Before, how do universities identify students who are the cream of the crop? Answer: They look at the student's grades.
Now, how do universities identify students who are the cream of the crop? Answer: They look at student's achievements outside his studies.
With more and more people achieving As for their A Levels, it is more difficult for universities to select the best out of the best, as the place is limited. Now with JC diplomas given out to students who are exceptionally good in certain areas, it allows universities to have a better view of which of the students are the ones that they need.
However, even with the JC diploma, I do not feel that it can completely replace A Levels altogether. This is because the purpose of A Level is to test whether a student is prepared for the examinations and whether the student can graduate from JC.
To start off, it is a fact that one has to have good grades in order to get into top universities. Universities want all the top students studying in their institutions so as to boost their reputations and also to attract all the best talents to their universities. The A levels hence is a verification of one’s concepts that one has learned in school.
On the other hand, the JC diploma is a guage to verify the student's achivement other than his studies for example research and electives. However this cannot replace A Levels as the JC diploma is used more for scholarships and universities when everyone is as good as the other. Only during such situation can JC diploma be used to separate the cream of the crop from the rest.
Hence, I feel that JC diploma cannot replace A Levels and can only be used to compare other achievements with equally good students.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Today's library, tomorrow's 'googlary'?
With the technology of the internet improving day by day, we can now even check about information on online libraries and even read articles online. Many people thus wonder whether this would be the end of libraries and the beginning of the online reading age. My thoughts and feelings, never.
Closing down libraries just because online reading can replace it is nearly the same as closing down museums because you can see the pictures of the artifacts online. Reading is never solely about staring at the words and let it go into the brains. Reading also requires the atmosphere and environment. For example, no point reading a romance story is someone is blasting "womanizer" beside you. It simply spoils the mood. Thats one of the reasons why a library exists: in order to provide with the reader a comfortable environment for him or her to read.
As for why not using the internet as a source of reading. There are a few simple points as in why. Firstly, internet is completely distracting. When you are reading a real book, its only the world, the book and yourself. You can spend hours enjoying that book and without anything around you that can possibly distract you, assuming that you are in a suitable environment. As for internet, there is the world, the book, youtube, wikipedia, myspace, facebook, hotmail, msn, google.....and maybe you. The number of distractions is too great for a person to read a book online and in peace, any moment the reader may just go to wikipedia and attempt to get a summary out of the story so that it spoils the entire mood, or google some sites which will tell you all the spoilers you want about the story.
The second and most obvious reason, it hurts your eyes. You can read a book for hours and only feel a slight tiring of the eyes, but more than 30minutes on the computer reading words would affect your eyes greatly. There are research which found out that reading a lot of words on the computer, and especially continuously scrolling up and down, affects the eyes way more than reading a real book for hours. And by the time you come back from resting your eyes to the computer, you may have already lost interest and decide to go for spoilers instead.
A third reason is that many people feel that comparing reading a real book and reading an online book. The mood created and the "hook" towards the book is greater when reading a real book compared to an online one. Thus many people who read books online may not have been fully enjoying themselves compared to reading a real one.
Hence, libraries getting closed down? Dream on. At least in my era that will not happen.
Closing down libraries just because online reading can replace it is nearly the same as closing down museums because you can see the pictures of the artifacts online. Reading is never solely about staring at the words and let it go into the brains. Reading also requires the atmosphere and environment. For example, no point reading a romance story is someone is blasting "womanizer" beside you. It simply spoils the mood. Thats one of the reasons why a library exists: in order to provide with the reader a comfortable environment for him or her to read.
As for why not using the internet as a source of reading. There are a few simple points as in why. Firstly, internet is completely distracting. When you are reading a real book, its only the world, the book and yourself. You can spend hours enjoying that book and without anything around you that can possibly distract you, assuming that you are in a suitable environment. As for internet, there is the world, the book, youtube, wikipedia, myspace, facebook, hotmail, msn, google.....and maybe you. The number of distractions is too great for a person to read a book online and in peace, any moment the reader may just go to wikipedia and attempt to get a summary out of the story so that it spoils the entire mood, or google some sites which will tell you all the spoilers you want about the story.
