Tuesday, October 17, 2006
- sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)
exams are over, except the dreaded o level higher chinese. and due to chinese being my biggest stumbling block, my mum is forcing me to mug for it. just sweet.
how did it get to this, i wonder. my parents speak the language as fluently as natives (with the singaporean accent of course), their vocabulary is miles wide, their grammar without error. and i am stuck down here staring uncomprehendingly at comprehension (IRONY) passages and writing incoherently. the only thing i can do properly with this language is hold a casual conversation.
ah heck. at least my english standard is good enough to spar with humanities and bicultural studies (more like mono-china-cultural) students and the like, so i guess i should be happy for that.
this is going to be a long post, i have tons of stuff to update.
firstly, the exam paper which has become my pride and joy. i am happy to announce that for the exam paper, i have TOPPED THE CONSORTIUM with a score of 90%. and aside from all those revision papers assigned for homework, i think i only studied for 4 hours before the exam. overall score should be around 90 as well.
biology defied expectations, even though those last two questions cost me a section of my pride. 87% for the paper. to be honest, i was expecting 70+% only. but anyway, this is nowhere near good enough, as i should have gotten over 90% and not lost to wangshu. can you believe that. think i wrote too much irrelevant stuff
physics was worse still, with only 85%. missed out on studying some parts like how to calculate momentum and the transformer turns/voltage ratio, and well, serve me right. but then again, i think its near impossible to beat yechao with his score of 93%, so i wont beat myself up over not getting top for this one
so basically today i get back triple sciences and celebrate, then tommorow i get back languages and die.
chinese paper 1 was a close shave. i read the question, 'tan2 fan3 kong3 de4 zhong4 yao4 xing4' (discuss the importance of counter-terrorism). and i was writing my essay half way. then when i had done my background information, i looked back and realised it was 'tan2 quan2 min2 fan3 kong3 de4 zhong4 yao4 xing4' (discuss the importance of the civillian population playing its part in counter-terrorism). luckily the background still applied so i just altered my arguement points.
and they set the gong han question as a speech writing one. not being an idiot, i wrote the si han instead which was on a topic i had done before.
overall B3 please?
tommorow im getting back maths as well. i think i did well for both papers, and am expecting somewhere in the regions of 150/160 or something like that. i think this paper was set in the best way as compared to the other papers we set for. consider this question:
let N = 2 * 4 * 6 * ... * 2004 * 2006 (looks super demoralising no?)
evaluate 1/log(2)N + 1/log(4)N + ... + 1/log(2006)N
(where the bracketed number is the base of the logarithm)
needless to say this question massacred many people, but simple application of the change of base formula and then the laws of logarithms show the answer to be simply 1.
my point being that this maths exam is an exam that rewards you based on your standard, not on your willingness to mug. if youre normally not good, expect to die whether you study or not. if youre good, expect to pass with flying colours no matter what.
okay enough of the academic stuff. fantasie impromptu is seriously getting damn hard now. i swear, the contortions this piece forces my hands into is nothing compared to what flemings right hand rule has done so far. im nearly done with the fast section at least, hopefully i can start work on the slower (and easier) section soon.
and upcomming we have beethovens 'pathetique' (lol) sonata in c minor, first movement. nice piece, one of beethovens earlier works and will serve well to broaden my repetoire beyond its usual confines of romantic period pieces, video game music and pop songs. teachers past and present alike have always commented that beethovens heavier-handed style suits me better than chopins light and expressive style. guess i shall see soon.
insanlely late. need. sleep. now.
