Nick Dale – Private Tutor: Recent Episodes
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Some people have said that teachers teach English differently from foreign languages. They don’t use the right technical terms for the cases, such as nominative or accusative, and that means children don’t have such a strong command of grammar. I don’t know how true that is, but it was certainly true in my own schooling, […]
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Every year, thousands of 11+ and 13+ candidates go to what might be their very first interviews. They’re hoping for a place at their target schools, but they’ll probably be nervous about going through the whole process. Interview prep is important to give yourself the best chance of impressing the teacher and the school. Teachers […]
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More and more questions in school entrance exams involve persuasive writing. This is the attempt to change people’s minds about an issue, change how they feel about it or persuade them to do something. It can take many forms: Essays Speeches Letters Newspaper articles The format of each of these is obviously different, and you […]
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At the end of any kind of test, it’s important to check your work. Checking in English is relatively easy because you just have to look out for mistakes with spelling, capital letters, punctuation or other grammar. However, checking in Maths is much harder because there are so many different types of questions. So what’s […]
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In the good old days, 11+ or 13+ candidates were simply asked to do a comprehension and write a story in their English exams. However, the creative writing papers have changed recently, and candidates might have to do a wide range of creative writing tasks, such as writing a diary entry or a newspaper article. […]
The post How to Write a Newspaper Article first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
Hyphenation is not the most important thing in the world, but there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. Here are the three rules you need to obey if you want to get it right. Hyphenate in between syllables. Syllables are just the different sounds in a word, and you can count […]
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Number triangles are a useful way of working out how to rearrange a multiplication or division sum. This is important if you have to ‘fill in the gaps’, for example. Let’s say the question sets out a bus stop method division sum with the dividend missing. In other words, something divided by 9 is 38. […]
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‘Problem questions’ are often the most difficult in 11+ and 13+ Maths papers. There are several different kinds, but they all have one thing in common: they all ‘hide’ the sums that you have to do. That means the first thing you have to do is work out the actual calculations you’re being asked for. […]
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Rounding is just a convenient way of keeping numbers simple. Nobody wants to have to remember all the decimals in 𝝅 (which is 3.1415926535897932384…), so people usually round it to 3.14 (or 22/7). There are three ways of rounding numbers: using a power of 10 using decimal places using significant figures. Powers of 10 We […]
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English is a funny old language. It’s such a mishmash of imported words and complicated constructions that it was once described as having French vocabulary and German grammar! Unfortunately, that means the spelling and pronunciation of words are often different due to silent letters or letters that have different pronunciations depending on the context. Two […]
The post Pronunciation first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
This is a typical question from a Dulwich College 11+ Maths paper that asks you to work out various quantities from a pie chart. To answer questions like this, you have to be comfortable working with fractions […]
The post Working out Values from a Pie Chart first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
This is a typical question from a Dulwich College 11+ Maths paper, and it asks you to draw a reflection of the triangle in the mirror line shown on the chart. Dulwich papers tend to be a bit tricky, and this is not the easiest version […]
The post Reflecting Shapes in a Mirror Line first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
I know why they do it (most of the time), but it’s still incredibly annoying and confusing. I’m talking about grammatical mistakes in the papers. Yes, it’s important for their copy to be readable, but we have rules on capital letters, spelling, punctuation and other grammar primarily to make language more understandable, not less, so […]
The post Why I Hate the Press! first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
In the words of Winston Churchill (or George Bernard Shaw or James Whistler or Oscar Wilde), Britain and America are “two nations divided by a single language”. Quite a few of my pupils live outside the United Kingdom and/or go to foreign schools but are applying to English schools at 11+ or 13+ level. One […]
The post Americanisms first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
