'O' levels is over... not! I still have 2 MCQ papers left, Physics and Chemistry on the 12th [there is a rumour that there is one more on the 13th but I cannot remember what that is ;)]. Okay just kidding. 3 MCQ papers left, including a Biology one on 13th. It is quite awkward as the MCQ papers are taken after the main papers. I have no idea how much I should study for them since I always score quite high for them (read: the Physics and Chemistry MCQs). In fact, there are many people out there who are more confident than me and have already declared that 'O' levels is over.
The only subject that I am most worried about is my Combined Humanities (Geography Elective). Let's talk about Geography Elective first. I scored a whooping 9½/10 for the Map Reading section for prelims. But for 'O' levels I think I only score a maximum of 7. There were 3 parts to the question. The first one asked for the distance between 2 points. Because the distance was 20+ cm, and my ruler could only measure up to 15cm, I could not draw a straight line across to measure the distance. Neither did I think as imba-ly as Wei Liang to use the edge of the paper to mark out the distance on the map. So I had to resort to using something that is useful in desperate situations: the Pythagoras Theorem! I found the horizontal and vertical length because they gave us the grid reference anyway, and silly me put a 21.42 cm as the distance on the map, after which I multiply by the scale to get my actual distance. Did you spot anything wrong with it? No? Let me give you a hint: can your ruler measure twenty-one point FOUR TWO centimetres? Or is yours a vernier caliper? The second part was a difficult one because it asked for something which I did not study for. So I just wrote some 4 one-sentence paragraphs as my answer. I could not really complete the third part because I could not find many features on the map which "serve communication well".
The second question was on Agriculture, which I hope to score well (this question is probably my only chance of scoring well; read below).
There were choices for the third question. Because I totally banged onto Environment and did not even read through Development and Tourism in the textbook, I had to attempt the most difficult question among the three choices. There was this 8-mark part question asking to explain the differences between renewable and non-renewable resources. And that was the first part of the Environment chapter, and well, I took it as the introduction part so I totally ignored it. Instead, I studied the more interesting (*raises eyebrows*) parts like Deforestation, Pollution, Desertification, Global Warming, Depleted Fish Stocks and Ozone Depletion. If it were a 2-mark question I think I would have scored quite well for the question.
Lesson learnt: ALWAYS study a backup chapter!
Social Studies (SS) was worse. Now, for the syllabus I studied for SS, there are 6 themes. 1 theme will come out for Source-based Questions (SBQ) (which do not require studying of the textbook) and 3 other different themes will come out for Structured-essay Questions (SEQ) (which requires hardcore mugging of the stupid textbooks). So we are only concerned about the SEQ section and not about the SBQ. The safest way is to study 4 themes so that no matter which 3 themes come out for SEQ, there will always be at least 1 theme that will be tested from what you have studied. Of course, if you study 3 themes, there is a very small (in fact, 5%) chance that THE OTHER THREE themes would come out for SEQ. Some people may disagree and say that it is better to study all 6, so that you can choose the easiest question out of the three. But I will tell you angrily to reserve your brain space for other more meaningful stuffs. Now let us just assume that Merger/Seperation of Singapore from Malaysia (one of the themes) will not come out. That was what I assumed, and Merger/Separation really did not come out! In fact, all the SEQ was from the secondary 4 textbook only! So if you study 2 themes, out of the 5 themes left, for the SEQ, there is a 90% chance that one of the themes you have studied would come out. Well, I thought 90% was quite high so I decided to take the risk, and...
Lesson learnt: If you were to decide whether to take a risk such that there is a 90% success, NEVER TAKE IT!!!!
(Actually, if you were to count Merger/Separation in, the chances of having one question coming out from the 2 themes you have studied would be 80%. In that case, DO NOT TAKE A 80% CHANCE RISK!)
Ah well ah well, when I realised the horror, I calmed myself down. I told myself it's only an 'O' level examination. No big deal. So I spent more time thinking through the SBQ instead. As for the SEQ, I still spent much time recalling the points so I did not really complete them.
Here are my predictions for my 'O' level examinations (I sound as if 'O' levels has ended already):
English - A2
E-maths - A1
A-maths - A1
Physics - A1
Chemistry - A1
Biology - A2
Combined Humanities - B3 (I hope!!)
and together with Chinese (B3 for mid years), I think my L1R5 will be around 9. That is around the same as my L1R5 for prelims except that when you look at my prelims score, you need to tilt your head 180 degrees to see my 'O' level score.
Now about the dancer in the last post, it is simply a 2D image of a dancer swivelling horizontally. The shadow of the legs (towards the bottom of the picture) seems to imply that the dancer is rotating counter-clockwise, because when her right leg is towards the background, there is a shadow on the ground, and when her right leg reaches the foreground, the shadow disappears from view. If the dancer is rotating clockwise, the shadow seen when her right leg is in the foreground must be seen when her right leg appears in the background too, but clearly it isn't.
However, to me it just seems like the motion fits more of clockwise than counter-clockwise. When she appears to be rotating counter-clockwise, it seems like she is going to fall any time (but unfortunately she doesn't).
If you can only view it rotating in one direction, what you can do is to tilt your head near 180 degrees (please don't fall off the chair). If you still see it rotating in the same direction, close your eyes for around 5 seconds and look at it again with your head still tilted. Do you see it now?
Oh by the way, the tilting of head is not a prank. That's what I did anyway, and now I can see it rotate both ways (though not simultaneously!). Let's assume you see it rotate clockwise. When you turn your head 180 degrees and look at it upside-down, it should rotate clockwise too (in your upside-down point of view). However, the upside-down point of view is different from the right-way-up point of view, i.e. if you see it rotate clockwise upside down, you should see it rotate counter-clockwise right-way-up. If I want to even play a prank on you, I will go for something more extreme, like... hey, stand up and turn your body counter-clockwise for 10 rounds, then you should see the dancer turn counter-clockwise too! Ha ha!
