TERM 1
Science has always been one of my favourite subjects, and what we have learnt this term is my favourite out of the three sciences: Chemistry. The Periodic Table has baffled me for years. In primary school, I came across it but I could not comprehend the weird letters and numbers. Now, having this chance, learning about it interested me greatly, as I discovered that I needed the understanding of it to be able to know the different properties of elements and apply them to other topics. I grappled with the topic on Acids and Bases as I could not remember the chemical formulas of all the various acids and alkali. Looking back, I finally realised that cramming information into my brain was not a good and effective way of studying. Knowing how to answer "twisted" questions was actually the major factor for the survival of an exam, which was what I could not do. Memorizing the facts had made me very inflexible and limited my creativity. As such, I did badly for my Term 1 test, getting a mere 31.5/40. This was not what I had expected as it was a large margin from the scores I used to get in Secondary 1. However, by this failure I am craving to do even better for Term 2.
TERM 2
Personally, I felt that this term was not so hectic as we studied Sexual Reproduction in Humans, which was a topic I had studied in primary school and thus I was not so much of a stranger. Of course, the information we had to learn was much more than the basics in primary school, but nevertheless I could cope pretty well. The only difficulty I faced was trying to differentiate similar words such as remembering to write epididymis, the male sexual organ, instead of epidermis, which is the outer layer of the skin. The one thing that disinterested me was that we focused more on theory compared to practical, which was seemingly boring after a few weeks. Even then, I still had to bear with the teacher's "droning" as I had to pull up my test score in order to attain exemption without slogging in Term 3. However, I still had my share of fun during the practicals where we experimented with prisms and mirrors, and even fooled around with shadows. Although I knew that white light can be split into the seven colours of the rainbow, I had not seen a prism at work throughout my entire life, and thus this was considered an eye-opener for me.
Drawing near to the end of Term 2, I managed to scrape a better A1 this time for my test: 32.5/40, an improvement which still lacked improvement. As the saying goes, "Practice makes perfect", give the long school holidays, besides preparing for the Projects Competition Semi-Final round, I should also spend time wisely studying in lieu of Term 3. I hope that as the terms go by, I can be even proficient at Science.
TERM 3
This term would be what I call the deciding term. This was my final chance to get an exemption and I would not miss it for the world. As the saying goes, "So near yet so far", there was only a thin borderline separating me from it. That was the topics tested: Light and Ecology. In primary school, I did badly for light as it was Greek to me. This fact haunted me in this term again and that voice in my head prompted me to give up. However, the relish of not taking the end-of-year exams pushed me to greater heights. I can admit that I had "mugged" this term. Fortunately for me, the light properties were much clearer to me now, and imagine the relief when our Science teacher told us that Light would only make up a small component of the entire test. I then began focusing more on Ecology. This topic, as I found out by reading the notes, was much harder that Light, as there were terms that I had not even heard or seen of, let alone understand its definition, such as heterotrophs, detrivores, hydrophillic etc. I braced myself for the test as I knew that I would not have an easy time, although our teacher assured us that the test would be quite easy.
I didn't believe him. No one would, unless, of course, that person was already geared for the test. As such, together with a few of my friends, we sort of leeched on our teacher almost every day, firing questions and doubts at him at machine-gun speed. Finally, the test day came. I was much surprised. It was really easy, and I was even more surprised when the teacher announced that I was the highest in class: 37/40. Now, what's left is that pesky letter informing me that I truly have gotten a Science exemption...
