partner who shared, “I respect each opinion; each opinion is based on his/her individual ability to perform. Some people earn $10 an hour, while others earn $1000 an hour. When you tell those who earn $10 an hour that people can earn $1000 an hour, they will say it is impossible. But I respect them also because this is their opinions based on their ability.”

During the stone age, it would take about an hour to walk from Mines Resort to Jaya Jusco Cheras Selatan. It would have taken that long before the invention of the automobile and trust me on this as I had tried once before; walking from Mines Resort to Jaya Jusco Cheras Selatan. However, in the modern day, it will take barely about five minutes to reach Jusco from Mines. If we were to explain to a caveman that we could reach Jusco in five minutes, he/she would have said, “Impossible or bullshit” too. And we can’t blame him/her as his/her opinion is based on his/her ability.

Before letting you in on the secret to learning math, promise me that you will make good use of it or you may stop reading from this point onward. And also promise me that you will share this secret with anyone who is finding it a challenge to learn Math. Albert Einstein said it best when he said, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” The key here is he stayed with his problems longer. There is something similar in what I have always shared with my kids, that I am not any smarter than them. The only reason why I am good in Math today is because of the past many years of experience accumulated from practicing. I did not particularly stayed longer with the problems like what Einstein did; I just did a lot of practice.

Malcolm Gladwell shared in his book Outliers about a video tape which Math Professor Alan Schoenfeld made of a woman named Renee as she was trying to solve a math problem. Renee was a nurse and wasn’t someone particularly interested in Mathematics. In the video, Renee was playing with a software program designed to teach algebra. And she was trying to figure out what numbers to enter in order to get the computer to draw a line that is absolutely vertical. She was trying to figure out the gradient for a vertical line. However, being someone who has not been a Math expert, she was finding it challenging to figure out the numbers.

When most students or people would have given up already, she stayed with the problem for twenty-two minutes before finally figuring out that a vertical line can be obtained by dividing any number by zero, which gives an undefined number and which means that the slope of a vertical line is undefined. I have seen students giving up attempt on Math questions in less than 2 minutes.

Most people would have thought that being good in Math is an innate ability; either you are good with Math or you’re not. But from the video made by Professor Schoenfeld, being good in Math could simply mean whether you are willing to try and stay with a problem for as long as twenty-two minutes. As Malcolm put it, “… it’s not so much ability as attitude.”

Quoting a paragraph from Outliers,

“Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds.“

What do you want to see in your PMR or SPM examination certificate? You may be asking me just what do I mean by asking you that question; it is not as if you can design your own certification. On the contrary, you have as much to say as you want to in your certificate. You can even ‘design’ the grades that you want to see on it; be it an ‘A’ for BM or an ‘A’ for Sejarah or an ‘A’ for Geografi or ‘A’ for both Math and Science. Or simply just straight ‘A’s for all subjects.

Stop reading at this very moment. Take out a piece of A4 size paper and start writing down all the subjects you are required to take for the PMR or SPM examination and create another column besides it and write down all the grades that you want in that column. Let me stress again – write down all the grades that you want to get in your examination. It is normal to doubt if you can really get all the grades that you want but just put it all down anyway. There is another more effective way to do it; find someone who has already gotten his/her PMR or SPM certificate, then make a photocopy of it and then erase the name on it and put down your own name. Then erase all the grades of that person and put down the grades that you want on that certificate.

After you are done, paste this certificate at a place where you can see very often and where your family can see it too so that they can remind you often. Do take this exercise very seriously as the moment you are doing this exercise, your grades are already changing.

Now that you are done with that simple exercise, let us talk about putting that ‘designed’ certification into reality. Putting that grades on your photocopied certificate is a way of wishing or hoping that you will really get all that grades. There is a different between just wishing and hoping for it to happen and working effortlessly towards it. If you are doing the topic of Probability in Form 5 A Math, you would know that the Probability of just wishing for the straight ‘A’s is as good as zero.

