English Ten Year Series: Nov 2001 Paper 1 – Part 1
You should write between 350 and 600 words. You are advised to spend about 60 minutes on this part of the paper.
1. Write about some of the things that make you happy and relaxed at the end of a school day.
I am very sure that at least three quarters of the student body will agree with me that school days are a bore. Perhaps this is the reason why students who study in Singapore lead unhappy lives. School days are also stressful for us, students, because we are given so much homework to complete that we do not have enough time to study for whatever tests the teachers choose to bombard us with. During school hours, we either use up a ridiculously large amount of energy trying to absorb everything teachers teach us or sitting for tests. School days can be so upsetting that I have decided to change a famous idiom to ‘All work and no play makes Jack a stressed geek’.
Since Newton’s third law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, I do things after school to make myself happy and relaxed. Otherwise, I know my head will explode due to the unfair amount of stress and unhappiness teachers present me with during school hours.
For starters, after school, my friends and I get together for lunch at a coffee shop near school. Occasionally, we will take a bus to someplace more expensive, like Pastamania, to feast on sumptuous mounds of linguine soaked in specially made tomato sauce, complete with minestrone soup and an upsized cup of ice lemon tea. Interaction is important so we chat all we can during and after lunch, as well as on the way home in a bus or a train. Actually, gossip would be a more accurate word.
Being a lonely only-child, I get home in a rush so that I can spend some quality time playing my piano. His name is Nick. Playing the piano relaxes my nerves because almost all the songs I can play are slow and soothing, as I am a lousy pianist who cannot handle fast running notes. If I do not feel like playing the piano, I will grab a bag of potato chips, fling myself onto the black leather couch and watch Cartoon Network. Cartoons are good for the soul because they are cute and make me laugh. I do not like watching news channels as nowadays, the world is so corrupted that there is nothing good to report on. If I listen to the bad news that is happening around the world, all the stress comes back to my mind like a hammer smashing a quail’s egg.
Some other things I love doing are listening to classical music, talking to my two fighting fish and going jogging. Classical music by certain composers, like Chopin and Mendelssohn, can be very exciting, contrary to popular belief. All in all, classical music is both entertaining and relaxing, and this helps me to forget my homework, test and examination troubles. I like talking to my fish because I need a living thing or two to keep me company. Fish make good companions because however mean the things you say to them are, they will never snap back. Furthermore, they do not require any bathing. Usually, I tell them all the unhappy things I go through in school. They help a lot because I can let loose my raging emotions just by talking to them and sometimes yelling at them. They are like swimming diaries. After telling them my painful troubles, my head feels lighter and overall, I feel much better. When I go jogging in the park near my house, I feel refreshed from a hard day’s work at school when I see the beautiful surroundings. There are often pleasant sights found around the park, like the birds and the bees. There are also nice, unusual smells around the park, for instance, the sweet fragrance of the weird looking red flowers growing on old, dying trees, and the occasional smell of cologne coming off the bodies of certain hunky men passing the park, despite the unavoidable whiff of dog manure found on the ground every four metres away or so. Jogging is also good as it burns away the fats I gain from eating potato chips while watching television. Thinking about it puts a smile on my face. After jogging, I will head home and bathe. Bathing is one of my favourite hours of the day because I can sing and scream as loudly as I want to. I have discovered that screaming calms me down, so I scream a lot in the shower to wash my stress away. I always come out of the bathroom brimming with so much joy it could knock an obese person off his feet.
One more thing I do, at the end of each day, which makes me happy and relaxed, is reflecting on the things I have done earlier in the day. I will think about the good things I did, but more importantly, the things I did wrong, so I can improve myself and lead a happier, less stressful life.
The End
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