KiasuParents - Parenting in Singapore

My child would like to choose 2 humantities for sec 2 streaming this year. Anyone has experience in choosing pure Geo and combined humantities (ss+history) for your child? Is it difficult to study pure geography?

Appreciate your advice.

Welcome to the world of humanities!

First of all, we use CORE instead of Pure for humanity subjects. I have taken Core History and elective Lit (aka Combined Humanities SS+Literature) for my O levels and History for my A levels!

Humanities (Geo, Lit, Hist) are a NO FAIL subjects, especially for Lit and History. Very easy to pass, takes lots of effort to score distinction. It helps with your child is good at elaboration, explanation and evaluation.

At GCE O level, humanities is at its baby step. Things are pretty easy to understand, examinations usually are much longer than needed and Cambridge markers (esp for Lit) are much more generous than our school teachers.

No worries about humanities =) so long your child do not find it "dry" or "boring".

Examinations are much longer than needed? Are you kidding me? I'm not sure about full geography, but my SS/GE is killing me! We only have 20 minutes to write an essay for SS! GE is still not that bad, but it's still a rush!

I always had more than enough time for SS, History and Literature in O levels haha A levels will be a rush but manageable =)

Pure/CORE Geography might be easier to score as compared to combined hum/Geo Elective.

Pure geography in my time is make up of MCQs and short structured questions. Elective geography have essays questions.

Hi. I was a student from Dunman High who took the O levels last year ( I opted the O levels route despite given the choice of the IP route). I have chosen the rather 'very humanities' route -- core history, core geography and SS+lit elec. I guess it's pretty much ur child's interest if he wants to do well. The difference between elective and non elective is the amount of topics covered i guess. For exam core history in Os cover SEA and 20th century world history, while history elec covers just the 20th century world history.

knightedric wrote:Hi. I was a student from Dunman High who took the O levels last year ( I opted the O levels route despite given the choice of the IP route). I have chosen the rather 'very humanities' route -- core history, core geography and SS+lit elec. I guess it's pretty much ur child's interest if he wants to do well. The difference between elective and non elective is the amount of topics covered i guess. For exam core history in Os cover SEA and 20th century world history, while history elec covers just the 20th century world history.

Hi knightedric, why did you decide to take the O level route instead of IP?

Hi,

Let's be practical on a student's point of view. My results in sec 1 and sec 2 are not exactly fantastic as I never ever touch my textbook before, neither do I listen to class in school. I was too immersed in computer games, thus my GPA in a sense flunked, as I scored only approximately 2.73 for my GPA, which in a sense is not very good as for most of us is still considered dangerous even though the GPA to qualify for IP from year 3 onwards is 2.0/2.4. I decided not to take the risk, as what I heard from my seniors is this : If you struggle in Year 2 and decide to take IP in Year 3, if your results are poor, you would drop to the O levels program, which makes no sense in going to IP in the first place as we do Language Arts in IP instead of English, meaning, we have some catching up to do if we transfer to O levels class this way. If you score badly in your year 4 promos to Senior High (which is our JC classes), and did not manage to get to Senior High, and if you fail the second promos you would have in dec, you would get transferred to the Sec 4 class of next year (means you are 17 years old when you take your Os). If you STILL struggle but can barely reach Senior High, but do miserably in Year 5, too bad, you either retain in year 5, or you choose to go other JCs/poly. In my case, I was worried I wouldn't do well. Also, I want to have a 'O' level certificate, in a sense it gives me the sense of security. If I score badly for 'A's (if I had chosen to go JC at that point of time), I would have Os as some sort of insurance, not PSLE certificate which is rather useless in today's society. Today, I graduated from Dunman High and is now a proud student of Nanyang Polytechnic. The lecturers there made me change my perception of poly from a slacking school, to a school that develops teenagers like us into adults capable of working in society. I never ever regret taking this route, as the flexible timetable schedule of polytechnics means I have more time to manage my tuition coordination service, which I find it a very good experience.