Recently, I have a lot of visitors to my blog and I was wondering why the sudden increase in the traffic. I found that a lot of visitors are SPM-ers looking for examinations tips from Andrew Choo the Tuition Teacher. If you are looking for his site, click here.
If you think that I am trying to ride the fame of Andrew Choo so that I can increase the traffic to this blog site then I have to clarify myself. I have my own online presence since 1995 and I just found out about Andrew Choo the tuition teacher after I returned to Malaysia from Melbourne in 2005. Furthermore, when my parents named me Andrew when I was born, they would not have expected my name to be the same of a successful tuition teacher.
However, to those students seeking exam advice who have came to this site by mistake, please read on.
I am not able to predict what kind of exam questions will come out in the papers in November, what I can tell you is, you still have time to prepare for it. Perhaps you have two weeks left and have yet to do anything regarding the exam preparation. Or maybe you have already had enough of studying and revision, you just want to test how prepared you are.
Since I am giving Maths tuition to SPM bound students, I am sure you know that there are a lot of model papers and guides to assist you in your exam preparation. Two weeks before the exams start, I think it is time you turn your focus on doing the model exam papers, and do as much as you could possibly handle. Put yourself in exam mode while doing the papers, make sure you stick to the time frame and do not try to look at the answers before the conclusion of the paper.
Time management is very important when you are doing papers that require a lot of writing. Make sure that while you write fast, you write clearly. Otherwise you are just wasting your time. If you got stuck at one question, skip to the other one, do not waste time trying to recall things that might not be right. If you have confidence in answering the question in the first place, you would not have gotten stuck. Stop wasting time working out how much you are going to score by doing certain questions and skipping others. Just do all the questions you are confident of and let the results take care of themselves.
Try to enforce the above time management practice when you are doing the model papers and you can definitely tell the difference when dealing with the real paper. Most of the time, the students panicked during exams and could not perform at their very best. Pressure is sometimes a two edged sword, so we have to handle the pressure appropriately.
Secondly, get enough rest in between studying. When your brain is exhausted, no matter how much you try to cramp the books in, it will result in nothing. You may even lose what you have studied earlier. A healthy body is the key to an efficient mind. Keep your eyes fresh, maybe with the help of some eye-mos, and take a 5 minute break from studying every two hours.
Studying is like consuming food, we have to bite (read), chew until the food is broken up enough (comprehend the material we study and break down into easier parts so that we can relate to when recalling), and then swallow (commit to memory what we have read, comprehended and broken down). If we ate too hastily, we might end up having a bad stomach ache and all the food will go down to the toilet bowl, literally speaking.
A day or two before the actual exam, check whether your writing tools are adequately prepared. Sharpen the pencils and make sure you have extra erasers as well. Also make sure your pens’ ink are still flowing. Always prepare extra and REMEMBER TO PUT THE PENCIL CASE INTO YOUR BAG the night before. Make sure your identification papers are in the bag before going to bed.
The night before the paper is very important. DO NOT study through the night, or you will not have enough energy and fresh brains to do the paper. Sleep before midnight, if you are nervous and could not sleep, just close your eyes and thinking of ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Listening to some soothing music may help too. Also remember to eat PROPER breakfast on the exam day and if possible, take some chicken essence too. You cannot have a soldier with an empty stomach to fight a war, can you?
Perhaps to all the SPM-ers, this is a very important exam to them. Like I mentioned earlier, having pressure is not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes we might get overwhelmed by putting too much pressure on ourselves to achieve good grades. Always remember that our achievements are not just reflected on that one piece of sijil, but of the effort and hard work we have done in preparation for the examination. Sometimes we might not score as well as we would like to, but we definitely have benefited from going through the preparation and sitting for the papers.
Like the UPSR and PMR before you, SPM is just another exam. After SPM, we will be going through more exams (not necessarily academic ones) and we will have to learn from each and every exams we go through. If you have read until here, I thank you for your patience and I wish you all the best in your SPM. I spoke from experience and I hope you would share yours to your juniors in time to come.
If possible, share your experience and advice in the comment box and make everyone a great achiever in studies and in life.
