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.

This is one of the easiest topics to score in PMR Math exam especially if your languages are good. Even if you are not, you can observe how the sentences look like and eventually you will remember them too. This topic has been appearing in both paper 1 and paper 2 so far. And what do you need to know to master this Form 2 chapter 9 topic? There are basically three important points to note.

First of all, do you know how many loci there are altogether? Yes? That is good for you. You are one third there. No? My question to you is, “As in a game of DotA, if you do not know your team players or assuming you do not know where the opponents’ Ancients are, then how are you going to destroy them?” You have to know your team players well to form strategies and to work closely together to destroy the opponents’ Ancients in order to win the game. It is the same for Math. If you do not know how many loci there are altogether? Then how could master the chapter?

Some of you might have already flipped through your textbook and found out that there are a total of four loci in the chapter of Loci in Two Dimensions namely, Circle, Perpendicular bisector, Parallel line and Angle bisector. The second point you must know is how each locus is defined. For example, the locus of a circle is usually describe as a locus with constant distant from a fixed point. In some questions, instead of using the words constant distant, the question may say directly, “locus of X is 4 units from the point P or some questions may be in this format where it tell you that the locus of Y such that YJ is equaled to JN (refer to the picture on the right).

Therefore, it is important to know how each type of locus is defined and the variations of the definition. Perpendicular bisector is usually defined as a locus that is equidistant from two fixed points or the question may say directly ‘equidistant from P and Q.‘ For Parallel line, it is defined as constant distant from a line or question may tell you directly that the locus is 1 cm or constant distant from AB. The last of the locus is Angle bisector which is defined as a locus equidistant from two lines or directly (looking at the previous picture on the right)equidistant from SR and SP.

You may ask me, “How can I know the variations of the definition of each type of locus?” My answer will be pretty straight forward – Practice.” Through practicing, not only will you gain confidence in tackling questions on Loci, you will also learn the variations of the definition of each type of locus.

Before ending this post, the third point to mastering Loci in Two Dimensions is to know how to draw each type of Locus.

What you need to know for the last part of the question is usually the intersection of two loci; the intersection point/points will satisfy the conditions of the two loci.

So you can see that Loci in Two Dimensions is an easy topic which you can score. All you need to know are:

1. How many different type of locus in this chapters and the name for each locus.
2. The definition for each type of locus.
3. How to draw each type of locus.

After knowing this, the key to mastering this topic is still – Practice!

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.

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.

It is no fault of them that eventually they become like us, because out of concern, many times we ask them to be cautious, to think through, to analyse … any other things except to believe in themselves and to just do it! While I believe that we must not be reckless but we must be ready to take calculated risk and most importantly, we must be ready to take action. When there is a great idea, it must be accompanied by massive action to make it happens. Else an idea or a dream will just be an idea or a dream.

I was sharing with a student last night that it is normal to have self-doubt, but the moment the doubt appears, we acknowledge it and entertain the positive thought opposite to the doubt; entertain the thought of why not. The question to ask ourselves then is ‘How to?’

This morning I shared a video with two students and it too prompts us to think of the possibility and to believe in ourselves. Every successful man and woman were not luckier than their peers or people around them … they believed and most importantly … they took action!