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Mathemafix Enhanced Service Level for Grade 5 Students 1

Last update Jan 2015

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Many researchers believe that the main ingredient for high academic success is in the genes. Children are endowed with “clever” genes but it is a matter of luck that these genes are awake at birth. Even so, there are too many kids and that makes academic competition so tough in our modern days. This is where superior learning comes into the picture.

The Choices

As the cost of good private education is becoming extreme in Australia, parents increasingly seek placement into public academic selective high schools for their children. This process is becoming extremely competitive. The competition for the few elite private school scholarships is also more fierce. Many elite private schools only pick high performing students for enrolment. To help the children get a chance, many parents seek private coaching to increase their chances.

Assuming that the students work hard, are endowed with fairly smart genes and have a good home learning environment, the following table shows some typical situations parents and children find themselves in.

Choices Cost Work Load Stress SS Test Profile

Attend large coaching class

Medium (about $2400/year)

High Extremely high 180 - 220

Private tutor for 1hr/week

Medium (about $3600/year)

Medium Medium 190 - 220

Attend coaching class + 50 trial tests

High (about $5000/year)

Extremely high Extremely high 200 - 240

Attend coaching

class + private tutor + 50 trial tests

Very high (about $7000/year)

Ultra high Ultra high 200 - 250

Parent as coach A lot of time and

effort on parents, low cost (about $500-$1000 year)

Medium High on parents 180 - 220

Do nothing apart

from nagging schools to help

A lot of effort in

nagging schools. External trials costs under $500/year

Medium High on parents 180 – 210

Do nothing About $500/year Low Low on both children and parents

170 - 200

This does not mean there are no geniuses who could achieve great things without much help. But these are very few and true to the word “genius”.

What does it take to perform really well in the NSW Selective School Tests and elite private school ACER test?


The expectation is so high and there are similarities between the NSW Selective School Tests and the ACER scholarship tests.

The following table gives some idea of what is expected of students so that they would do really well at these tests.

English Maths Science General Ability

NSW Selective school test Comprehension grade 7-8

Superior grade 6-7 maths

Superior grade 6 science reading

Excellent problem solving ability and IQ

performance

ACER Scholarship test Comprehension grade 7-8 and

superior creative writing

Superior grade 6 maths

Superior grade 6 science reading

Excellent problem solving ability and IQ

performance

However by pushing for grade 7-8 learning before achieving a consistently high performance at lower grades, students at grade 5 and early grade 6 will suffer learning gaps at the basic levels. This prompts them to adopt rote-learning as the only workable method to cope. Tutors often find the only way is to get them to memorise therefore this further reinforce rote learning. It makes perfect sense to make sure students have good basics at every grade before attempting advanced materials. This is a simple secret. One must always go back to lower levels when the going gets tough.

The Mathemafix approach

Mathemafix has been trying to level the playing field for students who compete for placement into selective schools, enrolment into elite private schools or trying to get a scholarship. The first thing is to know the competition out there. There are many students using Mathemafix to know how they compare against these high performers (who often also attend coaching classes).

The free tests and the trial tests together with ranking on the website go a long way to help parents and children at home to know what competition they would face when the children go after these opportunities.

Mathemafix now offers membership of the SS Group, a low fee online program designed to put together the essential elements of good support for high performers in a compact package which allows grade 5 students to have complete freedom how they make use of a comprehensive set of tests to achieve a higher level of performance. In a nutshell, it is a problem solving program backed up by an online tutor. Parents choose the entry and exit point and can even pause and restart on monthly basis. The program is designed to attract some money to support the provision and development of this great free service for all. It allows users to get a much enhanced service beyond the free basic level. There are over 124 tests which covers comprehensively the knowledge and difficulty levels expected of students going for the Selective School test. Students are continuously supported by a tutor who monitors and helps them individually. Since 2011, all students who joined the SS support program (and stayed for 6 months or over until their SS test) got SS placement.

