Monday, August 06, 2007

Pato-chan on the UPCAT and AS4

Well, if you didn’t realize the UPCAT, my schedule at the very least was yesterday, at 12:30 (though it actually started at about 1:30 because the examiner took his sweet, sweet time) in the College of Arts and Letters. Sadly, I didn’t see anyone I knew. Even though I visited the campus the day before and was on the lookout for any Makati Hopians.

I’m alive, therefore I survived.

Yes, the UPCAT has forever scarred me. All the waiting in the hot, hot air, with insects flying around, crawling all over, and swinging from their little threads.

Isn’t that a bit screwed? It probably is.

The actual exam was, well, tough. I guess. Overall, yeah, tough.

The English and Filipino sections were overplayed by the review class I attended. Now, I’d give you a sample of the vocabulary and talasalitaan I can remember, but I can’t remember the unfamiliar Filipino words, so I won’t bother. But, all the words were used in a sentence, at the very least, and the context clues were pretty clear, so it wasn’t too difficult to guess what the words meant. The *cough* most difficult English word used as a vocabulary word I can recall was disheveled. *coughing fit*

Now, the Science subtest was, hm, moderate. I felt that I had wasted my time studying Physics, because they were totally focused on Biology and Chemistry. Which sucks even more, since I can no longer recall most of the stuff we had taken up in those classes, and I don’t believe I was paying much attention in those years in the first place. So, yeah. I guessed my way through 25% of it.

Math. Math was like blah… Here I guessed my way through 50-75% of it. There were a few questions where I was wondering if I’ve ever seen these things before. There was this weird rounded “E” symbol, which I just stared at for a few seconds and moved on. What I’ve got to say about Math to future examinees… Dearies, study your Geometry.

The Reading Comprehension… Hmm, not too hard, but I always imagine myself getting higher scores than I really do. So, oh well. Ah, the thing I hated about it most was that most of it was in Filipino. Most of the essays were centered on Filipino topics. Cory Aquino, the “joke lang” culture of Filipinos, neologism in the Filipino language, the three names of the Philippines, stuff like that.

By the way, did I mention that I only had a tiny breakfast before it? J After the exam, I was whining like hell, “I’m hungry…” And so, I disregarded the fact that I’m on a diet and ate a bowl of rice, Chinese style. Damn, I missed Chinese food.

Now, after that lovely dinner, I had fun. Waiting. There was this short line at the AS4 machine, and the two guys before me were pretty good, I guess, so it was a “learning experience” watching them. The friend of the guy playing kept giving me looks, so I wonder why. Is it A) I’m a girl watching the guy play. B) I’m a girl watching the guy play, and holding an IC card for it. Or C) I’m a girl watching the guy play, holding an IC card for it, and wearing a skirt, a pretty long one, by the way. But, bah, who cares. The two were really loud, too, if I might add.

Also, if anyone from TIDPH is reading this, I heard them talking about you guys. They were saying that, well, the guy with the name ANINO, he though that you guys were kinda mayabang, but fast anyway. This part, I’m not quite sure about, but I think he wanted to see you guys go against CKF, or some other top player. Then they went on about which of the top players went to the forums, and blah…

Ah, and before I forget, there was another guy playing with the name, Manu. Yeah…

Anyway… Previously, though I didn’t make an account of it, I had already beaten Lake Akina, Myogi, and up to Kyoupon on Akagi. Now, Kei-pi wasn’t too hard, I think I beat him on the second try, like yesterday. Then went off to beat Ryoupon on the second attempt, I think. Then Akina. Ryoupon was the challenge here again, three tries, and he was off the chart as well. The FC’s startup is, well, amazing. I had to ram into it just so I could get ahead. Then I just bypassed Takumi.

Now, Irohazaka had been calling out to me for some time now. So, I decided to play Sei-pi then realized that I don’t know how to play Irohazaka. At my third try, in CP3/4, I think I just about got the formula, but just about, since it only worked on some corners, others… well, I just ended up reversing myself. Either that, or ramming hood-first into the guardrail.

Since, I was running out of time, I decided to skip him and move on to Tsukuba and just try out Dai-pi. The first CP, or did it last to the second, was relatively easy to grasp, so I was able to overtake Dai-pi there. Past that point though, he passed me and left me in the dust.

In the end, I have about 60-70K points in my card, with two cars sitting in my garage, the S2000 and the RX8. I’m keeping that third space empty for the time being, since I simply cannot decide what car I’d like to put there. I’ve also heard several suggestions on how to play, like taking the card out after each race, so you could tune it faster, now I’d do that, except that it takes a lot of time putting it in and taking it out, so whatever, I can tune my cars in time and I really don’t have much time to play. And, I don’t even know yet if you can renew it, so I’m not taking any chances and taking my sweet time.

3 pokes:

Frankie "NC" Torres said...

You know what I think? (*waits until her thumb heals up a bit more*) I think that those guys kinda sound like the fanboys who comment at races.

In ID, I mean. *sigh*

This is surely becoming a Filipino subculture. At any rate, I think I'm drifting out of it ("Eat my space-out dust, suckers!!" *ehem* Never mind.).

*sigh* But thanks, once again, for the UPCAT tips.

Anonymous said...

hey, do u have a copy of unfamiliar Filipino words.. i niit for my project...tnx..reply asap

P. Cruz said...

Funny thing is anonymous, never heard of the book. Plus, since you didn't leave an e-mail, this is the only way I can tell you that. No idea as to why you thought I might have a copy of that book, btw. Try National Bookstore, Powerbooks, or Fully Booked?