Analysis of 'A'-Levels
Since I have finished my examinations already, I think it would be appropriate for me to do an overview and projection of my performance for my first big-scale national examination in 6 years.
General Paper:
My performance for General Papaer was fair I guess. No major blunders made I presume. And neither did I write anything brilliant. Just like most J2 students out there, I did question 10 which is "Is it possible to protect the environment when many countries increasingly need energy for progress?" for Paper 1. However, unlike the other students who did this question, "Kyoto Protocol" never made any appearance in my script. I feel that this time round I had a lot more discussion in my essay -- instead of peppering examples aimlessly, I explained that it is still possible to protect the environment while levels of energy consumption need not be reduced, i.e. an equilibrium can be achieved between environmental protection and economic development.
Paper 2 caught me off guard. If the questions were to be set two years ago accordingly to one theory, then I would have expected the theme of the comprehension passage to be on "Happiness" since the report on World Happiness Rankings was first released in 2005 and had since stirred up a lot of discussion and itnerest in this topic. Never did the issue of gender equality come across my mind. Nevertheless, I still think I did pretty okay for the paper.
Projected Score: 33/50 for Paper 1, and 30/50 for Paper 2, giving me a total of 63/100.
Projected Grade: Since the entire cohort takes General Paper, I presume the distribution of marks will fit a normal bell curve almost perfectly and the grades would in turn follow the recommended cut-off criteria (given by MOE0) very closely. Hence, I predict a 'B' grade for General Paper
Chinese Language and Literature (CLL):
Paper 1, which is mainly the language component, caught me off guard. For the first time, you are required to USE YOUR OWN WORDS in a Chinese comprehension. And I did not study the two questions that asked for the background information of the two prose written in ancient Chinese language that appeared in the paper.
On top of that, I felt (and am still feeling) uneasy about the essay that I wrote. Hopefully it's the type of style that is required and will be appreciated by the marker. I mean, an essay weaved with many personal experiences instead of revolving around only a single one seems like an unorthodox way of writing a narrative essay.
Paper 2 was very-well done in retrospect. Apart from the samll hiccup I encountered under the section on Tang Poems, Song prose and Modern poems, in which I did not study all of them and ended up attempting a question which I am not confident in at all, the other questions were either expected or practised previously.
Projected Score: 73 / 100 for Paper 1, and 78 / 100 for Paper 2, giving me an average of around 75%
Projected Grade: A minimum of 'B' is expected. But, I am not sure if my score is good enough to earn me the 'A', especially if Paper 2 was generally considered to be easy by many of those taking this subject across the nation. The bell curve may not be that normal in that case. I am still keeping my fingers crossed nevertheless, I still expect an 'A' for CLL.
Mathematics:
Paper 1 was badly done. Till now I still can't find the area of the triangle in any given situation using the differetiation of parametric curves. The question on arithmetic and geometric progressions (AP & GP) baffled me. Plus careless and minor mistakes here and there can snowball into something penalising. Interestingly though, I don't find question 9, which was on a weird function and proving and finding a sequence difficult, when this question is widely considered to be a difficult question. Yet, questions deemed to be easy like the area-finding question through differentiation and the AG/GP question stumped me. *Shrugs*
Paper 2 was much better. I could do almost every single question without much difficulty and halfway through the Statistics section I was feeling rejoiced over the simplicity of the paper.
Projected Score: 63 / 100 for Paper 1 and at least 85 / 100 for Paper 2 (if I haven't made too many careless mistakes in my script), giving me an average of around 74%.
Projected Grade: Given that most students find the overall difficulty of the Mathematics examination is low, a score of 74% may not be enough to earn me an 'A'. But there may still be a chance! Haha.. I am still crossing my fingers...
Chemistry:
I find the overall difficulty of the Chemistry examination realistic, although to my horror I discovered that I actually overlooked a 2-mark question in Paper 3, and several careless mistakes were committed here and there in Paper 2 and Paper 3. Nonetheless I still managed to finish Paper 3 and find the paper do-able despite only finishing the paper on the dot, literally.
Paper 2 caught everybody off guard as no question on electrochemistry and ionic equilibria appeared as expected by ALL Chemistry students, teachers and departments across ALL JCs. But Paper 2 was still relatively fine in my opinion.
Paper 1 was very well-done I feel. I am expecting to score about 35 / 40 for Paper 1.
Projected Score: 52 / 80 for Paper 3, 48 / 60 for Paper 2 and 35 / 40 for Paper 1, giving me a total of 135 / 180, which translates to 75%.
Projected Grade: Given that many people whined about the unrealistic time management required for Paper 3 and the overall difficulty of the paper, I think 75% is enough to earn me an 'A' grade.