Historical performance of students could be found on this web page

http://mathemafix.com/congrats.html


The SS Group Features (for Grade 5)

This program is an intensive program covering the period from Jan current year to Mar the year after. Students could join and exit at any time and work at their own pace and their own level within the program. It offers complete flexibility for high performers. This program has approximately 17500 questions, about 7500 of them overlapped with the OC level.

Features Purpose

Building Blocks: Spelling, Timetables, Personal Word List

These modules target the essentials such as advanced English vocabulary and mental maths speed. The word list module helps

students to acquire the advanced English vocabulary required for high performance.

Learning resources: online videos and reading materials

Online video collection for math, science and general knowledge

help students to learn far beyond school level. The reading materials for science and general knowledge help to expand vocabulary and knowledge for English and GA performance.

Public Tests Comparative ranking along high performers from the public side of Mathemafix.

Public Selective School Trial Tests

Comparative ranking along high performing competitors from the public side of Mathemafix (only on maths and General Ability).

Private tests covering grade 4

revision, grade 5-6 mathematics, grade 4-7 English

A rich set of test materials for students to do at individual pace

to build up the ability to complete at highest level. This includes Selective School English trial tests.

Weekly and daily messages from tutor

Personal feedbacks on test performance and tips on what to do to lift performance.

Individual Learning Centre Self-paced problem solving to solve failed questions and daily online help on solving these questions.

The program provides comprehensive support to students. It also helps parents save on costly selective school trial tests. As it is a self-paced program, it allows students to work at their comfort level to reach the end of the program in March each year when they do the selective school test. This program is also suitable for advanced grade 4 students who want to work at a more relaxing pace over 2 years.

The SS Group Demo

This program has been running as a trial on real students who were preparing for the last Selective School test. It is now mature and ready for the general public. A demo account (a copy of a real student account) is open for viewing. The login is “2012ss99” and password is “demo”. Parents can log on to see all the materials and features available to students.


Screenshots of some the SS Group features

Training modules and failed questions to be reviewed

Regular individual feedback and guidance

Per area performance profile comparison to all performers

Individual Learning centre

Self-paced problem solving

Help request to tutor for assistance on the question


Group notice board

Messaging for general communication between tutor and students

Student ranking among all students. Public students do not see private students. But private students see all (on public tests).


How Mathemafix training modules help students

The support module is where students review their failed questions and ask for help. There is a limit to the number of unreviewed failed questions before the system freezes access to the tests. The system automatically takes students to this module when they review failed questions. This is where the real learning happens.

The timetables module helps students at year 3-4 to train for faster speed and 100% accuracy in math timetables. Some students at year 3-4 are still not 100%

reliable in this area and that slows them down.

The Rocket Math module trains students to estimate the answers for basic math operations using mental strategies. It helps the brain to develop the speed required to speed up calculations where 100% accuracy is NOT needed. This skill is useful for checking calculation errors and speeding up mental computation in a

complex word problem.

The spelling module provides students with a variety of word lists covering several

subject areas. It is useful for students to improve spelling accuracy and vocabulary.

The wordlist module is similar to the word sheets that students should be using to improve their vocabulary. For a high performance level, students must have a

large English vocabulary. This module is essential for students competing for selective school placement.

This is a link to the BBC science website which is an excellent resource for primary

school students to learn science. Science content is part of the NSW selective school test and ACER scholarship test even though there is no separate science test in both of them. A short cut is provided for students to get back to Mathemafix’s home page.

This is a link to the website vocabtest.com where students can test their vocabulary strength. Selective school candidates should test their vocab strength

with the grade 6 and 7 tests on this website. A short cut is provided for students to get back to Mathemafix’s home page.

This module provide over 300 short non-fiction texts (1-2 pages) covering many areas to help students to gain as much general knowledge as possible. The content is suitable for years 5 – 9.

