MUET Guidelines For Me & You :)

Malaysian University English Test (MUET) first batch is approaching soon again. To be more precise it will be starting on 28 April 2007.

Some schools arranged their students to take the 1st batch and some the end year ones. I’ve heard some schools forced their students to take twice too. Personally i think taking the first batch is much safer because you get to retry if you are not satisfied with your result.

MUET is not some English test you can take lightly. Those who do not take MUET might think MUET as some easy English test like the one we had in form 5. Heck , they’re wrong. MUET is much tougher than that. MUET is not some exam you can just pass by , but some English test you must study for.

I know readers will be wondering what i got for my MUET . I got band 5 for my MUET. Honestly , I’m quite satisfied with it having the fact my teacher do not teach us and i wrote less than 3 essays before the actual exam. Most of us will strive for at least a band 4 because there are some courses in public universities that required you to score at least band 4. Not only you can’t go for certain courses in universities, but if you scored below band 4, you’ll have to take elementary English in universities which is time consuming or rather a burden.

There is a way to score well in MUET. One thing for sure , never rely on your listening part even though i can guarantee almost all of you would score a perfect score in school level. WHY? 90% Of the time , the speakers in school tend to play a prank on us. Yes, they’re always very “echo-ish” and you can’t possibly listen well. Besides, Listening only gives you 15 % of the marks. BUT , i am not asking you to totally abandoned it.Just , do not trust the school speakers.

The most important part is the reading comprehension. It weigh up to 45 % of your marks. that’s like almost half of the total marks. So , this part is VERY important. I used to suck a lot in this part until one day , i found a very effective way to understand the passage. UNDERLINE. that’s the key word. Try to just read through very quickly the passage cause the passage tend to be very long , and later read the question , so you know roughly what to find in the passage. Then read again and underlined what you think it is important. You do not need to be someone with bombastic English to score in this part. The most important thing is , you understand roughly what the passage is about, and trust me you’ll have no problem answering it. For the cloze text, you’ll need to do a lot of sample test for it. Buy a lot of model papers to do for this paper and later you’ll find most of the questions are almost similar. Remember , this section is very important. If you can score this part, you won’t need to worry about not scoring a band 4 again.

The speaking , honestly i do not know how they actually judge it. Cause , i do have a “quite” good speaking English , but i scored only 30 /45 . I was kind of disappointed because most of my friends who speak really lousy English , they scored almost the same marks . So , i think teachers are quite lenient if you cannot speak good English , while if you’re good ,they will be strict. However , if you can’t speak good English , do not ever try to use bombastic words. This part is not bout what word you use (of course , it’s a credit if you use beautiful words) , but it is more on how fluent your english is. And if you really suck in speaking , just say it in broken english , but make sure you get a point there and said it clearly.

The writing section is often the most difficult part. I scored a “so-so” mark for my writing , but i would say the question for the essays are usually difficult. They’ll ask you things you never really thought of. So , never underestimate any important agenda around , cause that’s the one that most likely to come out.I don’t know , maybe it’s kind of like a spell. (haha) however, it is important to know what is the hottest news in the country because giving a realistic examples is a huge credit.

I know that most of the time , the 1st batch MUET exam often clash with school’s semester exam and often you’re on dilemma on which to concentrate on. I was like that too. However, i later found out the answer to my dilemma. That is, if you study for your MUET now and score well, you will be free and have ample of time to study for STPM. Remember , MUET is much more important than the school level semester exam. So , prioritized on your MUET before the school semester exam. MUET is what you need to enter university. You do not need your school semester exam for university entry. Trust me , you wouldn’t have time to study for the year end paper cause STPM subjects is enough to make you go crazy.

I hope this help to those who are sitting for MUET next month. Remember , just spend one whole month on your MUET, and you’ll have the rest of the time to study for your STPM subjects and concentrate on your reading comprehension!

All the best, yo!

~ by neosomosis on October 24, 2007.