What are the exact terms of the security deposit? Please refer to the following for the exact terms of our policy: 1) The security deposit will be used to cover the last four lessons upon withdrawal or graduation. 2) The security deposit will not be forfeited. 3) This means that students can still attend lessons until the security deposit is fully utilised. 4) Kindly note that all fees, including the deposit, are strictly non-refundable, except in the event of a change of tutor or the discontinuation of the GP lessons by us. What happens if I miss classes? 1) You [...]

If you are unable to attend the lesson for the week, you can either attend another lesson in the same week or watch the recording. Any work that you submit will still be marked. You can also contact Mr Liau directly if you have any questions about the material that is covered in the recording.

Let’s be real. If there were truly some secret formula to instant success, schools would have taught it by now and you should have already heard about it. Instead, the key to our success lies in our use of the age-old Socratic method. Through the painstaking process of asking and answering questions, we push our students to think for themselves and justify their ideas. The studies support this. Our experience supports this. And our students’ results speak for themselves.

In 2013, Cambridge examiners explicitly pointed out that GP is not a test of general knowledge. Students who receive poor grades despite their extensive use of examples should note that no amount of facts and statistics can make up for a poorly-developed argument. The General Paper subject is primarily about the arguments. Cambridge examiners have made that abundantly clear. Students must argue, reason and persuade, not flood the examiner with details and lengthy descriptions. This is the trickiest part about GP. Memorising model essays will not work. Neither will copying and pasting canned arguments. Because every question is different, every [...]

Arguments are central to all components of the GP paper. Paper 1 requires students to write an argumentative essay within 90 minutes. Paper 2 requires students to answer short questions about an argumentative essay (the passage), summarise the author’s arguments, and respond to them through the application question. Ultimately, GP is all about arguments.

Memorising facts and statistics without understanding their context or knowing how to use them is actually worse than useless. It can be harmful because it instils a false sense of confidence. A student may think he is impressing the examiner when in fact he is merely frustrating him. It is therefore important to build a solid conceptual framework first before students jump into the examples. To accomplish that, we often start with in in-depth discussions of pertinent case studies. Through these discussions, students may ask questions, clarify doubts and attempt to articulate their own understanding of the subject. In addition [...]

Contrary to popular belief, GP is not just an English subject for JC students. Content matters. Cambridge examiners have made this abundantly clear. They award low grades to students who exhibit a poor understanding of the subject and fail to substantiate their arguments with robust evidence. Those who cannot address differing viewpoints fare even worse. They receive failing grades because they are “unable to meet the basic requirement of this paper”. (Examiner Report, 2013) It’s therefore no surprise that students score poorly when their scripts are filled with comments like: “lacks balance”, “weak argument” and “poor evidence”. No matter how [...]

Every lesson, we share deep insights on two or three major developments in the world to help students understand what they are reading in the news. We also discuss how students can use these insights in their essays. Ultimately, the goal of these discussions is to expose students to different viewpoints, provide them with mental tools to analyse the news, and encourage them to take an interest in current affairs.  

We often see students struggle with essay writing but simply cannot figure out why. In most cases, the answer is quite simple: they have nothing meaningful to say. The first thing we like to tell students is to figure out what they want to say, then say it as simply as possible. Students are discouraged from blindly emulating the flowery prose of their more proficient peers. Instead, they should seek to develop an in-depth understanding of the topic and express their own views clearly and concisely. Our in-class discussions and essay planning exercises play a vital role here. Students will [...]

Lessons consist of a combination of short mini-lectures, in-class discussions, interactive exercises, exam practices, and a variety of activities that are designed to help students develop the following skills: critical reading and understanding, critical writing and expression, argumentation and evaluation, and finally, interdisciplinary thinking. As Cambridge's focus has shifted away from rote learning, students who focus on mindless practices and drills tend to perform poorly for the A Level exams (often in spite of good scores in school). To tackle this, we place heavy emphasis on the aforementionaed skills and achieve the development of these skills through a combination of [...]