This is the question I get asked the most as a tutor. And even if parents don’t ask it directly, I know that it’s always lurking in the background somewhere…! School entrance exams are very stressful for pupils and parents alike, and it would be nice to be able to reassure them by […]
The post How do I Know if my Child Will Get a Place? first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
Using colons and semicolons is often an easy way to get a tick in your homework, but it still involves taking a bit of a risk. If you get it right, you get the tick, but if you get it wrong, you’ll get a cross. This article will explain how to use both colons and […]
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One of the things that children taking Common Entrance exams at either 11+ or 13+ find most difficult to explain is humour. Here’s a quick guide to various different types with explanations, examples and a short quiz at the end. Slapstick Comedy or Farce This is a type of physical comedy that relies on the […]
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SOHCAHTOA (pronounced ‘soccer-toe-uh’) is a useful ‘mnemonic’ to remember the definitions of sines, cosines and tangents. Amazingly, I was never taught this at school, so I just had to look up all the funny numbers in a big book of tables without understanding what they meant. As a result, I was always a bit confused […]
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You can use short multiplication if you’re multiplying one number by another that’s in your times tables (up to 12). However, if you want to multiply by a higher number, you need to use long multiplication. Write down the numbers one on top of the other with the smaller number on the bottom and a […]
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The most important things you need to do in Maths are to add, subtract, divide and multiply. If you’re doing an entrance exam, and there’s more than one mark for a question, it generally means that you have to show your working. Even if it’s easy enough to do in your head, you still have […]
The post How to Add, Subtract, Multiply and Divide first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
The ‘W’ words are useful if you’re trying to understand or summarise a story, but who, whom, who’s and whose tend to cause problems. Here’s a quick guide to what they all mean and how they can be used. Who v Whom Who and whom are both relative pronouns, which mean they relate to the […]
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Could and might mean different things, but a lot of people use them both to mean the same thing. Here’s a quick guide to avoid any confusion. Here are two sentences that a lot of people think mean the same thing: “I might [or may] go to the cinema tonight.” “I could go to the […]
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Homophones are words that sound the same even though they’re spelt differently and mean different things. Getting them right can be tricky, but it’s worth it in the end. The reason why homophones are important is not just to do with the general need to spell correctly. Many people think getting them wrong is a […]
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The subjunctive in French is generally used in the present tense after expressions such as ‘il faut que’ and some verbs that also take the word ‘que’ after them. These are generally the ones that express feelings or doubts (eg vouloir and craindre), especially when two parts of a sentence have different subjects, eg ‘I […]
The post French Regular Verbs – Present Subjunctive Tense first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
This article explains circle theorems, including tangents, sectors, angles and proofs (with thanks to Revision Maths). Isosceles Triangle Two Radii and a chord make an isosceles triangle. Perpendicular Chord Bisection The perpendicular from the centre of a circle to a chord will always bisect the chord (split it into two equal lengths). Angles Subtended on […]
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Verbal Reasoning (VR) tests were invented to test pupils’ logic and language skills – although they do sometimes includes questions about numbers. In order to do well in a VR test, the most important thing is to be systematic, to have a plan for what to do if the question is hard. Fortunately, there are […]
The post Verbal Reasoning first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
Non-verbal reasoning tests are commonly found in Common Entrance exams at 11+ and 13+ level, and they’re designed to test pupils’ logical reasoning skills using series of shapes or patterns. It’s been said that they were intended to be ‘tutor-proof’, but, of course, every kind of test can be made easier through proper preparation and […]
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Common entrance exams have a time limit. If they didn’t, they’d be a lot easier! If you want to save time and improve your story, one thing you can do is to prepare three ‘off-the-shelf’ characters that you can choose from. You can work on them beforehand, improving them and memorising them as you go. […]
The post Creating Off-the-shelf Characters first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
Reading list for children from 10-16
The post Children’s Reading List first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
In many 11+ and 13+ exams, you have to talk about feelings. Yes, I know that's hard for most boys that age, but I thought it might help if I wrote down a list of adjectives that describe our emotions. Here we go...
