Exam Results Day: Down Memory Lane

You know, with all the STPM and SPM results buzz going around, I feel like sharing all my experience when I obtained results for most of the major exams in my life. Allow me to start from young…. Here we go:

6 1/2 years old: Pre-school Final Year Results Day

I have no idea how it felt like receiving my pre-school final year exam results because it was so long ago. But I remember I flunked my Mandarin classes because my family didn’t and still doesn’t speak Mandarin. I also remember I got spanked for no reason – Lao Shi said it is wrong to put your head below a girl’s skirt. But where got???

*Please don’t get the wrong idea here. I have since repented.* =)

9 years old: PTS Results Day

I bet most of you have friends who sat for SPM, and they are like one year younger than you. And you ask them, “How is that so?” and they reply, “PTS ma.”

PTS stands for Penilaian Tahap Satu, which is a government assessment test to identify and accelerate the learning of bright young students. During that time, I was really playful (till once I fell and my earlobe bled because it was sliced by the table edge), and have low self-confidence.

I remember my class teacher reading a list of names of students who passed the PTS, and thus were given the chance  to skip Year Four. I was paying close attention to every name, but not mine.

Then, suddenly I heard, ” sonnn…. lee… ” Next, I turned to my friend, “Hey dude, did I hear wrongly or did Pn Faizah just mentioned my name?”

After that, I asked, “Cikgu, betul kah saya lulus PTS?”

“Ya Winson Lee, kamu berjaya!”

That was PTS results. By the way, I forfeited the chance to skip Year Four because I thought I was stupid and wouldn’t survive the brunt of Year Five. *Now Black Cheongsam, you know more about me huh* =)

12 years old: UPSR Results Day

UPSR is basically Primary School Assessment Test where everyone in the whole country does the same papers.  If my memory is not deceiving me, I took Malay, English, Maths, Kajian Tempatan (Local Studies), and Science. So the story was:

“Krinnggggg….. “

I answered the phone, “Hello.” “Mum, yeah what’s up?”

“Son, my friend works in the exam department. Do you want me to ask her to check your results before everyone gets theirs?”

“Yeah.” So I gave her my candidate number.

“Son, you got straight As!”

Upon hearing that, I was jumping over the phone. I almost did the Bollywood roll, rolling on the floor as if you’re in love and singing Kuch Kuch Hotta Hei. Wow, so unbelievable!

On the results day where UPSR results was announced for real, I was jumping over the phone calling my mum that I got 5As! I was tearing. My friends and I were screaming It was so unbelievable!

Spot the difference between the previous two paragraphs- the first unbelievable moment was real while the second was fake because my friends cannot know that I already knew one week in advance!

Answer:

Upon hearing that, I was jumping over the phone. I almost did the Bollywood roll, rolling on the floor as if you’re in love and singing Kuch Kuch Hotta Hei. Wow, so unbelievable! (Real.)

On the results day where UPSR results was announced for real, I was jumping over the phone calling my mum that I got 5As! I was tearing. My friends and I were screaming It was so unbelievable! (Fake. Monkey act.)

15 years old: PMR Results Day

I believe I worked reasonably hard for PMR. In my trial exams, I’ve got full As. So, on results day, it was expected. People would be surprised if Winson Lee doesn’t get straight As. The expectation was to that extent.

17 years old: SPM Results Day

Now, SPM was a major headache in my school career. It was complete studying at the last minute before exams. It was going through the thick reference books cover to cover.

I even took my trial exams as the real one because I wanted to gauge myself. The trials turned out well. I’ve got straight A1s in my forecast and I managed to use that to apply to millions of scholarship.

On SPM results day, I was alone. I was late because I came at 2pm. I remember wearing a red singlet with my armpit carpet, or armpit hair, exposed.

“Hi Cikgu, bagaimana results saya?”

“Ah Winson, dah expect la 10 A ni… “

Alright, it was expected. So, it wasn’t as exciting as receiving my PTS verdict.

19 years old: SAT Subject Test Results Day

I mentioned this in a post with almost the same title as above. To recap, Jonathan Mah called me up in my sleep and told me, “Winson, guess how much I got for my Maths 2?” It was a question that he asked so he can answer “800 for Maths 2!”

Mind you, 800 is full score in the SAT Mathematics 2 Test. And Jonathan had the guts to tell me “I didn’t finish the last few questions!”

I checked online for my results. It was full of suspense. The internet was so slow. I almost came to a point where I wanted to curse my monitor “wei, why so slow wan? Stupid monitor, useless la, quickly la”.

Then, it came. It was not bad. =) 2180 for Chemistry, Physics, and Maths 2. I am overjoyed, until Jonathan told me he got 2300++.

