I spent the day doing various Maths exercises (which in the end, didn't help me at all), taking naps, downloading apps (including Instagram, follow me: @grayrae), surfing the web.
We had lunch at Tony Roma's (never going there again), and had gelato for dessert!
Also checked out the pet shop, and outside they had these weird Mickey Mouse figures.
After that, back to the hotel for more "studying".
Dinner was Portugese Grilled Stingray and Squid. Good stuff.
THE NEXT DAY (WHICH WAS THE DAY): 17 JUNE 2012.
Hot dog bun for breakfast. Arrived at Berjaya Times Square hotel an hour early. We checked out the location of the Manhattan ballroom.
Second breakfast at Starbucks (again).
AND NOW, THE SELECTION TEST.
(WARNING: THERE WILL BE NO MORE PICTURES UNTIL DINNER TIME.)
The timetable they sent us looked like this.
9.15 AM: Reporting Time
10.15 AM - 12 PM: General Ability Test & Briefing Session
12 - 1 PM: Lunch Break
1 - 3.30 PM: Mathematics Test
3.30 - 4 PM: Break
4 - 7 PM: English Test
Expectation ↑ Reality ↓
9.15 AM: The kiasu-ness of Malaysian Chinese parents is shown, the parents begin pushing and shoving so that their children could stand in front. Me and Li Teng stick together until we are separated. The person-in-charge keeps saying: "Parents, please don't come beyond this point or you will cause a human traffic jam." Throughout the day, this lady kept using the phrase "human traffic jam". We stare at the huge doors to the ballroom. There is a sign outside which says "No parents allowed in this room." I felt like it was saying: "We shall take your children, chew them up, and spit them back out. NO ONE SHALL BE SPARED."
9.30 - 10 AM: Students are herded into the first ballroom, where tables and chairs have been arranged. The room is quite cold and thankfully I have a warm jacket AND a scarf (I was probably the most warm and toasty).
10 - 10.15 AM: Students are arranged according to index number and told to stand and wait in the room. Attendance is taken.
10.15 - 10.20 AM: There are no adults in sight and students begin to get restless.
10.20 - 10.45 AM: Students are told to find a seat, but there are not enough chairs for everyone and most of the students end up sitting on the floor (including me).
10.45 - 11.15 AM: Students are so bored they begin talking amongst themselves (including me, even though we don't even know each other, never mind, must be friendly!).
11.45 AM: Students are herded into another room. One group goes off to take the GAT, the other group goes to the next room for the briefing session (this is me).
11.50 PM - 12:20 PM: Briefing session about the ASEAN scholarship.
12:30 - 1 PM: My group is led to another room where we take the GAT which is similar to the Raven's Test (Google it). 48 questions, 20 minutes. May the odds be ever in your favour. Thanks to my awesome father who showed me a website, I knew how to do all but one question. (But I didn't have time to shade two questions, which meant I didn't answer 3.)
1.05 - 2.05 PM: Lunch break. After going out, Li Teng and I find out that our parents have made friends! And my dad bought us McD (fish burger) for lunch! *Munch munch* I finish first, of course.
2.05 - 2.30 PM: We line up once more outside the huge ballroom where the briefing session took place. We enter the freezing cold room. (At least, I think it was freezing cold, a lot of people looked cold, but since I never took off my jacket, I can't be sure, I just know it was cold.)
2.46 PM: They finally finish handing out the papers (some people sneaked a peek!) and the games --- oops, I mean, test begins! 33 questions, 1 and a half hours. Invigilator: "Please fill in your ansells on the papell." One of the instructions was: Do not waste time. If the question is too difficult, move on to the next question. All the papers (except writing) had this instruction.
3 PM: It is apparent that I do not know how to do 95% of the questions in the paper. So I try my best and manage to do almost half.
4.16 PM: The paper ends. I overhear people saying how they did 18 questions (not bad), 10 questions, and 5 questions but they think they only got 3 right. In short, I overheard a lot of people talking. But this does not count as eavesdropping because they were talking really loudly!
4.16 - 4.46 PM: Break. Most of the girls make a mad rush for the toilet. As for me, I just sit on the floor outside calmly eating Oreos and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.
5 PM: 90% of the students are already seated in the hall (including me). Latecomers were given evil stares. (We were egged on by the head invigilator, she was like "For those who came in late, all of you stare at them and remember their face." LOL.)
5.30 PM: The first part of the English test begins. 1 and a half hours. I found this part relatively easy, when I finished, everyone within my vision was still doing it. I'm fast! Took the opportunity to go the toilet although one of the invigilators had to follow me there. The first half of this paper was vocabulary (circle the correct word) and grammar (find the grammar mistakes). A passage where you fill in the blanks with the words given. They had another passage where you had to fill in the blanks with words like "to, from, those, that, etc." but there were no answers to choose from, you had to write in those words yourself. Then they had two comprehension passages. The first one was a story about a doctor getting in an accident, the other one was about Kate Middleton. Besides the comprehension questions, they gave you a word, and you had to find a word in the passage that had the same meaning as the word they gave you. It's not so bad cause they tell you which paragraph to search in.
7 PM: Part 1 of the English test is finished, leaving Part 2.
7.20 PM: Which is an essay. 300 words, 30 minutes. GO! Two questions for you to choose from. 1) Write about an event and how it has changed your life since. Or something like that. I chose the second question which was something like this. 2) Write about an occasion where you had to make a difficult decision and the outcome of that decision. I didn't find this as easy as the first half but the time limit didn't make me too nervous cause the UNSW exam is the same.
7:50 PM: Test ends.
8 PM: WE ARE FINALLY ALLOWED TO LEAVE! As I left the hall, I saw parents taking pictures of their kids coming out. However, my dad was not among them. (He was in the lounge drinking coffee.)
(The above probably has a lot of grammar mistakes. For that, I most sincerely apologize. I will check them another time.)
Dinner: My very first Subway sandwich! Hearty Italian bread, roast beef, lettuce, mustard, and olive oil dressing.
The next morning, had breakfast at Paddington House of Pancakes, had mushroom & chicken bacon soup, passionfruit & mango crush, and 'poffertjes' (dollar pancakes with melted butter & icing sugar & blueberries).
After that, lunch at KLCC, went to Kinokuniya Book Store. Only bought ONE book (this is a record), which is:
Yeah, I'm obsessed.
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