An experienced Economics tutor and school teachers have been trying to help students adapt to Cambridge’ renewed focus on testing students on higher-order thinking skills and their ability to critically analyse complex issues. This has a very strong bearing on the way students prepare for Paper 2 in the A Levels.
Experienced Economics tutor Mr Koh’s Parachute Concept Approach
First, the unpredictability of Cambridge’s questions makes it virtually impossible for even an experienced Economics tutor to ‘spot’ questions with complete accuracy.
Simple regurgitation of model essay solutions runs the risk of writing off-topic, which is heavily penalised.
Second, the more sustainable approach to preparing for the exams is through the tried-and- tested method of understanding concepts and then applying them. As such, Mr Koh’s Economics tuition classes do not seek to provide a collection of model essay solutions for students to emulate.
Neither does the Economics tutor Mr Koh seek to replicate the good notes that schools are already doing for their students.
Instead, experienced Economics tutor Mr Koh’s lessons place an immense amount of emphasis on imparting essay-writing skills through a learning-by-doing approach. First, the entire Economics syllabus is distilled into a series of often-tested Parachute Concepts (readers can refer to the testimonials page to read students’ feedback on Mr Koh’s Parachute Concept Approach). Next, essay structures and frameworks are designed to help students tackle questions revolving around these concepts.
Mr Koh’s teaching mantra is that while Cambridge can vary the way their questions are phrased, they cannot test students on concepts which are not in the syllabus. Hence, being able to see through a question to pick out the focus, and subsequently apply the underlying concepts is important. Given the variety of ways in which an essay question can be interpreted and tackled, Mr Koh’s economics tuition focuses on essay structures and frameworks which are taught in a comprehensive yet intuitive manner to allow students to see the coherence in the application of concepts.