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Galloping Horse @ gallopinghorse2704.blogspot.com Soft Opening - 31st January 2014

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Studying for Grades or Knowledge?

Was studying half way for Organic Chemistry and suddenly my friend came and told me, "this one won't come out one la. No need read...." Has made me thinking. The fact is, I have been thinking for quite sometimes.

One question: Why do we study? Why do we do revision? Before you answer for yourself, have a deep thought first. Why would you sacrifice the time that you have over books where you could have fun, enjoy your favourite hobbies. As for UTPians, going to Ipoh may be. Do you study for the sake of studying, or for the sake of getting good score in test or exam? Which one is preferably your response? Guess that the second option will be more popular answer.

Actually, it is pretty easy to score in exam, I mean, to get that desirable "A" in your result slip. Who don't want that "A", do you? All you need to do is just to understand the system, with a good strategy, "A" or may be "four flat" is not really far away from you. One easy example will be our dear final exam. In final exam, there are always choices of questions for you to choose, am I right? Almost all courses use the same format. Students can choose to answer which questions that they want to, as it is not compulsory to answer all. Typically, each question will come out from one particular chapter. If the students are smart enough, they could actually abandon some of the chapters while doing their revision if they don't feel like it. The risk is there, but it's worth to take one, I think. Well, at least that is what I think.

Now, the dilemma is the reason for you to study. To get knowledge or just for the marks? About Oil and Gas Test that day, I made some stupid mistakes because when I was doing my revision, I was kind of missing some parts. And my friend asked, "do you read the past year papers?" and I said no. "You should have read it." This makes me ponder, by studying past year papers, you could score high mark since they may come out with the same questions (in fact, it is). You study everything in your notes, yet you score lower. In reality is, you know more compared to those who rely on past year papers and not forgetting tips, folks. Tips is a very popular demand from students. For the sake of what? Can answer the questions in test and get high mark.

Somehow, the point of studying is no longer there. Suppose we study for the sake of knowledge but due to the system, we are forced to study just to get good grade. Sometimes how unfair is that. One grade shows nothing that one person is capable of. Even you get perfect score for your test, that don't make you a wizard or master or anything that you want to call. Let say that you are just plain lucky. You expect what kinds of questions come out in test or exam, and bingo! You study the right thing. Others who seem to get low grade look.... dare not to use the word. Okay, the group of less-smart-people will seem to be very poor just merely because what they have studied is not being tested. That's just it. Well, human is not a robot. You cannot memorize everything and pour all out in exam. That's why I say, it's luck. Bad grade does not mean you are not capable; good grade does not really mean you are knowledgeable. It all depends, up to your own perspective.

As for me, if I have the time, I would have chosen to study everything, every single word that I can find in a textbook even though my friends somehow psycho me, telling me no need to read them, guess you know what's the reason is. But if the exam is near, pressure, and ya, I fall for that system, mindset of getting good grade, I would skip some parts. Sound like contradicting to myself, back to square one. What to do? Life is hard. Making choice has never been easy. All you can do is to go with the flow. That's how the world works.

Long-winded post. Hope it is worth-reading for you to think. Basically, everything is up to you to decide. Just be comfortable with your choice. That's all, peeps!

*Find this song, perhaps I am kind of outdated or whatever it is. Jai Ho by PCD, featured soundtrack for movie Slumdog Millionaire. Very catchy. Has been playing it all night long. Hope you enjoy it.



For UTPians, I know internet connection can be a culprit. That's why we have DC++, right?

*Things seem back to "normal" already. Oh well, the more I care, the more that I suffer. Why should I care? (may be because, I still care, actually...)

7 comments:

WK Chua said...

I totally agree steward. But tat's how reality is. The world is not a pretty place. Good guys always lose out. Those who use short-cuts win. The Oil n Gas Test is a perfect example.

Yet, do we have a choice? The most important is our results right? Sometimes we feel what we doing is not right. For example, relying on tips and aiming for questions that may come out in exam is not the proper way education should be done. But we are too result-oriented to care about that. It's a necessary 'evil' (if you define it that way) as long as it does not harm anyone. Scoring well is for our own sake right? Who cares about what we actually learn. We don't need to know everything in the syllabus. We might not even apply all that knowledge in our work in the future.

Nevertheless, we should all be grateful that at least we DO study and do not resort to desperate methods like cheating in the exam. So don't worry much steward, we can consider ourselves good students (at least morally) :P

Steward Baba said...

Hmm... sound like we have no choice. everything that we do is merely because to follow the majority. If they judge us from the grade that we have, well, what to do?

It is up to individual. If you say you don apply all things that you learn, how about general knowledge that we don even actually put them into practice but it is indeed kind of shameful if we don know none of these.

People don care what we learn. well, at least you yourself must care. Study for your own sake, at the same time, for other people's sake.

Steward Baba said...

*know none of these.

WK Chua said...

Ya, general knowledge is one thing. It's important to know them. But we won't be discussing complicated chemical reactions like we are discussing the weather right? I mean, they won't be common topic of disucssion so we don't need to care about them so much. Waste my memory space only haha. I got better things to remember :P

Steward Baba said...

hmm... well. as i said, it's up to individual. different people has different level of curiousity. Some may choose to touch our ochem text book just for the sake of test, well, that is their choice.

For me, studying is not for test only, it is to become knowledgeable. due to this grade-oriented system, I have to do something that opposes my intrinsic motivation.

Oh well, I just prove the disadvantage for social morality theory. :P

Ivan Liaw said...

虽然我喜欢PCD,但我比较喜欢ORIGINAL版本的JAIHO。

Steward Baba said...

Hmm... I come across Jai Ho by PCD first. Donno the original one tho.