This module provides access to all the reading texts for English questions from tests that students have done. This allows them to go back and read the texts as

extra reading or as revision to understand the texts better and gain more general knowledge.

This module provides reading cloze practice for students to improve English science vocabulary to help them in selective English tests where science articles are used.

Video Resources is a module providing access to hundreds of learning videos across many topics. This is very useful for improving math skills, science

knowledge and general knowledge.


Who would benefit most from this program?

1. Students who are already performing well but falling short of excellent scores because they do not attend coaching classes and do not get enough challenging tests. It will help them to aim higher (such as placement in the top selective schools or winning private school scholarships).

2. Students who are attending some sort of coaching but would not want to spend more time doing too many trials. They would prefer doing more work with the comfort of being at home.

3. Students who prefer to go at their own pace rather than being forced to keep up with others at coaching classes.

4. Students who do not attend coaching who need more support for higher performance.

5. Students who rely on help from parents and occasional 1-on-1 tutoring from a University student. They really need a comprehensive homework program.

Who would NOT benefit much from this program?

1. It is not intended for the average and low performers. It is a very

comprehensive and difficult program which requires a lot of dedication. However average performers (without intention to sit for selective school tests) could benefit by doing the grade 4 revision part of the program.

2. It is not for students who already attend intensive coaching classes with extremely high workload and are unlikely to have time to do extra work.

What areas do the tests cover?

English grade 4 to grade 8 Math grade 4 to grade 7

Science grade 4 to grade 6 General ability grade 4 to grade 6

The grade 4 revision helps students to fill some basic learning gaps they still have at grade 5 and move on to the high level required for selective school placement. From past experience, it is important to start from grade 4 about January and work toward grade 6-7 by Mar the year after. This is a very intensive problem solving program running at each student’s own pace. It is intensive in the sense that students have to work hard to complete all of it to achieve a high overall result. Students who are already performing well could skip grade 4 tests and start with grade 5 tests. Unless the students have been with Mathemafix for over 12 months, they would probably find grade 4 tests quite challenging to start with.

The focus is strong on English and Mathematics. General ability is very important but almost impossible to teach. However, doing a big number of little quizzes over the months certainly help to build it up. Science knowledge also adds a lot of support to general ability. The program of tests is designed to be “sufficient” rather than “overkill” to avoid causing students too much stress. However an estimate of about 2.5 years of assessment is covered in approximately 15 months for the average students. Very high performers could start right into grade 5 tests and skip about 1/3


of the program. Each student is expected to work on every failed question with support from the tutor.

The system also provides extensive reading skills practice to help boosting English performance which is now the key to success in SS test. Strong English skills are needed to boost not only English but GA performance. A big online collection of useful videos help to boost performance across all 3 areas. A non-fiction reading module is provided to boost science knowledge, English vocabulary and general knowledge. Finally two series of difficult math questions provide SS level math to take students to higher performance in SS math test.

How does the SS Group operate?

Students are given accounts with login YEARss## where YEAR is the year when the student will do the SS test and ## is a number between 01 to 99 (the login 2012ss99 is the demo account for all to view). These accounts belong to group SS but they also see some of the important public tests and can participate in ranking with public students.

The tests are released at a pace that will lead the students to peak at about the time of the NSW selective school test in Mar each year. Students are required to take the tests at their own pace, work on the questions they failed and ask for support when they are stuck (in the Individual Learning Centre). Students are expected to deal with ALL the questions they fail along the way and tick them off only after they have understood. A tutor will provide students with all the hints and advice they need toward the solution of each failed question on a daily basis. The ILC is pretty much a customer support system for the students. The tutor will provide feedback on each test and give advice as well as test taking skills on individual basis.

Before the real Selective School Test, students will do the Selective School trial tests together with the public users. This allows them to assess their ability with very high performers from around NSW.

What is the cost?