However, if you start building foundation to that wish of yours, you have a much higher chance of making it real just as Walt Disney built the foundation to his dream of Disneyland. And what do I mean by building the foundation to your wish? Simply put, I am talking about putting in the extra hard work and taking action in your study, especially in the subjects which you are not doing well now. Put in as much effort, if not more, as you had in your Dota, or Facebook game or anything which you are already doing very well in. When it comes to Mathematics, the hard work or effort is synonymous to practicing; do as much past year questions as you can.

Just the other day I was marking some A Math assignments in Trigonometry and Function by a student that I got quite pissed off; my blood was literally boiling. And for a very good why I should be pissed off: she has been giving me the same not careful mistakes again and again; it was (x – 3) in one moment and then when she copied it to the next part of the question, it became (x + 3) and everything was not right after that.

The very reason I was so pissed is because she knew exactly how to do the question. She followed the right strategy and steps in solving the Function question but she gave away marks to these kind of not careful mistakes. Trigonometry is a bigger challenge to her at this point but it will get better for sure with more practice. Right now she needs to take care of a few fundamental issues first which is crippling her progress in A Math. We will work together to take down these issues one by one. There is not much time to lose before she takes her Trial Examination follows by her SPM examinations at the end of the year.

On Wednesday while I was coaching her, we talked about her dream to study Aeronautical Engineering. I asked if she really has the passion in doing it. Depending on the fields of study which she will pursue in Aeronautical Engineering, whether she likes it or not, she will have to deal with higher Mathematics. In fact, in most engineering course, she will need to take higher mathematics. And thus it is important to build her foundation well now. I told her if Aeronautical Engineering is really her passion, then she will surely find all ways to break down all the challenges to get there.

She shared with me that she doesn’t hate A Math, it’s just that she can’t seem to understand it. I wasn’t surprising she couldn’t seem to understand it. In Mathematics, we not only have to understand the concept, we also have to practice; which is the thing she has not been doing yet. And being a kinesthetic person, who learn best by doing, then all the more she needs to practice. Just as a question I have always asked her, “How did you remember all the lyrics?” She told me she just sung them again and again and again. She responded that if only A Math was like singing. I said, “Why not? I am not stopping you. If you find that by singing it out you can remember, then by all mean sing it out!”

With proper planning, you can easily breeze through PMR and SPM.

In this coming holiday, Advo will be running a special Power Revision Workshops (PR) for PMR’s Math and Science and for SPM’s A Math and Physics. PR is a 6 days workshop, totaled 48 hours in all. Each session will be from 9.00am – 5.00pm.

The objective of the workshop is to cover all topics for PMR Math and Science from Form 1 to Form 3 and SPM A Math and Physics from Form 4 to Form 5 by June; meaning the students would be readied to take their PMR Math and Science and SPM A Math and Physics examination after the 6 days workshops. One thing which we notice in students today is that they lack practice and practice is key to subjects like Math and Science. With enough practice, I strongly believe that most students will be able to get much better grades if not ‘A.’

Through our coaching experience, most students have the ability to do much well in their study but either they are too lazy to practice or they have been ‘conditioned’ in such a way from school that they are bad in Math and Science. The latter is more detrimental to students as it requires a full shift in perspective.

Thus, after the PR in June, the second objective is to get the students to start practicing past year question papers as well as trial exam papers. Through practicing the papers, they would surely gain a lot more confident and start seeing Math and Science as fun and easy subjects. And most importantly, to see that they are actually good in Math and Science.

In addition to the above, when students have already mastered Math and Science, they can put in more time for their other subjects. With more time on the other subject and making use of the strategies we would be sharing with them in the workshop, I strongly believe that their results will be outstanding!

However, there are limited seats available for the workshop; we are only taking a maximum of 10 students for each subject and there is a strict selection process. We will only choose students who are 100% committed to making a different in their own results because we will be 100% committed to help them achieve the results that they truly deserve!

For an appointment for our evaluation process for your child, you can contact us now at: 016 7739363.