H1 Geography:
The Geography paper was the hardest paper I've ever done or seen, and in turn my worst performance ever in the subject. The question on the 2005 Boxing Day tsunami was unexpected as we were not taught explicitly the process of a tsunami formation; we were only taught that tsunamis can be caused by earthquakes. Period. (Just to digress, the tsunami question only proves that the paper was set two years ago -- immediately after the disaster occured it is featured in a national examination that is to be taken by students two years later.)
The question on traffic survey was alien to us too. Nobody, not even the H2 students knew what on earth is a traffic survey. Many, influenced by the upcoming Mathematics paper on Statistics, wrote something about quota and stratified sampling, while I "employed electronic sensors and image-capturing devices" to "conduct" the survey. It turns out that my answer, upon a quick check online subsequently, is the closest. Haha! Hopefully I can salvaged about 2 marks out of this 5-mark question.
On hindsight, my essays were not well-written. I forgot that the oil company Shell is a Netherlands-based company (Royal DUTCH Coporations) and I wrote that Shell is based in United Kingdom! How embarassing, given that my assessers are from UK. But surprsingly, a quick check on Wikipedia reassured that my answer is somewhat correct, since Shell is a company based in BOTH UK and the Netherlands. Haha..
Projected Score: 71 / 100
Projected Grade: I am not sure how the other schools find the paper. Apparently they were taught on Hydrologic Processes, which if they attempted on instead on the question on Globalisation and Urbanisation where the evil question on traffic survey came from, they may have an upper hand. I am expecting a 'B' on this subject. A real pity, considering that my best subject has always been Geography.
H3 CLL:
H3 is an unpredictable subject, as creative writing assessed based on subjectivity accounts for 50% of the assessment. I wrote a short story based on a given picture which illustrates a mother nagging at her son to find a girlfriend while studying hard in university. Instead of the conventional appraoch taken by some of my peers to write about how possessive and controlling Asian parents are, I wrote about a mother asking her gay son to find a girlfriend in attempt to turn him straight. I just hope that my marker is open-minded enough accept a story with a homosexuality theme.
The analysis of an unseen prose was okay I think. Ditto for the section on the analysis on set text, as it is something that I had studied and prepared for.
Projected Grade:Merit. My analysis on unseen prose and set text, in comparison to my peers, hasn't always been exceptional. Thus, a "Merit" grade would be realistic.
****************
Overall: AAAB|B|Merit, or ABBB|B|Merit, or AABB|B|Merit, or maybe even AAAA|B|Merit though highly unlikely.
General Paper:
My performance for General Papaer was fair I guess. No major blunders made I presume. And neither did I write anything brilliant. Just like most J2 students out there, I did question 10 which is "Is it possible to protect the environment when many countries increasingly need energy for progress?" for Paper 1. However, unlike the other students who did this question, "Kyoto Protocol" never made any appearance in my script. I feel that this time round I had a lot more discussion in my essay -- instead of peppering examples aimlessly, I explained that it is still possible to protect the environment while levels of energy consumption need not be reduced, i.e. an equilibrium can be achieved between environmental protection and economic development.
Paper 2 caught me off guard. If the questions were to be set two years ago accordingly to one theory, then I would have expected the theme of the comprehension passage to be on "Happiness" since the report on World Happiness Rankings was first released in 2005 and had since stirred up a lot of discussion and itnerest in this topic. Never did the issue of gender equality come across my mind. Nevertheless, I still think I did pretty okay for the paper.
Projected Score: 33/50 for Paper 1, and 30/50 for Paper 2, giving me a total of 63/100.
Projected Grade: Since the entire cohort takes General Paper, I presume the distribution of marks will fit a normal bell curve almost perfectly and the grades would in turn follow the recommended cut-off criteria (given by MOE0) very closely. Hence, I predict a 'B' grade for General Paper
Chinese Language and Literature (CLL):
Paper 1, which is mainly the language component, caught me off guard. For the first time, you are required to USE YOUR OWN WORDS in a Chinese comprehension. And I did not study the two questions that asked for the background information of the two prose written in ancient Chinese language that appeared in the paper.
On top of that, I felt (and am still feeling) uneasy about the essay that I wrote. Hopefully it's the type of style that is required and will be appreciated by the marker. I mean, an essay weaved with many personal experiences instead of revolving around only a single one seems like an unorthodox way of writing a narrative essay.
Paper 2 was very-well done in retrospect. Apart from the samll hiccup I encountered under the section on Tang Poems, Song prose and Modern poems, in which I did not study all of them and ended up attempting a question which I am not confident in at all, the other questions were either expected or practised previously.
