Final 'A' Level review

H1 General Paper

Paper 1 (50%): Under circumstances of no better option, I ended up writing question on science and tech vs religion, it was the only thing close to what I’ve studied and I made a point to refer to question. So argument I believe has a balance and the language may be my Archille’s heel when compared nationwide, which has an effect on my grades

Paper 2 (50%): Passage was on history where 1 author values it and the other doubts its usefulness. Questions were ok, considering I did enough practice on other school papers, RJC ACJC HCJC etc. AQ was kinda strange, considering the question asked on applicability on local society 1st before personal views on both writers view….but answer was based accordingly to question order, only I did not have time to write in my concluding paragraph, so that’s where I lose out.

Expected grade range: B to D (prelim D)

H1 Economics

Case Study (70%): 2 CSQ macro Econ question: 1) Inflation, 2) International Trade and Globalisation studied these beforehand in model essays mode from other school’s suggested answers, so points more points to write for lesser marks, and 1^st time in JC life to have completed a full paper in 3 hours.

Essay (30%): I spotted topics this time, placing my bets on microecons topics and we had market failure, the same one as in prelims and I scored big time for it. So the outlook is good.

Expected grade range: C, D (prelim E)

H2 Mathematics

Paper 1 (50%): It was a tough paper to begin with, even pure maths could be tough, brain drain for 3 hours. I did not do 9 marks of questions as I gave up recurrence totally, lovely…Jayakanth found it hard also and I had to reassure him.

Paper 2 (50%): Not too bad, good vengeance for paper 1. Only some probabilities question and approximation were slightly ambiguous, assuming worst case scenario where I got them all wrong, there should at least be some working marks. 13 marks of questions undone, but damages reduced by 1/2 thanks to each paper 50%.

Expected grade range: A, B (prelim A)

H2 Chemistry: the least worrying of all…

Paper 1 (20%): couldn’t finish for the 1st time in jc life, 2 questions undone shaded “A”s at last minute. Was in a total gloom on way home, but after calculations, I realised I only had 7 “ambiguous” out of 40, meaning those with at least 50% chance of getting it wrong, including those I did not have time to solve, so now I can eat in peace because I was studying for Bio Paper 3 and did not even practise a single paper.

Paper 2 (25%): 4 questions surmounting to 60 marks, last question was a killer, but I could at least secure 10 out of 21 marks, the rest are ambiguous and error could be carried forward. So worst case scenario, I lose all “ambiguous” marks + careless mistakes in front, marks range from 40 to 49 out of 60.

Paper 3 (35%): mutilated this paper as vengeance for bio, finished all 5 questions when I have to only attempt 4, and had 15 minutes to check all 5 and decide which one not to hand in....what an issue i have...haha

Expected grade range: A (95%), and B (5%) thanks to SPA

H2 Biology: the one that I feel that I’ve wasted money and effort

Paper 1 (20%): finished in 30 minutes out of 75, redid again, changed a few answers, on the whole easy

Paper 2 (35%): KILLER PAPER!!! Ridiculous questions + contextual ones, no time to read nor analyse damn it! Free-response question: door 1) respiration and photosynthesis, door 2) Darwinism and Phylogeny. Yup my choice is obvious….screw this paper, 6 marks of unattempted questions out of 100

Paper 3 (25%): Structured is a breeze if you have had enough practice. FRQ: human genome project a) aims (6m), b) benefits (8m), c) ethical issues (6m). Assuming 1m per point, I do not have enough points. I seriously believe it is 2m per point+substantiation, judging from their loose allocation of marks, 5m for just asking how to clone in a gene in a plasmid vector when normal sch papers only awards at most 3. Also typical school FRQs also lump everything together (aims, benefits and implications) for 10m, and the points in my notes come in ratio of 3:4:3 for each segment. Thus, think of empirical formula from chem, there is a consistent ratio of 2:1. Thus conclusion is 2 marks per point+substantiation

Expected grade range: A to C (prelim D) hopefully higher with spa

That’s it for my ‘A’ level reviews, Thanks for reading!!! Time to enjoy post A retreats….overseas