Term 2 Blog Post 4: Reflection

Introduction:

In this blog post I will reflect on my personal growth in science and on my performance in the science assessment test for this term(term 2).

How have I has my knowledge and understanding for Science improved and grown?

There is one major thing that I have learnt this term, and that is if I want to maintain the good work and grades up, I have to keep learning and never be lazy. I have to admit, I got a little complacent after getting second in class the previous term.

It was evident in my test this term that, if I choose to slack off and keep thinking I am still going to score well, I am surely wrong. This also brings in what I have learnt last term, which is that Science is actually years and years of gathered information and knowledge. How is this achieved however? How did many famous scientist such as Einstein and Isaac Newton become what they were, and are still remembered across the globe? As I thought through and for a long time, I figured that among many other factors, a constant between what might be all scientists, is hard work and constant improvement.

Well, isn't that how mankind have come this far today? If we look back into our history, we would just think, why was I ever like that? 10 years ago, someone criticised that an "iPhone" was impossible and stupid idea, but look now how you can just walk up to any stranger and ask him what his phone is, and get a 60% chance that it is an iPhone? From the time where the idea of space travel was not even conceived, to now where people are even imagining if slipstream travel would ever be possible in the future? Where will Science and Technology take us, or perhaps where will we take it to?

There are so many answers to all these questions, but if we do not work hard to see or improve, we would be nothing. This sort of gave me a wake-up call. During this term I feel that I have not been working hard enough. So to sum up everything I just said, my understanding for Science has improved that Science isn't just something that has already exists when I was born and irrelevant when I die, but something that will go on forever, as we discover the many strange mysteries and wonders of the world.

My knowledge for Science has of course, improved. I definitely learnt much more, on top of what I have learnt in the previous term. Things like Measurement, Mass and Density; the Kinetic Particle Theory and many other little things that I have come across regarding Science. I also managed to futher my knowledge on the topic of "Antimatter", that I have always been wanting to do since Primary School. I do love the ACE the fact that Hwa Chong Institution has an ACE system for us to just improve our knowledge on any topic we want, and at the same thing get extra marks for doing so. In a way, I am doing something I enjoy.

My performance in the Science Assessment Test:

For this term's test, I scored a total of 30/40, which is actually 75/100. This means that I got an A1!

Well, I would say my score for this term's Science Assessment Test was a pretty close shave. I would have not gotten an A1 if my teacher was not lenient in his marking. Once again I make the same mistakes, except that this time there are more of it but no more careless mistakes.

For the MCQ section, I got three questions wrong, which is the same as last term. All of which I could have gotten right should I have paid more attention in class and studied harder. For section B, I lost many marks. I would say that 90% of the mistakes I made could have been answered correctly if I knew the content knowledge better. This clearly goes to show that the amount of effort I put in to listening in class and studying does make a big difference to my marks.

There is one mistake I feel that I made acceptable however. This occured several times in my paper, as I had no idea I was making that mistake and repeatedly did it. That is I placed all my units in brackets. The reason why I did so was because everytime when I am dealing with units in Mathematics questions, I would not put a single unit in any of my number statements, but at the end of the statement, put the unit concerning the entire equation in brackets. This means that this entire statement is done using this specific unit, and it was also accepted in examinations. I did this to solve my problem of forgetting to add units and losing marks as a result, but I guess this is not allowed in a Science paper, so I will keep that in mind.

My actual mark for this paper is 28 at first, but my teacher to decided to award me 2 more marks for the mistake I stated above. I really want to thank him for it, and from now on I will remember my mistake and never do it again.

I have deproved this term, but I am confident that in the next term, I will do better!