Haha, don't screw up your Os. End of year exams can just pass, but don't play around with the O levels, mug as hard as you can for the remaining 1 week. Just think of it as sacrificing 1 month of jamming/playing/fun for a chance to go to your dream school, it's worth it!
I'm in JC now, took Os last year, mugged like crazy from late september to catch up with all the stuff that I wasn't paying attention to. After my school had the mock prelims, I got shocked back into studying, realized that it wasn't as easy as I thought to get a good result and go to the JC I wanted. Ended up with 27 for L1R5 for that mock prelims, then started to mug everyday in the school library, back then I really had no life lol, went straight to mug after school and ate cup noodles in school for dinner and only went home at 9PM.
Some tips for exams :
For english there are 2 easy steps. The first thing you need is content for whatever you're writing, but that's more for argumentative essays etc. If you wanna do stuff like that, make sure you can convince the marker that what you're saying is valid.
If you're doing story-based composition, don't write some cock-and-bull story that no one will believe. And stay away from cliches like some action movie, examiners don't exactly appreciate humor in your stories either. I never really liked to write about Singaporean contexts because the markers are British so I tend to stick to general storylines without a specific race background (like using John, Tom instead of Ah Seng or Ali).
Next thing you need is language, if your language isn't very good, just make sure that your writing makes grammatical sense and you don't get spelling errors. The worst thing to do is to try and use big words when you're not sure about them, just write simply and to the point. If you are already capable of that, then start writing in a more complex sense. If you can, increase your vocabulary so you don't have to keep repeating the same word. If your english is seriously damn good, the best way to impress is to write a descriptive essay. But this one is risky, you could either get a really high score or mess up and just pass or even fail.
For humanities, I took history, SS and lit, so I can't really say for geography, but according to my classmates who did it, there's no way out for geog except to memorise. For history, make sure you understand the casual factors and themes. If you don't understand it, there's no use memorising. Almost every single question in history will ask you on factors, so make some notes organising the stuff in the textbook into factors. For lit, you'll most probably have to spot topics, but it's necessary to at least understand the whole text. And memorise your quotes, don't end up like me and miss a higher grade because you didn't put in any quotes
Normally, if you're doing source-based or lit, the standard format is to 1) quote, 2) infer, 3) link. What I mean by this is that you first lift out short phrases, then come out its implication, then most importantly, answer the question using the link.
E maths, A maths : no choice, practice your ass off. Do every single past-year paper, TYS, tutorial you can get your hands off and make sure you understand all the concepts
Sciences : make sure you can get as high as possible for practical, it's going to be the one that pulls your grade up. Same goes for MCQ. When you're mugging, first understand the concept, then memorise the formulas, examples etc, that way you'll be more likely to remember it
If you guys need any help or anything, feel me to ask me, I'm like really free after my promotional exams end this week so I have nothing to do lol. FYI, I'm taking Arts now in JC so I'm more inclined towards the humanities, and DON'T BELIEVE WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT ARTS HAVING NO FUTURE! It's the most fun course you can take in JC :lol:
