more exam commentaries. i have no life.
written: 7:20 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2004

Why?

Because I bloody said so.

And also because nobody I know knows how to do it.

Okay. I've done five exam papers prior to today's mass slaughter in the morning, three school papers (NJC, NYJC and SAJC) and two Cambrdige papers. NEVER in any of those papers did I ever come across a question like Question 27.

What the fuck man? Summation x i something or other plus thirty is the approximated mean mass?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Or whatever?!?!?!?!

Thankfully I get one mark for writing 'normal distribution'. Hahaha! I couldn't do the first bloody question despite the fact that I thought of using sine rule, but then again the last time I did something related to sine rule was probably ten thousand years ago so I cosine rule-d the thing and duh, it's wrong, since I was the one who did it.

But seriously, where in the world does similar triangles appear in the lecture notes or the syllabus content? Like, nowhere? Stupid Cambrdige and its idiocy!

AND THE WORST THING EVER IS THE FACT THAT MACLAURIN'S SERIES DID NOT COME OUT. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY UNFORGIVABLE BECAUSE DIFFERENTIATION HAPPENS TO BE THE ONLY MATHS-RELATED THING I'M GOOD AT AND IT DID NOT APPEAR. HOW ABSOLUTELY UNFAIR IS THAT?

I think I've lost about 27 marks. I couldn't do three questions out of the five pure Maths one. And whoever thought of torturing people with permutations and combinations... should seriously rot and die.

Okay, that person or that group of people has/have been dead for more than a trillion years, I'm sure, but you still get my point, yeah?

The other question I screwed up was the geometric progression question. And the worst bit? I GOT IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME ROUND.

Oh my GOD. It was fucking Tn. I changed it to Sn. ARGH! Why in the world can't Cambridge use proper bloody English?!

And last night? I figured out the answer to one of the questions in the Maths paper I took LAST BLOODY TUESDAY.

I'm such a dunce. Luckily I didn't completely screw up Lit. I wrote six pages for the Othello text-based (a passage which came out in a test before and so I could tell that Iago was rattled by Emilia but it didn't really make a difference to my answer because I was totally worshipping Iago but anyway) and close to 7 pages for my amazingly brilliant Hard Times essay of which I am rather pleased, but because of that I only managed to cough up a measley 3-page for my stupid Silas Marner in the last half an hour.

Okay. Like I've repeated so many times before in this entry, Cambridge sucks. The scene they gave for the Marner text-based was some crap in Chapter 14 which I don't remember reading at all. NOTHING happens in that stupid extract. Like, NOTHING. And what the hell was I supposed to say for 'narrative development'? What the hell is that anyway? I just kept harping on and on and on and on and on about Silas's rejuvenation and rebirth (I just realised that I wrote 'reborn'; no wonder it sounded weird. Hahahahahahaha! And I also wrote 'Eliot's handle of the narrative development'; no wonder it sounded weird. Hahahahahahaha!) and how Eppie plays the crucial role in his transformation blah blah blah and I forced out some stupid crap about our quest for paradise and how the bit about Silas and Eppie taking a stroll in the picturesque countryside is symbolic of how he's found happiness and a lot of other retarded bullshit.

I was just forcing the words out of me. I didn't have a clue as to what in the world bullshit I was writing at all. I guess my not studying Silas Marner at all, save for printing out the summaries from Sparknotes and reading them over once, didn't help matters much.

Another retarded linguistic error I made: I wrote "unhuman" instead of "inhuman". Oh my god. I am so amazing. I am so astoundingly amazing that I am completely stupefied by myself.

Yelen, you are a true genius indeed.

BLOODY HELL STUPID DUMB ASS! ELIOT'S HANDLE OF THE NARRATIVE DEVELOPMENT! SILAS MARNER'S REBORN! GRADGRIND'S EDUCATION SYSTEM MAKES PEOPLE UNHUMAN!

ARGHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I realised the 'unhuman' thing halfway through my Silas Marner (actually, more like after the first redundant sentence and the five minutes spent on thinking of what the heck to write) but I was already half-panicking as it was half an hour to the end of the three hours and I barely had anything for my last question so I decided to change it when I'm writing my name but when it got to that I couldn't find the blasted thing so in the end I let it go.

