Exam Series- 1st day: Tripped!!! *ONOZ*

Conclusion for the first day of exam: ONE ROCKY START...a big one just to put at it...

Since today is the very first day of exam, I decided to put a little extra effort in the morning (which is taking a shower...6 in the morning) just to ensure I am able to face the exam clean, fresh and prepared. But in the end, I might be cheating myself anyone since the underlying fear is still lurking around due the fact that today, I am having two papers which is LSP401: General English in the morning while in evening I need to face the greatest stumbling block of the day, HPW102: Pemikiran Kritis or Critical Thinking. After having Pepperidge Farm Softbaked Cookies as breakfast in an attempt to hike up brain metabolism as well as to making myself feel good, I march towards the battlefield for the day: Dewan Utama Pelajar right after the pedestrian bridge connecting RST and Palapes...

Reached there about 45 minutes earlier (exams starts at 9am) only to see very few people there. Mr. Koay, as always reach there earlier than anyone else. As time passed, more and more student flocking in to DUP and soon a crowd was formed outside the hall. After checking the number of my seat at the notice board, I spent my time trying to read up different essay format and soon we entered the exam hall to our respective seats. The nervousness however, starts to creep up on me as well...as soon as the chief examiner brief us the rules(which has a new addition: only pen and pencil are allowed on the table while the pencil box has to put on the floor...), lets get it started!!

I will continue this post with in-depth analysis of the LSP401: General English exam questions. And this is when the first shock of the day came in...

The whole paper was divided into 3 part: 50% Comprehension, 20% Arranging information in text into a chart and 30% essays, choose one out of two topics given.

First part: Comprehension
This part consist of a passage, 5 multiple choice question, ten questions on vocabulary (like the meaning of the word in the passage given) and another 5 written question. The passage: Mind over body: increase the chance of recovery in illness.

Analysis: The arrangement of content within the passage for the answering the question is totally different than the typical SPM and STPM level English passage. The information is all over the places and the answer for the last question might be in the first paragraph. It was a little bit tricky in trying to locate the answer for all the questions. Besides that, the questions asked in the written question are much more open ended for example, one question asked about what was the tone of the passage. The answer for this of course, is not available in the passage. Predicting a few lost mark in this part.

Second part: Arranging information into graph/chart.
This part consist of a passage and a chart with empty spaces. We are suppose to fill up the empty spaces of the chart to relate the idea within the passage together. The passage: Procrastination. (Very interesting, very TRUE)

Analysis: Same problem as the first passage, the information is every where but compared to the first one, this information within this passage is easier to find due to the relatively short passage compared to the first one. Well, except one part though, on the physiological factor of procrastination (yes, our brain have their own share of responsibility about procrastination) because there are two spaces to fill up in that category and I am not so sure about seperating the damage towards prefrontal cortex and low level of activity in prefrontal cortex as seperate points... expects couple of marks gone as well...

Third part: Essays
Choose one topic from choice of two and write an essay for about 350 words. 1st choice: "Women make better teacher" Discuss. 2nd questions: Artisans and historians played an equal part with scientist and technologist in national development. *something around this line* Discuss.

Analysis: TOTAL SHOCK. Not just that it's a free essay without formal, (tsk, all the time I wasted in remembering the format but otherwise...fine.) both choice of questions are TOTALLY OUT of my prediction. I was half expecting a typical question for essay like rising crime rate or the environment issues and such... and in the end THESE questions came out instead. My mind went BLANK the first moment I read through the choice for essay. I can feel the chill up my spine, feeling: "OMFG SO SCREWED GOD SAVE ME". And this is the last part that I did for the whole paper. I was stucked for like 15 minutes, brainstorming and trying to make up my mind which topic should I choose. In the end, I choose the first one: "Women make better teacher."

The resulting essays? Totally OVER my limit and sanity. First point: the underlying maternal instincts within every women have due to the existing perceptions and stereotype of being a women. That student tend to be more attentive in class due to the fact that they can relate their teacher to another authoritative figure at home: MOM. (I did write these line...SERIOUSLY) 2nd point: General commitment of female teachers towards their profession, while women honor their duty of a teacher, men sees it as stepping stone towards administrative positions... OMG I am making slander! 3rd paragraph which is for the benefits of male teacher: if we look into the trend further, there are academic fields that are still dominated by men, namely Math, Science and technical, again attributing the common perceptions of men for being more logical and preferring hands on experience as their main advantages within these specific fields. (Again, I did wrote these argument...SERIOUSLY) Conclusion: Despite the fact that these statement have their own factual basis, we should refrain from making sweeping statement because teachers, male or female complement each other in respective field of expertise for one goal- educating student to become a well-rounded individual. *WOW THE SHEER ABSURDITY TO END THE WHOLE ABSURD ESSAY.*

By the end of that exam (which I manage to finish up the essay minutes before the end), I was in the state of being a total CRACK...and when I look back to talk with XiangYi, apparently both of us turned into WACKO... we even compared the absurdity of the whole essay questions. Both of us were impressed by our own ability to even crap out these contents...

