#UPD: thank you all for your participation and your answers! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tribes09-blog · 5 years

Text

UPCAT Personal Experience

I have first tip to spill: BELIEVE IN YOURSELF.

—2019 UPCAT taker

A lot of students think that this test is not suitable for no- brainer or plain average students, but nope.

You first have to believe in yourself that you can get it.No matter how many people out there are smarter than you and have better educational background than you, it doesn’t matter. In this game, you need to play wise.

Determination is the key to success. Me, personally, I dreamt of getting into this school even when I was only little. I told myself that maybe I didn’t go to prestigious elementary or secondary schools, but when I get to college, I will enter UP.

Preparations

Inspiring notebook. I hate writing in an ugly pad and I only use GTECT 0.4 because it inspired me to write my notes (and it looks neat).

Highlighters. You know the use. But to me, I had different colors for a main heading, sub heading, the definition of the subheading ( I know right, I really am particular to this.)

Sticky Notes. I often list formulas and attach it on my reviewer for easy lookup. And when I still didn’t understand certain lesson enough and decided to skip on it, I write it on my small sticky notes and I pasted it on the wall adjacent to my desk.

Index cards. I carried my index cards to school so I wouldn’t have to bring the whole reviewer (It was thick and heavy). These cards contained summary of formulas, topics, important person I needed to remember, sample math problems I tried to practice and etc. I punched hole on the upper left part of the index card and put them together with yarn or you can use metal ring.

UPCAT Apps.Available on Google Play Store!

Water. I always bring my tumbler to my desk because it helps me to refresh myself, like my head is lightheaded and everything; water keeps me cool and less sleepy.

Prayers.I pray before starting to review, god knows how much I prayed to him those times. I am so thankful up until now.

My Review Materials

I signed up to an online review. It was a premium membership from Review Master and got the soft copy editions of the reviewers in their portal which I downloaded and printed out. Together with those reviewers were Youtube videos on each topic. Like Subject: Math > Lesson 1: Basic Arithmetic ( they have like a maximum of 10 lesson on each subject) > Chapter 1 (up to 10).

I don’t know if you clearly understand me but each chapter had a Youtube video which was helpful and easy to understans. I used to download the playlist and watched them in the classroom (but I barely reviewed at school, it didn’t work for me, I always liked the home- feeling- review).

And I had this reviewer from well-known review center (I can’t tell you where it came from, my cousin might get sued for unauthorized distribution.) It was really a lot of help. I suggest you enter these kinds of review centers if you think your reviewer or your self- review process isn’t working.

My Reviewing Process (not so productive self- review)

I started reviewing in June, which was a hassle because I had classes to attend to. It was a lot harder when you had Accounting on your back. Not to mention Research!

Time Management of course, no surprise there, but if you have full classes and so much projects to do, it is a dead end. But I tried to trick my brain, my phone wallpaper that time was a screenshot of vocabulary words that each time I open my phone there were words I learned or somewhat, unconsciously learned. I even read books or novels (it was in .epub form so I could always read anywhere-- this was the thing I usually do at school during vacant time) that was so hard to read, I could cry! like the giant man who floated into an island with tiny people-- I forgot it's title.

So every Wednesday, we only had one subject, I didn’t go to school for this one subject (Accounting, I had low grade here ha! I am a bad student, I really don’t give so much f*ck about my acads, I only needed to pass UPCAT— that was right there a very clear determination, but I won’t suggest it).

Or if I had full day of class, when I got home I changed my clothes (always the comfortable ones) and headed directly on my study. I only stop when dinner is served, then got back again, I always finished at ten pm. I valued every sleep I could get but sometimes I couldn’t stop surfing the internet till like 12 am (not really recommended). And on Saturdays and Sundays, it was all review time!

You might find this process really hard, but I was anxious to finish all the chapters and I was always behind my schedule. Like this math part should only take three days so I would have enough time for other subjects, but it didn’t happen!

Now I am not suggesting you should review like I did, but you should find out what time suits you best on studying. I read it all over the net (when I was reviewing, I read a lot of reviewing hacks; I was a big google searcher!).

Examination Day

Pray

Breakfast

You better had nice long sleep before this day

Bring the prescribed pencil (Monggol 2)

Eraser (the rubber on the tip of the pencil is better, its way faster to erase)

Water (important)

Candy (I didn’t know why, but I became self conscious in that testing room, I couldn’t move or what I just ate candy during exam then the skyflakes after the exam).

Dry snack (You won’t like to wet your test paper or answer sheet).

During the exam I found the math the hardest, reading comprehension the easiest (I had a lot of spare time here).

So, should you skip questions that you don’t know or do eenie-meenie?

I never left anything unanswered even in math which like three fourth of that exam, I was answering blindingly.

Reason: Don’t answer then you are automatic 0, I know you are being wise 25% of mistakes will be deducted in your whole score. But consider this sample:

You have ten items you don’t know. If you try to just shade it and make three guesses right at the very least, you made have seven mistakes (7 mistakes multiplied to .025 is equal to 1.75. Three right guesses minus 1.75 (0.25 part of your mistake) = 1.25 which is better than getting 0 out of 10 items.

If you aren’t confident on math, don’t fall asleep at reading comprehension and try to answer it at your best. I think this part saved me.

After Exam

I could breathe again. No reviewwwwwwww. I just pray and pray even if I was hell anxious. I tried to apply for other campus in our local area, but I wasn’t sp hyped about it and I didn’t really want to. I let the days passed by until the application days were gone and my sister won’t be able to scold me for not applying anywhere. And I keep my faith on UPCAT. I was crazy technically; I just took only one exam. I chanted to myself “God is good” every time I doubt I could get in.

When the results were proclaimed to be out, posted in UP Diliman Campus, there were people who took pictures of the list on the campus and shared it in Facebook, I kept trying to read the posted pictures (all blurred and hard to read because that time, the online results weren’t posted yet. But I couldn’t wait anymore. My eyes were squinting on the screen of laptop, and then I saw my name, I cried. And was so frustrated to myself, I mean I was aiming for UP Diliman, but got in UP Baguio, then I thought (why the f am I crying, I still got it in out of nearly one hundred thousand participants, I had no right to cry. So I just thank God!).

I’ll tell you my motivation: I watched sport news about Philippine Campuses including UP of course, there was Robi Domingo and Gretchen IDK talking and talking about how great that school was. I even saved it in my YT playlist. After watching it and pep talking myself why I should review, why I shouldn’t let my lazy self win, I started grabbing my pen again.

Note:

I only put UP Baguio in my second choice of campus to save my ass if I couldn’t pass to main campus. The different campuses have different grade requirement. UPD I think is around 2.2 while UPB is 2.5 (I am not sure, you should check this out in main UP website to learn the ropes).

P.S.

I think this blog is badly written. But I thought I should try to help out. I know what you need, real time confessions of this very mean college exam haha.

Comment down if you have more questions. I will be very much happy to help.

#up #university of the philipine #upcat #up diliman #hack #tips #reviewers

40 notes · View notes