omg would like to add on!
art (my group of friends take art) :
- extremely time consuming
- unless you rly rly have a heart for art if not :(
- hobby ≠ talent (you might burnt out doing sm art and then end up disliking the entire subject)
- i heard that distinction is hard to attain (esp for my school but idk ah)

elec literature (i took this sub) :
- if you enjoy reading/analysing esp then go for this subject
- a subject that teaches beyond syllabus ; empathy, sympathy and lots of emotions (reading from pov etc)
- there's no exact textbook for lit other than the storybook that you'll annotations on.
- hard to find resources online bc every school also got different interpretation plus diff sch might use diff book too.
- if u love poetry i also reco this subj bc it's rly very fun. unseen poetry qns are way easier than the book itself (eg. impression/striking diction etc)

my twin takes art and guys let me tell you what she has to go through;
- staying back late after school for months and months on end
- high work load
- very stressful with all the art work you have to do
- time consuming
- be prepared if you legit have poor time management because in order to cope well in art you have to have good time management, otherwise you would have to stay up to complete your boards

she likes art lah so its okay with her,, but i heard that beginning of this year 5 people dropped in the level (there’s like less than 15 i think in express, i’m not sure for other streams) because of how stressful and tiring it was.

a lot of them had to stay back on until 6 tues and thurs, while having cca on mon and wed/ wed and fri. so a lot of them left super burnt out

if y’all want to know more about art/ drama/ music O’levels, i’m here because our school offers it HAHHA

oh and her art teacher was like super strict on the art students, asking them to do like what 30 pieces in 2 days and stuff like that.

PLEASE CONSIDER AND THINK ABOUT YOUR CHOICES

i can attest to this…. taking art is no joke😭 and since my whole class is made up of daf + pure lit

it’s insane because the music students have to go out of school for music lessons and their lessons aren’t that short either too btw (i’ve seen them memorising so much content about music i would pass away if i was them)

and for the nfs students, there’s also so much work to do because there’s a lot of memory work (iirc..?) yea, it’s not an easy subject either

and for art… for someone who takes higher art (so report + boards and final lay out etc) it’s legit no joke🤌🏻🤌🏻 no regrets because i do love the people in my art class but it’s a very mentally draining subject if you don’t have time to do it and some days you get an art block which sucks because it hinders your process… and supplies aren’t exactly cheap either💔💔 there are limited stores in sg that sell good quality art supplies (so half the time i just feed off the supplies in the art room,, also because i got no $$🥹)

but if you have the passion for any of the subjects, then go for it

for drama, i have a few close friends that take them and WOOOO it’s like sm more work, similar to the 2 others.
just like art;

- time consuming
- proper time management other wise you can’t cope
- you need to memorise a lot of scrips, screenplays, etc which can be a lot to memorise. esp if you take them with combis like hist, geog, bio
- you and your group have to meet up and call to decide on your group piece
- other than group piece, you have your monologues
- you also have to practice and practice and practice
- apart from physical acting, plays etc, you have THEORIES which are 60-70% of your olevel grade
- if you don’t have the passion, DONT TAKE.

this applies to all the arts/ performing arts kind of modules and subjects

if you cannot cope, drop the subject. really.

like sis here started with 7 subjects and dropped poa because the teacher was toxic and couldn’t keep up with the syllabus, so now i have 6 subjects and im having the time of my life with all my free periods

dont take O level music unless the music centre is at your own sch bc the travelling is very time consuming and mentally draining 😞

i heard that for music in my school, they sometimes stay in school and they sometimes go outside school.

that’s the same for drama, where if you don’t have a drama room in your school, you would have to travel and boy oh boy it takes a lot of time commuting, especially if you end late

my school has a place called “the black box” where it’s an indoor theatre with 2 rehearsal rooms which helps the drama girls, but if your school doesn’t, PLEASE CONSIDER THE TIME TO COMMUTE HERE AND THERE

if yw to pursue anything art related (drama, art, music), please go to a secondary school that specializes in art @PSLEstudents because they would have the amenities and facilities for y’all

how to choose subject combination 📚 #note

- elect geog vs elect hist / memo
- art / melody
- art / kenz
- art / lite
- elective literature / melody
- general tip / memo
- art & dnt / memo
- drama / kenz
- drama & music / kenz
- music / lite
- nfs / venise
- drama & music / kenz

since we are talking about subject combi, i’ll talk about elect geog vs pure geog because someone asked j my tells

pure geog:
- requires a lot of memorization, just like those taking pure chem/ pure bio
- you need to actually UNDERSTAND the content and not just anyhow memorise it
- you might have to go out of school for fieldwork projects after school (TIME CONSUMING)
- if you don’t understand the subject, consultation. no matter what. it’s important that you keep up with the content and topic because don’t wait until your Os then you start asking for help, it’s too late
- physical geog: 3 main topics; 9 sub topics
- human geog: 3 main topics;
9 sub topics
- field work: 2 topics

elect geog:
- 50% of your elective grade
- required to do just 2 fieldwork which is weather and climate and tourism
- similar to pure geog but you most likely won’t go out of school for field work
- like what i covered for pure geog, you have to deal with heavy content, etc
- physical geog: 2 topics; 6 sub topics
- human geog: 2 topics; 5-6 sub topics
- field work: 2 topics

one good thing about pure geog is that we get to go overseas for fieldwork sometimes HAHAHHA

(apparently we were supposed to go japan to visit one of the mountains last year but covid really TSKTSK)

ONE MISCONCEPTION OH MY GOD:
POA IS SIMILAR TO BUSINESS STUDIES.

poa may be classified under a 3rd math, but goodness it’s far from math.

you literally have to study from the start and from ground zero, which is quite tough because it’s 16-17 chapters in like 1.5 years and some topics are a super big jump from the previous

poa is like business related, you talk about what businesses do when they buy things, sell things, like account like that.

there are simple calculations, but i wouldn’t call it a math, because it’s just adding and minus sometime times multiplication and division.

poa is a lot to take in esp the theories, and according to the olevel marking scheme, you need the exact specific definition just to get 1-2 marks.

i regret taking poa 💀💀

IM HAPPY WITH 6 SUBJECTS THANKS

should i just like cover every subject 💀💀

to be fair, my school really love their performing arts ccas and combis like their budget is 📈📈📈📈