GP Tips/Resources 💯 ZAscension

Sharing this channel again for news, very helpful to address last minute content gaps, or find SG Examples for AQ! Over 500+ pieces of news all compiled by me :)

https://t.me/GPNewsZA

For all the lessons, you will be able to consult me personally even if you are going for the recordings!

Skills classes would also include extra practice + feedback/marking :)

Final updates on all available crash course lessons:

1️⃣ Content Crash Course (7 lessons, 2h30m each)

Completed = Recorded lessons
Lessons 1-5 (for Arts, Media, Indv & Values, Sci & Tech)

Upcoming = Live Zoom lessons
Lesson 6 (Wed 7.15pm): Politics + AQ Examples
Lesson 7 (Sat 10am): Politics + AQ Examples + A Level predictions
This is also the lesson where I will discuss insights from Prelims 2024 + explain my A Level predictions, so do join if you can!

2️⃣ Skills Crash Course (2 lessons, 3 hours each)

Completed = Recorded lessons
Essay Skills (10 skills including arguments, examples, personal voice, question analysis and more)

Compre Skills (10 skills across all sections + passage analysis and more)

Would like to add the recommended time for each section:

Passage Analysis: 10-15m
SAQ: 25-30m
Sum: 15-20m
AQ: 30-35m

Importantly, you shouldn't skip reading the passage and only read while attempting SAQ. This is a very fatal mistake because you will get an incomplete understanding of what's going on. Usually different paragraphs relate to one another. A holistic understanding is needed to accurately identify points, paraphrase and infer ideas. And SAQ answers very often draw from a few lines before and after. Without contextual understanding from other parts, our answers are likely inaccurate. So if you have been struggling with SAQ, this could be a big factor!

General Tip: What's the priority for revision right now?

For COMPRE:

1. Identify your most common mistakes or which section you struggle with. Look through the Prelim paper + past tests/practices. This determines what you will practice more of. Even within SAQ, drill down into which specific question type you struggle with

2. For SAQ practices, work on other school's prelims. More importantly, you must study the answers. Study = analyse why the answer is as such. How did it fit the question type? How was paraphrasing/inference done? How did it make use of the passage's ideas? What's the length of answers for a 1/2/3 marks question? I used this as a student and I discovered tremendous insights about SAQ from this process!!

3. For Summary, check whether you can consistely identify 14 points at least. If yes, then is it a paraphrasing issue? For AQ, is it a content issue or time management? Content = start looking at SG examples/news. Time = check which section exceeds the time limit and practice that

General Tip: What's the priority for revision right now?

For ESSAY:

1. Acquire + familiarise with content relating to the at least 3 of the major themes that I have shared. This gives us the best chance to have at least 1 question that we can answer. To do this, the easiest way is of course looking at specific arguments and examples from model essays. Alternatively, you can use AI to generate ideas for some of the most important questions in a Theme. Again, you may refer to my recent Prelim Analysis to understand trends

2. Start doing essay plans for many many essay questions, ideally 3-4 per day from now till the A Levels. This has significant benefits: helps us be confident in applying content + practice tweaking content to fit requirements of different questions + increase our exposure to question variations (= we are less likely caught off guard in the exam!)

3. For questions you struggle with, don't hesitate to research or use AI to generate points. This adds to your content knowledge too 😁

Just wanted to share a quick FAQ I get every year - Can I buy your essays?

Unfortunately nope because it wouldn't be helpful to access the notes without lessons. Students tend to memorise essays and copy paste the entire thing but A Level questions are difficult and require what I call Tweaking.

Tweaking = Adapt arguments to fit a new question. This Tweaking skill cannot be learned just by reading my notes, you need to hear my explanation and also learn some key essay skills.

In fact, we really shouldn't try and buy essays/notes from anywhere, not just me. It's just not helpful at all 😅 Many private candidates that join our lessons always share with me that's what they did previously and they didn't score well and had to then retake :(

I realised that the legend for the colours are not on phone. It's in the header of every page, visible only on the computer, so please access this using your computers :)

Hello everyone, sharing the colour coded version of Prelims 2024, where questions are organised by schools but I have labelled everything to indicate which Themes they are from, to help you more efficiently work on Themes you specialise in + recognise how some questions are linked to specific themes or multiple themes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xmSJnA13SX3dxXuy_zoZN0r6F4lCpLDXPVZbh1zETyM/edit?usp=sharing

To sign up:
https://wa.me/6597223187
or T.me/GPMrZach

We will also be working on in-class practices and you will get individualised and Immediate feedback from me 😁

Again, if you can't join us for the live Zoom lesson, you may always opt for the recordings. You may still share you work with me personally to receive feedback :)

I do run an exclusive online Skills Crash Course every year around this time, for only one round, over 2 lessons of 3 hours each.