The only subject that I am most worried about is my Combined Humanities (Geography Elective). Let's talk about Geography Elective first. I scored a whooping 9½/10 for the Map Reading section for prelims. But for 'O' levels I think I only score a maximum of 7. There were 3 parts to the question. The first one asked for the distance between 2 points. Because the distance was 20+ cm, and my ruler could only measure up to 15cm, I could not draw a straight line across to measure the distance. Neither did I think as imba-ly as Wei Liang to use the edge of the paper to mark out the distance on the map. So I had to resort to using something that is useful in desperate situations: the Pythagoras Theorem! I found the horizontal and vertical length because they gave us the grid reference anyway, and silly me put a 21.42 cm as the distance on the map, after which I multiply by the scale to get my actual distance. Did you spot anything wrong with it? No? Let me give you a hint: can your ruler measure twenty-one point FOUR TWO centimetres? Or is yours a vernier caliper? The second part was a difficult one because it asked for something which I did not study for. So I just wrote some 4 one-sentence paragraphs as my answer. I could not really complete the third part because I could not find many features on the map which "serve communication well".
The second question was on Agriculture, which I hope to score well (this question is probably my only chance of scoring well; read below).
There were choices for the third question. Because I totally banged onto Environment and did not even read through Development and Tourism in the textbook, I had to attempt the most difficult question among the three choices. There was this 8-mark part question asking to explain the differences between renewable and non-renewable resources. And that was the first part of the Environment chapter, and well, I took it as the introduction part so I totally ignored it. Instead, I studied the more interesting (*raises eyebrows*) parts like Deforestation, Pollution, Desertification, Global Warming, Depleted Fish Stocks and Ozone Depletion. If it were a 2-mark question I think I would have scored quite well for the question.
Lesson learnt: ALWAYS study a backup chapter!
Social Studies (SS) was worse. Now, for the syllabus I studied for SS, there are 6 themes. 1 theme will come out for Source-based Questions (SBQ) (which do not require studying of the textbook) and 3 other different themes will come out for Structured-essay Questions (SEQ) (which requires hardcore mugging of the stupid textbooks). So we are only concerned about the SEQ section and not about the SBQ. The safest way is to study 4 themes so that no matter which 3 themes come out for SEQ, there will always be at least 1 theme that will be tested from what you have studied. Of course, if you study 3 themes, there is a very small (in fact, 5%) chance that THE OTHER THREE themes would come out for SEQ. Some people may disagree and say that it is better to study all 6, so that you can choose the easiest question out of the three. But I will tell you angrily to reserve your brain space for other more meaningful stuffs. Now let us just assume that Merger/Seperation of Singapore from Malaysia (one of the themes) will not come out. That was what I assumed, and Merger/Separation really did not come out! In fact, all the SEQ was from the secondary 4 textbook only! So if you study 2 themes, out of the 5 themes left, for the SEQ, there is a 90% chance that one of the themes you have studied would come out. Well, I thought 90% was quite high so I decided to take the risk, and...
Lesson learnt: If you were to decide whether to take a risk such that there is a 90% success, NEVER TAKE IT!!!!
(Actually, if you were to count Merger/Separation in, the chances of having one question coming out from the 2 themes you have studied would be 80%. In that case, DO NOT TAKE A 80% CHANCE RISK!)
Ah well ah well, when I realised the horror, I calmed myself down. I told myself it's only an 'O' level examination. No big deal. So I spent more time thinking through the SBQ instead. As for the SEQ, I still spent much time recalling the points so I did not really complete them.
Here are my predictions for my 'O' level examinations (I sound as if 'O' levels has ended already):
English - A2
E-maths - A1
A-maths - A1
Physics - A1
Chemistry - A1
Biology - A2
Combined Humanities - B3 (I hope!!)
and together with Chinese (B3 for mid years), I think my L1R5 will be around 9. That is around the same as my L1R5 for prelims except that when you look at my prelims score, you need to tilt your head 180 degrees to see my 'O' level score.
Now about the dancer in the last post, it is simply a 2D image of a dancer swivelling horizontally. The shadow of the legs (towards the bottom of the picture) seems to imply that the dancer is rotating counter-clockwise, because when her right leg is towards the background, there is a shadow on the ground, and when her right leg reaches the foreground, the shadow disappears from view. If the dancer is rotating clockwise, the shadow seen when her right leg is in the foreground must be seen when her right leg appears in the background too, but clearly it isn't.
However, to me it just seems like the motion fits more of clockwise than counter-clockwise. When she appears to be rotating counter-clockwise, it seems like she is going to fall any time (but unfortunately she doesn't).
If you can only view it rotating in one direction, what you can do is to tilt your head near 180 degrees (please don't fall off the chair). If you still see it rotating in the same direction, close your eyes for around 5 seconds and look at it again with your head still tilted. Do you see it now?
Oh by the way, the tilting of head is not a prank. That's what I did anyway, and now I can see it rotate both ways (though not simultaneously!). Let's assume you see it rotate clockwise. When you turn your head 180 degrees and look at it upside-down, it should rotate clockwise too (in your upside-down point of view). However, the upside-down point of view is different from the right-way-up point of view, i.e. if you see it rotate clockwise upside down, you should see it rotate counter-clockwise right-way-up. If I want to even play a prank on you, I will go for something more extreme, like... hey, stand up and turn your body counter-clockwise for 10 rounds, then you should see the dancer turn counter-clockwise too! Ha ha!
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