EC1002 - Intro to Econs
Okay, so first up, Intro to Econs! I had this paper almost four weeks ago. That was on 06/05 and it was to be my first ever UOL finals paper! The exam, as before, was to be held in Halls 7,8 and 9 of EXPO and I set off from home early that day hoping to get to EXPO earlier to orientate myself. Oh yes, since JL was in the east, I got him to come along as well to meet me at the exam venue before my paper. He then stayed on until after my paper.
Moving on to the paper, I found the MCQs quite manageable and managed to answer most of the MCQs quite confidently (ie. without any guesswork). However, there were still a couple of more challenging MCQ questions so hopefully I managed to make some good calculated guesses? Haha, I guess doing all those MCQs with ZH the few days before the Econs paper had been helpful.
I had some problems in Sections B and C though. Although I had done lots of questions on Sections B and C(long answer questions), and so could see a pattern in the papers from past years, this year's paper had questions which were asked quite differently and I screwed up quite badly in answering those questions. Indeed, after discussing about the paper with some classmates during the past couple of days, I realised one of the two questions I did was definitely answered incorrectly. I'm not too confident about my second question as well. So now I'm just hoping I did well enough in my MCQs to get a pass.
ST104A/B - Statistics 1/2
The day after my Econs paper, I had my Statistics papers. It was Statistics 1 in the morning at 1000 and Stats 2 later in the afternoon at 1430. As most of you might already know, our exam script was given to us without the statistical tables. When I asked the examiners for it, I was told to make my own assumptions first and the examiners will take our assumptions into consideration when marking. I felt this was quite odd. As it was, it later turned out that the statistical tables had indeed been missed out and so there was a re- exam for Stats 1.
As for the paper I had that day, it was quite manageable. This being Stats 1, there were more theory questions which required qualitative answers rather than calculations. As such, I was able to "smoke" some answers out as I had grasped the theory and understanding of the content. As for the calculations, they were fortunately still rather easy.
After the first paper I had that day, I went out and saw JL already there waiting for me. We had lunch at a nearby Mac's during which I tried to memorise as many formulae and what not hoping to salvage my Stats 2 paper. I knew it was going to be a disaster as I had done hardly any practice of those Stats 2 questions. While I was desperately trying to understand all that "Greek" on my notes, I heard from a friend that he had rushed home to get his copy of the statistical tables. Well, even if he did get himself there and back home in time for the next paper, there was no way that he would have been allowed to bring his copy of the statistical tables into the exam... right?
All efforts to salvage my Stats 2 paper proved futile as I entered the examination hall, having not absorbed anything from flipping through my notes at the eleventh hour. As it turned out, more than 70% of the paper was on Estimation which was the topic I chose to skip as I had no idea how to perform the calculations of questions from that topic. Thus, I just tried to salvage as much as I could and wrote as much as I possibly could, which was not a lot really. I was just hoping I had done well enough in Stats 1 so that the marks will even out.
MT105A - Mathematics 1
After a weekend of revision, I was back in the examination hall on Monday, the 11th of May. After my Econs and Stats paper were over, the next couple of papers were much more relaxing. I had Maths 1 on that Monday.Being Maths 1, the paper was really a breeze. I left the examination hall feeling I might just get an A for that paper!
MT105B - Mathematics 2
A week after that, on Monday again - the 18th - I had my Maths 2 paper. It didn't go too badly but it was definitely not as "smooth" as my Maths 1 paper. That was once again mainly due to a lack of practice in the months before the paper. Still, I should have no problem getting a pass for that paper. Hopefully after the grades even out for both my Maths papers I can still secure a Second Upper grade.
SC1179 - Contemporary Sociology in a Global Age
On the Wednesday of that same week, I had my last paper( not counting the re-sit for my Statistics 1 paper). It was my Sociology paper, 'Contemporary Sociology in a Global Age' to be exact. I was quite excited for this paper actually as it was the only paper I took where I could make use of what I had learnt in from writing General Paper essays. Moreover, I had studied a lot for this paper and English writing was something I was more confident in so I had been looking forward to taking that Sociology paper. By the end of my last essay, I sure felt that I had used most of the content quite effectively and most of the content was most certainly accurate.
There is one essay which I am quite confident in which was on the topic of 'Crime and Deviance'. I had spend quite a lot of time on that and I was really glad there was a long question on that. However, time was still a problem so there were a couple of rather rushed essays too. Those were likely going to get lower scores. I should have no problem securing a pass in this paper, and hopefully even an A or B grade? Well, this is a qualitative paper, so I guess I can be a little more optimistic on this one.
ST104A (re-exam)
The re- exam of my Statistics 1 paper rounded up my finals. I had only just taken it a few days ago on the 28th of May and it was surprisingly quite smooth sailing too. There weren't many questions I could not answer. I am sure that was a result of me having used a large portion of my time during the few days before that paper to really study the content in detail. After all, I was done with all of my other papers so I could focus all my time on this one module... haha! Yup, so I'm feeling really good about this paper and glad for the re- exam(unlike most of my peers, I'm sure). I'm just hoping I would do well enough in this paper to pull my Stats 2 grades up to get an overall pass.
Hmm, that's all for now. Till the next update. ciaoz!
