Block Tests: LA

Why does the school insist on calling them block tests when they’re not even in a block anymore? I think Continual Assessment or Common Test sounds fine too.

 

So anyway, for Language Arts, today’s question was:

 

“A world without conflict is an impossible dream.” Discuss.

Can’t remember what the last part was, but it’s always got the same meaning, so yeah.

 

What I Wrote

• Conflict is part of human nature. You can curb it, but you can’t deny it. Society needs an outlet for this repressed tendency, and thus will have major conflicts e.g. war.
  • I can’t believe I actually quoted playground fights as evidence.
  • I wrote something about St. Augustine. And I think that was it.
• Conflict brings progress, advancement and evolution – biologically required? Seen in nature?
  • Cited horrible example: A-bomb. Even as I was writing I knew it was screwed up, but no time to think and I was stressed.
• Conflict breaks up the monotony of life, and thus humans will be loath to get rid of it because life would be boring without it.
  • Short, no substantiation – just a point, because I had 10 minutes left to write a page (or I would have only 2 pages and no essay at all)

I kept debating whether to focus only on big huge conflicts like World Wars or if smaller conflicts counted as well. This took up a lot of time and left me more confused than ever.

Mistakes I Made

• Really bad evidence. Not enough evidence. Evidence holds no weight.
• Wasted 15 minutes of time trying to figure out what the hell to write…
• …and another ten staring at my blank paper trying to make my arguments make sense.
• Didn’t follow paragraph structure that the teachers wanted.
• Introduction had unnecessary sentences – will affect my language mark pretty badly.

I Think I’ll Get

• Language: Band 2 if I’m lucky, maybe Band 3. Which is not good, because language has always been what pulls my scores up.
• The “Reasoning and Logic” Bit: I’m hoping for at least Band 3 but I have a feeling that it’ll drop to 4.

pleasepleasepleaseletmegetatleast21markspleasethankyou

 

What I Should Do To Improve

• Read about boring topics in the paper. Read all the articles in the Review section instead of the funny ones on language and America.

EPIC TECH FAIL

My parents just spent like one and a half hour on long-distance phone trying to teach my grandpa how to use Yahoo Messenger to call us with his computer. We tried Skype before; he couldn’t get it – so now they’re trying Yahoo Messenger because my dad recently discovered that LO AND BEHOLD, YOU CAN HOLD CALLS WITH PEOPLE ONLINE AND SAVE MONEY!

I even had to create an account for him. And after we got past the login screen, we got stuck at the ‘adding contacts’ stage.

Seriously, how idiot-proof can software get? Guess we’ll have to wait another twelve months (that’s when I go back to China) before we can get the VoIP going.

On The Forgetting of Repaint Passwords

Drawing done on OekakiBBS with mouse in 20 minutes during CCA

I hit ’save’ by mistake and forgot the repaint password. Much sadness.

Mouse, 20 minutes of optional CCA, OekakiBBS.com

EOY 2008: Day 4

Had Chem today. I thought it went pretty okay, but I got 2 or 3 questions wrong in Paper 1 and the ionic equations left me a little confused in Paper 2.

Bio (last Friday) started off ho-hum but Paper 2 was a nightmare. It was like, the mother of all Bio papers. Short-chain amino acid binding and hydrolysis?

By the way, if you haven’t noticed already, I’ve added a Twitter reading list to the sidebar; alternatively, you can also follow it (if you’re interested in that sort of thing) on Twitter at @krysjez_reads.

This Post Has Sixty-Five Words

Obtained 136 for ABRSM Grade 7 piano, distinction, likely personal best.

Have new handphone number, please ask (irl)

Had LA paper today, wrote very short essay with unlinked paragraphs and disorganized points.

Scribbled a fairly short unseen analysis. Did Prose, have uneasy feeling that I veered away from Author’s Intent.

Plodded through a dastardly, disgusting and difficult (alliteration!) comprehension about Alzheimer’s.

Automattic buys Intense Debate, promises improved WP.com commenting.

OH NO

Four people in our entire class passed (>=50%) Math.

Mean grade is a D7.

):

PS: Thanks to Chelsea, you may now refer to me as The 10-minute Beta.

Block Tests 2: Day 3

I am emo and distraught. Due to this emo and distraughtness, I painted a picture and took a photo of the stained glass I made last term.

I am going to do Chem and revise BSP.

More Info
Painted with 5 colors of cheap poster paints on cheap drawing block paper that warped like nobody’s business. Blue was straight from the tube. Yellow was horribly adulterated. Used copious amounts of purple mixed in other colors.

18:32 WHY WHY WHY

Failed 2.4 by 12 seconds.

Yeah it’s the first time my 2.4 timing has been less than 20 minutes, so it’s cause for celebration I guess.

But -

12 SECONDS ;___________________;

The teacher didn’t tell me the timing when I started my 7th round, so I thought there was still time left because I clocked 13 or something on my 6th round. D: