• Q&A

    LET'S CLEAR ANY DOUBTS UP

  • CLASS ARRANGEMENT & POLICY

  • If I am not able to come for the class as scheduled, what should I do?

    Each session is carefully arranged and scheduled with our students. Because of this, it is highly advised that shall there be any need of change or cancellation of our session, owing to ad-hoc activities, sickness, or any other reasonable ground, please inform us at least ONE day in advance. This is so that we can re-arrange for a make-up session correspondingly without causing impact on our existing class schedule. We do not accept absences at short notice, and will continue to count it as a normal session.

     

    How to settle the payment for tuition fee?

    We will issue a report to every one of our students/parents at the end of every month via WhatsApp. The report is personalized for each student, and includes the class date, duration, topics covered, and our in-class progress. Upon confirmation, you can settle the tuition fee through online bank transfer/cheque/cash as preferred.

     

    Can I refer or invite my friends to join with me for classes?

    Sure! We really do appreciate that. If you find our class useful and helpful, and your friends happen to need help for their Science, Mathematics, or Chinese, please feel free to refer and introduce them to us. It's always better to learn together than by yourself!

     

  • EXAM BOARD / SUBJECT CHOICES / EXAM PREP

  • How should I prepare for my IA and EE?

    To get a high grade for your IA and EE, the most important component is your research question. If you have an interesting and engaging topic that brings in value and insight from the investigation. You are half successful already. Because everyone will pretty much follow the standard format and suggested outline given from their school teacher to write their IA and EE. Thus content-wise and structure-wise everyone's work will be likely similar. Hence to distinguish yourself from the crowd, you should start early to brainstorm a good topic to work on. Too general or commonly chosen topics are not advised and hard to secure you a top grade.

     

    How to get a 7 for my IA?

    Two things you must pay very special attention to in order to receive a top grade for your IA. First, your relationship with your school teacher. Keep a good bonding and impression with your teacher. Because he or she will be the one who gives you the final grade on your work. If he or she doesn't like you, you will be having a hard time whether it's on drafting the report or conducting the experiment, no matter how much effort you have put in. So make sure you maintain a good relation with your school teacher. Secondly, the flow of your IA. As answered in the above question, everyone will be very likely following the same layout and format to draft their IA. Thus put more time on how you present the whole idea to your teacher in a smooth and consistent flow. Give them an impression that you did spend considerable amount of time on the investigation - how it was derived or inspired to initiate this research, what is the implication and value that can bring to the audience form this investigation, how you have applied what you have learnt to conduct the experiment to verify your hypothesis. With these two points well done, you will be not further from getting a top grade for your IA.

     

    Any examples or reference for my IA topic?

    Of course, we have a long list of it, some selected from our past IB students, and some selected from the internet in which we think those are a good reference to brainstorm your research question. As we said, a good topic brings you half success already. You can check them out here in this page. But please be reminded not to attempt any plagiarism and it is a serious academic misconduct. These topics aim to give you a better picture of what direction you might want to work or further investigate for your IA and EE.

     

    Should I do GCE A-level or IBDP?

    It is a tough choice, whether advancing to GCE A-level or IBDP after the completion of your IGCSE or IBMYP program. We would suggest considering two key factors to decide which curriculum will suit you more. The two main differences between IBDP and GCE A-level - firstly, TOK, IA and EE. In GCE A-level curriculum, it is assessed solely through exam papers. But for IBDP, apart from the paper assessment, you have to work on projects, research papers and individual investigation on a chosen topic in which these will also be part of your grading i.e. exam paper together with paper works. If you are a person that doesn't enjoy much writing reports or conducting research, GCE A-level will fit you better. Secondly, subject choice. IBDP requires you to choose your subjects at least one from each category - Science, Humanities , Language and Literature. You cannot choose subjects all from the same category. They emphasize more on well-rounded studies rather specifying in only a particular domain. However, GCE A-level offers a wider range of flexibility where you can choose the subjects you prefer with no restriction or limitations, for example, studying pure Science (Physics, Chemistry and Biology) with no Economics or History for your A-levels. (But bear in mind it also depends on if your GCE schools offer the related options).

     

    GCE A-level or IB which one got more topics to study?

    In terms of the curriculum content like the total number of chapters, for Chemistry, and Biology, IBDP and GCE A-level requires pretty much the same. For Physics, IBDP will have a more in-depth study on each of the topics comparing to the GCE A-level curriculum. For Mathematics, IBDP HL Maths would have double amount of topics of GCE A-level Maths, whereas SL Maths would be pretty much equivalent to it.

     

    IBDP or GCE A-level exam papers more difficult?

