Examinations, Stage I

It's rather unusual for one to begin a blog in the midst of the exams, but well, I guess I did. Tomorrow's papers are Lang Arts II and Additional Mathematics; and already a sense of dread fills me - why do I have to face these two papers on the same day, of all things? (Granted, several combinations, like Geography plus Chemistry would be MUCH worse, but this is already bad.)

You might wonder, why? It's not like these are mug-heavy subjects. The real reason is because by the day before, whatever you are going to do, it's not like it is going to make much of a difference. If you are well-prepared for both of them, fine. I managed to do reasonably well (or so I hope) for Chemistry today even though I didn't study that much. While I would say I am prepared for A Math, Lang Arts II looks... sinister, in its own way.

So far, the exams have been tough but doable. There hasn't been a paper other than C Maths Paper I where the whole paper was a breeze; and even then, I was unsure of a few questions in C Maths Paper I. A subject-by-subject rundown, up to this point:

Language Arts Paper I - The text for the Written Commentary was rather nasty, though by what Mr Andrew Wong had said in class in its own way I had a hint of what was coming. The text essentially had to deal with a young girl in Soviet Russia attempting to come to terms with her own identity. I can't remember the title of the source, but I do remember that it is an autobiography by Irina Pantaeva. I decided the theme was actually the importance of maintaining one's individual identity, which was OK, but I had problems finding literary devices (normally, it's the other way round; see devices but no theme). Hence, I really do not expect much for this paper.

Introduction to Human Societies - This was weird. Initially, Jarrel and a few others pointed out the "wrong" spelling of "glocalisation" when looking at the questions while checking the paper; but after reading the article, we found that it wasn't an error - "glocalisation" is a portmanteau of "global" and "local". Questions (a) and (b) were fairly easy, me having mugged Terrorism and remembering the quote "Terrorists are like sharks". However, question (c) was rather tough, as I only realised after the paper that the word "delicate" has several meanings, and the one most appropriate to the context would actually mean needing tactful management rather than what I wrote on, that being easily destroyed or broken. I will probably get a decent score, but nothing good.

Physics I and II - The first paper for Physics was easy. The second paper was tough, though, as I probably would have lost at least fifteen marks added up across the paper. I would have lost 1 mark on the question with the non-perpendicular moment, about 2 or 3 on the question asking us to calculate the temperature of tea, and 2 more on drawing magnetic field lines in the wrong direction. All was still reasonably well until I hit question B9, which featured the electric shell thing. I will probably lose like 5 or 6 marks out of 10 on this question, because my circuit diagram is wrong, and for the last question I wrote that the wire is not suitable, when Jarrel said that it was. In Question B10, I applied something I learnt from game theory, actually.

Say you have a question that goes like this - A and B are calcium salts. A is soluble in water while B is not. Give possible identities of A and B. Of course, this question is easy - an acceptable answer might be that A is calcium nitrate and B is calcium carbonate. However, if I didn't know anything about solubility, I might simply write this: A is calcium carbonate. B is calcium carbonate.

In this case, I will secure myself one confirmed point, as the two are mutually exclusive for the salts that we have learned. That is what I did for the last question in this paper. Knowing that for some reason, I always seemed to have problems applying Fleming's left-hand rule, I decided just to say that the side AB goes up and that ABCD moves in a counterclockwise direction. (If you think about it, it's sort-of similar to the first example given). Hence, though it's plus 1, it's also minus 1. I basically chose to take 1 point rather than going for a 2 or 0 situation. Adding in careless mistakes, that works out to about 15 marks gone.

Geography - This paper was fairly easy. I wrote very long answers; a total of 9 sides were churned out, because the questions were largely cliched. For example, a 10-mark essay question asked us to basically evaluate how well Singapore has coped with her urban problems. For muggers like me, this question would not be difficult as we would regurgitate a long list of points and get the 10-mark credit. Hopefully, if things go well, I can actually look at scoring more than 85 percent for this paper, which will let me get an IB score of 7 points.

Respite for a short while, then... ...

Core Mathematics I and II - The unusual duality of Core Mathematics was revealed through these papers. Paper I appeared easy, with some people like, notably, Jarrel, finishing in about 20 out of the 60 minutes allocated for it. I also found Paper I relatively easy, as I said earlier. However, Paper II brought much more to the table. Though it was a difficult paper, I must admit that it was actually very well-set. The first and second questions appeared fairly simple; as in, it was essentially tedious work employing concepts learnt in Circle Theorem and Vectors. Question 3, on Logarithms and Exponents, was a rather unusual question; the first and second parts were fairly methodical question, but the third part had an interesting bit on "explain what the calculation means". I was quite surprised a lot of people had problems with this question; in fact, I was quite surprised that I had to think for a few minutes before figuring out what it meant. This could go to show that exams indeed contribute to one's stress, and consequently, detract from one's ability to think clearly.

Question 4, on Loci, for some reason was easy for most people; but I found it extremely difficult. I forgot how to construct the locus of an obtuse angle between two points; since I kept thinking; angle at centre = 2 x angle at circumference; if angle circumference was 105 degrees then how do you draw it (as in, it is possible to draw a 210 degree angle, but not by the triangular method that we were taught.

Finally, question 5 was rather nasty as both formulas for x and y were indeed tricky to work out. The formula for x was, surprisingly, cubic; that for y was a quadratic obtained by substitution of (n-1) in the x formula - and all that for 2 marks. The rest of the question was based on well, common sense.

Chinese Paper I - This paper was enjoyable, however I do not think I will be doing very well as the ideas I put forth when writing about a girl meeting someone in a chatroom over the Internet and deciding to meet are well... at best, controversial. I think I will just leave it at that. Ying Yong Wen was fairly standard and hopefully the teachers will like my Zuo Wen.

Chinese Paper III (Listening) - I never liked Listening Comprehension tests. The speakers combined with the quiet little noises of the people around you can indeed be distracting at times. Furthermore, I know I am not a person who can think that rapidly on-the-fly; and that skill seems to be really needed in Listening Comprehension just to keep up with the passage. More likely than not, howver, it's because it is in Chinese, making two steps necessary - translation to English, then and only then comprehension.

Chemistry I and II - Chem was admittedly easier than Physics. As again, I used the game theory concept as mentioned earlier because I wasn't sure whether slag or iron would fall on top; however, I went for a 1.5 or 0.5 strategy, rather than fixed 1 or the 2 or 0 strategy. I better go now, the mug awaits; I have to go and really start working on Language Arts, lest I fail tomorrow. With paper I possibly doomed, there isn't much of a way out now.

Bye.
JK