Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Exams within the week, and uncertainty is starting to set in. According to my lectures, this is not a good thing. Everybody hates uncertainty. Exams were no different back home, with uncertainty in the air, but it was of a different kind. It was more like who knew more than the other. Because there was so much to study, so much to cover, people started spotting topics, and gave up learning for doing TYS (ten-year series). Those who were considered the most prepared were those who had completed the entire TYS. Proud to say I managed to do so for A math, and that gave me an A1. After all, practice makes perfect. It has proven to be the most effective form of study thus far, and if you didn't complete the TYS back home, you sure had more uncertainty to bear on your shoulders.
Here the tables have turned. Practice papers have become such a scarce resource, that supply is practically inelastic. Pardon my economics jargon, but studying accounting and economics for 2 weeks, really gets you in the mood. Uncertainty fills the air here, but not because you haven't completed the TYS, which really is just a hand full of past semester papers, a far cry from ten years worth of exam papers in Singapore. Everybody know everything, and now those who excel are not those who complete the most questions, but those whose minds conjure the most questions, relevant of course.
Which reminds me of my dreadful experience at a pit stop tutorial the other day. Having done 3 semesters of accounting papers, I was bound to have questions. So I woke up at 8 on a cold autumn morning to drag myself down to the seminar room to see the tutor. A little background info, pit stops are from 9-5, and there are tutors there to answer any questions. They are optional. So there I was sitting in the room and just ahead of me was a girl, asking questions from the past semester paper. The questions she asked!!!! It was like she had been sleeping the entire semester. So that girl, who should have studied more, wasted a good one and half hours of my time waiting. I could have left and come back again you say, and yes I could have, had not a long line of students developed behind me into my first hour waiting. BUT WAIT, that's not all!! When I had finally asked my questions, which seemed so ridiculous and stupid after an hour and a half of waiting, guess who is next in line behind me, but the girl who was the first. No need to say I would have ranted on about her lack of knowledge on her nationality, and maybe gender, but apparently those have become sensitive issues in today's world. So much for freedom of speech.
Dan
9:44 pm
