I'm from RJC, not RI(JC)!!!
lol... i'm real gald rgs hasnt joined in. it would have been really hard to merge all 3 schools currently anyways. one is in the north, the other in the south... but really rgs is way too different from the to be merged, from rj especially, since i ahem did not attend lessons at ri b4. totally diff uniform and sch badge, diff sch song (yes rgs has a sch SONG NOT an ANTHEM) and a really diff education system from rjc. seamless through train program? lol. it really wasnt that way during my time - which was just a year ago. topics that were covered in rg were completely retaught in rj. this is unlike nj whereby they teach the ip and non-ip students seperately and thus make it more seamless for the ip students (however it created a huge ip vs non-ip divide). a truly INTEGRATED program? i think its not possible... teaching styles have to change from a project based, hands on learning, to one that is more on drilling exam techniques, disecting/following the syllabus word for word... you name it... not to say that rjc down right sux, though i do not approve of their style of education, its just that the reality is such that they need to prepare students for this monster known as the GCE A lvls, and they only have a measily 1.5 years++ to do so. All that hype abt the 6 year program and so on, but still, Reality Hits. i wish rjc could have done things differently, but they chose those methods to prepare their students, and they do have their success stories to be proud of... that's just the way things are, nothing can suit everybody and sometimes u just end up being those that arent suited for somehting
for all those currently in rg/rj (well maybe it'll help those in ri too), here's some differences in their education system from what i have experienced... things are constantly changing of cos, but heres some word of advice i can give (*wonders if yinyi's friends still read my blog, else this will just help no one i guess*)
answering techniques: rgs does stress on it, esp in upper sec bio, but it becomes especially impt in rj/for As - use KEYWORDS. they are called KEYwords cos w/o those KEYwords, the door to marks for that qn wont open (i.e. u get zero)
in rgs, always elaborate, no elaboration = low/no marks.
come rj? just answer the qn. and by that, i mean JUST ANSWER THE QN!
e.g. :
Qn: Do you like to eat apples?
Answer needed in rgs: Yes, i love to eat apples because they are crucnhy, have a lot of vitamins, and are good for your health etc etc
RJ: Yes.
see the difference?
writing anymore than wat the qn requires of you means that you are just WASTING your time, and time management is very important in exams, just as the promotional exams, premlimenary exams, and A lvls.
teaching/learning methods
rgs: as long as you are willing to learn, they will teach as much as they can. (how much they CAN teach varies greatly from teacher to teacher, but generally they are all very nice and helpful. well. Generally that is... -.-''' there are always exceptions.) and even if there seems to be more exceptions than the norm we will still call them exceptions ok?
rj: anything out of the syllabus = dont teach or dont know
i found learning a lot more fun in rg... i was really struggling to maintain my interest in rj. well my advice is: try to find out wat you like... e.g. whether you like arts more, or sci that kinda thing. then stick with it and ENJOY the subject as much as you can in rgs. learning is supposed to be FUN, esp in rg. learn to love the subject and it will help u pass that 2 years. read as much as you can, there is NO SYLLABUS, EVER! read widely, build up your interest in rgs, better still read the A lvl syllabus ahead so that next time you have at least an inkling of wat they are teaching and it'll make things easier for you. of cos that !#$@#$@ A lvl monster would limit most of us from reading much extra stuff in jc, but try to keep the flames and passion for the 'love' of ur life burning. its a great dismay when someone comes and put out the flames like they did to mine... nvrmind i shant talk abt such sad things now. but i know a lot of ppl who cant figure out what they like... either they like everything or they hate everything. sry i dont have much advice on what to do if u are those sort of ppl, but try to feel which subject you like. are you happier when reading abt a particular subject? do you enjoy doing the hw from a particular sub better? or do you enjoy a particular lesson more?*** identify wat u like more as early as possible (just like how u identified wat NOT to take in sec 3)... of cos tastes and preferences changes, but still it makes things easier when u are liking smthing, so why not take the easy way out?
