Teacher's Reference [7]
"All roads lead to Rome."
- Proverb
The Romans built roads wherever they went. Rome, the empire,
spread along the roads. The Romans designed their roads
carefully and purposefully so that they all led to Rome,
with Rome as the central hub, hence the phase.
Every publication will profess their way is the one and
only true way. That is not correct. The truth is that there
are many ways to reach the final objective.
This teacher's reference is not meant for direct use by
students preparing for the exams, but, as a complete resource
for teacher / student to sharpen their understanding of the
subject matter. This is an advanced trade book.
- Every year, the examiner stresses on different objectives
to test the student's ability. This book is thus segmented
in such a way that the teacher / student will learn the
complete question-types in its entirety in a chronological
order and see for themselves how they have changed through
the years.
- The teacher / student will be able to see for themselves
that, although the syllabus did not change much over the years,
the question-types did evolve to a rather different current form.
One would have noted that during the earlier years, the
question-types were meant to test the students on their
competence on the subject matter. As the years advanced, one
would notice the more recent question-types were involved in
advanced 'trickery'. The authors have singled-out these
seemingly easy-looking question-types to all. 'Tricks' are
only surprising when they are encountered fresh. If the same
'trick' reappears, the 'magic' would have worn-off and no
longer have any effect on the student. But, these 'trick'
question-types must first be encountered.
- Unless the question-types involved have only one approach
in answering them, the book will provide very carefully all
possible step-by-step solution approaches.
- Another important feature in this book is that it captured
the various critical feedbacks and examination reports
from a wide range of teachers' authoritative resources
to accentuate common mistakes, as well as unusual
habits by students that led to wrong answers. This
collection of common mistakes proved invaluable to
all teachers / students.
- Short side-reading notes are included 'on-the-fly'
to provide a quick look-up for those who need access to
important facts and techniques immediately.
- Since many feedbacks from teachers/students are related
to great tendency of students to make careless mistakes under
exam conditions. The book has incorporated a simple and
easy-to-implement check-back procedure for each and every
question-type ever tested in the actual examinations since 1996
onwards, so that the students can learn how to check-back their
work for any carelessness immediately after getting the answer
(the teacher too can teach these valuable techniques early in
the student's learning curve).
- Before this book reached the current final-form, the
authors have conducted a small sample experiment on current
students taking the exams. The students were given a small
test and their scripts were marked. Common mistakes and
unusual wrong habits were highlighted to them. A month later,
they came back again for a similar test. Interestingly, they
all repeated the same common mistakes and unusual wrong habits.
It proved one basic fact - the students' sense of reality is
not always grounded properly. In fact, students need
to go at it for an extended period of time, before they could
realize their folly and correct their fundamental
misconception.
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