October 20, 2007

Dear Super Sis!
My problem is that I’m very poor in spellings; though my vocabulary is good, due to spellings I get low marks in almost every subject. I also had an argument with my English teacher when I said that spellings don’t matter, we just have to convey our thoughts, nothing more than that! But I know they actually matter! And if I start learning or I should say “cramming” then half of my time is wasted because the result is the same. Can you please suggest a better way to improve my spellings?

My other problem is that I’m a very conceptional girl and excellent in mathematics and sciences but the problem is with Pak-Studies! I just can’t learn it. I mean we have to do this “ratta” thing in this subject and I am very bad at it and you know that we are not given good marks if we just write in our own words. We have to reproduce what is written in books.
Spoilt Brat

I can understand that at your age, improving basic spellings appears like a daunting task. You are, after all, in your ‘O’ level, and this problem is very basic. What is sad, perhaps, is that young people today have poor reading habits, which is a great contributor to this problem.

However, your exams are near so for the next few weeks at least, I wouldn’t recommend that you go out and purchase loads of favourite fiction books to read. Cramming or directly memorising spellings can be difficult as well. Besides, what words and how many would you memorise after all?

The easiest way to get over your spelling dilemma is to memorise certain spelling rules that cover a great deal of complex words. For example, there is the ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’ rule. What this means is that in certain words like ‘piece’, ‘thief’, ‘priest’ etc, the letter ‘i’ comes BEFORE the letter ‘e’. Most people tend to misplace this. This also means that only when the ‘i’ and ‘e’ come after a ‘c’, such as in words like ‘conceit’, ‘conceive’, ‘receipt’ etc, the ‘i’ will FOLLOW the ‘e’. Of course, there are certain exceptions to this rule and you need to find out what these are.

Similarly, there are other rules such as the ones pertaining to suffixes and prefixes, silent letters, word endings etc. Most of these rules are quite straightforward and if you remember these as well as the words that escape these rules, you will start looking at spellings in a very conceptual manner.

Another good practice to improve your spellings is to keep a little dictionary at hand all the time. Carry it in your school bag, keep it at hand when you are reading. Whenever you are in doubt, refer to it. This practice is great to remember spellings because you also get to learn the meanings of words, which helps in retention.

It is also a good idea to carry a little spellings notebook at hand. Jot down any words in it that you find difficult or new as soon as you come across them. Later, you can refer to your dictionary to get their correct spellings and meanings and this way, you will expand your vocabulary as well.

As for your school tests, get into a habit of proofreading your work before submitting it. Read through it carefully; look out for any mistakes you might have made, correct them first and then submit your paper. You will be astonished at the progress you make.

Once your exams are through and you have free time at hand, get into the habit of reading a lot. Reading newspapers and good story books dramatically improves spellings. Also, get your hands on a couple of spelling games like scrabble or boggle and play these at home. When in doubt, refer to a dictionary and you will inadvertently improve your spellings.

I’m giving you a few URLs that will be quite helpful. Do visit these and if possible, get prints of the important pages for later reading: http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/spellingtext.htm is a simple page about spelling rules as is http://www.mantex.co.uk/samples/spelling.htm. 

As far as Pakistan Studies are concerned, my dear, I’m afraid there are no shortcuts. The subject does entail a good amount of memorising facts, names and dates and you will have to come up to the task. You can make things easier by making notes and jottings for yourself. Also, look at the different ways in which the important topics have been tackled in past papers; there is a 75 per cent chance that the pattern won’t be drastically different and that will give you some leads on how to approach each topic within.

Finally, give yourself plenty of time and finish the initial preparation at least a month before the exam. Take a gap of one or two days and then revise everything you learned. If you revise twice or thrice, you should be able to achieve good grades. Good luck!
 

Dear Super Sis,
I have a very huge problem regarding my future. I am a student of class X in Army Public School (Federal Board). I have a great interest in the field of Genetic Engineering but I am not able to find any good institution for it neither here in Karachi, nor any where else in Pakistan. Please help me!
Science Guy

Pakistan does, in fact, have a number of higher education institutions that deal in biotechnology. You can find a listing of these along with contact details at: http://www.pakissan.com/biotech/institutes.biotech.engineering.shtml.