SPM Tips from 11A+ student

REPOST FROM 24 OCT 2011


Dear all, here is a special post from my friend May Lee Cai Ling who obtained straight A+ in all her 11 subjects. Thank you May for your sharing your ideas in LittleMissMeen. Currently, May is doing her A Levels under JPA sponsorship. She obtained Biasiswa Nasional 2010 which is awarded to top students in MALAYSIA. I am not sure what is her ranking but wow that is a great achievement. FYI, she just had to write what course and what country she wanted to go and they offer full sponsorship. Awesome right? If you are want to know who this awesome friend of mine is, her picture is in this link:

(Second from the right-beside me. This picture was taken from Utusan Malaysia the day after our SPM Results were out)



Related posts:

http://littlemissmeencollections.blogspot.com/2011/03/my-spm-results.html


So yesterday she messaged me and told me that she has already emailed me these tips for my blog. Here it is: ENJOY!


Things that I did for SPM =D


General comments:


· NEVER leave a question blank. Write anything but not nothing. Do your best attempt for each question.


· Allocate your time properly. Do not spend too much time to produce a perfect essay especially for sejarah and science essays, you won’t get the points that you might lose if you do not have enough time to complete the other essays. If time allocation is 20 minutes for each essay, that’s it, after 20 minutes, stop whatever you are writing and proceed on the next question. Come back when you have the time.


· DON’T SLEEP or leave early during the exam! If you have plenty of time, check, recheck and check again until the end of the paper.


· Make sure you shade your answers correctly in objective questions.


· Look through all exercises that you have done before. You should have make notes on the difficult ones before, so take some time to read through them.


· Have at least 6 hours of sleep. Stay alert, don’t make careless mistakes.


· Stay calm, don’t rush or panic.


· Make sure you have everything you need (pens, 2B and HB pencils, rubber, ruler, calculator, IC, the piece of paper that you carry into the room, etc.)


· Check the exam timetable every day!


· If you have problems, ask immediately.


· Don’t sleep too late, have a balanced and regular diet.


· Don’t forget to laugh and smile every day. =) This keeps stress away. Have confidence.


· Maintain your momentum even if you just have one more paper to go!


· Pray hard!


BM and BI



Essays:


· I read quite a lot of sample essays. If you get any tips for essays, I don’t think you have to read samples for each and every topic. Eliminate those that you know for sure that you won’t attempt. Focus on those you are confident of.


· Learn the interesting phrases and write them down somewhere, then reread them the night before the exam. Obtain useful points from the sample essays, you will find different topics having similar points, for example, gejala sosial dalam kalangan remaja.


· Don’t panic when you get your exam paper and find that you have not prepared for any of the topics. Think of related topics and find appropriate points that might be useful.


· Read and reread the exam questions. Make sure you get it right and fully understand what it requires. Even though you may have prepared for one of the exam questions, the instruction of the question might require something different from what you have read before.


· Write down ANY points that cross your mind, regardless of whether you are using them or not so that you will not struggle to remember them when you are halfway through writing. The points help you to brainstorm too.


· When you write, remember NOT to put two points in one paragraph. Each paragraph for each point. Write the MOST IMPORTANT points first. Organise the points so that they follow a certain order. For example, you can start with peranan kerajaan and end with peranan individu or vice versa.


· For BM essays, we are required to write as long as possible. You should have been told this before, but do spend more time on your long essay. For the short essay, don’t elaborate TOO long, stick to the points that you are required to include in every paragraph (isi, huraian, contoh and kesimpulan) and write not more than 4 lines for each points. For long essays, stick to the points also, but elaborate longer. Use definitions, peribahasa etc to elaborate and include a few more examples; remember to extend on the examples by relating them to the main point given.


· This might be quite hard for certain people, but bigger handwriting really does gain you some advantages. Your essay will look longer and the examiner will be happier to read your essay. Remember to leave a line before starting each new paragraph.


Novel and Komsas/Literature:


· Well, some seniors who obtain really good marks for this component might not agree with my way of studying, but I think there is no other way of understanding the text fully unless you really go through the texts not once but a few times especially for the novel. Some reference books provide good synopsis but I don’t think that will be sufficient for full understanding. Knowing the FLOW of the novel is important in a way that you do not have to put too much effort in memorizing the plot and the nilai-nilai. Even if you forget about the points that you have memorsed earlier, you can simply make some out yourself and get them right. Knowing the flow is even important when it comes to the random questions like “what do you learn from the novel, how do you think it is important” etc. Due to the very limited time, it is easy to get panicky and you can hardly think. Understanding the text will allow points to pop into your head as you write. Anyway, it happens to me…


· For literature/komsas questions, prepare by reading and doing as much exercises as possible. Check the answers and learn them. But do try the questions before you check the answers, for some of the answer schemes provide only the main points and so you need to give your own elaborations. It is always better to have 1 or 2 extra points to back up your answers in especially in BM.


Ringkasan/Summary and Tatabahasa/Grammar:


· Your teacher would have taught you the correct way of doing it. Follow their instructions!


· Be careful on simple things like punctuations (full stops, hyphens), capital letters, etc.


Mathematics and Add Maths:


· Remember to label the axis of graphs and write correct unit.s


· Look through exercises that you have done before and make sure you understand each and every one of it.


· Normally I don’t do practices the night before Maths exams, unless I have finished going through all the exercises that I have done before. Doing exercises is too time-consuming. For me, doing tough questions the night before Maths exams will just get you all worked up and frustrated. Difficult questions should be attempted and understood long before the exams. What you do before the exams is just to refresh your memories on them.


Sejarah:


· Teachers will not be happy with this, but I really do find tips extremely helpful in studying for Sejarah. However, it is very important to collect tips from various sources and from different people so that you can put them all together and have a whole collection of them. Then there is a higher possibility that what you read will come out in the exam. What I do before the exam is to go through the tips one by one. I know it’s a bit risky, but last-minute study, what to do? =b


Moral (Sorry, I don’t know about agama Islam):


· Well, remember your DEFINISI!


· Do your exercises and past years (trials) properly. If you are too lazy to write whole essays, at least do in point form so that you can go through them before the exams.


· I don’t know what format they require you to do this year, but make sure you know the correct way of answering. Listen to the teachers’ instructions!


Accounts:


· Practice makes perfect.


· Be careful in calculations. Don’t panic when you can’t balance your account. Skip and leave it first , then come back if you have the time.


BIO, Chemistry, Physics:


· Do past years papers.


· Write precise and concise answers, straight to the point.


Chinese


· For most of you, Chinese will be the last paper. Don’t WASTE the given time, use that time fully to read more essays and look through exercises.


Essay:


· Don’t take 剪报 and 日记for granted.


· Read sample essay. For the first essay question, you might find it useful to read texts from the Paper 2 comprehension questions because they provide some interesting stories with moral values.


· Remember the format for letters, notices, etc


名句精华：


· Remember the proverbs and meanings. I don’t realy care much about 出处 , just have some rough knowledge about them.


文言文：


· Do more exercises, look at sample questions.