Last I checked ( two weeks ago , there weren't any ) .

That's unnecessary , your marks are sent or even marked anyway .

Hi guys . Sorry for not being active . I'm so tired now I can't think of anything to say . I'll update my progress during the weekends .

Hi there . It has been a while . But now that I've had my nap , and my time , I'll update on my current progress . If possible , I'll do this as much as I can starting from this post , so that one day , it'll help some juniors and they can assess whether they're progressing in their studies or not , or even see the challenges I faced all the way up to SPM -- to understand that it's normal not to know in the early stages . I will create a blog and have this SPM log in which I'll update my study progress , if time permits . Anyway , here's a general commentary about form five :

Form five is hectic . Form four definitely isn't . Some may say they are the same but it really isn't for me . First of all , I have started to actually do my homework , which is an improvement , I didn't touch my homework aside from a few BM or English essays that had to be done . I found that both Maths and Add Maths homework are a complete waste of time ; I prefer doing exercise on my own . Doing hundreds of questions testing you on a certain topic you've mastered isn't going to help much . Instead , once you've understood a particular concept , drop the exercises and jump to a new concept .

As for BM , I've been reading some sample karangan and is starting to pay attention on several techniques on developing a paragraph , from many of the karangan books I've bought last year which the only time I had touched were before my final year form four exams . Same goes to English , I'm practising writing summaries . It's interesting to note that my current problem is Sejarah , as I've only glanced through the first few pages and I'm not proud of that . I'm done with rate of reactions ( Chemistry ) , but after several exercises yesterday , there are several tiny aspects to be revised , especially on the curves that involve intersection . But so far , I think I'm doing fine in Chemistry , my form four base is pretty fine , there are some forgotten facts from the last chapter as well as Salts but I believe they will all come back when I revise . Biology , finished the entire circulatory system , will jump to plants , and proceed to exercises right after that . Haven't touched Pendidikan Moral , but I'll do some trial papers and finish memorising all the definisi and kata kunci later .

So here's the interesting part :

I'll be having extra classes every Saturday , 10 weeks of BM . The speaker is my guru penolong kanan , and he's also the ketua pemeriksa BM for kertas satu ( his wife marks kertas dua ) so he's very experienced . I'm starting to appreciate my school's effort in helping us students . Also , he has implemented a new program called Guru Muda , where he trains 30 students including me , and we're required to then assist other students according to colour codes which are grade indicators . Our first training finished today morning , it was on karangan . Here's my concern though : To assist the red colour coded students , if I am given the task to guide the red colour coded students ( red means G grade ) . They have big problems with tatabahasa , I don't think teaching them how to write deductive or inductive paragraphs would be a good idea . Aside from that small concern , I'm looking forward to the program .

I'm staying back on Fridays to revise Ekonomi Asas with my principal , who interestingly , is also a ketua pemeriksa . What I'm currently doing is I practise past year questions only ( my mastery on the form four topics isn't that good ) and she's marking it , and then discussing about my mistakes .

And here's a surprising twist :

I've joined a tuition class for Physics , conducted by an experienced tutor , Lee Cheng Xi who authors several books and that Whizz Thru book under Oxford Fajar . I attended my first tuition class in my entire life days ago , on Thursday . What pains me is Physics is my best subject , I haven't had any major problems in it , I managed to finish the first chapter of form five , Waves in two weeks . But recently I've come to realise that my Physics teacher in school not only doesn't know how to plan experiments in paper three , who doesn't even know if the formulae sheet will be provided in SPM or not . Yes , I'm attending tuition classes just to learn the answering techniques for Physics , which is kind of sad if you think about , you start to realise that SPM is all about answering techniques . Apart from that , my tutor supplies past year questions from 2003 , as well as trial papers , complete with discussions about the answers as well as informative lectures , he had explained the Wave concepts really well . He also discusses about time management for paper 3 , strategies for section B and C in paper two , and interesting facts like paper three being the least important paper in Physics which only serves as a more detailed indicator about your grade , whether you're an A- , A , or A+ student , and it has the most strict marking scheme of all three papers . But the class is too crowded -- 77 students , which is beyond claustrophobic , and sacrificing my afternoon nap on Thursdays is a huge leap , my eyelids were so heavy . That being said , I have one less subject to worry about , I no longer need to print out all the trial papers , answer schemes and also bother seniors about which experiments to memorise , which to not as all my questions were finally answered in his class .

Before I leave you with this post , here's a progress log :

BM - Starting to work on all the aspects of the subject
English - Concentrating on summaries
Biology - Finished circulatory system , will go on to plants but certain parts like immunity and lymphatic system needs to be revised further
Physics - Done with Waves , will practice more essay questions
Chemistry - Finished Rates of Reaction , a lot of essay questions to be done
Sejarah - None existent . Warning to self : Start working on your Sejarah
Moral - Trial papers to be done
Ekonomi Asas - Must finish form four chapters and start immediately with the first chapter of form five after that
Additional Mathematics - Finished Arithmetic Progression , need to practise more ( I have to admit , my Add Maths progress is pretty slow )
Mathematics - Finished the first chapter , chapter 2 , only inequalities left . Past year questions to be done

So , a lot to be done , right ? At least this is better than not having to do anything , like form four where I lazed around most of the time .

That's all .

