WHAT IS A-LEVEL?
General Certificate of Education Advanced Level is commonly known as GCE A-Level, or even more commonly, 'A-Level'.
A-Level is a type of private British pre-University education found in Malaysia.
Other private PreU educations found in Malaysia: Australian Matriculation (AUSMAT), Monash University Foundation Year (MUFY), International Baccalaureate (IB), South Australian Matriculation (SAM), Canadian International Matriculation Programme (CIMP) and Foundation found in every university).
This British qualification is offered by a few exam boards in the UK. But in Malaysia, the Cambridge International Examination (CIE) and the Edexcel are the only two that conduct A-Level exam.
For Sunway College and Taylor's College A-Level students, CIE is our common enemy.
The specific A-Levels I will be discussing is the CIE A-Level.
THE RIGOR OF CIE A-LEVEL
A-Level? Most people's impression of it (well, probably the agents) is TIME-CONSUMING, THEORY-BASED, HARD, NERDY but HIGHLY-RECOGNIZED. Some are true and some are not. Let me tell the truth.
TIME-CONSUMING - Yes, 1.5 year of A-Level is longer than the duration of other pre-U programs. Most Pre-U programs only take few months to one year. The exception is the International Baccalaureate (IB), which takes 2 years to complete.
THEORY-BASED - Hell NO. We have science practical exams in Paper 3 for our Advanced Subsidiary Level (AS) exam. It is more accurate to say A-Level is EXAM-BASED. Our overall result solely depends on our exam result.
HARD - YES. Maths is the relatively easy one. Every subject requires different skills.
For instance, Biology requires candidates to write answers with a flow and also propose possible things with the knowledge taught in the syllabus (they love to ask suggest-why questions, which we sometimes have no clues at all). In the exam, they will bring up some new industrial processes/ new experiment procedures (that you never heard of) that go oppositely with the processes/knowledge you learnt, and then you'll need to suggest why it is different from what you learn. This is good in a way that we are trained to propose/predict about why and how, and then we'll learn things faster, but this also means it's HARD.
Chemistry gives you whole lot of info and so you need to organize them yourself. Physical Chemistry has many confusing calculation problems, inorganic chemistry wants you to 'propose' the chemical equation about some new reactions.
Physics is by nature hard. And the syllabus is broad enough to increase its difficulty.
NERDY - Well it depends on people I guess. During this 1.5 year, I've improved my fashion sense and watched many movies and had explored the Kuala Lumpur city. Before exams, I went to library every day and night. I feel good to fight with CIE in the library. It feels DAMN GOOD. Am I nerdy? I don't know, but I certainly enjoyed the process.
HIGHLY-RECOGNIZED - Everyone has heard of A-level and its rigorousness. I have never seen any country that does not recognize this qualification (even Taiwan does!). So with A-level, it is easier to apply top universities and also prestigious/generous scholarships. I mean, at least your hardwork is recognized! This is one of the reason that I choose A-Levels rather than the so-called 'fast and therefore good' foundation programs. Because my qualification will be recognized everywhere, and my job was to get a good result and everything will be much easier.
THE VALUE OF CIE A-LEVEL
From Cambridge
Cambridge International Examination is a part of Cambridge Assessment and a department of the University of Cambridge. So taking CIE A-Levels could mean taking the curriculum of University of Cambridge. And on our certificates, Three words 'University of Cambridge' is big enough to capture your, and others', attention. Surely this indicates it is a world class curriculum.
Adding Rigority
CIE exam board is considered as the most rigorous compared to others. So its rigority is more recognized. Well, this may not be useful in the admission to UK universities because they take all exam boards as the same. Having said that, if your destination is to the US universities that are highly selective and competitive, the rigority plays a role in the admission process.
World Class Education
I do not know whether this applies to A-levels by other awarding body.
The science subjects syllabus is always up to date. We often learn the theory of new techniques especially in Biology. We learn lots of techniques in biotech, such as bioleaching, Monoclonal Antibody (mab)...and in gene tech. In Chemistry, we have all types of chromatography, golden nanocage, liposomes... We also have lots of lots of lots of case studies, that we need to master it and then apply into a whole new situation (In the exams, they will normally introduce a brand new application of the techniques in some recent projects). So yeah, I'll say this is world class - it evokes my intellectual curiosity consistently.
STRUCTURE OF THE COURSE
You've probably learnt that A-Level is designed to be a 24-month course.
More commonly in Malaysia, however, the course duration is merely 18 months.
Teachers always say this is kinda like an accelerated A-Level, although not as 'accelerated' as the 15-month A-Level.
So for the first 12 months, you're gonna prepare yourself for Advanced Subsidiary Level (AS). Three papers for sciences and two papers for Math. The next 6 months are for Advanced Level (AL). Two papers for sciences and two papers for Math.
As a student, you'll always think 18 months are so long, but when they are separated by a 12 months and 6 months, they are short enough. Why?
Because you'll have plenty of holidays (CNY, Raya, Sem break, study break etc...)
And the exam normally takes place at the last two months. So in fact, you're gonna only have 14 months to prepare your A-Levels.
Another thing about A-Level exam is that you really compete with candidates throughout the world. You get to know your position in the world. Regardless of your raw mark, if your percentile is above 80, you've got an A, because you're better than 80% of all the candidates around the world. In AS Level, there is no A* even if you get a percentile above 90. However you'll need to get a percentile above 90 in both AS and AL, to get an overall grade of A*.
The usage of percentile also means you do not need to get 80% of questions correct, because the questions introduced in the exams are very versatile and can be very difficult sometimes. So the usage of percentile ensures the grading is fair, and also an A in 2005 will be the same standard as an A in 2016, even though the syllabus is much different.
WHY DO YOU CHOOSE A-LEVEL
Initially, I was not sure about what I want. I mean, I knew that I'm interested in skincare, application of biosciences and solving the origins of life, but I did not know which field of study will bring me to these. Besides, I also wanted to do my undergraduate studies in overseas.
For many, A-level is like an extended SPM, which provides more time for people to choose what they one. Indeed, this course maintains the breadth while increases the depth of our studies.
*Some people might not want to specialize in a particular field (e.g. they are interested in learning all sciences), so for undergraduate studies in UK, they opt for a course in Natural Science to maintain the broad-ness.
WHY DO YOU CHOOSE SUNWAY
The first impression of Sunway is that it is not the best to provide A-Level education (Taylor's College was the best in everyone's opinion, perhaps because it is more expensive). That suits me a lot hahaa, I don't want to go for the best. I wanted to be in a second-best, that has a definite target and that doesn't feel complacent for myself. This applies in my UK university application; I didn't apply to Cambridge or Oxford University.
Another reason is that it has a shopping mall. At that moment, I really crave for a change in living quality, appearance, taste etc. A shopping mall in Sunway would fulfill this better than the good cafes and restaurants around Taylor's College.
Thirdly, I had many friends came to Sunway for A-Levels. And they thought Sunway is amazing. (Even though, with everything it has, it is kinda self-contained.)
Also, it has an freakin' single bedroom. NAISE. AKU NAK.
SUNWAY EXPERIENCE
Ooooo, goodie goodie gum gum.
All people, whether from the college or the university, are mixed together in the campus.
Library, foyer, cafeteria... these are the places where you can see and potentially meet people.
I also have to mention that people here have good fashion sense and very good-looking too. Hahhahaha.
It's sad tho, A-level is too short for me to familiarize and meet much more people than I could.
WHO SHOULD CHOOSE A-LEVELS?
THOSE WHO STILL NOT SURE ABOUT WHICH SPECIFIC MAJOR TO STUDY
These people normally already have an idea about what field they want, but are not sure about the specific major (They know they wanna be in science, finance, accounting, engineering etc.). A-Levels provide a chance for them to further their studies in each fundamental areas, so that they have a taste of what it feels like to be in, say, further math (for engineering).
THOSE WHO NEEDED A INTERNATIONALLY-RECOGNIZED QUALIFICATION
A recognized qualification is a smart investment. You can apply to many prestigious universities and scholarships with A-Levels. If you need to put on the same effort on your preU studies, why don't you choose something that people will recognize/reward your effort?
THOSE WHO CAN TAKE UP ACADEMIC CHALLENGE THAT DIFFERS FROM OUR SECONDARY EDUCATION
There is a HUGE DIFFERENCE between A-Levels and SPM. SPM merely requires the absorption of knowledge from different fields, whereas in A-Levels, knowledge taught in syllabus swings from 40% to 60% in the exams. Memorizing the facts wouldn't work well in A-Levels, which in fact need lots of analysis in the exam questions.
THOSE WHO WANT TO GO OVERSEAS BUT SLIGHTLY PREFER THE UK UNIS
This is what I didn't know (the agents didn't know too) when I choose A-Levels. I thought A-Levels are equally treated everywhere. However, in US university admission, A-Levels are recognized, but it is hard to find info about applying using A-Levels result. You will find many problems if you intend to go US using A-Levels due to the difference between the UK and US system.
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