The post Describing Feelings first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
Long division is on the syllabus for both 11+ and 13+ exams, so it’s important to know when and how to do it. The basic idea is that it’s tricky to do short division when the number you’re dividing by (the ‘divisor’) is outside your times tables, ie more than 12. Using long division makes […]
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Writing a letter is not as easy as it might seem – especially if you have to do it during a Common Entrance exam! In this post, I’d like to explain the typical format of formal and casual letters and the decisions on wording that you’ll have to make. First of all, here’s a quick […]
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“How cute am I…?!” Bangkok Ramada Plaza Bangkok Menam Riverside When I was planning my trip to Bangkok, a friend of mine helpfully told me that I could get a blow job for 800 baht (or £20). Fortunately, everyone was more interested in the floating markets and the palaces and temples. Gerlinde had only been […]
The post Thailand first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
Ho Chi Minh City Palace Hotel Saigon “Are you looking at me…?” The problem I had with Vietnam is that I was constantly reminded of every Vietnam war film I’d ever seen. It started badly when Bernie and I were almost refused entry to the country, and, once I was there, it was impossible to […]
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Mmm, that tasted good… Every guy has a favourite hooker. Mine is a 20-stone Australian ex-rugby league player called Kevin! It all started when I went to my local pub for a Liverpool game in 2008. While I was watching the match, an Australian guy came over and said hello. We ended up drinking nine […]
The post Cambodia first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
Here’s a Maths trick a friend of mine saw on QI. Who knows? It might make addition and subtraction just a little bit more fun! Find a book and write down the ninth word on p108, eg ‘becoming’. Ask someone to write down a number with three different digits in it, eg 321. Ask him […]
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I get nervous before I go on photography trips. Part of that is just worrying about travel arrangements, visas and packing everything I need, but another part of it is worrying that I won’t get the shots I want. Here are a few examples of ‘the ones that got away’. Taj Mahal Before I went […]
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A few years ago, I started doing all my photographic post-processing in Lightroom. It’s the program used by most professional photographers and is reasonably user-friendly, I got to grips with Lightroom mostly by watching a very useful series of YouTube videos by Anthony Morganti, but this article is just a description of my basic workflow. I pay […]
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Simultaneous equations help you work out two variables at once. Why do we have simultaneous equations? Well, there are two ways of looking at it. The first is that it solves a problem that seems insoluble: how do you work out two variables at once? For example, if x + y = 10, what are […]
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I’ve talked to a few people who wanted to become private tutors, so I thought I’d write down a few tips for anyone who’s interested. How Did I Start Out? I started as a private tutor quite by accident. It was 2009, and I was finding it hard to get work as a freelance management […]
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Studying English for 20 years gave me a collection of useless quotations that are constantly rattling around in my head. Here are the ones I actually thought it worth writing down! “I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea; Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be. I […]
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The obvious question for a lot of amateur photographers is ‘How do I make money from photography?’ The answer, unfortunately, is that I don’t know. All I can do is tell you what I’ve done and give you a few ideas. I’m still learning the business after just four years, but my approach has always […]
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When you buy (or borrow), your first digital SLR, everything looks different, and it can be a bit worrying. What are all these buttons and dials for? Why is it so heavy? Where do I start? How do I change the shutter speed? All these are very good questions, and this is the place to find the […]
The post Basics of Photography first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
As everyone knows, “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach” – but that doesn’t stop me trying to do both! Whatever kind of photographer you are and whatever kind of pictures you take, you always need to pay attention to composition. As an introductory guide (or a reminder), here are a few principles of […]
The post Rules of Composition first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
This would’ve been a great shot. It could’ve been a great shot. It should’ve been a great shot. But it wasn’t. Why? Motion blur. If you look closely, you can see that the whole body is slightly out of focus, and that was simply because I didn’t think to change my shutter speed. I was […]
The post Getting the Most out of Game Drives first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
