THROWBACK: PMR Study Skills 2013

by Alisraa Aldin and Austin Ng, Form 3 Cempaka, Class of 2015

As anyone who sat for Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) or Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) would know, sitting for a public examination calls for many sacrifices. These sacrifices are never easy, even if they seem as trivial as having tuition take over your normally free Fridays, or the more painful things like giving up that daily session of DotA with your friends. So naturally, we accepted having to give up one of our weekends to attend the PMR Study Skills workshops.

Photo Credit : Puan Rahimah

This year, the PMR Study Skills was held from April 12th to April 14th. The whole purpose of Study Skills was for us to have a firm understanding of the subjects, and to be able to present what we know to the rest of our peers. To accomplish that, each group had to create an iMovie on the subject that was assigned to us. Throughout the camp, we also had the opportunity to listen to various lectures by teachers from other schools.

After boarding the bus from Damansara, we were led to the Examination Hall at the very top of the N1 building, where the Cheras and Labuan students were already waiting for us. To our surprise, we were greeted with a seemingly random survey on our behaviour. We discovered later that these questions were used to determine whether we were a visual, audio, or kinetic learner. For most of us, it’s still a wonder how questions such as “What would you do if you were mad at someone?” were used to determine which study method worked best but for myself, it was true. Before we were excused for break, we were also given our first assignment of the day - to make a study timetable. We spent the remainder of our time in Cheras working on our presentation, with the last lecture on Pendidikan Islam for the Muslim students ending at around 6.15pm.

The second day was filled mostly with lectures. While the idea of a day full of lectures may seem daunting to many, the teachers definitely tried to change things up to prevent us from sleeping on our desks. A true testament to this would have to be the science workshop, conducted by Encik Mohd Saad bin Yaacob, who would reward each correct answer with a loud booming “BOMBASTIC”, “FANTASTIC” and various other words with ending with an -ic. Finishing even later than the previous day, we were left with no time to spare on preparing for the presentations tomorrow, forcing us to use Skype as medium to sort out last minute details. 

Photo Credit : Puan Rahimah

To the relief of many, the last day was set to end much earlier than the previous days. That thought itself was enough to pump us up for the presentation. Every group clearly put in their all into this presentation as we saw many interesting videos, ranging from a hilarious reenactment of our literature novel How I Met Myself, to a catchy rap about the political parties we learnt in Sejarah. Needless to say, Sejarah has never been as popular, with students demanding for an encore in between laughter. After announcing the best presentations, all the students walked downstairs for the group photo session. It seemed only right for all three campuses to be in the photo - we were the last batch of PMR after all. 

Photo Credit : Puan Rahimah

It was definitely a weekend filled with valuable lessons, newfound methods and great fun. Being able to bond with our counterparts from Labuan and Cheras also made the experience all the more enjoyable. Together, we faced the evil monster also known as PMR. Whether we conquered it or not remains to be seen next Thursday when the results come out. All the best to everyone!