I studied in the government school until I was form 2, was then homeschooled for three years and have just recently finished my o levels.

Believe me when I say O levels is harder. Its analytical. There are very few objective papers. Out of the ten papers I sat for five subjects, only one paper was objective and even so, there were two subjective papers to back it up! O levels questions are mostly a test on your understanding, ability to relate what you know in detail without going out of topic or relevance to the question, and then critically explain why so and so won the war against so and so eventhough the other party had stronger weaponary. whats more you have to back it up by both logic and fact.

No you dont have to remember long and tedious spelling of names of enzymes and the length of cat's small intestine. you have to understand how they work, function and then apply it to the question.

also, unless you are extremely confident of your english skills, I would advise against taking O levels. The ammount of essays that have to be wrtitten in such a short period of time is grewsome. I wrote nearly ten pages on five Modern World History questions for two hours and thirty minutes straight and still didnt finish the last question (because the question is never really that straight forward).

so if you are good at memorizing details, stick with SPM. If you want to delve deeper into topics and test how deeply you understand them, by all means take O levels. its a great way to strenghten thinking skills, absorption of relevant info and comprehension.


on a side note the biology CIE O levels is as follows:
Paper 1, 40 objective questions.
Paper 2, Theory.
Paper 3, Pratical test. (as in, you do the experiments then and there)
Paper 6, Alternative to Practical. (as in, you answewr questions based on the experiment given and draw your own hypothesis and conclusion.)

This post has been edited by nickellye: Dec 19 2009, 03:32 AM