These are relatively new topics to me as in primary school, lab lesssons are very rare and even during lab lessons we are not allowed to operate a flame on our own. So, I have almost no knowledge of these topics until it was taught early this year.
There are two types of flame, luminous flame and non-luminous flame, as shown below.
A non-luminous flame is the one on the left and a luminous flame is the one on the right. A non-luminous flame is hotter, and is better for faster heating of objects.
Many laboratory equipment and safety symbols/rules were taught in the first lesson as to lower the chance of accidents happening. At first I thought that I didn't need to know all these, and I didn't pay attention during these lessons. I realised my mistake in future labotary lessons where I was either scolded for not following the laboratory rules or being unable to complete the practical due to not understanding the uses and how to use the different laboratory. Furthermore, it was tested in the term 1 test and i did quite badly. I have started to read up more on the different equipments and safety rules and procedures, I hope that it will not be tested ( too much ) in the EOYs as I still have not fully grasped these topics.
Matter
In primary school, we were only taught that there were three states of matter, solid,liquid and gas( which I just realised is not true) the basic characteristics, how to identify and classify this 3 types of matter. Now in secondary school we have gone in depth into the topics, into what makes a matter that type of matter and why does it have such characteristics. For example, solids have a definite shape as its molecules are tightly packed, etc. As I am lazy by nature and do not like science very much, I did not read anything extra nor researched more on the topics taught and just scraped through, I was not able to fully grasp the topic and again, did not manage to do well in the term 2 test, although there was an improvement in my results. I am currently mass reading up on all the subjects, but it is not helping very much, due to information overload and I am unable to absorb much of the information. I have now understood most of the concepts and are reading up on the more recent topics such as digestion and respiration.
Osmosis and Diffusion
This is one of the topics which i am able to grasp most of the concepts as I have realised that I am going to fail my EOYs if i do not start to like science and change my attitude. So I decided to turn over a new leaf, and start having a posititive attitude towards science. Diffusion is the spreading of particles from a region of higher concentration to lower concentration, whereas osmosis is the movement of molecules through a semi-permeable membrane from a region of lower concentration to higher concentration.
Cells
Cells has already been taught in primary school, and there is not much extension to the syllabus except the addition of a few new cell parts and understanding the properties of each part and would the cell still be able to thrive and survive if the respective parts were removed.
Respiration and Digestion
I am having trouble with these two topics as they are inter-linked and I just could not memorise the parts where the trachea branches into brochus and bronchus branch into bronchioles, etc. I myself also don't know why I am having trouble with this topic, I am trying to read up more but it isn't really helping as this topic has many parts to it and is extremely confusing to learn.Also, I only understand the basics of these two processes which is what had been thought in primary school. I have realised that due to my slacking in primary school, I have a lot of reading and researching to catch up on and I hope that I can meet the standards of that of the class average ( at least ) and not continue getting the lowest for almost every term.