    Great question. I would say IB's exam papers are in generally "easier" than the GCE A-level paper, but not really like to a great extent. For IB question papers, they always follow the same trend, the same pattern, and the same approach to assess your understanding for a given topic. But for GCE, they change the questions slightly a bit every year with a new style of question and case studies where it is hard to predict the trend. However, if you complete 3 years of IB past papers, you will probably be able to spot out and recognize the pattern already knowing and expecting what they will ask in your upcoming paper.

     

    Should I choose HL or SL Chemistry?

    If you are planning to study Medicine, Pharmacy or Vet Medicine, you have to stick with HL Chemistry since this is a basic requirement for most of the universities offering the aforementioned programs. In general, I would recommend students to take HL Chemistry. The main reason behind is that the topics in HL is more like an extension of what you have already learnt in SL, like going a little further in terms of the concepts. To illustrate this, it is just like learning addition, subtraction in SL, and learning multiplication and division in HL. There is like a continuation of what we covered in SL topics.

     

    Should I choose HL or SL Physics?

    If you are planning to study Engineering, Pure Physics or Computer Science, you have to stick with HL Physics, since this is a basic requirement for most of the universities offering the aforementioned programs. In addition, interestingly, particular universities might require students to take minimum Physics SL for Vey Medicine or Physiotherapy. SL Physics is in general easy to handle given most of the chapters are already covered in your IGCSE or IBMYP curriculum. Thus usually students can pick up quickly after the IB curriculum starts. HL Physics is another whole new level in which most of additional units in HL are quite abstract and complex, such as Fields and Electromagnetism. Students can be a bit struggling while studying these chapters.

     

    Should I choose HL or SL Biology?

    If you are planning to study Psychology, Physiotherapy Sport Science, Vet Medicine or Nursing, you have to stick with HL Biology, since this is a basic requirement for most of the universities offering the aforementioned programs. There are total 11 topics in the whole curriculum - topic 1 to 6 are SLs, 7 to 11 are HLs. The SL section is pretty straight forward, and overlaps with the content in IGCSE/IBMYP curriculum. It is more like an extension of the topics we learnt in the previous years. The amount of content in HL sections is like double, or even to triple of the SL section where we will further study the topics in depth with more principles and theories involved.

     

    Should I choose Chinese Lang A or Lang B?

    IBDP Chinese Language A is for students who want to get dual language IB diploma, or study humanities, law at university. Students who are very strong in Chinese Literature are recommended to choose IB Language A. And you will spend much of the time to do assignments and projects during 2 years IB program. And for Chinese Language B, it is more suitable for those who will study subjects such as science and medicine at universities. Since IB Chinese A requires much time to prepare, it is wise to choose Language B. However, recently more and more Chinese native speakers choose IB Language B as their exam subject, the program becomes very competitive and even harder to get 7. The final exam and assignments are much easier compared with IB Language A.

     

    What are UKCAT and BMAT?

    UKCAT stands for United Kingdom Clinical Aptitude Test, and BMAT stands for Bio-Medical Admission Test. Both tests are required for students who are interested to apply for medical schools both in local and overseas universities. UKCAT focus more on candidates’ aptitude based on their verbal, logic and quantitative reasoning. BMAT assesses students understanding on Science, including Chemistry, Biology, Physics and Mathematics, together with an argumentative essay paper. UKCAT is required for most of the UK med schools. BMAT is required for Oxford, Cambridge or Imperial Med schools, and those in US and Canada.

     

    Shall I sit for UKCAT or BMAT?

    If you are applying for Medical schools in UK, Australia, US, Canada, etc., it is mostly compulsory for candidates to submit their application with their UKCAT or BMAT results. Some med schools take the results to a large extent for consideration. For med schools in Hong Kong, it is optional to sit for the test. We do have plenty of our students receiving admission offer from local universities without UKCAT and BMAT. Again, it is well-known that local med schools are highly competitive. Thus it is advisable to give a shot sitting the exam – if you do it well, submit it, and if not, keep it and no one knows! If you are targeting Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial Med School in UK, or Med schools in the States or Canada, you should sit for BMAT. If you are aiming for general med schools in UK, or here in Hong Kong, you shall go for UKCAT. Med schools in Australia have their own specific requirements (i.e. it varies from school to schools).

     

    Minimum requirement for UKCAT for Medicine?

    Good question! Bear in mind that the scores from UKCAT doesn’t reflect your academic capability. It is an aptitude test assessing your abstract, quantitative and logic reasoning. On average, students usually have a score of 2400 to 3200 out of 3600, based on our past students who received offer from medical schools, most of their results are at least above 2500.

     

  • STILL HAVE QUESTIONS?

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