But 'unhuman'! I blame Margaret Atwood for her 'unwoman' thing in The Handmaid's Tale!

God, it's so stupid. I can't decide which is the worst of three. Probably 'Eliot's handle of'. BLAHDY HELL!

On the bright side, I'm rather pleased with my Hard Times essay. All the shit I put into memorising the quotes that I painstakingly copied onto foolscap paper paid off. Wahoo! I don't believe I've ever included so many quotations for any essay before. And the notes that Mr. Anand gave? Oh my god, were they completely godsent or were they completely godsent! Most of it was on education and the question I chose was on education.

Okay, I kept going off about Bitzer and Louisa and I only spent about two pages on Sissy and the circus but still, I don't think I was irrelevant, so.

I'm surprisingly cheerful despite the horror that transpired this morning in the form of Mathematics Paper 2. I think I can only manage a C for it at best. Oh well. I tried. I wouldn't say the same if it were Lit, History or Econs, but I never honestly expected myself to do well in Maths. I've been mediocre at best at it my whole life: A for PSLE (when my friends all got A*s), B3 for E Maths and B3 for A Maths. When a person gets B3 for E Maths and 92% of her cohort had A1s and A2s for it, it just shows that the person cannot do Maths for nuts.

Oh well. No point brooding over it. Gotta kill myself cramming Econs stuff into my head later on.

Today was the last time that I'd ever touch Maths or look at it or think about it and other things along those lines. I've waited eagerly for this day since the beginning of time, but strangely, it feels rather odd now that it's arrived. The thing is, I've been doing it my whole life, literally. To suddenly have it taken away, no matter how much I rejoice over it, is just... weird. Slightly unsettling, even.

I mean, I would totally go downstairs with my huge stack of Maths stuff and create a bonfire with them and do a celebratory dance around it right now but I'd also take time out to mourn its passing, you know?

Okay, probably not.

I think I was showing off most of the time when I was doing my Hard Times essay. Kept referring to incidents by chapter titles, even when I described the incidents in pretty close details.

But what can I say? Hard Times is my favourite out of the three. I think I deserve to indulge a little.

If I can get 40 for the Hard Times and Othello, I'd only need a 30 for Silas to get an A.

Then again, I don't know if I can get a 30 for Silas. The one-page I did for some test notwithstanding, I hardly write so little for a Lit paper. My Silas during the prelim was a 4-page and I didn't know what the hell I was off about either.

Aiyah shit lah shouldn't have done a Paper 8 on it lah. Should've studied lah.

But even if I did study I doubt I would've turned to that page so yeah, what's the difference?

Okay, next war zone to enter is Econs tomorrow. Paper 3. My strongest paper according to the prelims. Still, I think the only reason I got an A for my Econs Paper 3 was because Miss Chin set the questions and hence I'm used to her style of questions and hence I could go off and still be relevant.

I'm damn afraid that I'd completely blank out on even one question. If I don't write six pages for all three essays, I'd seriously start to panic and die. And I still don't really know what to do with market structure, and I think it'd most likely come out, and I also think that I'd most likely have to do a micro 'cause I think I'd most likely be able to do only two macros, so that means that I really have to know market structure, or else.

And it's also the only micro topic I'm studying. This is... quite bad. I only did imperialism for History as a safety net and in the end I relied heavily upon it. Maybe I need another safety net for Econs. But I can't do market failure for nuts. All my attempts were off the point; kept talking about corrupt governments which is like...irrelevant much? Yeah.

Okay, I think I'm gonna go do some cramming now. Coffee at 10 again. Been taking coffee at 10 for the past two days and it's worked miracles, so that I didn't fall asleep until about 3 this morning despite going to bed at 1-something. But I only start to really study at night anyway, so what the hell.

I still can't get over my stupid English errors in my Lit essays.

And I still can't get over GP.

It's been nearly two weeks, but it still hurts like hell.

(What a great Mood Deflator.)

before sunrise // before sunset

Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010