GP Tutors

20 year old male seeking young, nubile, attractive female. Willing to pay high rates for personalised services.

To all who think that my desperateness has reached new levels, let contrition flood your sorry soul, let guilt and remorse overwhelm your sick mind, for I’m actually looking for an English teacher.

My writing style is horrendous and has two defining characteristics: the first being long and largely incoherent sentences that go on and on like a never-ending river, addling the mind of the reader, testing the extents of his patience and short-term memory, pushing the limits of punctuations’ role in assisting the formation of meandering sentences, all for the sake of being irritating. The second? Curt prose.

Unfortunately just like two lefts do not make a right, two extreme forms of writing do not make for a balanced way of writing, and I’m effectively, in the absence of a more apt term, screwed unless I can correct them before the SAT. Sad right?

Normally, I would simply look up the classified ads, pick a GP tutor and randomly quote prices based on gut instinct and the timbre of the voice over the phone. Cut and dried. But today, for posterity sakes, we (and by we, I really mean I, but anything to make you feel involved) shall attempt something different, something revolutionary, something scientific. Drumroll please!

But first, a few words from our money-grubbing and unkind lawyers: the text below contains my interpretation of economics theories and are meant in good humour. As of the time of writing, I have only two hours’ worth of knowledge, and if you are a purist who hates to see your beautiful subject get desecrated, please avoid reading the next few paragraphs.

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One of the biggest criticisms of economics is it having too many assumptions. This seems to imply that any decent economics paper ought to have truck loads of assumptions and hence, being someone who aims to please, I present my first assumption.

It’s acceptable to make assumptions in an economics paper.

Circular logic I know, but hey, it’s a start. Things will start getting hot and heavy are just heating up.

Before continuing, let me outline the aims of this exercise. I want to hire someone to help me improve my grammar, vocabulary, expression and writing style in preparation for the upcoming SAT I Writing test in October. In particular, I wish to break away from the “GP-writing-mould”, or the rigid writing structure taught in GP classes which I deem to be overly stiff. Thus, I’ll prefer a university student reading Law, Politics, etc to a JC teacher who I feel will be locked in the GP form of expression.

EDIT: After much thought, I’m now inclined to believe that a Literature lecturer would be the best choice. However, I have to consider the state of my finances.

Before more in-depth discussion can be pursued, I must make the following assumption:

Man is rational and attempts to maximise benefits while simultaneously minimising costs.

Following which we must decide if we wish to maximise benefits or to minimise costs. I propose that the former can be accomplished by fixing the amount we are willing to pay (we thus select the best teacher for that fixed amount) and the latter can be attained by fixing the approximate standard of the teacher (we then choose the cheapest teacher for the chosen standard). Deciding on the approach is not meant to reduce the teacher’s fee demanded but rather to maximise the usage of our time. I’m rather cash-strapped at the moment so we opt for the latter.

The next set of crossroads: should we pay him/her according to much we value his/her time, or according to how much he/she values his/her own time? A quick simulation shows that the first option is inferior.

Case 1:

My valuation < his/her opportunity cost

He won’t take up the deal.

Case 2:

My valuation = his/her opportunity cost

He takes up the deal and I do not overpay him. Best scenario for me.

EDIT: Sheng Quan informed me that this case is the turning point and in practice, one has to take into account switching costs and thus one needs to make an offer slightly above opportunity cost. However, even if we take that into account, I believe my original hypothesis still stands, except now the criteria for overpaying should be a valuation exceeding k, where k is a constant that is slightly greater than the opportunity cost.

Case 3:

My valuation > his/her opportunity cost

He takes up the deal but I overpay him. Worst scenario for me.

Assume that there are plenty of tutors, and thus, should a tutor refuse my offer, I can easily seek someone else.

The probability that Case 2 occurs is low and thus we will in all likelihood overpay the tutor. Moreover, one has to consider the practicality of assigning valuations in this situation. I believe that in calculating valuations, one has to rely on estimated marginal utility which is based on either prior experience with the product or similar substitutes, or testimonials from others. Since we have never been taught by the tutor, we obviously cannot rely on first-hand experience. Furthermore, quality and methods of teaching vary greatly from teacher to teacher and a relationship between these and easily-verifiable things like qualifications seems to be tenuous at best. Thus accurate valuation becomes difficult, making this approach unfeasible.

We are then left with using how much the tutor values his time to determine price. Initially we felt that while there was a market for GP tuition, most students preferred actual JC lecturers, and thus there was a low demand for GP tutors who were young and relatively inexperienced (perhaps university students or NSFs from the Humanities Faculty). According the Law of Supply and Demand, since demand was low and supply was relatively high (large number of people who fit this criteria), price ought to be low. However, we soon realised that many of these potential tutors who were good enough to teach GP were also equally skilled in Economics, and that relative to GP, students seeking help in economic were less picky vis-à-vis academic qualifications, and thus demand was higher. All other things being equal (neglecting the added pool of university students who can teach economics but not GP), they could charge a higher rate for economics tuition.

We assumed that the tutor will judge the desirability of an offer based on its opportunity cost. Thus, while it is likely that the tutor may not be offered fees (for GP) which exceed that I offered, assuming the tutor has no significant preference for teaching GP over economics, he can obtain higher fees from teaching economics. Hence we must offer a rate that matches that from economics tuition.

However, due to us being new to economics, we lack the necessary tools and formulas to calculate this rate using a scientific method. Thus, we shall have to resort to the time-tested formula of calling the tuition agency and just randomly quote fees. Well, at least we tried. Till next time.