GER1000 Quantitative Reasoning

Module: GER1000 Quantitative Reasoning

Semester taken: AY 2018/19 Semester 1

Lecturer: Various

Tutor: Dr Soon Wan Mei Amanda

Textbook: None

What it is about

Quantitative Reasoning is a module that the Singapore Government identified as a crucial skill to have in the 21st century, which thus made its way as one of the general education modules. This module teaches you to thinking critically of any statistics presented to you from news articles and in studies.

Assessment components

• 20% - IVLE quizzes: The best 8 out of 10 quizzes throughout the semester.

• 10% - Tutorial participation

• 35% - Group project: Review of a statistical paper and to present your findings to the class and in a 2-page document.

• 35% - Final exam: 2-hour closed book test (28 MCQs)

Comments

I personally felt that this module was difficult to understand in the beginning as I was unable to see the link between the content taught in this module and the statistics that I have learnt in H2 Mathematics previously. The way that the lecture notes were presented was not very friendly for revision as well. As a result, the weekly quizzes at the beginning of the semester were a struggle and caused quite some stress along the way. Eventually, some statistics formulas and concepts were introduced in the later stages of the module, which greatly helped in the understanding of the concepts taught in the module.

Lecture

The lectures are all online and the lecture notes provided also includes the script that the lecturer will read in the video lectures. Some of the lecturers were difficult to follow and I eventually just read the lecture notes and did the quizzes without looking at the video lectures.

Tutorial

The tutorials are 2 hours every 2 weeks. The first hour is usually used for revision of the previous lectures and the second hour is used to discuss the tutorial questions with your group and with the class. The tutor I got was amazing, as she was extremely enthusiastic in teaching us and ensuring that we managed to grasp the concepts taught before moving on. She also took the effort to set up a Discord server for all her students to consult her on, especially since the amount of contact time for the module is extremely little.

Group project

The group project involved selecting a study and critically reviewing it based on the Quantitative Reasoning Framework. We then had to write a 2-page essay reviewing the study before presenting our findings to the class during tutorial.

This is the first semester that this format was adopted, as previously it was about coming up with a poster and presenting that poster to the class. I felt that the format for this semester was better as it allowed us to learn more without spending time unnecessarily on doing things not related to the module (such as designing).

Finals

The final examination was a closed book test of 28 MCQs. The format and difficulty is similar to the IVLE quizzes that were held every week during the semester. The 2 hours available for the examination is more than enough time and I noticed that many people left the examination hall after the first hour.

Other information

Assignment workload: Weekly IVLE quizzes and video lectures to be done, with a short tutorial to be done every 2 weeks.

Project workload: Some effort needed to review the statistical paper and to do up a presentation.

Readings: Only the lecture notes.

Recommended if: A compulsory module for all students under the NUS modular system.

Rating: 3.5/5. The module is doable and I had great team mates, but I felt that the weekly quizzes caused me unnecessary stress.

Expected grade: B

Actual grade: S (Actual: B+. I gave up a little due to the poor performance of my IVLE quizzes, but it might have been possible that my group project helped me)