19 years and 2 months old: SAT Reasoning Test Results Day

Up till this point, I am already numbed. I checked online through College Board. Well, not bad. Above 2000. That would suffice me to apply to Singapore, I thought to myself.

19 years and 3 months old: International Baccalaureate Results Day

This one was really memorable. An hour before we could access our results online, we were all chatting through Windows Live Messenger. Everyone was so exciting and nervous. What happens if Faizal doesn’t get the 35 IB points he needs to satisfy Petronas? How would Chan Hu do since he seems to be quite relaxed throughout the whole IB? How would the hardworking ants like Ju Anne, Khairul, and Siang Hang do?

We had a countdown on our conversation window. 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute, 30 second, 10 second, 3, 2, 1, It’s NOW! Go check guys!

Then, everyone keyed in their pin number and access code.

Jonathan, Riza and I keyed in ours. We were all blocked!!!!

No access. Wrong pin code. Wrong access code. Please try again. We all three can’t access our results!

Then Jonathan proposed we called up our IB Coordinator. It’s 2am for your info. He didn’t answer. Then, Jonathan called up Mr Masukor. Jon said Mr M will call us to inform us our results soon.

“Krinnggggg… ” I answered the phone at 2.30am.

“Winson, this is Mr Masukor, I would have to say that I am slightly disappointed with you, but overall you did okay. I am glad that you have achieved what you have done in your 2 years in IB….

“Mr Masukor, WHAT’S MY RESULTS! Don’t beat around the bush! I can’t take it. I would have heart attack okay!”

“Okay okay Winson. You dropped a few points in Maths and English where you got 6 in both. You got 2 bonus points.”

“So meaning, the rest are 7s?” I did some calculation. Wow, 42 points!

Then, I started spinning on my desktop chair. The results day was on the 6th Jan.

And suddenly, I remember about dad…………..

He must be proud to see me getting this results. The next thing was, I dedicated my 42 points to my dad who went off on Christmas 2008.

—————————————

Many people feel sad when they get bad results in their exams. Some of my Form 6 friends who got their STPM results felt totally devastated. But my piece of advice to them, don’t look back and just prepare yourself for the next phase in your roller coaster life.

It’s a great feeling to be able to say that after so many different experiences in getting exam results. Thank you, God for watching me out all this while. =)

SAT Reasoning Test

Date: 6th December 2008

Venue: Metropolitan College, Subang Jaya

Someone told me today, “Winson, why you seem to be having so many tests?” Seriously, I myself do not know why but I do know that these tests are important for me to pursue my tertiary education. Anyhow, this post will be about my SAT Reasoning Test in the morning at Metropolitan College.

Arriving at the college at 7.30am (thanks to Jon’s dad), Jon and I were slightly nervous but calm about today’s big test. A few months ago, Jon and I were here in this same college to sit for our SAT Subject Tests. I believe I wrote something about SAT Subject Tests and our scores in my previous posts.

The mood this morning was tiring because last night, we did some final revisions on essays and critical reading although we did not really burn the midnight oil.

So, what is SAT Reasoning Test?

This test is generally a test of English Language, on-the-spot brain power, and pure analytical skills. There are ten sections in this test (3 Critical Raeding, 3 math, 3 Writing, one placebo). The ‘placebo’ is a section that is put by College Board to prepare future tests. Which of the ten is the placebo? Answer: You don’t really know.

Critical Reading

Critical Reading requires you to read a lot of information and decipher the author’s purpose and tone. I find this section the most challenging, eventhough Writing section is equally difficult, because in Critical Reading, time is a factor. (Anyway, time is a factor in all section.)

When I did my practice tests, and my REAL TEST this morning, time was not on my side. You would probably have about 1 minute or so per question. For each right, you score one point. For each wrong, your score will be deducted by a quarter of a point. For unattempted questions, no points will be added or subtracted. If the test setters want to be nasty, in one Critical Reading Section, you may find yourself reading three passages and answering 24 questions in 25 minutes. If they are nice, you would probably be given two passages.

On top of these passage-based questions, there are questions that test your understanding about the logic of a sentence. To make it even harder, these questions are accompanied by some uncommon words like corpulence, paucity, venality, profundity, and the like. I was initially freaked out by the BIG WORDS but after looking them out in the dictionary, I got myself a good laugh about their meaning.

For instance:

You are very corpulent. It generally means, YOU ARE VERY FAT because CORPULENT = FAT.

Another word I find amusing is PAUNCHY. It means (are you ready?) having a fat stomach. =) Hahaha… what a big joke…You are so paunchy…

Guess what is the meaning of EXECRABLE? It means, very very very bad. =)

I am not sure whether I am being informative here up till now, but Critical Reading is really hard for Malaysian students like me. Read more books and probably you will be geared better for this kind of information overload in SAT.

