What is STPM?
STPM or Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia or Malaysian Higher School Certificate is a pre-university examination in Malaysia. It is one of the major pre-university systems for admission to Malaysian public universities. STPM is internationally recognized by many universities, and its results are considered as equivalent to GCE Advanced Level results.1
STPM grading system adapts to the cumulative grade point average (CGPA) system in which the score of 4.0 is considered as the highest grade point.
Most schools and college stream their student into science and arts/humanities streams, and students have to choose either of them. Students then got to choose 4 subjects — it can be more than 4(5) — based on their stream.
Students are required to study one and a half year which consists of 3 semesters. One good thing is that it is free! There is no tuition fee in Form Six.
Well, more details about STPM can be found on Wikipedia.
BUT
2019/2020 batch of STPM students in Malaysia, I can’t say whether we are unluckier or luckier, we spent almost 2 years to complete our STPM journey, we were still in schooo…. wait no at home… but then back to school, then stayed at home again… Yea because of a thing that we can’t even see and much smaller than dust.
The 4 Subjects I Took
I’ve been a student from arts stream since 16. Back in 2019, I was sitting in the school hall receiving a courses selection form. We were given only a couple of minutes to choose which course package we were going to take, I was supposed to be ready, I should have already decided which package to take and just circled one of it at that moment, but I was still blur and hesitating and I finally circled one intuitively. Anyway, I would always accept and face my choice.
These 4 subjects are all in Malay.
General Studies
General studies or Pengajian Am is the subject that is mandatory for all STPM students. This subject is also known as “the hardest subject on earth” and it is “approved” by seniors from every batch. When I first heard of it from a senior, I wondered how can it be so scary? She described it as if this subject was going to kill her. I felt like she was overreacting and exaggerating.
General studies is about politics in Malaysia including executive, legislative and judicial powers in Malaysia, as well as constitution, policies, diplomatic relations between Malaysia and other countries, and so on. It also contains some data analytics like graph, and writing of a short essay or two.
After two years studying this subject, I can say that it is not so difficult as you might assume! Its syllabus is partly similar to history. The differences are that you don’t have to memorize all of it except some particular words such as habeas corpus , for the most part we just have to understand it. That is much simpler!
I discovered that the main reason why most of the students see it as “their enemy” is the marking scheme of the part of essay. First, this part is mostly impromptu, will we know what points we are going to write only when we look at the title that pop up in the exam paper and it may never be read before. Nonetheless, our answers have to be same with the answer scheme. (It changes frequently, I remain in a ambiguous situation about the scoring method all the way until now) It means that what we think is right or reasonable might eventually be wrong.
Here is my opinion, this subject is necessary for Malaysian! Yes, not only for STPM students. It broadens our civic mind as a Malaysian by understanding our own country and indirectly sculpts more and more Malaysian who are craving to spur the development and advancement of Malaysia. We profit!
Economics
Yay! My favourite subject in STPM. As you may know, economy is mostly about demand and supply or about money. Here is a definition of economy. An economy is the large set of inter-related production, consumption, and exchange activities that aid in determining how scarce resources are allocated. The production, consumption, and distribution of goods and services are used to fulfill the needs of those living and operating within the economy, which is also referred to as an economic system.2
This subject contains three main topics, microeconomics, macroeconomics, and economy of Malaysia. We learnt about how our demand affects supply, how supply affects human’s demand and etc.
The most interesting part for me in this subject is the coursework in third semester. We were given the right to choose our own topic of this coursework. My topic is about unemployment rate in Malaysia. What’s fun? We had to search data online! Insane, was I going to analyze data?! Probably, hahaha. I was exposed to a bunch of data and information of Malaysia’s economy. Sound smart, right? That is really meaningful and do us good!
It is a subject that requires us to be flexible, it resembles mathematics, numbers changed but concept won’t. However, there are still some facts that we have to memorize.
History
The real challenge is here. Not me spending almost 70% of my time studying this. As compared to the other 3 subjects which I hardly revised more than twice.
Then why the hell did I choose it? Remember the time I was choosing which course package to take, I was hesitating between history and geography. Frankly, I simply felt that it is unreasonable to choose geography just because I get A+ in history, SPM. I felt like there was no doubt as to juggling history in an easy way. What’s more, choosing history made me feel superior judging from it is harder than geography. Well, the desire to challenge myself is also one of the reasons rather than I like it.
History in STPM includes World History, History of Islam, and History of Southeast Asia and Malaysia. STPM history is about memorizing after understanding. That’s it.
At first, I enjoyed reading it, making notes… (making notes is somehow satisfying to me, but it really takes time) In the first semester, I got notes from senior and teacher, so it was simpler as compared to the second and third semester for which I had to do my own notes. So with a readily available notes and guidance, thankfully, I get an A in the first semester. Here’s a short story of me sitting for actual examination of history in the first semester. When I scanned through the questions, I was consternated, I didn’t even know what was it. I was bewildered and stunned for a few seconds, thinking that “What did I pore over for the past few months? Why can’t I understand this?” However, I found some keywords after rereading the questions. I answered all the questions with what I knew in my mind even though I didn’t really sure of what am I supposed to write. We were in despair after we left the exam room. Fortunately, I got the answers right as it was just the matters of the form of questions… It tried to confuse us. To make it short, write whatever you know!
Starting from the 2nd semester, I changed my strategies. I chose to follow my own cadence. In 3rd semester, the scariest semester, the semester that we have the most to cover, but I went through it because this is my choice.
Malay (Language)
The easiest among these 4 subjects! As long as you get a decent grade in Malay, SPM, it is absolutely a path without a hitch.
We mostly study about history of malay, grammar, and sentence structure. There is a writing section only in the first semester which accounts for large portion of the marks. It won’t be a problem to you if you have already had the fundamental writing skills in Malay. In the second and third semester, we were only required to understand the facts except for some keywords that we had to remember. Most importantly, we do not have to memorize any long and tedious essay!
By the way, I am lucky enough to have a teacher who provided us full set of her own notes so much so that I have no book to suggest.
MUET
There is one more subject in STPM!
Malaysian University English Test, is a test of English language proficiency, largely used for university admissions in Malaysia.3
MUET is the main precursor of this blog!
I shall share with you more about this in the next one, See You!
Thank you for reading this till the very end!
Please share to your friends if you like this article! Subscribe me now so you don’t miss out my next post!