How I got 10A+ in SPM

Every year, batches of students in Malaysia undergo this grueling process of studying for SPM, worrying about your futures, and getting screamed at by your teachers and parents. At this point, most of you would start to doubt the purpose of even taking SPM. Well, at least I did. During this period of time, some of your friends who have never really cared about academics would start to study so hard, they'd give you a shocking piece of result slip. Conversely, some students may start to burn out. You definitely don't want to be either.

I hated half the subjects I took, but good SPM results meant having a prerequisite to apply for scholarships and of course serving as a good track record in university applications. Thus, I worked for it, just as I worked for every school examination. In this post, I'd like to share a few of my ways of studying. It definitely won't work for everyone, but I hope you'd find some of it helpful.

1. Pinpoint your strengths and weaknesses

SPM students take 9,10 or even 11 subjects. That's a lot, so there will definitely be subjects that you are weak in, or those you don't like and those that you are slightly better in. For me, I have always hated Sejarah and Biology, but loved Maths and Physics. Naturally, I would want to do more Math as I enjoyed it. However, I forced myself to spend most of my time on the subjects I was weak in/hated (thank goodness I don't have to anymore). Just think of it this way, you only have to deal with these subjects for another year, you don't wanna fail your last eg. Biology paper in your life right? Spend more time on those you are weak in, and treat the subjects you like as a treat (no pun intended lol). This will prevent your results from being too lopsided. The SPM grading system means that it's no use getting 100 in Math and 80 in another subject, it's better to get 90 in both (just an example). Even within a particular subject, there will be chapters that you are weaker in. By consciously putting more effort in those, you are working towards a goal of improving, and not merely completing your school/tuition homework etc. Working harder isn't better, working smarter is. For example, I hardly did my Math tuition homework (don't do this guys, it's not good) but I did the exercises on permutations and logarithms ( I used to be really weak in those). Those chapters turned out to be my favourites right now. By drilling on the parts that you are weaker in, you are studying with a purpose.

2. Make a timetable

I know this sounds really cliche, but I'm not talking about the ones where you plan to study from 8 to 10 am and play games for another hour. I've tried those, but they never actually worked on me. My exam timetable would consist of how many days I have left until exam and what I need to accomplish before that. You can do that with a computer, or simply draw out a physical one. Personally, I enjoyed the feeling of crossing out chapters on the whiteboard with a red marker pen.

This one was for my mid year last year (I happen to have a picture of it)

This is the one I did for my sem exam this year.

It gives you a clear picture of what you have done, and what you have not. Most of all, it serves as a motivation for you to keep moving on. The timetable gives you an idea of how many weeks you have left, or sometimes just days. During SPM, it's really hard to divide your time between so many subjects. Even 2 weeks before exam would mean that you have about 6 hours per subject ( for example if you spend 4 hours studying per day, taking 10 subjects) and that's obviously not enough for a 2-year syllabus. Making this timetable will make you realise that you are running out of time ( that happens to me every single time), but if that anxiety helps you do well, why not?

3. Study ahead

Studying ahead means reading up on a chapter before it is being taught by your school teacher. You don't have to fully understand it, just have a rough idea of what the chapter is about. Doing that helped me a lot as I would be able to start remembering/understanding the topic when the teacher started on it, instead of just trying to grasp what the teacher was talking about whilst thinking about what's for lunch and trying to stay awake in this horrible scorching weather.

4. Do more practice, don't memorise

We learn most when we are doing exercises, not when swallowing the whole textbook. Although this might seem like a risky alternative to reading the textbook cover to cover, but when you run out of time before the exam, it would be better to do exercises than study. Honestly, how much information can you retain after reading 20 pages of Sejarah? I would forget most of the stuff as soon as I flip the page, not to mention during the exam. So this is when repetition comes in. This method is called active recall. I watched this video by Ali Abdaal called How to Study for Exams just weeks before the exam as I was so devastated and was happy to know that I've been doing it the right way. (The video is evidence-based and it's very informative). For Sejarah, most of the questions are repeated (but if you'd like to ace your objective, then unfortunately yes, reading the textbook is a must). I usually start with past year papers, as they give you an idea of what to expect. After a few sets of past year papers, it is hard not to find a pattern. Even for internal school exams, the more you do, the more you realise that the teachers have a question bank. When you're trying out questions, you are actually trying to recall what you have learnt in school instead of feeding the information passively. That would help you pinpoint what's important. When I get a question wrong, I'd circle it with a pink highlighter, so when I review a particular exercise, I only go through the ones I've gotten wrong (which sometimes be a lot) as chances are, you are going to get the same thing wrong the next time.

5. Always review what you have done

Don't cram all the knowledge the day before the exam, you should've already finished those. Even if you haven't, what you should be doing is going through all the exercises you have done. As a continuation to the previous point, we are very likely to repeat our mistakes. By reviewing and repeating the questions you've gotten wrong, you are consciously reminding yourself not to do it in the exam. For example, I always get the units wrong. By reviewing those questions, I would consciously double check every unit in the exam so as not to lose marks due to careless mistakes (which happens so often up till now I'm just really frustrated). There's no use doing so many sets of exercises if you're not learning from them.

6. Get a hobby

This has nothing to do with getting good grades, but it is essential for your mental well being. I personally was under quite a lot of stress due to everyone's expectations and also my own. Other than that, I just felt really burned out studying all the time ( or at least trying to- without getting distracted ). The piano was where I turned to when I was so tired of studying. Find a hobby that makes you feel calm or rejuvenated, be it exercising, gardening or cooking. I posted piano covers on Instagram ( open a spam account or something) and I recorded time lapse videos of myself studying. I found that really useful as I couldn't use my phone while it was recording and the videos were really satisfying as if I've done a lot of work.

Getting good grades will definitely require certain sacrifices. For me, it was the time I would've had to learn new stuff that I was actually interested in like coding, instead of boring over, say Biology, that would not be of any use to me in the future. I literally spent 80% of my time on just History and Biology thoughout forms 4 and 5. It was horrible but I guess my hard work paid off pretty well.

All the best to all of you who are taking SPM! SPM isn't the most important thing, but as much as you don't want to be stressed out, there will always be some pressure. Just bear in mind, getting bad grades isn't the end of the world and that piece of result slip doesn't define you.

~Carpe diem~