We are officially 1 week from the Chinese O level paper 1 and 2. #bitenails
Late last year, we started to realise that Nana needed help for Chinese, especially if she wants to do well for her papers in May. We found her a tutor but it didn’t work out. The progress was too painfully slow that we doubt if we would achieve what we needed by May.
While only a pass in Chinese is needed to go to JC, we discussed and agreed that having a good grade would give her buffer against screwing up one of her Maths or Sciences. She struggled with these subjects too but at least we still have time. It is too wasted to not try hard to do well in Chinese, so that we can drop the subject and have extra time to concentrate on the remaining subjects at the end of the year. Ya, this is still how O level Chinese works until 2027, where the Ministry then scrap the mid year Chinese paper.
We re-strategised a few months ago and found her a new tutor. This tutor had been tutoring the Fs for many years. On her 1st lesson, she had asked for Nana’s 10 year series, which Nana drew blank. There is a 10 year series for Chinese? I cannot believe my ears when Nana said that her school didn’t ask them to buy the Chinese 10 year series. Nanhua leh. Then she said that it may be in school. Ended up, I got her a new one a day later. We don’t have time to waste and the supposedly still in school is 10 year series is still MIA.
Given the little time that we have left, her tutor and I (her part time tutor), had been very focused on working on the 10 year series. Nana and I agreed on the target of completing the entire 10 year series before the Chinese paper. Unlike the rest of the subjects, that means double (20) papers.
It had been plenty of ups and downs for the past months. Nana had to find time to study Chinese and work on her 10 year series amidst the heavy schoolwork and through her WA2. This means a ridiculous amount of tantrums including tears. I had to force her to do her papers and she gets upset bcos she is too stress. If I leave her alone, she gets stress too bcos she isn’t prepared and the D day is fast approaching. Then, she lost an entire week when she fell sick. Zzzzzsz.
We are in our final week. Her tutor came for the last time yday evening and isn’t able to move her schedule for another lesson before her papers. I am assuming that she has many other O level panicking students as well.
Maybe bcos the WA stress is over, or the other subjects teachers are giving more leeway for them to focus on Chinese. Nana’s condition for studying Chinese had been good for the past few days. I think she can also feel herself improving compared to a few months ago and is self motivated.
She has gotten her Chinese prelims results back. She said that she is 1 of the 5 people in her Chinese class who passed paper 2, though she was a borderline case. That calls for a celebration! She is at 58 marks overall, which is a C5, but bcos she had 离题 for her Chinese Comp, which is like the greatest nightmare. If she had done her usual standard for her comp, she would have achieved a B4 and improving to an A for O levels seems achievable.
She has picked up her 词语手册 again, after insisting for a while that it is useless to try to study all the past years 生词, despite her tutor telling her that she should.
I duno what made her do so (my nagging?) but she found that it helped bcos 2 parts (15 marks) of her paper required her to know the vocab that had been taught and increasing her vocab generally helped her to read and understand the paper/ questions better. She is aiming to finish the last bit of Sec 3 词语 today and we need to finish the Sec 4 work and as much as the Sec 2 ones. We don’t even have the Sec 1 手册 anymore and also running out of time.
While we didn’t finish the entire 10 year series, I am glad to announce that she had completed 10 papers and this would equal to completing the entire series if it is another subject. *clap, clap, clap*
Yes, this is how a 10 year series should look like for someone taking O levels. I think her other 10 year series are still very “clean”.
As we countdown, we are also changing our strategy unconsciously. We have moved away from completing papers (probably just drilled 1 or 2 more during the weekend) but target to finish as much of her 生词 as possible and most importantly to practice understanding composition topics. Many times, she couldn’t do an easy topic one bcos she didn’t recognise some key words. We cannot take another 离题. We will probably spent time doing some 作文大纲 for her tutor to mark remotely.
With that, I think we have all worked hard. I cannot ask for more whatever her results would be. If still cannot, then continue to work hard for end of the year lor. Another we nailed the papers on 27 May, it is time to prepare for her Chinese oral in July. At least we still have some time. Fighting!
Mummy Lim
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