10 March 2012:
Common tests are over!
That's what an optimist says; the pessimist would frown and say it's getting closer to prelims and O Level.But anyway, that's not what I'm writing for. I'm really writing to celebrate the end of common tests.
The past week has been a stressful one for me. It seemed to be the worst week of 2012 thus far. There were many issues, and I was very moody for almost the whole week, except yesterday, where I was visibly happier.
On a side note, XY asked me why I was so emo, when at the point she was referring to a moment when I was feeling happy. Hmm. Has Monday to Thursday's moodiness tinged my happiness on Friday?
What I felt for the subjects:
Chinese - the most disappointing and depressing paper I've ever done since primary school. And I am by no means kidding or exaggerating. This was the first paper in 9+ years of doing the subject that I am unable to complete in time. By right, Sec 4 is when you are supposed to not have such scenarios anymore, since you're supposed to be very familiar and tuned to how to tackle the paper. Yet, this was not the case. Obviously something was wrong with my time management. On Friday our scores were shown. I scored an A1, but comparatively, I was one of the lowest in class. The teacher said previously that anything below 80 is a fail. I failed, according to his definition. He wasn't being over-harsh on us, considering that so many people could achieve way above 80, the highest in my class getting 90. In this case, it's my damn problem that I somehow can't score that well.
Social Studies - I hope I did not disappoint Ms K. I really tried hard to remember her steps on how to do reliability questions. I asked Mr Y yesterday if he had any idea of how I did, but he hasn't marked the papers yet. But from what he told me, I may not get high scores again, cos I don't think I analysed the sources properly. Which is really a bother, since I felt that this time I actually improved. Let's hope that it comes true.
EMaths - I personally felt EMaths was alright; the paper wasn't difficult. (Of course there were one or two questions that I know I'm wrong.) I'm only scared that I could have made careless mistakes, or that my presentation would be penalised. EMaths is so much more anal on presentation that AMaths. Which goes to show one of the reasons why I like AMaths more.
AMaths - this subject gave me a big shock the day before. I was doing the revision paper, and I ended up getting almost every question wrong. I'm not trying to praise myself here, but I normally am rather comfortable with AMaths. For 90% of the questions, I roughly know what to do the moment I see it. But for the questions on the worksheet, I was clueless as to how to start. It gave me such a shock, since the paper is on the next day, and here I am panicking in despair. I had to ask Mrs P to explain how to even start a question three times, which is horrendous. I previously asked her how to continue when I got stuck, but not things like how to start. I wanted to reserve the night for revising EHistory, but ended up using it for AMaths since I got such a rude shock. Oh and the bad thing about me doing Maths is that, if I were to get more than three questions wrong and panic sets in, I'm as good as gone. I would do weird methods, or start getting careless mistakes. It's something that I haven't been able to solve till now. Which was what affected me during the real paper. I was so afraid that the whole panic scenario would occur during the paper, until I got overly cautious. I remember doing a simple differentiation at least 4 times with basic rule, product rule, just to make sure I didn't get it wrong. Normally I would have spent less than 1 minute doing it, and breezed on. I couldn't complete the paper on time, because I was careless and had to spend more time correcting the mistake. Oh well.
Thanks to JQ and R for encouraging me when I posted a distress signal on Twitter.
EHistory - as mentioned above, I was supposed to revise it the night before. Thankfully, I already started War in Europe during the weekend, so I only had War in Asia-Pacific. I decided to use the two periods before AMaths to read up on WiAP. Thankfully, WiAP was only used in SBQ, so it wasn't that tragic for me. But it was such a pity for SEQ, since the question that came out was the one that Mr Y let us do during class. And, admittedly, it was the only EHistory piece of homework I've done since last year (if I'm not wrong). So thankfully I did the assignment, since I was able to link more or less successfully. This was a rather good sign to me, since I was always struggling with links and explanations, and it brought some confidence to me. Sadly, because I was so overwhelmed by excitement at getting almost the same question, I forgot some points in my original answer I had done previously. I had to "re-think" my answer out, and I personally felt that it was not as good as the first one I did. I'm just hoping that since EHistory is marked less strictly than SS, I could get slightly better.
Thanks to HX for patiently explaining to me the concept of War in Asia-Pacific, especially when I was so blur and lost about it.
Bio - the paper was much easier than other papers previously done. This was because Ms T and Ms L decided to give us mercy ... (I think they are Bio BFFs.) I studied Bio during the weekend, doing mindmaps that really killed all interest I had in the topic. Anyway, it was on Nutrition and Transport in Plants and respiration, of which the former two I do not enjoy, since it's about plants. I've probably said this for the thousandth time, but I really do not like any Plant Bio topic. Human Bio is so much more interesting, even though there may be more content. Luckily, the paper wasn't as hard as I expected it to be, and I could answer most of the questions. I'm just rather afraid that I may not have used the correct or appropriate keywords, and might get marked down because of that. Bio is one subject that can be really anal, just like EMaths. Sometimes you write 10 words, but just cos 1 word is not there, you don't even get 1 out of 2 marks.
Physics - I think this is the most difficult paper of all the subjects. Everyone had such a great shock at the difficulty; I think no one expected it so. I thought that I would probably do better this time, but seems like it's impossible now. Till now, I still feel that Bio > Phy. Sorry Mr L.
Chem - this is the last paper for me (I know others have PGeog after that), so I really wanted to do well for it. It somewhere in the middle of Bio and Physics in terms of difficulty, I felt. At first I thought I was unable to complete in time, but thankfully it was not the case. The MCQ had some tricky ones, and I spent more than allocated time there. I felt the questions on Organic Chem was easier than the others, maybe it's my bias since I prefer Organic Chem (thus far) to other Chem topics. Although the questions were all on stuff that we've never encountered before like phosgene and methoxymethane, but it was mainly the concepts that counted. So I hope that I could get it correct.
That's more or less about the common tests and papers. Moving on to other stuff.
Some people aren't what you think of them, especially after you get to understand them. We shouldn't judge people too readily just based on what they portray, since sometimes different interpretations lead to different judgements.
The above applied to me this past week, since I changed opinion of someone. I judged the person too fast, and that proved not good for me. I'm glad of the change.
Moving on again to yet other stuff. If you think that I'm not worthy of being your friend, then tell it to me directly. Please don't displace me. What's that supposed to mean? Are you hoping that I would "get the hint" and probably distance myself away? Well then you could start saying that I'm a loner, introvert, socially awkward, and all that. Just tell me. If you're unhappy with what I've done, just tell me. I know I probably have a lot of flaws that I do not recognise, and it would do both of us good to simply highlight it to me. If I do not change, or don't seem to change, then at least it's valid if you displace me.
If not, why must you do such a thing? And even if you want to displace me, could you not do it so? Just take it as a pathetic plea from me, alright?