To Do List for Secondary School

1. Take photos with friends. Lots of them.
   I always avoided photos. I hated being in them so moved a step or two to the side when my friend were taking selfies. Sometimes, they managed to coerce me into taking one or two with them. Those are the only pictures I have now and I treasure them. It's my biggest regret. Now, that I'm in college I try to take a few every week and I love going through old pictures months later. Me and my friend are even planning to make a 4 year picture album for when we graduate.
2. Do something crazy
   I had never skipped school without a legitimate reason. Cold? Fever? Nausea? Cramps? To school I went; Mainly out of fear of my mom. At the end Form 4, the year end exam was over and everyone was just stuck in a science lab playing card games and loitering around school. After dozens(52 but who's counting, right?) of UNO games with one of my closest friends, we spontaneously decided to walk to the mall. It was raining but there was nothing going on at school anyway. So, we walked half an hour in the rain and when we reached the mall, I asked her if she wanted to watch a movie. She only had 10 cents on her. Understandable, seeing as we had made the decision so suddenly. So, we did what any sane person would do. We did the same thing the next day. We got our friend who was the vice class monitor wrote us in as present and we walked to the mall before school started. The mall wasn't open yet so we played UNO on the ground outside the mall. When it opened, we made a beeline straight to the cinema and watched The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, the day it was released in Malaysia. It remains my favourite memory from my 11 years in school.

Dropping Add Maths

This is a repost of my reply to the "Dropping Add Maths" thread on the Lowyat forum which I thought might be helpful to other students who are struggling with the same thing.

QUOTE(Robbie Lee @ Jan 31 2016, 09:21 AM)

Hi everyone, I am an Accounts Stream student studying and currently Form 5 right now. I am thinking about dropping Add Maths as it has been a burden to me ever since Form 4 started. I have scored all As for every subject except add maths, which I had never passed before. If I were to study business related courses in Uni, should I consider holding on to Add Maths? Thanks in advance for all the answers. u

I failed Add Maths all the way through Form 4 but in Form 5 I got my sh*t together and managed to scrape by with Bs Cs for the whole year. I joined every extra class for Add Maths even those for other classes. I'm just waiting for my SPM results now.

Personally, I would suggest that you stick on with Add Math until near SPM when they ask you to fill up a form declaring your subjects and decide then. You should drop it if you still cannot pass by then.

I think you might need basic Add Maths for Business majors like Management Information Systems, business systems analysis, IT management and information systems but I'm not too sure about this. It would best for you to talk to your school counselor about this. That or you can check the requirements/structure of the course you wanna take to see whether Add Maths is involved.

For now I suggest going to tuition or studying the important topics on your own.

Also, if there are any extra classes in your school for Add Maths make sure you join. Ask your Add Maths teacher to inform you whenever there is an extra class for Add Maths for any Form 4 or Form 5 classes.
Your teacher will be more than willing to help.

The Only Study Advice You Will Ever Need

After 11 years of education, I have found that the most effective way of studying is...

Write notes then do questions. 

Lots and lots of questions.

Yup that's about it. 

You might ask me 

"What about tuition? Does that help?" 

Of course it does! 

But what do you do in tuition?

You

Write notes then do questions. 

Lots and lots of questions.

Right?

If you have the drive, you can do that at home by yourself. 

But...

If you're like me (a lazy vegetable), tuition is a good way to get you off your ass and on the table.

Conclusion:

A+  =  Writing lots of notes and doing lots of questions. 

For a more on what I think of tuition, read this post from a while back.

Total Recall

You know that feeling when after studying like mad for an exam, then end up drawing a blank during the actual exam? Yeah, that terrible sense of dread. Ugh. *shivers

Here are some of my declassified studying tips to make sure you can actually retain all or, at least, most of what you learn in class so you won't ever have to feel like that again.

Best Study Resources

1. ExamTime(Now GoConqr)

This popular site allows you to create and share your own mind maps, flashcards, notes and quizzes. I love it's user interface(UI) and it's vaudeville of features but the only downside is that it requires registration.

*** As of the 31st of March 2015, ExamTime has moved to GoConqr. ExamTime members can still access all their data on the GoConqr website. Click here to read my post on it.***

2. The Guide Book of Misc. Notes

This site is great for students in general but especially great for Malaysian secondary school students since it's run by four Malaysian students from Pahang. This website is especially useful for people who like more visual note since they mainly post picture notes.

3. SparkNotes

This site seems to be geared more towards college students than secondary school(middle school + high school) students. The main thing that I like about it is the literature notes since they have a titanic list of novels to choose from. The bad thing is that it can also be kind of distracting at times because almost every page displays SparkLife post which are non-studying reated posts.

For now this is all I've got but I'll add more if I happen to come across some good ones. 

What are some of your favourite studying sites? Share them in the comments below.

Why Your Study Never Works Out the Way You Plan

Tried to study but for some magical reason you ended up doing anything but?

Maybe you're even doing it right now?

Well then, my friend, this checklist is for you.

How to Pull A Kickass All-Nighter

Chances are, you've probably pulled an all nighter at least once or twice right?

And this is just my guess but it probably went a little something like this...

Aaand...

 I'm guessing that the day after that you probably acted a little like Princess Bubblegum over here.

Meh. No biggie. Nothing wrong with a little procrastination here and there. Right guys? Riiiiiiiight? 

AWW! COME ON!! DON'T LEAVE A BRO HANGING!

Anyways, I digress. For all my fellow night walkers out there, I've compiled for you some awesomely effective and useful all-nighter tips.

Classical Music Playlist for Studying

I basically listened to 100 Greatest Classical Music Works from Youtube for most of my study sessions and skipped whatever I didn't like. So this is a list of the songs I liked from there and from what I listened to from a bunch of different websites.

My top ten classical music pieces for studying/cramming:

1. The Nutcracker- Waltz of the Flowers(Tchaikovsky)
2. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik(Mozart)
3. The Four Seasons(Vivaldi)
4. Violin Concerto in E minor(Mendelsshon)
5. Ode to Joy(Ludwig van Beethoven)
6. Symphony #5(Ludwig van Beethoven)
7. Symphony No. 9-From The New World(Dvorak)
8. Hold Me to This: Christopher O'Riley Plays Radiohead
9. Ave Maria (Bach/Gounod)
10. Moonlight Sonata(Beethoven)

Brain Booster Tip #1

Listen to classical music for about an hour a day.

It is believed to improve both concentration and focus.

This effect is known as the Mozart Effect.

Click here to go to my favourite classical music playlist.