thx 4 d advice~

You leave your teacher's personal problems behind, and focus your energy on improving your MUET. For starters, try to give as much attention as you can on Writing section. You need to have the ability to wisely state out your points and try to incorporate them with any factual examples or elaborations that you can come up with. This is not to say that you just cluelessly write out whatever ideas that come across your mind during in the exam, but, try to ask yourself on how will your ideas be of any relevant to the main questions? How do you elaborate your main points and what are the repercussions of the given situation if your ideas or points are implemented in the scenario? Try to muster your information from a given question by asking yourself the 5W's and 1H questions.

As for Speaking component, just be yourself and use adequate level of English that you're acquainted with. I personally know someone who was trying so hard to imitate an American accent by saying a lot of words that're jargon and superfluous in hopes of impressing the examiners. But what awaits him in the end was not exactly the ending that he expected. Just take your time to reduce your grammatical errors, and keep on practicing your speaking components with your friends for at least twice or thrice a week in order to bolster your confidence when speaking alongside them.

Personally, I think that the most easiest component in the MUET exam is the Listening component. Just carefully pay attention to the CD audio, and it will be a no-brainer to you. You will have a lot of choices to choose from the audio, so pick the ones that you think that is more appropriate to the given question. Practice a lot for this component, and you're good to go.

By far, Reading section is the toughest for me compared to the other three sections. I've done more than 45 reading practices, completed over a thousand Reading questions, and I dare say that none of those practices are on par with the real ones in the exam. This component is the most crucial of all components, due to it's highest allocation of marks. Ergo you need to quickly and carefully look out for vital keywords that will lead you to the content of the text in order to get an answer that is as accurate as possible. I failed to complete this section in time, leaving only 8 to 10 questions left, so you have to quickly skim through the 6 texts and extracting the main ideas from those texts.

Truth be told, I don't attend for any MUET tuition and I only had less than 5 months worth of preparation towards my last year's MUET exams. So if I managed to achieve a decent MUET result by doing lots of practicing and reading, then so can you.

Thanks for the advice. My main problem in writing section is the inability to squeeze out impressive and persuadable points. Currently I am trying to learn, memorise and apply as much superstitious words as I can.

For Listening, my school's audio system is extremely in bad conditions, so basically I had given up that part. I will just grab as much points as my ears and brains perceive.

As for Speaking, I can't speak fluently, even though I have a lot of points to say.

In my opinion, I think that Reading is the most easiest part to score. It's just a matter of 1 and 0. They can't pick and penalize your mistakes, unless you had committed a careless mistake on choosing the best answer.

Even though my problems are just a few, but they are critical and had a huge impact on my MUET performance. So What Should I do?

You're welcome. If that is your main weakness, then you have a lot of reading to do. Don't just restrict your choices by solely reading on MUET essays. Specifically when it comes to any kind of argumentative essays in the Writing component, you should be versatile in presenting an argument that has sufficient evidence to bolster your stand and, at the same time refute the opposing ideas. Remember, you have to impress the marker by substantiate your ideas with concrete examples and reasoning, and you can do that by reading a variety of English newspapers and magazines like The Star, Reader's Digest, just to name a few.

When it comes to Speaking component, not only you have to give your attention to the eloquence of your speech, but also to the content of your ideas. Everybody stutters once in a while, so don't worry too much on delivering a flawless speech. As long as you're able to convey your thoughts and ideas in both task A and B without making any serious mistakes, you will achieve high scores for that component.

Personally, I don't think you have any problem at all. You've said it yourself that you're able to get along with Reading section, and that your only main concern in Speaking section is your inability to fluently voice your opinions. Read a number of informative English materials, try to avoid speaking Manglish during practicing Speaking section with your friends, and you'll do just fine.

Would you mind to further elaborate on the part of Speaking Test ?=D

For speaking component, your points and elaborations must be coherent. Try to give more examples. Avoid Grammar mistakes and the Malaysian Slangs. Try to speak up as much as possible in Task B.

Is it like that?

Sorry for the late reply. I was bedridden for the past 4 days, but I managed to turn to my friend who scored the highest(in Speaking section) in my school for advice. And just like what @scgoh123 has said, it is imperative that you elaborate your points with logical explanations. Try to give reasons to support your opinion. Keep your language simple and succinct, you don't really want to impress the examiner by troubling yourself memorising a handful of bombastic phrases, only to find them tripping your momentum off in delivering a speech. And suppose you made a mistake, do not attempt to repeat your previous statement and correct your errors. You don't have the luxury of time to rehash and restore your errors in the Speaking component, a short paraphrase will do.

In Task B, don't monopolize the discussion by coercing all the other candidates to come to terms with you. You have 10 minutes allocated for your Task B, so don't arrive at a conclusion in a haste. Take your time to evaluate and consider all of the other suggestions made by the other candidates.

