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*Kok Kok Kok* *Bang Bang Bang* *Knock Knock Knock*

(6)
Posted at 10:48 pm by Miss Loi in Miss Loi's Temple
Building The Great ...

Building the Great tell you when it's done ;)

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All The Best For Your A-Level Results!

(1)
Posted at 9:49 am by Mr Loi in Mr Loi the A Level Tutor

Hello everyone it's me again.

While my poor sister is still mired in churning out her 2009 exam papers, I would like to take the opportunity to say a big

All The Very Best!

to all who are getting your A-Level results today.

Though this has replaced your O-Levels as your most important results to date, the following quote (stolen from my sister)

One exam simply does not determine your entire future and what you do in your lifetime.

is still very relevant to this exam as it did for your O-Levels.

For it's worth noting that, regardless of the course (preferred or otherwise) you end up taking in your tertiary institution, bigger and progressively challenging trials await you in the future, and it's often your PASSION that will carry you through at the end of the day.

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The Unfortunate Plight Of A National Icon

(5)
Posted at 11:25 pm by Miss Loi in A-Maths Questions
Old Merlion
Balancing proudly in his prime

He was there when it all began.

Guarding fiercely the old mouth of the Singapore River, he witnessed the meteoric rise and rise of a glorious nation, as modern skyscrapers rose around him, and old warehouses turned into trendy dance clubs, and students began using calculators in their PSLE, while he dutifully maintained law and order in the river by keeping errant sampans in line with his lethal water spout.

As the years went by, however, he slowly felt forgotten by the relentless pace of progress, as the sampans themselves got transformed into tour boats.

He spouted a watery sigh of sadness while he looked on as one by one, his old friends like the Satay Club and the National Library went the way of the bulldozers.

More spouts of resignation were to follow when he learnt that younger and mightier clones (including a Godzilla-like monster that can shoot laser beams from its eyes) were recruited across the island to perform his job, and that the only occasions he was ever mentioned were in jokes involving drunk patrons of pubs and clubs.

But still he kept his dignity in defiance of the changing times, and continued his balancing act in a forgotten corner of Singapore to spray his jet of water with pride, even when they cruelly deprived him of his daily sunrise viewing by building a huge bridge across his face.

Merlion with Sunglasses
That Last Straw

In the end, the straw that broke the Merlion's back came when he was relocated against his will to another location. The loss of his spiritual home, combined with his inability to get used to being photographed and molested left, right and center by daily hordes of kawaii teeny trigger-happy tourists in this ironically spanking new location, finally pushed him over the edge.

And so, on a dark sunless day, he turned (as far as he could) to take a final look at his son (and discovered to his further horror that he hasn't really grown all these years), before closing his eyes and imploring the heavens to put him out of his misery.

A passing 雷公 aka Lightning God heard his plea, and proceeded to plot his target coordinates ...

The Merlion's water spout follows a path defined by the curve y2 = 4x + 64, y > 0 and the lightning bolt (that travels in a straight line) is poised to strike the Merlion's head at the point (0, 8), which lies on the path of the water spout.

On the seaward side, a group of tourists are snapping photos of the Merlion's front from a Singapore River Cruise boat, with a line of vision that's tangent to the water sprout at (0, 8).

On the landward side, a group of kawaii teeny Japanese tourists are snapping photos of the Merlion's rear with an angle of elevation of 60° from them to the point (0, 8).

Given that the straight line lightning bolt is so powerful that it can travel through the Merlion's head and harm anything beyond, find the range of possible values of its gradient so that the tourists will be safe from harm.

While this should ultimately be a straightforward enough problem involving the special y2 curve that made its way to the new A-Maths Syllabus last year, please make sure you sketch out the right graphs in this scenario in order to prevent the 雷公 from making any careless mistake that can lead to tragic consequences for the innocent tourists!

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Is This Singapore's 2009 O Level Exam Timetable?

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Posted at 1:30 pm by Miss Loi in Miss Loi the Tutor

UPDATE (again) 2 March 3pm: And so the full bag of beans are finally spilled today with the official GCE O Level 2009 Timetable and news of this Friday's release of the 2008 A Level results!

UPDATE:
EMATHS 27-28 Oct / AMATHS 29-30 Oct

GCE O Level 2009 Calendar
Click to enlarge

Though the official website is still ... umm ... officially hush-hush, and provided they don't change it again later on, it's probably safe to say now that it's 99.9% (correct to 3 significant figures) confirmed that we'll get the Super Week of Mathematical Climax, when we'll get the unique chance to see students walking along the streets of Singapore in an intoxicated state with their minds high on mathematical formulae.

*Prays that everyone will look left, and right, and then left again when they cross the road during that week*

Less than 8 months to go ... so don't be too relaxed after your CAs hor *rolls up sleeves*

Below is what a kan cheong Miss Loi had scribbled down yesterday from the pages of a diary of a student who had in turn frantically scribbled down from a 'calendar' that was apparently revealed to her when registering for her O Level subjects:

O Level 2009 Exam Timetable
Timetable of the Great War of 2009?

For what it's worth, it seems to be consistent with what little information that's contained in a tentative schedule put up by that secretive organisation known as the SEAB, who are currently doing what they do best by keeping everyone in suspense i.e. "When will the A-Level results be released?!".

If this 长痛不如短痛 (lit. might as well suffer short-term instead of long-term) exam calendar turns out to be true, then there'll be no Day of Mathematical Armageddon this year.

Instead we'll be getting almost a WEEK of Mathematical pounding with four consecutive days of blitzkrieg!

But looking on the bright side, there'll be no other subjects to distract her students during Miss Loi's last-minute Mega Jφss Sticks Sessions leading up to the O Levels, and everyone can burn their math books earlier, and very importantly, Miss Loi can go for her shopping holiday earlier this year! YIPPPPPEEEEEEE!!!

*does a little dance of joy*

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Singapore Has Run Out Of Graph Paper

(6)
Posted at 9:52 pm by Miss Loi in Miss Loi's Car

Regrettably, Miss Loi has been conspicuously absent from blogging activities this past week, not least due to her being mired in the neckache-inducing task of churning out her series of 2009 Exam Papers (Yes they're really coming soon!).

On a less obvious note, it's been awhile since she last wrote anything on the adventures of her little car, as things can get a little mundane revolving around life-threatening incidents and tragic parking tickets.

When the sun rose this morning to reveal the car in its usual daytime splendor, however, Miss Loi was encouraged to write about it again, for she's glad in some ways that Mathematics is never far from people's minds:

My Scratched Car
Click to view the graph-fitti in its full glory

Mr Vandal, it's highly unlikely that Singapore has run out of graph paper, but even if that should happen, a car (albeit driven by a sexy maths tutor) is most certainly NOT an appropriate medium for you to practice your graph sketching.

Furthermore, assuming you were trying to sketch an exponential graph y=a−x, a > 1 (since your graphfitti resembles it the most) using the rear door of Miss Loi's car as the y-axis, note that marks will be deducted for that unnecessarily "wavy" portion for x > 0 since all exponential curves (i.e. y=kax, k > 0, a > 0, a ≠ 1) have NO turning point and are supposed to be smooth.

Lastly, please remember to label your graph and axes the next time. :?

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