Evaluation of Print/Non-Print Material (EOM) being rejected? Here's how to solve!

Hi, guys, particularly current J1s!!! With the Written Report (WR) ongoing and the submission of the PI, generation of ideas become harder, right? Common questions I heard:

"How to do PW EOM?"
"EOM rejected again!(sigh)"
"I want to give up on EOM..."

 For all of my GPF documents (PI, EOM and I&R), I had received great feedback from both my teachers last year. So I would like to share how to make sure that your EOM submits innovative ideas in the next draft, and hopefully before the deadline!

The EoM is the most important document determining your A&E score for GPF. The bulk of the consideration of A&E is dependent on the evaluation of usefulness in the EoM. Once this aspect is done properly, you could easily pave the way for an A for PW!!!

  So, the main focus of EoM is:
1. A good Evaluation of Usefulness
2. A good Idea to solve the problem
3. Analysis of the effectiveness of the problem

1. Document
  PLEASE!!! Pick a relevant document. The document should exemplify one of the following:

• Related to the problem described by the WR
• Resolution used a method similar to your GI (in this case, you are 'working backwards'.
• A concept that inspires you to generate an idea.

2. Application Area
  With reference to the Research Article, give an idea that is inspired by the research article.
Go straight to the point! Do not use too many words linking the Research Article to the GI. Each of the 600 words is precious and may determine your credit for the EoM.

The idea must be INSIGHTFUL and/or INNOVATIVE. The definition of these two terms differs from teacher to teacher. Therefore, you must find out from your PW tutor of their stand of these two terms, as they WILL be the ones marking the GPF (PI, EoM, I&R).
Generally, the criterion is as follow:
INSIGHTFUL: An idea that shows an alternative perception towards the problem faced OR idea is specially catered to people of that particular society.
INNOVATIVE: An idea that has never been seen before OR implemented before.

To aid in the crafting of GI, check if your GI meets these criteria to be INSIGHTFUL AND INNOVATIVE:
1. Has your GI been implemented before in other societies?
2. Given the situation of society based on the problem, can your idea still be implemented? (Feasibility)
3. In the environment that the idea is been implemented in, are there enough equipment and personnel available to ensure that the events go smoothly? (Manageability)
4. Does the idea match the current trend (e.g. habits and living hood) of the society? (Insightful)
5. Does the idea show your knowledge of the society and information that is striking and commonly not emphasised in the society? (Insightful)

  If your idea passes in all these questions, then you have an Exceeding Expectation (EE) GI!

NOTE: Do remember about the need to evaluate your idea at the end to show it effectiveness. Use factors such as feasibility and manageability to boost the A&E marks to EE!)

Analysis and Evaluation (A&E)

This is very important for EoM. A single fallacious reasoning in the evaluation of the Research Article could ruin your EoM credit for the entire GPF. Spend about 150-250 words for this. Please maximise your word count and aim for the EE band. You could consider analysing the effectiveness of the document by considering the following:
1. Cross Referencing with other research articles
2. Objectiveness (Scope and Depth of analysis by the article writer(s))
3. Detection of biasedness
4. Modernity (Is it recent or old? The more recent, the more useful)

Extra Notes:
  1.You can "work backwards". You can come out with a smashing GI first and then use the topic discussed in the Application Area to find a suitable Case Study.
  2. If you need any more help regarding EoM, or just need more information on how to score for PW, just contact me. I can also help to look through your EoM to see where it stands (as I have done PW before). The conversations are private and none of your PW material will be leaked out to others, as asked by some people who contacted me!

  All the best for PW! Keep on pushing and preserve. Do not stop until you submit the I&R (this one is for a later date 🌝)

And my PW grade is...

At 12.05pm, my classmates and I advanced to the school hall to get our Long awaited PW results... It is only ten more minutes until I finally know my results. Upon reaching the hall, we were one of the first to reach there and camp there for the countdown to result release.

At 12.15pm, after numerous prevention by the Teachers from entering the hall, we were finally given the permission to enter and check our results. One of my Friends ran to her Results and exclaimed of an A! I slowly advanced to my notice board and through careful observation, my final grade was...

A!!!

I immediately exclaimed for joy! Next step is to check my team mates' results. Squeezing through the different s crowds in different notice board, I then found out that my team got....

4A, 1B!!!

Only one team member got B, though it was quite expected. This team member had little knowledge of the project and hence did badly in RTQ. When the question was to outline the purpose of the project, she gave reasons why the problem of our project exist or gave examples of instances of our project topic, which was not answering the question... Adding on to the team mate's lack of innovative ideas in GPF (PI, EOM, I&R), she was quite expected to get B. Though very unfortunate to get a 'straight A' team, I Guess that this PW. Preserving through the entire process and giving your best consistently.

For all those future PW candidates, these are some learning points to note:

1. Be consistent in the subject. Make constant improvement to yourself and your ability to work with others as that is what assessor are looking out for when assessing PW.

2. Be open to criticism. For me, I don't believe that there is anything called unconstructive criticism.

Every view has its usefulness, no matter how little. My team member who got B refused to listen to the comments of the Teachers and suffered the consequences. Criticism is the driving force of PW. Embrace it to get an A.

  For all those taking PW currently or in the future, good luck and be the best you can! I'll be happy to help if you ask...

Preliminary Idea (PI) being rejected? Here's how to solve the problem!

Hi guys, particularly current J1s!!! The PW cycle has just started for you guys and I know that some of you guys must be frustrated over your PI being rejected of ideas. IF you have the following thoughts now:

"How to do PW PI?"
"PI rejected again!(sigh)"
"I want to give up on PI...",
then this blogpost is just for you!