Being a top scorer does not mean you will get a place in a public university or get your preferred course.

Despite the fact that in the past there have been complaints of top students failing to obtain coursers they deserved, the problem persisted. Perfect score students failing to get their preferred course is a perennial problem.

According to Pihak Bahagian Kebajikan Pelajar (UPU), the coordinating body for intake into public universities, on its Facebook page (2013), there are more than 2,500 (including the 442 from STPM) applicants with a CGPA of 4.0 who applied for competitive courses like medicine, dentistry and pharmacy but the number of places allocated for the three courses in all public universities is just 1,078 or less than half the number of perfect top scorers!*

However you can always apply for Taylor's University's Tertiary Merit Scholarship. The Tertiary Merit Scholarship is aimed at making your start at Taylor's more rewarding, offering you many top degree programmes. Taylor's University degree programme graduates are well sought after in various job industries.

Click HERE to read more.

*Source: (Leanne Goh) at www.thestar.com.my, (Sunday July 21, 2013)

stickmanchong17, scgoh123, have you both decided on which theme of PA coursework that you're about to do? I think I'm going with sains dan teknologi-makanan.

I initially wanted 2 do d same theme as yrs, bcause my frend's dad has a noodle factory behind his house. However, my PA teacher said dat v cant juz use d same location, even though my proposed folio is about "mi" whereas his is about "bihun". My teacher reasoned dat as long as d technology involved (in this case, d noodle making machine) is d same, it'll be considered "copy and paste" bcause basically everything is d same except d type of noodles involved. Oh well, adat dan resam is a much more feasible option now...

P.S. Did yr teacher say dat d title of our PA coursework must be a specific one? e.g. "Persepsi org Cina thdp pakaian hitam dan putih semasa Tahun Baru Cina"

Same too. Actually I was quite hesitant on choosing the topic as Adat Resam is easier, but is a common topic whose scope of research is too wide. For teknologi makanan, the scope of research is limited but easier to conduct a research.

I will do two research topics at the same time, and see which one is better.

Yes. If you've been briefed on the preparation for the PA coursework, you should know that under the abstrak category, you should include your tajuk kajian. But there's one thing that bugs me, my PA teacher informed us that we shouldn't carry out any research pertaining to agama, like Tahun Baru Cina, Deepavali, Hari Raya and the like. But, don't they fall under perayaan(festival)? And what I found disconcerting was that we are allowed to carry out research on other types of festivals like perayaan Cheng Beng, Thaipusam etc. Or perhaps what my teacher meant was that we aren't allowed to choose any one of the 4 main religious festivals. Correct me if I'm wrong.

As for my classmates, nearly half of them opted for adat resam, and unsurprisingly, majority decided to conduct their works on perkahwinan. Some decided to only focus on one race, others are trying to include more than one races to diversify their works. This was why I bailed on perkahwinan in the first place to begin with.

On the first part, Chinese New Year is religious in nature while Thaipusam is not? My whole life is a lie!

On the second part, please note that one race can be further subdivided into many groups. For example, the Indians in Malaysia consist of the Tamils (the largest piece of the pie chart), the Telegus, the Malayalees and many other subgroups. All of them have different rituals. So perhaps they should rethink their title and maybe include a compare and contrast section in their report.

Not only me, a few friends of mine are in a muddle too and because of that, the majority of my classmates simply opt for topics revolving wedding and funeral ceremony. It's kinda odd, because my PA teacher simply categorized Chinese New Year, Deepavali, Hari Raya Aidilfritri and Hari Natal(Krismas) as agama, while the rest like, perayaan Gawai, Hari Wesak, Ching Ming(清明), perayaan Tuan-Wu(端午节), and the like fall under the category of adat resam. I would have to further ask my PA teacher about it when I'm back to school.

Oh, and another thing. My friend is about to conduct her research on her friend's forthcoming wedding ceremony. The problem is, the bride is Indian, while the groom is Chinese. Technically, that makes it a Chindian wedding, but on behalf of my friend, what should she insert in the title of her coursework? Is it reasonable to just simply state it as Perkahwinan Cina-India?

This post has been edited by RED-HAIR-SHANKS: Jan 24 2015, 07:23 PM

Perkahwinan campur seems more appropriate.

Anyway Chinese New Year is not religious, it is cultural. Your teacher is wrong.

Maybe during briefing session with teachers, MPM had interpreted that CNY is a religious activites.
I am doing about CNY too, then most probably my idea would be rejected on next Monday...

Try this on for size: Interracial Marriage: A Case Study on Inter-Ethnic Marriage between Chinese and Indian.

Have you consider Cap Goh Mei festivals? It's interrelated with CNY, but I doubt that it falls under agama.

Alright, noted. Thanks for the help.

Is your teacher Malay? He might be confused as Hari Raya is indeed a religious event, and people often associate certain race to certain religion and thus got certain facts mixed up.

You are welcome. =)