Introspection, Inspiration & Innovation

Tackling CR so that he cries

2009-09-05T14:06:00.005+08:00

SAT = Sit awaiting trouble , SAT = stupid american test, SAT = sickening abominable torture, or whatever you want to call it, SAT for me is Spoon-feeding Abolition Treat. Or to make it sound more understandable, A special experience of stopping ourselves from being too dependent on others. For years, we have, in one way or another, been spoonfed by our teachers with all the information, just so that we get straight As in spm, and eventually.. well, end up seeing each other in uniten. Don't you think it's about time we stop this and start standing on our own feet like a real man or woman should? Hahaha, as if I weren't spoonfed too..

Ok, sorry for the craps. May be this is why I'm dubbed "mr. philosopher" by my friends, always talking about unnecessary and deep subjects. Somehow, I think i sound more like an empty vessel trying to make the loudest noise (x_x). Now, where was I? oh ya, CR..... Although cr is hard, that doesn't mean that we cannot conquer it, right? If you say yes, give yourself a pat on the back. So, I came up with a theory (or rather opinion ) about cr. You see, Critical Reading = CR = Cristiano Ronaldo = headache! May this is why it's so worrying.. I see myself as a defender having to go against this quick-feet, trickster + actor in a football match.. I must be careful not to let him get past me, not to allow him any space or time on the ball, and finally and most importantly, not to mis-tackle him in the penalty area as he will pretend as if I break his leg, scream agonisingly on the ground, and score the penalty later. If this happens, I would have failed to defend my goal, my goal of flying to U.S. So, to be good goal-defenders, we must learn how to 'play' against CR so that he cannot even touch the ball, get frustrated, cry like a baby and walk out of the pitch. Hahaha!! ( btw, I assume no one of you like CR) .... Here are some ways which worked, I would say, very well for me. I'm not sure if this works for you, but it did work for me. Anyway, use it if it suits you, tell it to someone else if it doesn't =P. So, here goes...

How to make CR cry tips..

Part 1-Sentence Completion

1. RELAX
Don't get tensed up. I know that SAT and toefl are all about speed, but there's a difference between doing it fast and calm, and doing it like a ghost is chasing you, ending up with nothing but nervousness. Just take a deep breath before you start and take it as nothing more than the football news column in the newspaper (or any reading material that you like). Assume it's just a standard-five grammar exercise. Don't flood your minds with "I cannot get this one wrong", "fish!! time's running out", yadda yadda yadda.. Just relax, sit back and answer. But make sure you keep track of the time, too!!

2. Get the feel of the sentence. Feel what the author/subject in the sentence is feeling.
Now here comes the "feel theory". I noticed that every sentence given has its own feel, apart from the ideas presented. This will give you an indication of what the answer will be like, as in the following example, which I took from college boards' official website :

The novel's protagonist, a pearl diver, naïvely expects that the buyers will compete among themselves to pay him the best price for his pearl, but instead they ------- to ------- him.
(A) venture . . reward
(B)pretend . . praise
(C)conspire . . reimburse
(D)refuse . . cheat
(E)collude . . swindle

In this sentence, just like any other, the trick to get the feeling of it is by reading the sentence in one go without pausing to look at the individual words. In this case, you'll have to 'empty' your feeling after each question (just as how you would reset your calculator after a question during spm). By reading the one above, we get the feeling that something bad and negative happened in the situation in the sentence. Therefore, we know that both the two words to be filled in must be negative, go hand in hand and doesn't contradict each other. So, A, B and C can simply be dismissed as the second word is positive. Two left. Next, we eliminate D because the first word (refuse) opposes the negativity of 'cheat'. Thus, the answer is C. By feeling the sentence alone, we can get the answer. Try other questions using this method, hope it works.. =)

3. Try to get the 'taste' of the words that you don't know.
When you come across words that you don't know, sometimes it does help if you 'taste' the word or guess how it sounds like (bad, neutral, good). Some words actually sound negative, some sound positive while some are neutral. This is especially useful when answering questions which involve smell, sound, and feelings. For example, you may not know the meaning of "putrid", but can you feel that it 'tastes' bad in a way or another? If you can, congratulations. Indeed, putrid means decayed and having an unpleasant smell. Of course, this only works for some words, not all. There is no substitute to hardwork in memorizing the new vocabs.

4. Be sure of the tendency of both the sentence and the words
Any word will always have either one of these three properties : positive, negative or neutral. In cr, it is all about understanding what is the type of the word to be filled into the blanks. If the sentence suggests that the word is negative, eliminate the positive words and choose the negatives. If you have to choose between two negative words, pick the one which fits the context of the sentence. Remember, the properties are contextual. The literal meaning might be positive, but when used in context to the sentence, it could be negative. So, be wary of this.

Ok, that would be all. Having suggested these tips, I'd like to say that the other tips like get enough sleep, do lots of practices etc. still apply. The ones stated above are just additional. Hope this works for you! Feel free to comment on this.(^_^)
Regards,

Colin.

Are You In For It?

