Is your child able to fully comprehend the scope of the new Social Studies syllabus?

Is your child confident in giving higher level answers and scoring the maximum marks for his/her source based questions in the exams?

Does your child have real world examples at your fingertips that he/she can use to support his/her points in the structured response questions?

Is your child able to discuss societal issues in Singapore such as the controversy over the reserved presidential elections and CPF policies with ease?

If your answer is ‘no’ to any of the above questions, Brain Matter is holding a series of highly focused crash course in November and December that are designed to bring you up to speed in the shortest amount of time.

This course is suitable for both secondary 3 and 4 students.

We have conducted this Social Studies intensive revision course every year since 2013, and have helped hundreds of Sec 4 & 5 students score higher in their Social Studies, and pull up their overall Humanities Grade in O levels.

Below are just some of the results achieved by Brain Matter students in their O levels.

“A1 in Humanities”

“A2 in Humanities”

“A1 in Humanities”

Your child can achieve similar excellent results if he/she possesses the right techniques and skills to tackle the challenging questions.

Don’t wait any longer. Sign up your child for the intensive course below.

Your child can select the specific modules which he/she needs the most help in:

Module #1: Introduction to SS and Upper Sec SBQ skills

This course is for students who are entering Sec 3 (Express or N/A – both are applicable) next year and are apprehensive about SS because the subject is new to them and they have no comparative frame of reference to help them understand what this subject might be like/about.

The course will introduce a portion of the first theme in their syllabus content, namely ‘Citizenship’ and what it entails/the sacrifices one might have to make to be part of a greater entity known as a ‘society’.

Building on this content knowledge, the course will refresh the SBQ skillslearned in the lower secondary history syllabus, as well as update them with the higher order analysis required for upper secondary SS work. Hence, students will revisit the skill of inferring, but now they will be looking at a deeper analysis of the message of a source. Students will also revisit analysing the purposeof sources and their authors/originators, but now they will enrichen their answers by looking more closely at how adding the context of a situation might deepen their understanding of the purpose, and finally students will also take another look at the skill of comparingsources, but now there will be greater emphasis on the higher level comparing skills in upper secondary work – comparing purpose, tone and overall opinion of sources, in order to score a higher level mark.

With this head start in the content and SBQ skills needed in Sec 3, studentsshould be able to approach their first semester lessons with much less worry and much more confidence.

Module #2: SBQ skills booster for Sec 4 students

This course is for students who are entering Sec 4(Express or N/A – both are applicable) next year and have not been scoring well in SS, and are worried about SS pulling down what might be a strong Combined Humanities mark. This course is built on the assumption that all the basic SBQ skills brought over from lower secondary are sound, but the newer SBQ types taught in Sec 3, namely Reliability, Utility and Assertion, are still a matter of uncertainty to students and they wish for more reinforcement.

The course will have 2 portions. Firstly, the aim is to revisit and strengthen and build on what might be a weak core set of skills in answering SBQs.With that in mind, the student will be brought through all the basic steps in answering Reliability, Utility and Assertion SBQs such as basic inference, cross-referring to other sources, assessing limited information in a source and supporting or defending an assertion. But now greater emphasis will be on the higher order skills of analysing the purpose, motive and reasons for bias shown by the author of a source.

Next the 2nd portion of the course will introduce newer SBQ types to students, namely Assessing Surprise and Hybrid SBQs – SBQs that mix more than one SBQ type in one question. These SBQs will be thoroughly dissected and explained to students, and hands on practice will also be given to familiarise students with the steps needed to score in these new and unfamiliar question types that will be introduced in their Sec 4 work.

With this reinforcement of what was learnt in Sec 3, and a head start in what they will face in Sec 4, students should feel reassured, and face the coming year’s work with much more confidence.

Course Details:

About the Teacher

Mr Noel Ong
(Secondary Social Studies, History)

• Bachelor of Arts and Social Science, NUS (Majored in Political Science and English Literature, Minored in History)
• Post Graduate Diploma in Education, NIE
• More than 18 years of teaching experience in MOE schools

Mr Noel Ong is a NIE-trained MOE teacher who has more than 18 years of teaching experience. Having spent all his 18 years teaching in a typical Singapore neighbourhood school, he has much experience in raising the grades of students who were formerly struggling with SS and History. He was teaching SS when the subject was introduced in 2001, and so has a wealth of knowledge concerning how this subject is taught, examined and assessed. Mr Noel is also very well versed in the current SS syllabus (rolled out in 2016) as he was part of the team of MOE teachers selected to evaluate the textbook as it was being written, and also to pilot the lesson plans and materials that were included with the syllabus text. Finally, he strongly believes that both SS and History need not be dry or ‘boring’; What could be more interesting than learning more about your country, your world and the story of mankind?

How To Register? 

We are limiting the Intensive Revision Course to only 10 students per class so as to ensure maximum engagement and coaching to our students.

Registration will close on 25th Nov or earlier when all places are taken up. Your seat is only confirmed upon payment.