My iPhone just about died yesterday, so I switched it off overnight. Miraculously, it’s now back to 24%! We saw leopard tracks but no leopard and then a lone impala to start the day. We were out for 90 minutes before collecting the other staff and the trailer. We then drove north towards Chobe NP. […]
The post A Day in the Life of a Wildlife Photographer first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
In the last year, I’ve started doing all my photographic post-processing in Lightroom. It’s the program used by most professional photographers and is reasonably user-friendly, but the problem is choosing all the right settings. I shoot in RAW, which captures the maximum amount of information, but it doesn’t necessarily provide a great picture right out […]
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The Idea I live in an Art Deco mansion block in Putney, and every year the porters put a Christmas tree in the entrance hall. Last year, I took some pictures of some of the baubles, inspired by an email from one of the photographic magazines about how to capture bokeh lighting. This year, the tree […]
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I’m a photographer (among other things), and this is the first of a series of posts about my favourite photographs. I’ll tell you how I took them and break down the shot into the idea, the location, the equipment, the settings, the technique and any post-processing. The Idea When I took this shot, I was […]
The post Close-up of Golden Eagle Head with Catchlight first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
Exams at 11+ and 13+ level always let you tell a story in the writing section, but they sometimes provide a picture and simply ask you to describe it or to ‘write about it in any way you like’. Writing a description is obviously different from writing a story, so it’s worthwhile pointing out the […]
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“There is only one family: The National Family.” I read the poster as I sat on the bus on the way to work in downtown LA. I wasn’t such a big fan of Proposition 1203 and all the anti-nepotism and adoption laws, but it was so long since any mother had actually kept her own […]
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Teachers often tell pupils to use a ‘full sentence’ in their answers, but what is a full sentence? Parts of a Sentence First of all, it’s important to know what all the words in the picture mean. (Note that the parts of a sentence are not always individual words, though they can be. For example, […]
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Teachers and tutors ask pupils to check their work, but how can you do that in Maths without doing the whole sum all over again? Well, you can’t! So how are you supposed to check your work? What you have to understand first of all is that checking everything is right is very different from […]
The post You Must be Crazy! first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
When I lived in Brisbane, I used to sit by the pool with my friend Eden for hours, days, weeks at a time, swapping stories. He must have heard every one I had. When we both ended up at a party in London a few years later, he was next to me when I was […]
The post True Stories first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
Here is an example of a story I’ve written to illustrate how to use a story mountain as part of my five-step process for creative writing: Choose your title Brainstorm for ideas Create a story mountain Write the story Check your work The title I chose was The Incident. Normally, I’d suggest drawing a triangle […]
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Nobody likes French verbs – not even the French! – but I thought I’d start by listing the most basic forms of the regular verbs in the present tense. All French verbs end in -er, -re or -ir, and there are different endings for each that are shown here in red: Verbs ending in -er, […]
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Prime factors have nothing to do with Optimus Prime – sadly – but they often crop up in Maths tests and can be used to find the Lowest Common Multiple or Highest Common Factor of two numbers. Prime factors are the lowest prime numbers that can be multiplied together to make a given number. There […]
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Nobody likes French verbs – not even the French! – but I thought I’d start by listing the most basic forms of the regular verbs in the present tense. All French verbs end in -er, -re or -ir, and there are different endings for each that are shown here in red: Verbs ending in -er, […]
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Nobody likes French verbs – not even the French! – but I thought I’d start by listing the most basic forms of the regular verbs in the present tense. All French verbs end in -er, -re or -ir, and there are different endings for each that are shown here in red: Verbs ending in -er, […]
The post French Regular Verbs – Future Tense first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
Nobody likes French verbs – not even the French! – but I thought I’d start by listing the most basic forms of the regular verbs in the present tense. All French verbs end in -er, -re or -ir, and there are different endings for each: Verbs ending in -er, eg donner (to give) Je donne […]
The post French Regular Verbs – Past Tense first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
Nobody likes French verbs – not even the French! – but I thought I’d start by listing the most basic forms of the regular verbs in the present tense. All French verbs end in -er, -re or -ir, and there are different endings for each: Verbs ending in -er, eg donner (to give) Je donne […]