2009-09-05T12:08:00.005+08:00

Is this me? Is this you? I hope we won't show this kind of expression during the real SAT test. To be exact, in the critical reading section. After doing the practice at itms once (maybe twice), everyone should have an idea of how hard everyone should work by now.

Seriously, what are we in for in the cr section? a test of english proficiency? speed? confidence? genius? I don't know. But to me, by the time all of us sit on our respective chairs on October 10th, we have one thing in mind : defend our goal. But is our goal?... gosh!! are you kidding me? don't tell me you still don't know! We are all aiming to be on board the flight to U.S come next August or September, and I'm sure no one wants to miss the flight! And I hope two weeks after the exam, smiles of happiness will be on all our faces when we check our SAT scores. So, let's get it going, start our engines! Gambatte kudasai!!! (^_^)

Colin

In English

2009-08-30T12:57:00.002+08:00

Perhaps, I should start to compose blog in English.

Since the very first day I stepped into the gate of UNITEN, actually I was in a car that time, one new thing had stepped into my life at the same time. It was English. As you all know, students from Chinese schools like me usually didn't speak English in their previous schools.

But at here, in UNITEN, everything is about English. Obviously, it has intimidated me. 20 hours out of 34 hours(I mean our lessons/lectures) a week are all about SAT and TOEFL, which emphasize English language so much. Eventually, my confidence dropped drastically due to weak proficiency in English.

However, more than one time, Yu Jin (our beloved SAT&TOEFL Reading lecturer) has told us that both of these tests are not totally about proficiency in English, but CONFIDENCE is the more important aspect.

SO, BE CONFIDENT!

We are having the same objective---fly to USA.

Northswestern University, Evanston, IL

By,

Chon

40 days to SAT

2009-08-30T12:15:00.005+08:00

What are you guys doing?
Sincerely, I wanna to ask, what should we do?

2009-08-27T23:56:00.003+08:00

waa.. it's late at night already.. by the way, to all scholars, congratulations!!!! As Mr. Nonono announced, yesterday marked the 2 months we've been studying in Uniten. I'm sure some of us are still wondering whether we are able to get the ticket for next year's flight to U.S... don't worry, I'm more worried than u...

Aha!! Talking about being worried, I know a guy ( and he knows that I know him) who take at least two sachets of coffee per night to keep himself awake until 3 a.m., particularly when a test is coming soon.. I have to agree, coffee is so strong that it can make u stay awake for the whole morning, so I take it too... until I found out that..

*********************************************************************
Apples, not caffeine,

are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.
************************************ ***********************************

So Kumar, you can throw away all your coffee sachets and start eating apples!

I also found out that-

***********************************************************************

You burn more calories sleeping

than you do watching television.

***********************************************************************

So, Mdm Nanda and Mdm Ramiza can tell Nigel to 'ganti' his gym sessions with evening naps. After all, they burn calories! And Nigel is tough already, what else does he want? More phone numbers of girls?

This leads me to this-------------

**********************************************************************

Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.

(Since Venus is normally associated with women, what does this tell you!)
(That women are going the 'right' direction...?)
***********************************************************************

The girls are at.. the 'right' of the class. They are going...... the 'right' direction. And they have the right....... attitudes in mind. So, picking them is..... the right decision. Why go for the girls outside who will only disappoint you later?? Come on, Nigel.. you have the choice.

C^4....^_^

C^4's here... ^_^

2009-08-27T21:39:00.010+08:00

Yo man , The two CCs are in da house!!!!! as CC said earlier, Mr. Yu Jin asked us to create this blog. FYI, he's the man in uniform u'll see when u go back from home in the weekend. Nola, actually he's the cashier at Imrish. Even though we write separately, I can feel the love of CC flowing through his posting.. hahaha... Ok! Now the serious part. There are much work to do, but things don't look that good. SAT how many days more to go aa? 43 I guess, and TOefl.. ? I don't know.

Whatla, everything also very hard.. SAT is very hard after all. The CR (not Cristiano Ronaldo, I hate him) section, maths and also the writing section... After the 1st test yesterday, I cannot help by saying, it "su***". It was. 18 questions in 12 minutes?? Easyla....... if one minute=120 secs. That is just the sentence completion. I simply 'tembak' most of the questions. But a 2-year old boy would shoot better than me, so I got marginal for section. Maybe I need to learn from master N, how did he answer so fast while being able to facebook at the same time?

Today, we had another insightful writing session with madam Ong, our SAT writing teacher.. She talked about the sandwich analogy-for the SAT essay. But I remember one thing only-a thesis statement is an opinion, backed by a statement that can be broken into several main points. So much for the 3 hour lecture. Anyway, this is as far as I go tonight... By the way, who finished mdm Ong's essay already?

The Owners

2009-08-26T23:55:00.000+08:00

This is a Blog created by Chin Chon & Cyryl Colins.

Mr. Yu Jin wanted us to do this, for what purpose? I'm not really sure.

Perhaps this is an ideal place where we can share our thoughts.

Craps.

Anyway, the purpose of this posting is nothing.

I compose it just to avoid our blog to be empty.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Regards,

Chon