The Everlasting Journey of Study

I was in my class at secondary school. At that time, I was in Form 5. It was a year of struggle. The struggle to get straight A-ones, which later changed into A-pluses, in SPM. Well, back to the class, my friends and I were getting a lecture regarding the SPM. About how important it was, etc, and I heard this very clear statement: "You just have to do all this studying until SPM and then everything will be over!" Most probably, this strong influential statement was successfully buried into the hearts and minds of almost every student present. To think that SPM is the final destination in the struggle of facts and concepts memorization. It's never was and never will be that simple. In fact, the journey is still far from finished...

     After the passing of SPM, then comes college and university life. Here, the game is still the same but harder than before. You have quizzes. You have tests. You also have assignments. Then, there are also the final exams. All of these require studying and of course much more than SPM. The normal situation that usually happen is when you forget EVERYTHING you learn in secondary school and the best part is most of what you learn in college or university is a repetition of those things you poured away on the SPM test papers. So, you'll study again everything and usually, the same thing is done as in secondary school, memorization without full understanding or the favorite word I here a lot nowadays, passion.

     Most students just don't get it why they actually study Biology or Additional Mathematics. Nevertheless, because they don't want to do badly in the exams and not let parents' and teachers' hopes down. In relation to that, they cook up ways to pass the exams with flying colors or some may even just hope for a pass. This then becomes a habit where students don't learn for wholehearted knowledge acquisition and implementation but just for the sake of A's. This will go to the extent of students when questioned of something different giving reasons to like, "This will not be asked in the exams." Their intellectual curiosity is bordered and hindered by the boundaries of black and white test papers.

      Students like me and you (if this applies) must realize firstly that studying is not just about exams. Life is not all about exams! Secondly, we have to really look into our hearts..why am I studying? I don't like this and I'm supposed to be doing that rather than this.. Thoughts like that always occur. We are always going with the flow where actually, we're supposed to be riding it. We're supposed to do things because we have the passion to do it. For example, I have a friend that spent RM3000 for comic books ONLY since he was standard 3 until now. He was so passionate about comic books and drawing them that he won some competitions and is also at the same time was a top student in his secondary school. Another friend of mine loves magic tricks so much that he actually bought CDs and book on how to perform them and once had the chance of performing magic tricks in front of a Minister. Both of them were passionate in their interests that they are able to make sacrifices and learn by themselves until they become experts in their fields.

     Bottom line, we have to have interest in what we do, we have to have passion in our interests. We must have an objective in the sense that we know why we do something and have a goal other than just plain A's. Life is a journey which includes to keep studying and attaining knowledge - an everlasting journey of study. But I always like to stress out that you should never make excuses for not doing your best in an exam. And for that exam scoring part, I am glad to help you in any way I can. So, feel free to ask and good luck!