The post Common French Verbs – Present Tense first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
Nobody likes French verbs – not even the French! – but I thought I’d start by listing the most basic forms of the regular verbs in the present tense. All French verbs end in -er, -re or -ir, and there are different endings for each that are shown here in red: Verbs Ending in -er, […]
The post French Regular Verbs – Present Tense first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
Working with negative numbers can be confusing, but a few simple rules can help you add, subtract, multiply and divide successfully: Adding and Subtracting If the operator and the sign are the same, then you must add the number, eg 4 – -3 = 4 + 3 = 7 or 4 + +3 = 7. […]
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Maths is complicated, but a good first step on the road to understanding it is to get to know the most useful terms. There are lists in the front of the Bond books, but here’s my own contribution. I hope it helps! Algebra: expressions using letters to represent unknown values, eg 2(x + 3) = […]
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Nothing makes the heart of a reluctant mathematician sink like an algebra question. Algebra is supposed to make life easier. By learning a formula or an equation, you can solve any similar type of problem whatever the numbers involved. However, an awful lot of students find it difficult, because letters just don’t seem to ‘mean’ […]
The post Algebra first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
Apostrophes. The difference between feeling you’re nuts and feeling your nuts. The apostrophe is tricky. It means different things at different times. This article is meant to clear up any confusion and help you use apostrophes, which might mean you get straight As in your exams – or should that be A’s?! The main reason for […]
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The problem with the English is that we’ve invaded (and been invaded by) so many countries that our language has ended up with a mish-mash of spelling rules. English is among the easiest languages to learn but among the most difficult to master. One of the problems is spelling. We have so many […]
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When is a verb not a verb? When it’s a part of speech. English exams often ask questions about the ‘parts of speech’. This is just a fancy term for all the different kinds of words, but they’re worth knowing just in case. Just watch out for words such as ‘jump’, which can be more than […]
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I always sign Christmas and birthday cards with a capital ‘N’. It makes me feel like Napoleon… The three main things to check after writing anything are spelling, punctuation and capital letters, so when do you use capitals? For the important words in titles, either of individuals or pieces of writing, eg Chief Inspector of Schools […]
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Speech marks, inverted commas, quotation marks, quote marks, quotes, 66 and 99 - does any other punctuation mark have so many names or cause so much confusion...?!
The post Speech Marks first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
Twenty years ago, I was staying with my best friend Mark in Golders Green and found myself chatting with his mother. She was in her seventies, but I politely asked if she’d been anywhere nice recently. “Yes,” she said, “I’ve just come back from watching the bears catching salmon in Alaska.” That’ll teach me…! Ever since that […]
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And, no, this is nothing to do with Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak… Times tables can be tricky, and there’s no substitute for learning them by heart. However, the divisibility rules can at least tell you whether an answer is definitely wrong. I’m a great believer in ‘sanity checking’ your work. Just ask yourself, “Is this […]
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“If I’d known I’d have to go back to school, I’d never have become a teacher!” The QTS numeracy and literacy tests are not very popular, but trainee teachers still have to pass them before they can start teaching in the state sector, so I thought I’d try and help out. There is always more […]
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Hundreds of years ago, it was traditional to put dragons on maps in places that were unknown, dangerous or poorly mapped. Ratios are one of those places...
The post Ratios first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
Teaching Greek children is like watching France play rugby: you never know what you’re going to get… I just spent two weeks in Greece preparing a Greek boy and his twin sisters for 10+ and 12+ entrance examinations at a school in England. Highlights included spending a long, sunny weekend at a holiday home in Lagonissi, spending another […]
The post Athens first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
When it comes to incest, folk dancing and teaching kids who burst into tears every few minutes, my advice is: “Just say no.” I was due to spend nine weeks in Turkey early in 2015, teaching a 12-year-old boy Maths and English, but all I ended up with was a two-week holiday in the Ankara Sheraton […]
The post What a Turkey! first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
This isn't a pub quiz - not even close. It's a quiz for dads who want to work out whether evolution is still heading in the right direction - or has gone into reverse!