Maxis

That's a general question , you'll have to specify just a bit , whether it's about essays or paper 3 practical .

happy_berry , RM 50 . There are still students coming in . :/ But he'll displace about half of the students into another class with a different teacher . It's like , after about 5 years , I'm finally learning from a teacher who knows his stuff . I cannot describe the feeling , it's like ... after being in a shell for so long , you've finally come out ....

And when doing the collection of questions from 2003-2012 ( Waves ) , Paper 1 , it was so enlightening ... If you've mastered the topic , you can just look at the question and know the answer immediately . The same can't be said for paper 2 though , they do come out with new questions , sometimes with the same concepts .

Also , comment on 2012 Physics Waves question : There was one question where the answer is way off the actual answer . And the paper 3 Young's double slit experiment was pretty challenging as well , if you don't have a strong grasp of ax/D , some of the candidates in 2012 used rulers to measure the length of the first consecutive bright fringes , which is incorrect .

To find x , distance between two fringes , you measure y using the ruler , but for x , you need to use y/4 . He said many candidates used the ruler to measure x and lost marks .

Please don't tell me you've spent 4+ years of secondary education , not knowing we have choices for novels ? There are groups of states with a prescribed novel . I'm doing Step by Wicked Step .

This post has been edited by maximR: Jan 21 2013, 08:11 PM

If you're good , you can do both . No problem . I prefer focusing on one novel only , like what I did in PMR .

Yes , it's called a flexi-curve . Without it I can't draw quadratic / cubic / reciprocal functions , so it's a life saver .

I'd personally recommend SUCCESS . It's very good .

Essential is okay , I don't really like it as sometimes , the information will stray away from the textbook . And the terms used differ slightly too , e.g , thromboplastin / thrombokinase . If you've read the new BM Biology textbook , you'll see that the Essential book follows it , while SUCCESS follows our English version Biology textbook .

I hope some seniors from the 2012 SPM Thread will see this .

When describing / planning experiments , be it for Paper 2 or Paper 3 , must we include the apparatus used in the procedure ? Many trial papers' mark schemes don't include the apparatus .

Example :

1 . 50 cubic centimetres of 0.2 mol / cubic decimetres of sodium thiosulphate solution is measured and poured into a conical flask using a 10 cubic centimetres measuring cylinder .

I always include the apparatus but my teacher says once the volume is stated , it isn't necessary .

Also :

Number of particles per unit volume , or number of hydrogen ions per unit volume ? Experiment regarding the effect of temperature on the rate of reaction between hydrochloric acid and sodium thiosulphate solution .

Plus :

2011 SPM Paper 3 , same experiment ( or was it about concentration ? ) , a question asks :

State one observation .
The mark scheme in the past year questions book states :

Yellow precipitate is formed .

I thought it should be 'the time taken for the mark 'X' to disappear in Experiment 1 is the shortest' because we can look at the time on the stopwatch , but not the colour of the precipitate ?

This post has been edited by maximR: Feb 1 2013, 02:25 PM

Just got the news from my teacher who's an SU Peperiksaan :

6th of November , 2013 , will be our first day of SPM .

According to him .

It changed 2 years ago ... Is the change about ... di Malaysia / di negara / tema petikan for pendahuluan ? If yes, that's an old story . Also words like seperti are not accepted in Rumusan .

Yeah and we have approx 9 more months to SPM .
You've never gotten an A for BM ? What's your main problem , karangan ?

I bought it for about RM 40 at Popular , with student discount .

Pendahuluan for Rumusan has always been short ... When was it long ?

The mark schemes are confidential you know , how on earth would they be published on the net ? I think what you meant is the proper answering technique . However , my BM teacher is a head of examiner for BM and when conducting his classes , they remain the same .

This post has been edited by maximR: Feb 4 2013, 07:16 PM

Our first day of SPM will be on the 6th of November , ends on the 5th of December . No more ample holidays for us , unlike the SPM 2012-ians .

Anyway , Chinese New Year is nearly over , it's time to seriously get real . No more fooling around . I've to remind myself of my goal .

All the best !

My Chemistry teacher decided to skip Carbon Compounds , so did all the other teachers in Port Dickson . What do you think ? Should I try to study it first ?

^vitaminpeeler

I did not attend any seminars in form three . I think I will attend some this year because the teachers are good . I do attend all of the workshops my school teachers conduct since I've been told that when it comes to school programs , I'm not a game player .

This post has been edited by maximR: Feb 17 2013, 03:16 PM

Welcome ! We are now 44 candidates-strong . But only a few are active .

Anyway , you're our very first Accounts student !
11 subjects is considered the upper limit , for me . Do you take E.A as well ? Whether you can handle an extra subject or not depends solely on you , not yor parents and your teachers . I'd suggest that you not take it . Why ? You will not realise the workload for now . When the d-day comes , you'll definitely feel the heat . Especially during the trial exams . I would prefer doing well in only 10 subjects instead of being the jack of all trades , and the master of none .

Oh , and I registered for SPM , with my pure science subjects and E.A ! No more playing the fool with E.A . My goal is to finish all the chapters and start spamming past year papers .

This post has been edited by maximR: Feb 17 2013, 05:34 PM

Done with Rate of Reactions too . It's interesting because it's not that difficult . How about Physics ? We're at Electricity already , series and parallel circuits .