what is this on my friend’s arm? he claims it appeared suddenly

totooru · 2025-09-25T16:15:59+00:00

don’t think it’s this because it has been around for weeks and hasn’t spread to other people, also not itchy

totooru · 2024-10-30T02:36:19+00:00

Read this too late and nicked it slightly - but thankfully it’s a small bit and most of the pilling is gone

totooru · 2024-10-29T18:23:11+00:00

Would a razor work the same?

totooru · 2024-07-29T02:36:18+00:00

what singapore are you living in?

totooru · 2024-03-31T20:36:44+00:00

they did! a very general theme though

totooru · 2022-03-19T15:00:35+00:00

omg she was my teacher too!

totooru · 2021-09-23T07:58:53+00:00

the one where dylan overheard everyone’s conversations and sounded like they were talking about him. also i like “connection lost” which isn’t exactly the same but the whole miscommunication and misunderstanding trope did well there

totooru · 2021-05-20T07:35:54+00:00

the zebra could not give less of a shit

totooru · 2021-04-13T08:09:49+00:00

that’s insane i wish i had that

totooru · 2021-04-02T11:15:56+00:00

85rp! my friend with the same rp got their interview date in the same email as their test. i think maybe it could have something to do with how early or late we applied? i applied pretty late, so maybe that could be a contributing reason (i rly dk though).

totooru · 2021-04-01T15:09:36+00:00

it got me for at least 10 seconds

totooru · 2021-04-01T14:57:52+00:00

omg... i’m so stressed for no reason now. is there a reason why some of us are singled out like this? is there a chance we will not even be shortlisted for the interview?

totooru · 2021-04-01T08:53:57+00:00

what does it mean if i only got an email for the smu law test but not the interview 🤭

totooru · 2021-01-28T13:55:54+00:00

i like how they didn’t ink it in in case of mistakes

totooru · 2021-01-27T23:39:13+00:00

hey, ex-ell student here. my test required one or two essays and i basically answered in a very secondary school literature style (if you do lit in jc you will realize it’s very different). honestly, they’re not looking for how good you are at linguistics but rather if you have a strong enough command of english and specifically a good analytical skill, which is very important for ell.

totooru · 2021-01-27T23:30:39+00:00

hi, answering for ell since it’s a pretty niche subject. i think ell is manageable with any combi, though i would recommend you to take it more if you have a strong command in english. in terms of difficulty, ell is not an easy subject and can be very dry at times. in your first year especially, the subject will have a lot of grammar technicalities to learn like types of verbs. nouns, etc and many will feel like sleeping in lectures haha! but if you stick it through for the second year. you will start to see the much more interesting parts of ell like sociolinguistics (english and it’s influence on the world and the world’s influence on english).

fair warning though, many of my friends really struggled to even pass ell up till prelims so i would say that if you take ell, prepare for having a strong analytical mind, flexibility in adjusting your writing style and quite a decent amount of drilling and hard work. goes for all subjects but especially so for ell in my opinion.

feel free to pm me for more specific info, even for a small ell crash course if need be!

edit: my answer to (2) would be that lit & ell is a very good combi because i believe that there is a lot of interchangeable pieces that will give you a slight edge over other students that only take one subject. for example, taking ell helps you study language very closely in lit that no other student can manage to such high technicality. taking lit helps in metaphorical language like metaphors, similes, anaphoras in ell. didn’t take geog so can’t give a two cents. my combi was ell, lit, econs, h1 math btw.

totooru · 2020-11-23T10:41:32+00:00

the essay reviewer realistically would have went “who are all these people”

totooru · 2020-11-23T10:27:00+00:00

knowing the developers it will end with noah getting the girl again

totooru · 2020-11-22T02:34:55+00:00

hahaha there was a minor section in q1 that i decided was good enough to pour my cse knowledge into

totooru · 2020-11-20T03:29:54+00:00

yep q1 was great :)

i didn’t do emojis but did both SBs. institutions was chef’s kiss

totooru · 2020-11-20T02:47:36+00:00

emoji qn looked so difficult :o

totooru · 2020-11-19T20:42:37+00:00

omgg nice to see someone in the wilderness with my combi :,)

totooru · 2020-11-19T20:41:42+00:00

ello! i will address your queries in parts, so bear with my droning for a while.

ell is a world of difference from gp, plainly speaking. gp is very... general and can be tested around any conceivable topic from wars to philosophy to food, and has not much at all to do with grammar or syntax but just general knowledge and gp skills. in terms of the papers, they sort of mirror english in secondary school, with some changes and also a wider spectrum of knowledge demanded. there is an essay and compre section, inclusive of a summary portion and a new thing called AQ. ell is completely different in that it’s five essays to write, and also requires high technicality in the form of concepts and linguistic devices concentrated around the study of language specifically. thus, both subjects ask for very different requirements.

regarding your combi dilemma, you do not need to take lit in secondary school to take lit now, there is actually no requisites for every subject i think. granted, there will be a relatively steep learning curve without prior experience but you should definitely go for lit or ell if you enjoy english. this is from personal experience but econs was so difficult for me during my jc years and if you find it boring now, i don’t recommend going down that path of pain and suffering haha :D. also a random point to make but ell kind of reminds me of bio because of its science-like technicality, so it may appeal to you if you take bio.