Projected Score: 73 / 100 for Paper 1, and 78 / 100 for Paper 2, giving me an average of around 75%
Projected Grade: A minimum of 'B' is expected. But, I am not sure if my score is good enough to earn me the 'A', especially if Paper 2 was generally considered to be easy by many of those taking this subject across the nation. The bell curve may not be that normal in that case. I am still keeping my fingers crossed nevertheless, I still expect an 'A' for CLL.
Mathematics:
Paper 1 was badly done. Till now I still can't find the area of the triangle in any given situation using the differetiation of parametric curves. The question on arithmetic and geometric progressions (AP & GP) baffled me. Plus careless and minor mistakes here and there can snowball into something penalising. Interestingly though, I don't find question 9, which was on a weird function and proving and finding a sequence difficult, when this question is widely considered to be a difficult question. Yet, questions deemed to be easy like the area-finding question through differentiation and the AG/GP question stumped me. *Shrugs*
Paper 2 was much better. I could do almost every single question without much difficulty and halfway through the Statistics section I was feeling rejoiced over the simplicity of the paper.
Projected Score: 63 / 100 for Paper 1 and at least 85 / 100 for Paper 2 (if I haven't made too many careless mistakes in my script), giving me an average of around 74%.
Projected Grade: Given that most students find the overall difficulty of the Mathematics examination is low, a score of 74% may not be enough to earn me an 'A'. But there may still be a chance! Haha.. I am still crossing my fingers...
Chemistry:
I find the overall difficulty of the Chemistry examination realistic, although to my horror I discovered that I actually overlooked a 2-mark question in Paper 3, and several careless mistakes were committed here and there in Paper 2 and Paper 3. Nonetheless I still managed to finish Paper 3 and find the paper do-able despite only finishing the paper on the dot, literally.
Paper 2 caught everybody off guard as no question on electrochemistry and ionic equilibria appeared as expected by ALL Chemistry students, teachers and departments across ALL JCs. But Paper 2 was still relatively fine in my opinion.
Paper 1 was very well-done I feel. I am expecting to score about 35 / 40 for Paper 1.
Projected Score: 52 / 80 for Paper 3, 48 / 60 for Paper 2 and 35 / 40 for Paper 1, giving me a total of 135 / 180, which translates to 75%.
Projected Grade: Given that many people whined about the unrealistic time management required for Paper 3 and the overall difficulty of the paper, I think 75% is enough to earn me an 'A' grade.
H1 Geography:
The Geography paper was the hardest paper I've ever done or seen, and in turn my worst performance ever in the subject. The question on the 2005 Boxing Day tsunami was unexpected as we were not taught explicitly the process of a tsunami formation; we were only taught that tsunamis can be caused by earthquakes. Period. (Just to digress, the tsunami question only proves that the paper was set two years ago -- immediately after the disaster occured it is featured in a national examination that is to be taken by students two years later.)
The question on traffic survey was alien to us too. Nobody, not even the H2 students knew what on earth is a traffic survey. Many, influenced by the upcoming Mathematics paper on Statistics, wrote something about quota and stratified sampling, while I "employed electronic sensors and image-capturing devices" to "conduct" the survey. It turns out that my answer, upon a quick check online subsequently, is the closest. Haha! Hopefully I can salvaged about 2 marks out of this 5-mark question.
On hindsight, my essays were not well-written. I forgot that the oil company Shell is a Netherlands-based company (Royal DUTCH Coporations) and I wrote that Shell is based in United Kingdom! How embarassing, given that my assessers are from UK. But surprsingly, a quick check on Wikipedia reassured that my answer is somewhat correct, since Shell is a company based in BOTH UK and the Netherlands. Haha..
Projected Score: 71 / 100
Projected Grade: I am not sure how the other schools find the paper. Apparently they were taught on Hydrologic Processes, which if they attempted on instead on the question on Globalisation and Urbanisation where the evil question on traffic survey came from, they may have an upper hand. I am expecting a 'B' on this subject. A real pity, considering that my best subject has always been Geography.
H3 CLL:
H3 is an unpredictable subject, as creative writing assessed based on subjectivity accounts for 50% of the assessment. I wrote a short story based on a given picture which illustrates a mother nagging at her son to find a girlfriend while studying hard in university. Instead of the conventional appraoch taken by some of my peers to write about how possessive and controlling Asian parents are, I wrote about a mother asking her gay son to find a girlfriend in attempt to turn him straight. I just hope that my marker is open-minded enough accept a story with a homosexuality theme.
The analysis of an unseen prose was okay I think. Ditto for the section on the analysis on set text, as it is something that I had studied and prepared for.
Projected Grade:Merit. My analysis on unseen prose and set text, in comparison to my peers, hasn't always been exceptional. Thus, a "Merit" grade would be realistic.
****************
Overall: AAAB|B|Merit, or ABBB|B|Merit, or AABB|B|Merit, or maybe even AAAA|B|Merit though highly unlikely.
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