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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 8,800 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many […]
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Christmas is a time for baubles, lights, golf clubs and a Nikon D800… The Idea I live in an Art Deco mansion block in Putney, and every year the porters put up a tree in the entrance hall. Last year, I took some pictures of some of the baubles, inspired by an email from one of […]
The post Red Xmas Tree Star with Bokeh Lights first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
I’m a photographer (among other things), and this is the first of a series of posts about my favourite photographs. I’ll tell you how I took them and break down the shot into the idea, the location, the equipment, the settings, the technique and any post-processing. The Idea When I took this shot, I was […]
The post Close-up of Golden Eagle Head with Catchlight first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
People don’t like fractions. I don’t know why. They’re difficult to begin with, I know, but a few simple rules will help you add, subtract, multiply and divide. Adding and Subtracting Adding and subtracting are usually the easiest sums, but not when it comes to fractions. If fractions have the same denominator (the number on […]
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Pool, beach or hammock? Hammock, beach or pool? Hmm… That was the decision that faced me every day during my teaching assignment in Turkey. I was staying at Club Isil in Torba, near Bodrum, for six weeks to teach three Kazakh brothers and their cousin. They were seven, seven, 11 and 14 years old, and I was there […]
The post Cold Turkey first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
Beautiful girls are like polar bears: they’re hard to find, and you try to get as close as you possibly can before they turn their backs and walk away. We saw 13 bears on my trip to Spitsbergen, but there was only one girl for me. Sadly, she was already taken, so I’d better talk about the bears… […]
The post And Then it All Went Bear-shaped… first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
When they built Hong Kong, they put the sun in the wrong place. It’s always either behind a building, hidden by a cloud or on the wrong side of the island to see a decent sunset. Having said that, I did arrive during the monsoon season, which didn’t help! I was there for six weeks from […]
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My best experience in Moscow could easily have been my worst. “Would you like to come to dinner with us at Café Pushkin and then see the Spasskaya Tower international military music festival in Red Square?” “Yes, I’d be delighted.” “Shall we meet you at the restaurant at six thirty?” Oh, dear. My heart sank. It was my […]
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Before I went to Belarus, I was warned it would be like going back to the Soviet Union: brutalist architecture, statues of Karl Marx and a hankering after the Communist era. In fact, I ended up teaching English to a very nice couple called Mikhail and Natasha, who were very generous and hospitable to me and had […]
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I make lists. I make lots of lists. Even when people tell me not to, I still make lists. One of them is a list of the places I want to go to take the photographs I want to take. Ever since I travelled to Kenya in January 2013, I’ve been adding (and crossing off) various […]
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When you tour India with a beautiful Dutch blonde named after a Norse fertility goddess, it’s bound to be an adventure… My adventure took place in November 2013 and lasted for two weeks, during which time I witnessed the best and worst of Delhi, saw two tigers and photographed the world’s most photographed building. Delhi […]
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“Thank God!” That was my reaction when the credits rolled after the final episode of Breaking Bad. Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was a great concept, and I gave it a 7 out of 10 overall – but that was only halfway through the first series! It bewilders me that its user rating […]
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Have you ever tried to do a 10,000-piece jigsaw of grey seals on a grey rock in a grey sea under a grey sky? Tricky, isn’t it? The key to doing a jigsaw puzzle or writing a description is attention to detail. Everything matters: the mood, the setting, the period, the action, the characters – […]
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The problem with being a ghost from the future is that people just don’t get it. They know about ghosts, and they know about time travel, but, somehow, when you put the two together, it does not compute. I guess Hollywood hasn’t mixed those two particular genres yet, so they can’t quite grasp the concept. I spend […]
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If they ever made it into a film, they’d cast Minnie Driver as Andreanne, Steven Spielberg as Denni, Matthew Modine as Stefan, Julie Benz as Hannah, Sophie Marceau as Alyona and Matthew McConaughey as Andrew. This collection of Hollywood lookalikes kept me company on a two-week camping tour of some of the most beautiful national parks in […]
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Number sequences appear in Nature all over the place, from sunflowers to conch shells. They can also crop up either in Maths or Verbal Reasoning, and both are essential parts of 11+ and other school examinations. The trick is to be able to recognise the most common sequences and, if you find a different one, […]
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There comes a point in everyone’s life when you have to undergo the ritual that marks the first, fateful step on the road to becoming an adult. It’s called ‘writing an essay’ and involves long hours of hard work, boredom, and often embarrassment (when you find out your mark). Pretty soon, your first essay turns […]