Here are the details,
Lesson 1 - Essay Skills (14/10 7.15pm):
1. Structure and Approach
2. Question Analysis
3. Question Modifiers
4. FLOW (Logic in essay writing)
5. FLOW and PEEL + Topic Sentences
6. Types of Examples
7. Introduction
8. Personal Voice and Persuasion
9. Counter Arguments
10. Planning and Tweaking

Lesson 2 - Compre Skills (19/10 9am):
1. Structure and Approach
2. Passage Analysis
3. SAQ Analysis and Tips
4. SAQ Literal
5. SAQ Inference
6. SAQ Language
7. SAQ Comparison
8. Summary
9. AQ Structure and Evaluation
10. AQ FLOW

Once again, Skills Crash Course will happen next week on Mon and Sat. If you feel like you are inconsistent with your GP grades, or have no clue how to approach a question, this will be very helpful because it can immediately transform the way you think about GP 😄

Hello everyone, after many many hours and a lot of sleepless nights, I'm happy to finally share the 2024 Prelim Analysis :)

This is a very powerful resource and you can benefit in many ways.

1. Familiarise with the major themes
2. Understand the question trends
3. Practice using these questions
4. Differentiate between easier standard questions more difficult ones, while knowing exactly what makes them difficult and why you may need to avoid these

I understand some of us can feel lost and overwhelmed when reading these and finding that we are still not confident in answering many questions. This is why I would like to assure you again that you may reach out to join the crash course! I have designed it in a way where crash course = you can answer ALL the standard questions with ease = 90% of possible questions :) These standard questions have been marked out in the article too!

Enjoy the 2024 Prelim analysis and please take time to process because there's a lot going on 😃 #Article

Will release the Prelim Analysis by Wed :) A bit of a delay because I'm trying to write as many insights as I can, so that it's very helpful for us. Also spending time to categorise every single question and mark out the more challenging ones 😁

So stay tuned for that!

If you don't have time to attend the 7 lessons content crash course, or feel like you're already quite confident for Content, then do consider this. It will be a huge boost for sure 🥳

Importantly, for both the Essay and Compre lessons, we will have ample time for in-class practices where you will work on questions that I have specially curated, apply the skills we have learned, and receive immediate and individual feedback from me 😃

Skills are super important in ensuring consistency across different papers, and for navigating the very dynamic and challenging question types that the A Level throws at us!

Many of you have been asking if we have Skills lessons or lessons that are more focused on Compre. Don't worry, I got you covered 😁 I do run exclusive Skills Crash Course every year around this time, for only one round, over 2 lessons of 3 hours each.

Here are the details,
Lesson 1 - Essay Skills (14/10 7.15pm):
1. Structure and Approach
2. Question Analysis
3. Question Modifiers
4. FLOW (Logic in essay writing)
5. FLOW and PEEL + Topic Sentences
6. Types of Examples
7. Introduction
8. Personal Voice and Persuasion
9. Counter Arguments
10. Planning and Tweaking

Lesson 2 - Compre Skills (19/10 9am):
1. Structure and Approach
2. Passage Analysis
3. SAQ Analysis and Tips
4. SAQ Literal
5. SAQ Inference
6. SAQ Language
7. SAQ Comparison
8. Summary
9. AQ Structure and Evaluation
10. AQ FLOW

This is a very good illustration of why it's okay to learn new Themes from the crash course even if you haven't done it before! Nadia joined us for only 7 lessons in round 1, but she went on to aptly apply what we have discussed 🤩

Even your first attempt could be really good because you will be able to connect with the ideas I'm sharing!! (Arts is super fun as a Theme, I promise 😊)

Also, the class is structured to deliver arguments that you can directly use for many questions. So don't worry! Arts is one of the top themes, so come on down and join us tomorrow 😁

Lesson 2 will still be on Arts and Media