-LSP401 General English- DONE-

As soon as we finished the exam, all of us dashed back to our hostel to catch a breather, to bathe and lunch before we continue with the second part of the day: the dreadful Pemikiran Kritis. At lunch time, XiangYi decides to have another crash course in understanding Pemikiran Kritis after being asked a favor from YenPheng, SzeSze and XinMi. And at that time I discovered that my credit expired again...crap. Off I go to reload before I went up stairs for bathe and rest.

After bathe and a change of clothes, I go online again to check on mails and such before I crash back to my bed trying to get a shuteye even though only for like 25 minutes. After the obviously not enough rest, I change back to t-shirts and long pants and marched back to the dreadful DUP...with the death almost imminent...

A significant crowd was there already by the moment I reach there. It was so steamy and packed and the shelves was almost full of bags. And while most of the student taking this paper is on the other hall (DPA), my hall (DPB) consist of whats remnant of the total number of student taking this paper and we have to share the hall with Management students. The battle starts as soon as the briefing and filling up the attendance slip is over...

The analysis of HPW102: Pemikiran Kritis/Critical Thinking
The whole paper consist of two parts: 50% objective with 40 questions and 50% subjective with 5 essay questions, all must be done compulsory.

First part: objective multiple choice questions
For this, I am eternally grateful for XiangYi for tutoring me about the square diagram of logical relativity. Without her help, I would be in serious agony and with the help of the diagram, I ace through 30 questions smoothly because the answer can be identified easily with the help of the diagram. The remainder 10 questions however...A TOTAL BOMB. Its about Venn diagram and silogisme and I have ZILCH idea on how to answer the questions. I left the last part until the last 5 minutes of exam and all I did was randomly pick the answer... *sigh* Hopefully I can get at least the first 30 questions right...

Second part: the subjective essay questions.
By first glance, all the questions look fairly easy. All we need to do is to restructure the statement and then identify and explain the informal fallacies involved in that statement. Sounds easy, right? But a few more reading and the true colors of the questions is showing... And I don't have enough time to finish up all the essay with two essay questions half done...and I am not even sure whether that was correct or not...

1st statement: If the Rolls Royce engine for Eurofighter figher jet is made in Britain, then the whole aircraft is made in Britain.
Fallacy involved: Composition, making conclusions from part to the whole. (this one is rather easy, I will bet with my ball if my answer is wrong)

2nd statement: If Heinrich Himmler is the leader of S.S. in Nazi and S.S. had committed atrocities in World War 2, we should reject all the hypotheses about ethnic relation he made in the 1930-ies.
Fallacy involved: Personal attack. Attacking his personal histories instead of his hypotheses to justify the reason to reject his idea. (this is one is rather clear as well...but hopefully can get it right...)

3rd statement: Only a smart person can write up a full symphony pieces of "Eine Kleine *dunno*musik" and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a smart person. So, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed the full symphony pieces of "Eine Kleine *dunno*musik".
Fallacy involved: This is one of the question that I only managed to finish half of it. My arrangement of the statement into modus ponens ends up kinda weird and my choice of fallacy for it was appealing for authority: using the fame of a person/institution to justify the reason to accept an argument as valid... I don't have time to do the explaination of it...

4th statement: If in the televised broadcast yesterday that the Malaysian weightlifter team fail to gain any medal in SEA tournament, then the Malaysian weightlifting team are unable to stand chance against foreign team to get any medal.
Fallacy involved: Hasty Generalisation, judging the whole situation just by a few cases as example. Hopefully they will accept my explaination...

5th statement: That tuition class produce students excellent in academics. This is because all the smart and hardworking student goes there for tuitions. Those students are smart and hardworking students because they are excellent in academic.
Fallacy involved: This another question that I only managed to answer half of it. And this is is the trickiest out of them all. My choice of fallacy is redundant statement: repetition of the same argument in the conclusion. But...this is I am seriously not so sure...expecting to loose the whole question all together...

Due to lack of time, I need to rush the last few objective questions before they start collecting the answer sheets. My brain was totally drained by the time the bloody Pemikiran Kritis finished. And seriously, I am feeling totally ANAL when I reached back to my room being SCREWED by both papers and all the crap...and so here I am venting all my frustration into my blog and starting a new series of post...

SUMMARY of the day: IT SUCKS LIKE HELL!!!! GAHHH!!!!!!!! *ANGER SPAZZ*

-the end-

ps: Oh well, two exams down, 5 more subjects to go!!! Expect more exam series coming as well as other random post not related to exam!!