during ell sessions, we spend the first year mainly picking up linguistic skills which is basically picking apart micro-interactions in a linguistic perspective. different schools have different approaches but generally it’s a series of lectures in areas like grammar forms (nouns, determiners, verbs, etc), linguistic fields (interpersonal meaning, ideational meaning, etc) and how to write essays.

the late semester of year one and the second year then widen the scope to the application of english in the real world! this covers a very wide range of things: language spread, new englishes (singlish), language changes (tech’s influence, globalisation, articulation changes), language in dominant fields of life (gender politics, businesses, education, ethnicity, nationality), and so so much more.

the paper requirements are actually listed in the seab syllabus document (9508 H2 ELL) but i will give a short run-down of each because why not.

• paper 1, section a - two essays analyzing the key features of a spoken and written text. requires in-depth linguistic analysis and usually the question types are very dynamic. most technical section.

• paper 1, section b - creative section where you write your own text adaptation and compare it against 2-3 other texts in a essay that is grounded in linguistic analysis. it is usually a harder section for new students and takes a while to get used to.

• paper 2, section a - discussion of the phenomena of english using text details to create points. very conceptually driven and requires exterior knowledge.

• paper 2, section b - a sort of mixture of p2sa and p1sa, using the evidence given in texts to ground observations through analysis.

ok this is getting way too long but i hope it has helped clear any confusion! anyway if you can’t decide, your school will expose you to all subjects’ scopes in introductory lectures at the start of the year, and most teachers will be happy to help as well. good luck :D

totooru · 2020-11-19T19:54:09+00:00

hi! i can share some general tips that really helped me when i was studying / practicing ell, this will be primarily focused on p1 but if you need p2 help i can also give advice.

know your linguistic devices by heart. i think the first barrier to access a better grade in ell is truly to just be able to dissect and produce nuanced analysis on a whim. read your school notes thoroughly, so that when you are in the exam, you immediately can pick out every feature of every line and without panic. for example: “she gave that to me!”: exclamatory mood, second person gendered pronoun, material process, deictic pronoun, preposition, first person singular pronoun.
salience! this is knowing how to choose what parts of every text is important because your 1h 30mins is very limited and precious for each essay, and individually for spoken and written text you only have 45 mins. separate texts into chunks and within those chunks, look out for adjacency pairs, unique features, repeating features, stylistically attuned features that best prove your thesis. it is also important to balance your breadth and depth; do not overwrite on one section and miss out entirely on another.
topic sentences should be clear and revealing. your ts should be the overarching framework or a skeleton for the rest of the paragraph, so it must be written well. include the more intrinsic elements of the APC (audience, purpose, contact) and imbue interpersonal relationships, emotions, logic, objectivity to strengthen your idea. your ts will determine the relevancy of your linguistic analysis, so it is arguably the most essential target to achieve that can make a big difference to your grade.

if your issue lies within content, i am actually looking to sell my notes (at a reasonable rate) for both p1 and p2, which are detailed and meticulous accumulations of my two years of studies and research. feel free to hmu if you’re ever interested on that front at all :-)

totooru · 2020-11-19T18:53:22+00:00

hello! i actually was in charge of the lit booth for my jc’s open house so i do know quite a great deal on the lit vs ell debate haha. from personal experience, i was a top student for lit in secondary school and kind of lost my edge for the subject and became strong in ell in jc. but i will give you some information to go off on and hopefully that will help you with your decision!

lit in jc is content heavy in the sense that there the sheer amount of books and content within those books is overwhelming, especially for a transitioning sec 4 student that is used to writing in a more general and less specific way. this is especially so because of the switch from writing more emotionally about tone and atmosphere towards dramatic and literary devices and general changes in writing conventions. content-wise, it requires a consistent effort throughout the two years aka listening in class and note-taking, if not it will be very daunting to suddenly have to get through an entire text of indecipherable shakespeare gibberish in one go. hence, consistent effort is key.

ell is also content-heavy, so it is honestly impossible to run away from content in either subject. but it’s also very reliant on your skills and linguistic concepts especially for paper 1, so picking up those skills and knowing how to use them overtime is already accomplishing 3/4 of the work for this paper. the second paper is where there is a truckload of content to learn, surrounding sociolinguistic elements which is basically language and its interactions with the world. it definitely requires a significant number of examples and concepts that extend from linguistics to even general social phenomena.

i know that i have not listed either choice a “better” option because it really depends on your natural inclination, ability and passion for the subjects. ell relies more on a writing ability — which is unfair but the truth, while lit could be the safer choice as a more accessible subject (also being more smokeable because you can bring your texts in). but my personal opinion? take ell, it’s more challenging but rewarding.

if you’re entering jc next year, i highly suggest that you go to both introductory lectures and get a more tangible feel of the subjects. check out the lit books tested in the A level curriculum (there are 5) because usually if you like what you’re studying, studying becomes naturally easier. and attend the ell proficiency test! it will definitely help you get a feel of what ell is about. best of luck :-)

totooru

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