First 14-days free (trial period), then monthly fee of $50 payable in advance. PayPal is preferred however other payment methods are available at request. User can stop at any time and restart later (without the free month). The free trial allows parents to evaluate the program. This free trial period is only offered to those who register at least 90 days away the SS test date. In this period, only limited access and some tests are available to give parents and students a clear idea about how the system could help them. This restriction is lifted as soon as if a payment is made.

A demo account is available for public viewing: login 2012ss99 and password demo. This account can not be used for doing tests for real.


If payment is NOT made after the trial period, the account will be erased. However, after the first payment, those who wish to temporarily stop could make a request to pause the account and could restart it later. This means parents can choose an entry and exit point on monthly basis. To pause the account click on then confirm.

To make a payment, click on the PayPal icon and follow the instruction to send a donation of $50 per month via PayPal. Please make sure you mention the given login ID when making the payment. You will be issued with an online receipt for the payment.

Where should my child start after enrolment?

Grade 5 students who have been with Mathemafix for over 12 months and getting good scores around 80% should start from the beginning of grade 5. Other students should begin at grade 4. It would soon become clear if your child should skip forward to harder tests. The objective is to try to achieve 90% or better across all the normal tests. This means working steadily and deeply (also intensively). When it comes to the Selective School Trial Tests, good scores would be about 80% for English, 85% for maths and 70% for General Ability. The tutor will guide the students along the way to help them to achieve the best results. There are several short guides available for download after logging on the system. Parents must download and use the information in this guide to set up the Internet browser and guide the students into good practices. Leaving students alone to do whatever they like will lead to poor habits which will be extremely hard to correct later.

Interested? How do I enrol my child in the SS group?

You can enrol your child in the program by filling an online form using this URL

http://mathemafix.com/offers.html

Copy and paste this code to activate your account: SignMeUp After submitting the form, an email will be sent to your email for address validation. Check your email and click on the validation to complete the enrolment procedure.


The time line for Selective School Test Preparation

Time line Description

1. Set a starting point It depends when the student joins the group. By working at the

lowest tests and carefully move up, students can determine the correct point when they fail to achieve 90%. Those who join at January should start with grade 4 tests.

2. Complete grade 5 by Aug It is important that students should complete grade 5 tests by Aug to leave enough time for advanced tests

3. Complete grade 6 English

tests and ½ of grade 6 maths by Dec

It is important that students complete most grade 6 English

tests by Dec so that they have time to prepare for the Selective School test in Mar next year. Try to do some grade 7 English tests before year end.

4. Working on math problem solving and challenge series from Aug

These two series provide mini math tests of high difficulty to support SS math high performance. Students start to work on these at least 6 months before the SS test to boost performance in SS math trials.

5. Complete grade 7 English, grade 6 maths and start Selective trial

tests from Jan next year

The period from Jan – Early Mar of the year after is mainly for trialing the Selective School Trial tests. There are 5 sets of English, Maths and GA tests. Working slowly across these tests

would require 2.5 months.

Note: Advanced grade 4 students could use this same program over 2 years at a more relax pace. They would start at the middle of the year with grade 4 tests then move at a slower pace.

Common students’ mistakes

1. Sneer at the grade 4 tests even though failing to get over 90%. 2. Overwork, cramp all the tests quickly, get poor results and give up. 3. Rush through a test and get it out of the way without spending enough time

on questions. 4. In response to a poor result, try to do more tests quickly hoping to get better

results. 5. Spend too much time on one hard question. 6. Do not bother do any learning between the tests. 7. Do not bother reviewing failed questions to understand them. 8. Pretend to review failed questions but only to quickly close them off to get

them out of the way. 9. Do not bother to try to find another solution for a tough question. 10. Do tests in random order rather than sticking to the normal order.

The tutor will continually monitor and remind the students of these mistakes but parents must be vigilant to make sure the students have a disciplined learning style.

Still have questions?

Please email [email protected] with your questions.

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