In primary school, I had much difficulty with my math, science and mother tongue subjects. I had to always stay back with the respective teachers in order to clarify my doubts and be able to put in more practice. I struggled a lot at first, however it eventually got easier for me. The high expectations of my parents including the pressure of the Primary School Leaving Examinations(PSLE) being around the corner gave me a lot of motivation. From that point on it was just constant non-stop studying. I can still vividly remember myself flipping through the files of all my subjects and doing the corrections repeatedly. It was a tough time but I did not know what else to do to prepare myself. I was also very nervous right before the examinations, but I told myself that I did all I could to be ready for it. Eventually when the results came, I was very proud of myself. I did well and was able to go to a good secondary school that is Victoria Secondary School. My parents were also proud of me and I could never be happier at that point in time.

In secondary school, I became much more playful. I always played football or online games with my friends instead of studying and this lead to a drop in my grades. Honestly at first, I did not think much of it. I thought that I could always do better if I actually put in the effort but in the end, it never really did because I was just bad at the subjects. I was poor in my additional math, physics, chemistry, mother tongue and humanities. This resulted in a lot of extra classes being arranged. Throughout my secondary school life, I never really did well in my examinations, I just attained borderline scores for all of them. I knew that the last year of secondary school was the most important since I will be sitting for the ‘O’ Level Examinations. The wake-up call hit me during my Prelims which was the examination before ‘O’ Levels. The Prelims is basically an examination set up by the school to gauge how prepared you are for the actual ‘O’ Levels. For that exam, I scored an L1R5 of 39, which was the worst L1R5 score I had gotten so far. I felt discouraged and disappointed with myself. Those who scored badly for that exam, including myself, had to speak to the Principal on several occasions with our parents. The gravity of the situation then hit me. I started to change my studying habits. It was 3 months before the first ‘O’ Level Examination starts and during that time, I stayed in the library studying until 8pm each day. My friends would join me as well and the teachers would also stay back to teach us. In the end, I was able to do well in the ‘O’ Level Examinations with a L1R5 score of 12 points and I could not have done it without the support of my friends and teachers.