AQ: Balancing “knowledge of your society” with “your personal experience”.

Check out Mr Foo’s AQ post on addressing, in a sensible way, the requirement for “from your knowledge (of your society)” and “from your personal experience”.

Yet more AQ help

Check out this post by Mr Lim, with particularly helpful sample answers to the 2010 (Food) AQ, as well as answers to a modified version of the 2006 (Freedom) AQ.

If you scroll to the end of the sample answers, there are hints and tips for this year’s upcoming Prelims.

Essay / AQ: The schizophrenic stand

If, at any point, you contradict your stand, it is highly unlikely that you will pass.

Essay / AQ: Stop being vague.

Grow a spine. Stop pussyfooting around the issue. Have the guts to have an opinion and stand by it.

The following words and phrases should never appear in your AQs (or essays):

• certain extent
• quite true / applicable / relevant / etc.
• somewhat true / applicable / relevant / etc.
• all other vague, non-committal words or phrases

AQ: Sometimes, we really don’t care whether you agree or not.

Rule #1: Answer the question.

If the question asks, “How applicable?”, tell me, “largely/very/only slightly/not at all* applicable.”

If the question asks, “How relevant?”, tell me, “largely/very/only slightly/not at all* relevant.”

If the question asks, “How true?”, tell me, “largely/very/only slightly/not at all* true.”

 

IF, and only if the question asks, “Do you agree?”, will you say “I agree/disagree*” in your AQ.

 

(*delete as appropriate)

Characteristics of Singapore

Most Application Questions (AQs) ask for a Singapore-specific response. As such, it’s useful to know Singapore-specific information. But anyone can say that “Singapore is a multi-racial society” or that “Singapore seeks to become a healthcare hub” – so when mentioning characteristics of Singapore, do back them up with solid examples. These could take a variety of forms, from facts, case studies and statistics to news reports, forum page comments, parliamentary speeches and government policies.

[Note: This page is under construction. Do help contribute to this resource by leaving a comment below and providing, with examples, characteristics of Singapore.]

Task

Hit the “leave a comment” button below. State a characteristic of Singapore, and exemplify your point. Do provide references where possible.

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[Update: 9/2/2011]
One useful site to harvest examples from is The Economist’s Country Briefing page on Singapore:

http://www.economist.com/countries/singapore/

[Update: 13/3/2011]

Check out the Singapore Issue of Broader Perspectives here.

For future links, examples, statistics and facts pertaining to “Characteristics of Singapore”, click on the “Characteristics of Singapore” category in the sidebar.

Note: Although this is presented as a handy resource for the AQ, do note that all the information here would be equally useful for a Singapore-based essay question.