The second and most obvious reason, it hurts your eyes. You can read a book for hours and only feel a slight tiring of the eyes, but more than 30minutes on the computer reading words would affect your eyes greatly. There are research which found out that reading a lot of words on the computer, and especially continuously scrolling up and down, affects the eyes way more than reading a real book for hours. And by the time you come back from resting your eyes to the computer, you may have already lost interest and decide to go for spoilers instead.
A third reason is that many people feel that comparing reading a real book and reading an online book. The mood created and the "hook" towards the book is greater when reading a real book compared to an online one. Thus many people who read books online may not have been fully enjoying themselves compared to reading a real one.
Hence, libraries getting closed down? Dream on. At least in my era that will not happen.
Leader: GEP
Basically the moral of the story is: woots to elites, sucks to elitism.
Who are the elites? The elites are the leaders of Singapore's future society, who are vital for the progress of the country. When we talk about elites, we mean leaders who truly leads the country, who is able to command the people to work as one, who is willing to serve the people of Singapore. This are the type of true leaders, unlike some "leaders" whose job is simply to order his workers around and his secretary would do the job.
When people look at students of GEP in Singapore, they tend to view the students as the very hardworking, knowledgeable, and often the muuger type. True, to a certain extent. Some students are naturally talented in a certain area of studies, thus they do not require to spend as much time on that subject as other students need to. Also, students may not necessarily be the "mug" type, they may develop special methods to help in their studies and to make learning less stressful. Nowadays, purely mugging is never the correct method in facing studies. Through purely mugging you MAY be able to have good results for tests which are tested only in that area. But what about outside the classroom? Students who are pure muggers could only gaze blankly because they only remember what the textbook says, and are not knowledgeable about other topics outside the textbook.
Take for example in my class, it is mainly divided into 4 groups. The muggers, the talented muggers, the talented slackers, the slackers. It is very easily understood. Students who study subjects a lot and sometimes requires hard memorising before he can understand a topic, like me towards mathematics. Students to are talented and also spend a lot of time studying subject. Students who are talented but does not study subjects to THAT extent. And students who spend their time relaxing. For me, I feel that the last group would not be very efficient if they do not at least start by revising their homework. The first type would only lose to the rest of those who studied felxibly when he competed with them for scholarships and competitions. Some students may think that following one's own hobbies instead of preparing themselves for tests by endless studying is wrong. What I can say is that such nursery chain of thoughts would only bring harm to the person. In this society nowadays, everyone is good in tests, and can be good in tests. When students compete for scholarships, nobody would bother to look at their test results anymore - they have good results anyway. What does people look at? Their talents, their hobbies. What differs one student from another is exactly the hobbies and interests that student has. For example, a student who is interested and good in science would of course have a better chance when competing with another student who is only interest in getting good results for his tests and is good in tests.
Secondly, I would like to bring up the issue of "relaxing", as some students may say when they saw their classmates taking time out of their stressful studies to take a break. Relaxing is the best way to make a student learn better as it gives the brain time to cool down. Endless mugging would only affect the student more if he does not know how to relax properly.
Hence, I feel that Singapore should have elites, but elites who are really elites, not muggers.
Who are the elites? The elites are the leaders of Singapore's future society, who are vital for the progress of the country. When we talk about elites, we mean leaders who truly leads the country, who is able to command the people to work as one, who is willing to serve the people of Singapore. This are the type of true leaders, unlike some "leaders" whose job is simply to order his workers around and his secretary would do the job.
When people look at students of GEP in Singapore, they tend to view the students as the very hardworking, knowledgeable, and often the muuger type. True, to a certain extent. Some students are naturally talented in a certain area of studies, thus they do not require to spend as much time on that subject as other students need to. Also, students may not necessarily be the "mug" type, they may develop special methods to help in their studies and to make learning less stressful. Nowadays, purely mugging is never the correct method in facing studies. Through purely mugging you MAY be able to have good results for tests which are tested only in that area. But what about outside the classroom? Students who are pure muggers could only gaze blankly because they only remember what the textbook says, and are not knowledgeable about other topics outside the textbook.