***its a bit misleading at times, cos teacher influence whether a lesson is enjoyable or not. teachers can make you love the subject to death, yet they can also change the love of your life into your most hated subject... beware of the 'evil' teachers lol...
ok. i think i rambled a lot, now for something more useful: rgs goes by the modular system. learn a few topics, test, and forget abt the topics FOREVER...! (or is it really FOREVER???) when test comes, we always ask: sa or fa? (summative or formative accessment?) summative? must study!!! formative? aiya heck lah, go do hw/study for SAs
in rjc, difference no.:
1) topics taught MUST be remembered till the end of jc2 (or die a horrible death, u choose)
2) topics that you learn from sec sch (and hapily forgot) are needed in jc! OUCH! e.g. math! remember ur differenciation, intergration, indices, log etc etc? ALL needed in jc also! unless u dont take math lah!
e.g. 2 for those taking bio: sec 4 (at least i did) learn mitosis and meiosis, than happily forgot 95% of it? heh, those 2 topics in the A lvl syllabus sia, hope u didnt throw away ur rgs notes!
3) SA/FA??? eh? ????? all tests are counted leh, dont think its a formative and dun study for ur common test!
as the pionior batch of choo choo train ppl, we (as a batch) made the following mistakes (evident from our 1st common test):
1) think/treat it as FA, never study - die loh
2) think its not very important, dont leave enough time to study, end up cannot finish studying - also die loh
3) study! but then study and forget! cos of brain capacity only got enough space of 3 months worth of work, not half a year! OUCH! study last few topics, then forget the 1st few topics...
4) as term progress, learn one topic and forget the previous, overwhelmed by the amt of things that need to remember in common test....
then of cos a lot of us cant answer qns properly - no exam technique...*we can crap a report out of thin air, make high class presentations w/o scripts, and finish a fabulous, shiny looking power point complete with graphics, animation, sound effects and not have a single bullet point/textbox even 1 pixie out of line in 1hr but wat???? u are asking us to answer qns??? wat the @#$%#$%* you get what i mean... plus a lot of us are just not very used to mugging.
okok, that's as much as i can tink of now...
conclusions: rgs is great, we all complained abt pts (performance tasks) but i remember what i did in my pts, and not wat i mugged for exams. plus, no matter wat it was still more fun than mugging! and hey, it was cool too (some cool pts i did: 1) make fermented food, my grp made sour doughbread, others made yougert, kim chi etc. 2) make a toy using a motor - huge headache, mine was down right lousy, but some of my class/sch mates made cool looking toys that WORKED 3) make an electrophoresis kit and come up with adverts, was fun, rushed like siao but still.... 4) made perfumes in RS. extracted our own essential oil from spices - 1st grp ever to do that in rgs. downright COOL. 5) make a model on DNA packaging 6) 7) 8) lol a million and one things we did that brings back great memories...)
rgs really gave me a lot of opportunities. the chance to make presentations and become a slightly less shy, and slightly better speaker, the chance to hold a leadership position (who knew such a shy person like me would ever hold any leadership position???) a chance to challenge myself intellectually, a chance to shine, a chance to enjoy the subjects i really love (e.g. in RS, sec 4 options etc).... etc... sec sch life is the best ever, i wished things will never change when i was in sec 4, and now i still wish i'm in sec 4... really, rgs has a lot of resources that we take for granted during our stay there. we made crepes and lansangna whereas ppl from other schs only made boring stuff like fried rice and wat not... we got centrifudges, pcr machines, autoclave machines, uv-vis spectrometer, incubators, tons of micropipettes etc etc... really fantastic lab facillities if you ask me. personally i didnt see a single micropipette in rj (and the burette in rj dont have a tap, its the ultra old fasion type that uses a clip!) let alone the other high tech stuff. probably rj has them, but i didnt even get to see (let alone use) them. our library and comp labs are very well equiped with loads of computers and iBooks omg! (in rj its hard to even find a comp to use) and we have comps in every classroom, and a very cool CLCLC (Cammee Lim Cyber Learning Center) lol.
rgs prepares us more for life skills rather than exams, and i loved that
rj aint too bad lah, they did teach us a lot and tried their best to prepare us for the As. we learnt a lot - u'll appreciate it in uni, still i wish things could be done differently. maybe when they get rid of A lvls lol, which is unlikely to happen i guess... oh wells...
i <3 rgs!
