The Physics And Maths Cafe

I used to struggle with Physics in J1, as it was such a complicated subject to me. I did not understand any of the school's lectures and they seemed really boring to me. However, when Mr. Sim started to teach me the subject, I found myself understanding the concepts involved instead of pure memorising, and Mr. Sim always managed to simplify even the most complicated ideas in the H2 physics syllabus. Mr. Sim made learning Physics easy and even interesting, and I started to do better during my exams without much difficulty. Mr. Sim was also concerned about my grades and gave me much needed encouragement during the days leading up the 'A' Levels. My experience learning in The Physics Cafe has hence been very fruitful and enjoyable, and I would definitely recommend it to those who do not already know about this learning centre! :)

Once again, thank you so much for your guidance and encouragement :) regardless of my result in March, I feel that you have really made Physics more understandable and fun for me :) Your physics lessons were indeed very helpful and enjoyable, I cannot even begin to describe how thankful and happy I am! Haha :)

Wishing you the very best for 2012,

Jolyn Yeo, RI(JC)

HELLO MR SIM!!!

here's a tribute to you x)

You're seriously, seriously the most awesomest coolest physics teacher I ever had. After you took over I never skipped a single day where there was physics cos every lesson was really really important and helped me a lot. I think you were meant to be a teacher all along: you have the seemingly effortless gift of making students understand concepts even though you sound like you're just teaching normally most of the time. So I guess it's good you stopped being an engineer in the field of p and n type objects and depleted layers. And you have no temper at all haha, and I'm really grateful for the amount of patience you have when teaching my class.

And of course, there's those insanely amusing and funny times you shared with my class. I swear I've never laughed so much or been so happy in a freaking lesson before (of course GP is the exception but that's cos I'm biased towards GP) I think i'll miss physics lessons a lot. haha.

Happy teachers' day! (albeit a rather belated one) It's because of teachers like you that I finally see how important teachers are.

I do think your learning center will be successful! By word of mouth we learnt that you were legend hahaha. And although we can't kaoguang I'm pretty sure this batch will help spread this reputation too.

Mingmei, RJC

Mr Sim is a superb physics teacher that is completely different from your typical JC lecturer/ teachers.

Even though I was a consistent student in school, I was rather confused by the physic theories taught by my school lecturers and hence repeatedly scored badly in school tests/exams.

Rather baffled and frustrated by this, I was urged to find the best solution to improve my physic grade with the A Levels looming and this was when I was recommended to go for physics tuition at the Physics Cafe.

Astoundingly, Mr Sim was able to explain theories and concepts so clearly, it is as if I was introduced to physics for the first time all over again. The small class size also makes it convenient to ask any questions to clear my doubts, and hence making it much more effective than school lectures/tutorial classes. Mr Sim's teaching methods are also interesting, concise and easily understandable.

The notes he specially made for his students are another plus point, where school notes wane in comparison and can be cast aside.

By taking the very last minute resort to improve my physics grade in the last 2 months before A levels by not only going to weekly tuition but also the holiday crash course, one may say that I was very lucky to have obtained an A in my A levels physics; but the other reason would be because Mr Sim is such a good teacher! :)

Yan Tong, RVHS

The thing that struck me about Mr Dave Sim was how dedicated he was to teaching and helping his students improve. We had a class from 4:30pm to 7:00pm, following which he had another group of students at 7:30pm – meaning that he had barely half an hour for his dinner. However, he often extended our lessons and answered our incessant questions, resulting in him having less than fifteen minutes to eat. (Sorry Sir ><) The four of us started lessons with him with only a few months left to the exam, in other words, a crazy crash course. I was terrible at Physics, really really terrible, but Mr Dave Sim managed to help me understand various concepts through his precise, yet simple explanations. One thing that was particularly useful was the mind map he'd create for each topic, condensing the entire chapter into a single page of concise and extremely useful notes. Make no mistake about it, those mind maps were our lifelines on the day before our exams. It was pretty tough having such a tight time constraint, but Mr Dave Sim was extremely patient, going through multiple questions and repeating examples to make sure we got all our fundamentals right. Somehow, we covered all that was necessary, and did well in our exams. Lessons weren't only informative – they were highly enjoyable as well. The four of us actually looked forward to Thursdays! Mr Dave Sim made use of interesting teaching methods to help us visualise abstract Physics ideas. Videos, animations, models – you name it. He particularly had a knack for little magic tricks (too bad we figured them out though) which held Physics notions behind them. Learning Physics became fun and exciting. You'd want to have Mr Dave Sim as your Physics tutor, because really, he is an awesome teacher. Not only because of how capable he is, but because he truly has a heart for his students. I wouldn't have conquered survived Physics without his help. Thank you so much Sir! :D

Lydia, ACSI

Mr Sim's lessons are really great, he is an awesome physics teacher in that he really helps you understand the physics concepts behind each topic and also helps tie the different parts of a topic together! His methods to tackle questions are also very effective. He makes it really very easy to understand Physics and I've learnt more under him in 1 year than I could in 3-4 years at school!

He has completely overthrown my years-long belief that Physics is a subject not meant to be understood! Thank You Mr Sim, you're a genius! :D

Maithili, RI(JC)