Pre-MYE Auto-Learning Module 4 of 4 Important Exam Tips

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Paper 1 Tip: Choosing Your Essay Question (A) Only choose questions whose words you fully, 100% understand. (B) Previously, some of you attempted questions (containing words like “essential” and “justifiable”) and answered off-topic. This was because you did not do (A)!

Paper 1 Tip: Planning Your Essay (C) Firstly, ask yourself, “Why would anyone even ask this question?”. -e.g. A person who asks, “are efforts to help the poor justifiable*,” obviously thinks that helping the poor needs to be defended. Why? Because it has some negative side effects! Only things that appear negative need to be justified; no-one would ask you to justify helping an old lady cross the road. (D) Do TGCA (Topic words, Generic words, Context/Condition words, and Assumption) and look out for extent words (e.g. “to what extent”, “how far”, etc.)! (E) Take some time to consider the main issues and arguments surrounding the question, as well as the possible points of view one may take. -e.g. If the question asks about the extent to which migration has an (overall) positive impact, you should consider both the good and bad effects of migration, how these affect both the sending and host countries, and the common arguments for and against migration. (F) After (E), come up with a stand. -Your stand must be definite, and explicit in answering the sentence. -Your stand should also not be too absolute! (G) Once you have a stand, ask yourself, “What must I do to prove my stand to the reader?” (H) After (G), proceed to plan your 3 (positive) supporting arguments and 1 (negative) objection. These will make up your 4 body paragraphs. They should also be the most relevant and significant issues that you can come up with. *Justify: Defend an action, or show that it is reasonable or correct. Justifiable: If an action is justifiable, it can be defended, or shown to be reasonable or correct.

Paper 1 Tip: The Introduction (I)Make sure to include a [1] Lead-in, [2] Clarification of Key Terms in the Question, a [3] Clear Stand, and a [4] Roadmap of arguments. -You must have an interesting lead-in right at the start of your intro. Try to write INTERESTING general observations, famous quotes, or statistics. -I strongly recommend that you do not use more than 1 thought-provoking questions. -Remember, you want your lead-in to be DIFFERENT from all the other students’; come up with something original! -If you leave any of the 4 components of the intro. out, you are very likely to fail your essay!

Paper 1 Tip: Body Paragraph (J) Have a clear Topic Sentence each paragraph that [1] supports your stand clearly and [2] introduces- summarises your argument for that paragraph. -Try to vary each of your topic sentences. Marks are deducted for having repetitive and boring topic sentences. (K) Follow the TREL format – Topic Sentence, Reasoning, Example/Evidence, Link. (L) Make sure to include at least 1 or 2 real-life example each paragraph. Marks are deducted when you do not have real-life examples! -Remember, examiners are very good at detecting faked examples! (M) Make sure your reasoning is good – no XC, ME, FE, XP, UA, or Slippery Slope! -- Make sure your premises are true/obvious, and that your conclusion follows from your premises! XC- unclear/vague statements ME- your point/argument/example/process is not explained in sufficient detail (e.g. “education allows one to enjoy a higher standard of living” HOW DOES EDUCATION  HIGHER STANDARD OF LIVING??) FE- faulty/wrong assumption (e.g. “the poor don’t try to get out of poverty because they are so used to being poor”) XP- not persuasive UA- statement is too absolute Slippery Slope- when you put all your premises together, the probability of your conclusion is low (less than 80%)

Paper 1 Tip: Balance (N) Your 4 th body para. should present a counter- argument/limitation/opposing point of view to your stand. (O) You must show why this counter- argument/limitation/opposing point of view does not work; that the reader should still believe your stand! -If you don’t do (O), you are likely to fail, because you would ne contradicting your own stand!

Paper 1 Tip: Conclusion (P) Summarise all your arguments so far and restate your stand. (Q) Do not rush your conclusion; take the time to present all your points again CLEARLY. (R) You can end your conclusion with a personal opinion/feeling or even a quote. Just make sure it is relevant to the topic.

Paper 2 Tip: General Advice (S) Before reading the passages, take a quick look at all the SAQs and the Summary Question. (T) Always read the question very carefully.

Paper 2 Tip: Summary (U) Read the question very carefully and pick out the main points/ideas that answer the question. (V) Aim to paraphrase just of these main points/ideas. BUT DO A VERY GOOD PARAPHRASING JOB.

Final Tips (W) For students who are weak in language, keep your sentences short to avoid sentence structure mistakes. Language-weak students should also try their best to make sure their arguments/reasoning as good as possible; this way, they may even do better than language-strong students! (X) Always save the last 5-10 minutes of your time to check your work! Simply by doing so, you can cut out careless grammatical mistakes, thereby adding 2-3 marks to the Language Component! Do you want an extra 2-3 marks? Then check your work! (Z) Always remember that exam results are not everything. As long as you try your best, you will be learning something valuable. Do your best. Everything else is not important! DON’T STRESS; IT’S JUST A TEST!