Math

Math is relatively simple. For Malaysians and those who have advanced level of mathematics, SAT Math should not be problem. This morning, I had extra time on some of my Math Sections, allowing me to check my answers. Do bear in mind that the math gets progressively harder. For the first Math section, I had time to re-do everything. The second one was slightly difficult but I still had time to check part of my answers. The third one was challenging; I finished the last question within the last two minutes.

Though I have stated that Math Section is quite simple, you need conceptual understanding to answer them, in addition to some common sense. Sometimes, even if the problem looks complicated, there is an easier way that can saves you a lot of time. In essence, know your stuff.

You have 25 minutes for this section but in further Math sections, the time will be reduced to 20 minutes. The number of questions varies because the difficulty for each question is different. You can survive without using a calculator but having one will help you to avoid silly arithmetic mistakes like 3 x 3 = 6 and 1 x 1=2. Believe me, I had actually committed them in the past.

To Malaysians only: Please aim for 800 in Math because Critical Reading and Writing will probably lose you some marks. We only got Maths to help us breach the 2000-barrier.. for me at least. I don’t mean to put pressure but a friend told me:

Hey Winson, you know ah if you get one question wrong in the whole math Section, you will only get a 780. If you don’t answer one question, provided all answered ones are right, you will only get a 790. So each question matters!

I felt that a pressure was imposed on me when I heard this from my friend. One lousy question can cause you to lose so much. Wow.

Writing

The SAT Reasoning Test begins with an essay (this is in the Writing section). For today’s essay – I cannot reveal the essay question due to the terms and conditions given by College Board – I wrote about Che Guevara and Antigone. I had so much fun writing about them and trying to support my stand. This essay was hard because again, time was against me. I had 25 minutes to plan, write, edit, and conclude a two-page essay.

If you think you could write well, think again. Can you write well under pressure? I can’t. I tried my best to avoid silly grammatical errors and to be as sophisticated as I could while trying to elucidate my examples to the examiner effectively. In short, it was HARD. Lame joke: The paper was soft though.

The essay is just a part of the Writing Section. There will be two more sections: a 34-question section and a 14-question section. For the former you are given 25 minutes (that is like less than a minute per question.) For the latter, you have ten minutes (again, you have less than a minute per question.)

The SAT Challenge

The main challenge I found out in SAT is the ability to remain focused. The test will start with the Essay and end with the 10-minute section. The rest in between are jumbled up, meaning you have no clue that the next section will be after you have completed one. For me, it was transferring the brain juice from left to right, then to the left again, stay left before to the right again. In short, it messes your brain up.

Thankfully (the only good stuff in the whole exam me thinks), you are given a 5 minute break after every 2 sections.

The Verdict

I was calm and composed throughout the test although I almost panicked in one of the Critical Reading Sections. For that particular section, I had ten questions left to be answered with 5 minutes left on the clock!

I don’t know how I will fare in this, but God willing, it shall breach the 2000-mark and probably even hit the 2200 mark. There are good reasons for this; these figures are not for show.

NUS requires 2100 “to make a competitive application.”

All the Ivies expect you to have a score in the region of 2100-2400, although you might still have a chance even with a lower score. But, well, the higher the better right?

All the best for SAT!

Free test preparation resources:
MajorTests.com

SparkNotes SAT Preparation

Number2.com

Free Rice Vocabulary Builder

I Need A Pencil

KapTest

————————————————————–

Below is a small section of the Papyrus Continued online paper:

Headline: Teenager Loses Cellphone in KL Sentral

Pure carelessness or pickpocketed? Our reporter Winson Low was sent to investigate.

Saturday, Dec 6 – Winson Lee, 19, dropped his Samsung cellphone in KL Sentral when he was attempting to cross the street. His cellphone is yet to be found. Winson explains, “Ya la, the rain (was) so heavy, (and) I was running for shelter. Once, when I touched my pockets, (it is) still there. 5 seconds later, it is gone.”

Winson is asking his friends and family to contact him through his personal blog and/or email. He wishes to recover all his contacts as much as possible. When asked about the amount of phone credit still left in the phone, Winson answered, “Still got about 44 cents.” “They can have it la,” he added.

Classifieds

Looking for sponsors to attend International Youth Leadership Conference 2009 in Prague, Czech Republic. Total amount RM10k including conference fees and airfare. Will benefit companies and busineses that advocate youth development. If interested, please contact Winson Lee through his email winsonlwh@gmail.com . Winson does not own a cell phone now.