 For all of my GPF documents (PI, EOM and I&R), I had received great feedback from both my teachers last year. So I would like to share how to make sure that your PI submits innovative ideas in the next draft, and hopefully before the deadline!

  Technically the PI is the easiest document that you will be submitting in PW, as there is no source of restriction whatsoever! You can write about any possible topics, education, human rights, health, transportation, any possible thing you can think of. This is unlike other things like Evaluation of Material (EoM) (your second piece of GPF) where you need to be restricted to the WR topic.

  So, the main focus of PI is:
1. A good Case Study for inspiration
2. A good Idea to solve the problem

1.Case Study
  The Case Study requires you to give a short outline of the event that gives your inspiration for the project. Due to the word limit, keep the Case Study to these pointers:
1. Background Information of Case Study
2. Impacts
3. 2-3 Key Features and Evaluation for Application into your GI

  DO NOTE: Case Study need not be a success. You can use one that has a failure (and it is easier to find fault in a failed attempt) that you can mention that must be paid attention to when crafting your GI.

2. Application Area
  With references to your Case Study, give an idea to resolve a particular problem in a particular society.
The idea must be INSIGHTFUL and/or INNOVATIVE. The definition of these two terms differs from teacher to teacher. Therefore, you must find out from your PW tutor of their stand of these two terms, as they WILL be the ones marking the GPF (PI, EoM, I&R).
Generally, the criterion is as follow:
INSIGHTFUL: An idea that shows an alternative perception towards the problem faced OR idea is specially catered to people of that particular society.
INNOVATIVE: An idea that has never been seen before OR implemented before.

To aid in the crafting of GI, check if your GI meets these criteria to be INSIGHTFUL AND INNOVATIVE:
1. Has your GI been implemented before in other societies?
2. Given the situation of society based on the problem, can your idea still be implemented? (Feasibility)
3. In the environment that the idea is been implemented in, are there enough equipment and personnel available to ensure that the events go smoothly? (Manageability)
4. Does the idea match the current trend (e.g. habits and living hood) of the society? (Insightful)
5. Does the idea show your knowledge of the society and information that is striking and commonly not emphasised in the society? (Insightful)

  If your idea passes in all these questions, then you have an Exceeding Expectation (EE) GI!

NOTE: Do remember about the need to evaluate your idea at then end to show it effectiveness. Use factors such as feasibility and manageability to boost the A&E marks to EE!)

Extra Notes:
  1.You can "work backwards". You can come out with a smashing GI first and then use the topic discussed in the Application Area to find a suitable Case Study.
  2. If you need any more help regarding PI, or just need more information on how to score for PW, just contact me. I can also help to look through your PI to see where it stands (as I have done PW before). The conversations are private and none of your PW material will be leaked out to others, as asked by some people who contacted me!

  All the best for PW and may the games begin!

SSEF 2017: Message to authorities

Hi, I participated in SSEF 2017 with my project. However, I would like to share some observations that I had made that could suggest that the competition may have an error in the results.

  I have participated in several competitions with my project on Chemistry (Actual Code will not be revealed to maintain confidentiality. In all of these competitions, I have won the top awards. However, for SSEF, I had not even been awarded a single award.

  Later on in the Final Judging Round of SSEF, I have been judged by five judges with most of them reverting positive responses to me, just like the previous competitions. When I asked if they could provide any room for improvement to my poster or project, they said that they all could not provide any room for improvement as the entire project and analysis was already very impressive and 'exceeded their expectation of the capability of a JC student'. When the Prize Ceremony came for SSEF 2017, this project that had performed extremely well for other big national competitions could not even place and win any awards in Singapore. This made me unable to qualify for A* Talent Search, which was my sole goal for SSEF since a person must win an award in SSEF before being eligible for A* Talent Search.

  Also, judging from the results from the final judging round on the Science Centre Website, it suggested a great error in results. Chemistry, which previously was a category that many won Gold in, had only one Gold Awardee:

This is in great contrast from previous years, which had a majority of Chemistry entries out of all of the Gold Recipients, like in 2016 or 2015:

Why is there such a big contrast? I have recently called up relevant authorities regarding this issue and they basically told me that these results were based on the judges' comments and scores. But they do not equate to having such a big difference between 2016 results and 2017 results! I understand the huge competition in SSEF, but the big difference would not have happened in such a short period of time. For example, there were plenty of Chemistry project that was interesting and explained extremely well by the students, just as well or even better than those that were awarded Gold in other categories. Two examples that I could immediately think of was one on the usage of composite gels and one that uses fish gelatin to replace pork gelatin. Both are extremely significant and explained well with clear posters but yet both had failed to earn any awards. This just shows how confusing this year's results were for just the Chemistry category. The results are suggesting that this year's Chemistry students were worse off as compared to other categories, which is definitely not the case.

What's more, all of the Gold Recipients were all from the better JCs in Singapore. None were from the other JCs. In the past few years, there were still some from TJC, AJC, CJC, etc., but for this year, there was none. This may actually give people a perception of a fixed competition, though I am sure that the authorities would never allow this to happen.

I would strongly suggest the relevant authorities review this year's results and revert back to all participants of the large differences in this year's results because there is definitely an error in the results.

2017 Joint Admissions Exercise COP for JC

	Arts	Science/IB
AJC	11	9
ACJC	8	7
ACS(I)		5
CJC	10	11
EJC	9	9
HCI	4	4
IJC	19	20
MJC	11	11
NYJC	7	6
NJC	7	6
RI	4	4
SJI		7
SAJC	10	9
SRJC	13	12
TJC	9	9
TPJC	13	14
PJC	13	12
VJC	7	5
YJC	17	16