KWOK1

Yin Hang, Kwok Lecturer Suzanne Ingram ENGL1101-001 17 September 2013

High School Literacy Narrative Time passes very quickly. One night, I sat on my chair and opened my text book to prepare the first mid-term exam in my first university life. The wind blew my hair slightly and it made some noises with window. The dream came true and now I am a college student. When I was small, I only can dream studying in university. Recalling the memory from the depth inside of my brain, this is hard to forget my last year high school live because it reminded me the taste of defeat. Every student have their own high school experience, it could be joyful and happiness. It is not for me. My last year high school life was hardship and full of challenge. But it made me strong and became more mature. My life turned a new leaf because of my last high school experience.

After HKCEE, the first public exam in Hong Kong, these students if succeeded in this exam, they could get opportunities to enter a new one and half years high school life. Some days, I was a student who spend a few hours for study after school.

KWOK2

When I received my HKCEE result, I felt exhausted but relieved. It is because I was thinking about I would have a lot of time to prepare the final public exam. it called HKAL and it is one of the most famous exam on the world. My over-estimation not only made me waste my precious time, but also changed my aspect for study. Because Instead of reviewing and studying, I was idling away my time and took a real vacation in summer after finished the registration of last high school life. I was took aback by the schedule in the first month of my last high school life. It is because my time were filled by exams and testes weeks by weeks continuously. It was far beyond what I thought. As I wasted my summer vacation, I had to catch up on my study as soon as possible. Remembering the last high school year, the life were horrible. There were two biggest challenges . First, The last year high school life aimed for the HKAL. It meant I needed to study first year and second year university courses to prepare this public exam in one year. It was not easy for me because it was hard to memorize lot of knowledge. large amount of workload made me hard to digest the knowledge and the knowledge of college courses were hard for understanding for eighteen years old students. Second, I had to study every subject in English because most of main subject in AL exams were in English. It was too hard for me because I came from Chinese traditional school and I had to learn every subject from beginning. To fulfill

KWOK3

requirement from teachers, I went tutorial school, read a lot of books and paid a lot of money for lot of exercises in order to having a better school result. We finished the tests in high school, studied and learned in tutorial school and paid more than three hours for self-studying. Some time, I cannot felt the feeling of living because I had some memories about I fell to sleep when I was sitting on the chair at night. Students like me were depressed. It looked like training in military base. The time was controlling me, it was hard to get rid of the busy life. It looks I were a robot and doing the things like machine. Unfortunately, I had to adopt this situation. It was not only a challenge for building up my knowledge in one year, but also was a challenge for testing my endurance. It is hard to forget the few months before the AL exam in last high school year, I joined the graduation ceremony. I remembered that some of students were crying when they got the graduation certificate from their teachers and I did also. The tests and exercises were almost done but there were big problems that how did I manage the rest of time and put every tests, learning material and notes in order. I cannot waste my time anymore, so I made a schedule for myself until I finished the AL exam. It is not easy to control myself after I did not need to go school. I need to became more independent. Finally, I succeeded in AL exam, studied in HKU for the first year and then moved to UNC. The last year of high school was full of challenge. It built by

KWOK4

my tears, my happiness. These images saved in my brain deeply.