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When it comes to boldness, Captain Kirk beats Hollywood hands down. The Starfleet captain takes impossible risks and doesn’t believe in a no-win situation, while the studio bosses know that the best way to make money is to back sure-fire winners, and that means remakes, sequels and – if you’re lucky – the odd prequel. […]
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Pizzas are very useful, mathematically speaking. However much we hate fractions, we all know what half a pizza looks like, and that’s the point. Numbers don’t have any intrinsic meaning, and we can’t picture them unless they relate to something in the real world, so pizzas are just a useful way of illustrating fractions, decimals […]
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What is a problem? A problem = a fact + a judgment. That is a simple formula that tells us something about the way the world works. Maths is full of formulas, and that can intimidate some people if they don’t understand them or can’t remember the right one to use. However, formulas should be […]
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“Dearest wife, you know I adore you – I have done since the day I first saw you – But, my love, even so, I’d like you to know I’ve filed for divorce with my lawyer.” “Dearest spouse, you know I adore you – I have done since the day I first saw you […]
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If you had the chance to take a contract out on one punctuation mark, most people would probably choose the comma. Unfortunately, that’s not possible although modern journalists are doing their best to make it into an optional extra! Punctuation should be there to help the writer and the reader, and the comma is no exception. […]
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It’s important to be able to recognise and analyse poetic devices when studying literature at any level. Dylan Thomas is my favourite poet, and he uses so many that I decided to take most of my examples from his writings. A simile is just a comparison using the word ‘like’ or ‘as’, such as ‘I sang […]
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Whether you’re doing something as easy as climbing Mount Everest or as hard as writing a story, you always need a plan! One of the ways of planning a story is to use story mountains, with each stage of the tale labelled on the diagram. The drawing doesn’t have to be any more than a […]
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There is always more than one way of solving a Maths problem. That can be confusing, but it can also be an opportunity – if only you can find the right trade-off between speed and accuracy. I’ve taught a lot of QTS numeracy candidates recently, and the Maths itself isn’t particularly difficult, particularly in the mental arithmetic […]
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To pass Common Entrance, you have to remember the iceberg. Only a small part of any iceberg is visible above the waves, and only a small part of any answer to a question is visible in the text. To discover the rest, you have to ‘dive in’ deeper like a scuba diver… There are two […]
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Once you start ticking off the things to do on your bucket list, it’s hard to stop, so – inspired by my trip to Kenya – I signed up to go to the Icehotel in January to see the northern lights. (It’s officially called ‘Icehotel’ rather than ‘the Icehotel’ or ‘the Ice Hotel’, but what’s a definite […]
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During the Second World War, an Italian named Felice Benuzzi decided to escape from a British POW camp in Nanyuki, Kenya. Nothing unusual about that, you might think, but Benuzzi was no ordinary prisoner. He was a keen climber, and he planned to break out of the camp in January 1943, climb Mount Kenya and […]
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Characters Harry (eg Tim Lovejoy?) Maddy (eg Gabby Yorath or Helen Chamberlain?) Sparky Lucy Landlord Opening Credits Soccer Siren A bloke wearing a suit goes up to the bar in a City pub and orders a drink. Harry: Pint of Pride, please. The landlord pours a pint of London Pride and hands it over. Landlord: […]
The post “Ball’s Eye”, by Nick Dale first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
Now that I cycle around rather than using public transport, I have fewer opportunities to read. To take advantage of the time I spend travelling, I’ve started listening to audio books on my iPhone. That gave me the idea of dictating a few selected extracts of my own favourite prose and poetry and uploading them […]
The post ‘What Oft was Thought but Ne’er so Well Expressed’ first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
These clean white crosses Are children of a new land, Begotten by death. Ribbon or poppy, For Flanders mud, once breathing, Too late pities death. Nick Dale
The post War Poetry first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
Two college chums from Cambridge are driving along a country road in a battered Mini in the middle of December. Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Foxy Lady’ is playing noisily on the car stereo. They are both wearing overcoats as the heating is not working. One is a tall, gangly type with frizzy, dark hair and studious glasses. […]
The post “Mystery at Grove End”, by Nick Dale first appeared on Nick Dale - Private Tutor.
Dreams are dangerous. I know this from interviewing a dream therapist in Hampstead once. Almost as soon as I’d sat down, she asked what I’d been dreaming about. Should I tell her the truth and risk being psychoanalysed or make something up and risk being caught in a lie? Dangerous, as I say… I should […]
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