Alright... now for Part 2 of the blow-by-blow account...
DAY 3
Maths Paper 2 on that day... so it's the questions on the Options Topic (Probability and Statistics) which will dominate the paper.
Just when I arrived at College, I saw Yvonne and she asked me some stuff about probability distribution curves... and when I was borrowing her pencil to do some illustrations, I accidentally scratched the pencil tip against her arm... Oops!
No blood, no report. Thank God.
Glad that I managed to clear some doubts for her in the end.
I bought Nasi Lemak that morning (yes, I'm used to having it for breakfast instead of one small piece of bread) and had not much time for studying... never mind, I was ready for Prob and Stats; that's one of my better areas in Maths.
And so, from past experiences (I did that during Prelims), I did my Stats questions first (they're supposed to be in the "second" section). Didn't have a very promising start, but it was generally quite smooth.
Back to Section One.
Got blown up by that Complex Numbers question... the area in Complex Numbers which I'm bad at was the one about solving polynomials.
And the only Complex Numbers question in that paper was on that part. No Argand Diagram or whatsoever.
Shit.
Overall, it was still not as bad as Paper 1.
And I managed to realise my dream... to do the question on Iterative Methods (to find roots of equations) which I always had no time to do in my past papers.
After the paper, I went with my friends (can't remember who) to the place outside the library to collect our quesion papers for Chem paper 3... but I didn't write my name on my paper, so in the end I could only take someone else's paper.
I tried to find one which was as empty as possible, as I believed that a question paper with more writings on it would be more meaningful to the original owner. I don't know... it's like that for me...
After a Yong tau Foo lunch, I studied Computing (Computing Paper 1 was on that afternoon) and I was a bit worried about the paper. Not that I didn't study; I studied the subject for a week.
But I was afraid that I forgot everything.
The paper turned out OK for me, in the end. Phew. I couldn't understand the Database question, but neither could the other 5 guys. While doing the question on the implementation of linked lists, I was worried that my answer was too long (a diagrammatic approach... about 3 sides). But in the end, their answers were about as long as mine too, so no worries!
One thing that bothered me (big time) was that halfway through the paper, it rained. Lots of thunder-
No, it's not the thunder that bothered me. It was Joel, who was bothered by the thunder, and kept on making "tsk tsk" sounds... to be precise, one "tsk" per roar of thunder.
It was his "tsk'ing" that bothered me.
Since we'll be having GP Papers 1 and 2 on the next day, I brought some past year essay reports... and my radio. Heh. Got to relax a bit during GP revision, I thought.
I listened to YES 933 FM (like, duh!) and I found Peifen (one of the DJs) to have a very nice voice.
DAY 4
By~ the~ way~
The whole GP subject was there for the quick kill. Which started in the morning.
Paper 1 was the essay paper... which got me muttering "God save me" after the whole bloody thing.
Why did I make that silly mistake? I concluded from experiences this year that philosophical essays were no longer suitable for me... and yet the first question I attempted was...
"There is no such thing as luck. People determine their own lives. Do you agree?"
Oh yes, I started on this question only after thinking for about 30 minutes.
Then, after some time trying to write an introduction with a stand that somehow could not even convince myself, I realized I could not write beyond my first paragraph (after the intro).
And I had only half an hour left. I was in a state of emergency at that time... I was clutching at my pants... I almost had a seizure, if you ask me.
So, at that point when I had 20 minutes dangling before me, beckoning me to make the fullest use of it, I decided on that question on hosting sports events.
I managed to do a complete essay, with Introduction, Body and Conclusion.
Huh?
That means if I decided on that question from the start, I could have an essay with not only ideas, but well developed ideas.
Ah... that's just me. I was thankful enough that I actually could complete an essay in 20 minutes.
Click here to view a scan of my attempt at the "Luck" essay.
For Comprehension, I decided to allocate 40 minutes to the questions, 30 minutes to the Summary part and 20 minutes to the Application Question. I could barely keep to the time slots (in fact I was surprised that I took more than 40 minutes for the questions part!) and could complete an answer for my Appilcation Question with a conclusion (that is, if they'll take my answer for the last section of the question as my conclusion).
The passage used in this comprehension (yes, there's only one passage this time instead of the usual 2) had some parts which I couldn't accept. Well, this passage was on Aggression and it sort of glorifies the whole thing about human conflicts and wars. For example...
It quotes an actor, Orson Welles, who said...
"In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed- they produced Michaelangelo, Leonardo and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The Cuckoo clock."
I mean... so? My belief was that the drive for invention can be motivated by other factors besides war. Like, why did Edison invent the light bulb?
Also, there's this...
...without conflict, how would the heroic virtues be exercised? Is there no merit in the bravery which meets death without flinching for a good cause or on behalf of others? Or in the compassion for a fellow human being which finds expression on the battlefield and in bombed cities?
So??
Yes, war is a time for showing bravery, but on the other hand, what about the ugly side of human nature, like thirst for power, that gave rise to war in the first place? Some brave dude looking death in the face will be coupled by the evil dude who is administering death on the other side. And how good is "showing compassion" for, say, a child on the battlefield, right after bombing his house and killing his family?
I included that last part about the child in my answer for the Application Question.
After that bloody vocabulary battle, I had lunch with Joel and Ming Hwee before going off to buy Volume 16 of the Pokemon Adventures manga and returning to College to accompany Ming Hwee who was mugging at the library.
After sleeping, reading manga and mugging a bit of Physics, we went down and met Wenyuan (one of our IT Club alumni) who gave us some survival tips for NS.
