2012 has started and time surely moves swiftly as we move into the first weekend of the new year. How was your 2011? Has it been a great year where you have managed to fulfill all your 2011 resolution? Or has it been another year of more ‘it could have been’ and ‘if only.’ I certainly hope it was not the latter.

How about your results in your study? Did you get your desired results? I certainly hope so too. If you have not, fret not. It is not the end of the world. You might have lost a battle but you have not lost the war; just ensure that you do it better, not just any better but your very best. Give it all you have gotten and left no room for ‘it could have been’ and ‘if only.’ Life is too short for these.

One thing about study and in most things in life is that we can ‘think’ our way to good results or to get whatever we want morally. Bullshit! Yes, you are right in way, especially if we are talking about wishful thinking. Anyone can wishfully think himself/herself to good result and I can tell you right now that it will not happen. However, not everyone is willing to think to good result.

Thus, everyone can think to good result but not everyone is willing to do that. Most are just wishful thinking. You may ask me, “What do you mean by thinking to good result? Isn’t it the same as wishful thinking?” What I would like to clarify is that while you are thinking about getting good result, you are also thinking about how to get the good result and that will make all the differences.

And it is not enough to be thinking about getting good result. We will still have to take the final step – the very key step to getting there and that is to take massive action. Nothing will come through without massive action and this is the very different between thinking and wishful thinking. Without massive action, just thinking alone is just like wishful thinking.

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.

What I can say is that there are more uses for trigonometry that we would know; “The techniques in trigonometry are used for finding relevance in navigation particularly satellite systems and astronomy, naval and aviation industries, oceanography, land surveying, and in cartography (creation of maps),” according to this article. And yet from another website, trigonometry was mentioned to be used in the measuring of heights of buildings, surveying or maybe stock market or business cycles.

In one of the examples in the above website, it was used to construct a 3 dimensional 5 pointed star. In another example from the above website, trigonometry was used to help a frustrated homeowner to correctly calculate the area of her lot.

In fact, trigonometry is also used in digital imaging in medicine. Quoting from the first article,

“The next time you go in for an advanced scanning procedure, be sure to check out how the sine and cosine functions you learn at school find a practical application is medical techniques such as CAT and MRI scanning, in detecting tumors and even in laser treatments. Whoever said studying math has only an academic value! Need other reasons to know how formulae in trigonometry make life easier for you?“

After knowing some of the uses of trigonometry, let us get back to the topic in your Form 3 Math. What do you need to know? Basically, there are 3 key points you need to know in this chapter to master it:

Tangent, Sine & Cosine: Only when we have a right-angled triangle in discussion, then we talk about these three trigonometry function. You have to remember the information relating to the picture above. Many students are confused with which is opposite and which is adjacent. Before deciding which is which, we have to fix which angle is in discussion. Once we fix the angle, as its name implies, the ‘opposite’ is opposite the angle in discussion and ‘Adjacent’ is on the same side of the angle. As for the hypotenuse, it is always the longer side. You can use mnemonic to remember the three different ratios for Tangent, Sine and Cosine. One of them, which I learned in secondary school many years back, is ‘TOA,’ ‘CAH,’ and ‘SOH,’ which mean big foot in Hokkien.

True enough, my strong belief in studying hard translated directly into the good grades I had for Math, A Math, Physics and Chemistry in my O-Level examination. In fact in my A Math papers, for the first time in my life, I managed to finish it with ample time to spare to check through my papers. Even before the result was out for my A Math, I was already confident that I had gotten an ‘A’ for it.

As for my languages and humanity subject, the doubts and beliefs I had about myself translated to my not so impressive grades for both subjects. Even during my A-Level examination, I aced in my C Math and either Chemistry or Physics. As for my Further Mathematics, I only got a ‘C.’ It didn’t come as a surprise because I had not worked very hard for it and in fact I didn’t practice enough. Looking back at the efforts I put in the O-Level and A-Level exams, it is even clearer now the strong relationship between my belief in hardwork and results.

That is why in my email to the parents, I wrote, “The best gift we could give to them is the gift to first believe in their own abilities and then to take action.” It is not enough to just believe in their own abilities. The change in their results will come from the follow through action that they will be taking.

Advo’s Turbocharge! Workshop is a workshop specially engineered for children between the age of 13-17 to help the youths discover more about themselves through a journey of self reflection and exploration. One of the top training programs for kids in Singapore, this highly interactive workshop will help to open the minds of children to see themselves bigger than who they are now. Through the workshop, your children will create new empowering mindsets and beliefs about themselves. With these new empowering mindsets and beliefs about themselves, they will go on to achieve academic excellence and successes in life.

As the saying goes, “Change your mind, change your world!” When we focus on the root of the issue, we not only nib the issue at its root, we also create a long-lasting solution. The good grades will follow.

I do hope that after reading this post, you will put the date in BLOCK LETTER on a piece of paper where you can see it everyday and make your study plan. I remember asking a student previously if he knows how many topics there are altogether which he needs to prepare for PMR Math. He had no idea and most students would tell you they do not know too. There are altogether 29 Chapters from Form 1 to Form 3 and each of this chapter will appear either in Paper 1 or Paper 2. Some topics like Statistics, Graphs of Functions and Loci in Two Dimensions have been appearing in both Paper 1 and Paper 2 so far.

In fact, Topics like Statistics, Graphs of Functions and Loci in Two Dimensions are pretty easy to score especially if either your English or BM is good. However, in Math, you can make up for the poor understanding in language by practicing; the more you practice, the more you’ll see a pattern of how the questions are asked. All you need to do is to be extra careful when you are reading the questions. Are you aware of all these? And do you know that there are only 4 Loci in the Form 2 topic of Loci in Two Dimensions. All you need to know and remember are the different ways of how to describe each of the locus.

Thus, preparing for your PMR Math involves knowing little details like these, which will make it easier for you to study. What you would still need to do, especially in Math, is still to put what you know into practice. Getting an ‘A’ in Math could be this simple.

If you didn’t do well for your mid-year Math exam, you do not really need tuition. All you need to do is to find out which topics you are not doing well, clarify all the doubts with your friends or teachers, then put the new understandings into practice.

It is no longer the question of whether we can or cannot. As in our study, whether we will score ‘A’ for our examination or test is not so much a question of ability, as in whether we can or cannot do it. However, it is a matter of whether we want to do it; the intention of scoring the ‘A’ in our study. Do you have the intention?

If you have the intention, the next question is, “Are you willing to work hard or put in the effort for it?” A lot of people have the intention to score ‘A’ in their study or to excel in their life but not many are willing to work hard or to put in the effort. Just as a farmer who needs to put in the hard work of ploughing in the field day in and day out. We might ask, “Would ploughing hard in the field guarantee a good harvest?”

I believe we all knew the answer to that question. And yet a farmer is willing to work hard in his/her field because he/she knows that with hard work, a good harvest is eventual. Just as George Bernard Shaw said, “…I did ten times more work.” So the farmer is working harder … putting more seeds to ensure a good harvest.

It is the same today for your study and your life. Working hard and putting in the effort is definite. Scoring the ‘A’ and excelling in life is eventual! Believe and have the faith.