Take for example in my class, it is mainly divided into 4 groups. The muggers, the talented muggers, the talented slackers, the slackers. It is very easily understood. Students who study subjects a lot and sometimes requires hard memorising before he can understand a topic, like me towards mathematics. Students to are talented and also spend a lot of time studying subject. Students who are talented but does not study subjects to THAT extent. And students who spend their time relaxing. For me, I feel that the last group would not be very efficient if they do not at least start by revising their homework. The first type would only lose to the rest of those who studied felxibly when he competed with them for scholarships and competitions. Some students may think that following one's own hobbies instead of preparing themselves for tests by endless studying is wrong. What I can say is that such nursery chain of thoughts would only bring harm to the person. In this society nowadays, everyone is good in tests, and can be good in tests. When students compete for scholarships, nobody would bother to look at their test results anymore - they have good results anyway. What does people look at? Their talents, their hobbies. What differs one student from another is exactly the hobbies and interests that student has. For example, a student who is interested and good in science would of course have a better chance when competing with another student who is only interest in getting good results for his tests and is good in tests.
Secondly, I would like to bring up the issue of "relaxing", as some students may say when they saw their classmates taking time out of their stressful studies to take a break. Relaxing is the best way to make a student learn better as it gives the brain time to cool down. Endless mugging would only affect the student more if he does not know how to relax properly.
Hence, I feel that Singapore should have elites, but elites who are really elites, not muggers.
The Great Casino Debate
After reading the article, I feel that I would like to disagree with the author about Singapore not setting up a casino. Indeed, what the author fears is also what the majority of the Singaporeans are worrying about, about people getting addicted to gambling, about families broken up because of gambling, about people neglecting their work for gambling, so on and so forth. But in the end it still brings us to one problem, the issue of self-control.
Firstly, the author compares the setting up of a casino as killing the "goose" for the "golden eggs", however, I feel that the casino is never a "once-gain" issue. Once the management work of the casino is stable, continuous amount of cash will flow into Sinagapore. It does bring continuous help to Singapore's economy, the only problem is whether or not Sinagporeans would be tempted to go to the casino for the quick cash which would usually result in loss of money. This brings us to the issue of self-control. If the Singaporeans have self-control in them, they would know when is the time for them to stop gambling and go back to their daily lives. Only those who are unable to control themselves will be hooked on to the casino and continue destroying their lives - and this is why the government made sure that only those people who have the amount of money could go into the casino. Why? Because the government feels that these people had plenty of money just due to the fact that they can control themselves and thus did not spend all of them the moment they got their hands on the money.
Also, I feel that casino by itself is not a bane to Singapore society. Take for example Las Vegas, why would people want to go there? It is exactly because Las Vegas is the "heart" of casinos and thus people are willing to spend the money to go there, it is exactly the casinos that attracts the people. If there is a casino in Singapore, at least more people in the Asia region would visit Singapore's casino, this would greatly help Singapore's economy. Also, the setting up of the casino also provides job for many more people - nobody can deny this fact. Furthermore, it gives Singapore more experience in casinos as it is the first time that Singapore set up a casino.
Hence, I feel that the setting up of a casino in Singapore is not as much as a bane to its society as other people would think.
Firstly, the author compares the setting up of a casino as killing the "goose" for the "golden eggs", however, I feel that the casino is never a "once-gain" issue. Once the management work of the casino is stable, continuous amount of cash will flow into Sinagapore. It does bring continuous help to Singapore's economy, the only problem is whether or not Sinagporeans would be tempted to go to the casino for the quick cash which would usually result in loss of money. This brings us to the issue of self-control. If the Singaporeans have self-control in them, they would know when is the time for them to stop gambling and go back to their daily lives. Only those who are unable to control themselves will be hooked on to the casino and continue destroying their lives - and this is why the government made sure that only those people who have the amount of money could go into the casino. Why? Because the government feels that these people had plenty of money just due to the fact that they can control themselves and thus did not spend all of them the moment they got their hands on the money.
Also, I feel that casino by itself is not a bane to Singapore society. Take for example Las Vegas, why would people want to go there? It is exactly because Las Vegas is the "heart" of casinos and thus people are willing to spend the money to go there, it is exactly the casinos that attracts the people. If there is a casino in Singapore, at least more people in the Asia region would visit Singapore's casino, this would greatly help Singapore's economy. Also, the setting up of the casino also provides job for many more people - nobody can deny this fact. Furthermore, it gives Singapore more experience in casinos as it is the first time that Singapore set up a casino.
Hence, I feel that the setting up of a casino in Singapore is not as much as a bane to its society as other people would think.
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