Reah’s Crib

I was really not a full time Education student back in college. Only had 18 units of Education which I took up only two summers. Nevertheless, I still took up the Licensure Exam for Teachers or LET last year.

I had two choices to review for the test. Either I would enroll in a review class or self-study. I chose to review on my own. It was not an easy choice. I guess I was just lucky that my good friend already enrolled in a review class so what I did was just photocopied her review manuals. I suggest you do the same.

Anyway, I started to self study just a month before the exam. If my goal was to be one of the top 10 examiners, I guess I would had taken the review seriously and started the review months before. I might also had enrolled in a review center. But that time, I just want to pass the exam and get a license. So, it took a lot of self-discipline to study by myself since I easily get distracted by my favorite past time. Only a week or two before the exam, that I seriously went through all the manuals and tried to understand every concept in Education.

Anyway, here are other pointers I want to give you if you plan to also review on your own for the Licensure Exam for Teachers.

1. Know your weak and strong subjects. Alot time on reviewing the lessons of your strong subjects. And enjoy the review so you could easily remember what you are reading. But alot more time on your weak subjects. Well, at least if you are weak in math for example, make sure you didn’t miss reviewing the concepts of what is covered in the test for General Math.

2. Understand theories and concepts. Review the different methods of teaching. Imagine how these ideas would be applied in a real teaching environment. If you are already teaching then that is great, since you can easily imagine how the theories and concepts are applied in the real world.

3. In my opionion, the exam is more of your analytical skills, so strive hard to improve it. Once you have understood theories and concept, make sure you know how to differentiate them and explain them in your own words. At least by doing these, you can easily recall them when you are taking the exam.

4. Don’t take for granted subjects under General Education. Remember that you have to pass all three sets of tests including General Education. Don’t assume this test is easy since you took this up when you were in Elementary or High School. Remember that a lot of years had passed. So brush up your memory especially the basic mathematical equations and basic science concepts.

5. Prepare everything before the exam. Make sure you have read the test guidelines many times. Check your calculator. To be sure, check the allowed calculators in the PRC’s list. If you don’t want to buy a new one though, make sure you have a non-programmable calculator. But don’t take my word on this because I wasn’t sure if other proctors had allowed calculators not in the list, although my friend said she didn’t even check the list and just grab a basic calculator with her. Proctors check each calculator before the exam starts.

6. Take enough sleep before the exam. Make sure you don’t feel drowsy while taking the exam so you have enough time to answer them all.

7. Eat well before the exam, and pee too. You are not allowed to go out while taking the exam.

8. Avoid erasures. In CEU, where I had my college years, we took our exams in Scantron. So, I was used to answering tests by shading the boxes or circles. I knew how erasures could make a bad score. So before you shade it, make sure you are shading the right answer, or at least it is your final answer. If you need to erase it, make sure it is clean. But I still don’t think it is a good idea.

9. Follow instructions. Listen to what the proctor is telling you during the exam. If it is not clear, ask the proctor.

10. Most of the time, you haven’t reviewed whatever appears on the real exam. What will help you answer the exam is your basic understanding of the Education topics, and your analysis. (Don’t overanalyze.) For other test takers, they call it common sense.

Last monday, I went trekking together with my friend Dame, her brother Dan, her friend Carlo, and Carlo’s friend Jay. I was reluctant to go for some reasons, but Dame and Carlo were able to convince me to go. Anyway, I had never been inside a tent (we would stay overnight), and I didn’t have any recent pictures to post in Facebook so I decided to go. (Lol… what a reason..)

We took the new trail and according to our guide, the kid Wilson, the new trail is easier than the old trail. Easier eh… I had to control my breath every time the path was narrow, and crawled the ground when the slope was so steep, because “You couldn’t afford to make gulong-gulong. Or else you’re dead.”

We did not continue walking to the summit that afternoon. We just decided to start setting up the camp.

That night I wasn’t able to sleep. The strong wind made me paranoid, that I thought it would blew away the tent I was in. At 10 P.M. Carlo went out to check if it was his fly sheet that was flapping. He figured it was ours (which I knew) and told us (dame was with me inside) to get out so we could fix the tent. Carlo said, Dame and I set up the tent wrongly. (See, I had a reason to get paranoid. LOL, nevertheless, I was still paranoid since I wasn’t able to sleep until 2 PM. Dame woke up and stayed up until I could sleep.)

In the morning, they teased me for being paranoid. They said that such strong wind on the mountains is normal, although it was slightly stronger than those average wind, but not strong enough to make them worry (Trekking is their hobby. So they know.)

At 8.30 AM, Dan, Dame, and Jay went to the summit. Carlo and I decided not to go. It was a foggy morning.

However, when Dame, Dan, and Jay came back from the summit, I was envious of their experience. I felt bad about myself that I was such a coward to go. Well, you couldn’t blame me, if I think I am weak to walk on those narrow trails on top. They wouldn’t be able to grab me when I would be out of balance anyway. But I hope I could go to the summit someday.

Finally, after 37 working days, or 7 weeks, the results are here!

One of my close friends just texted me in the middle of the night to announce the good news, that we passed the Licensure Exam for Teachers! I immediately turned my computer on, and went to Inquirer.net’s article to check the results, and there I found my name in the long list of LET passers. Yehey! Time to celebrate!

Oathtaking Ceremony for takers from N.C.R will be on December 16, at Cuneta Astrodome, 9 A.M. According to PRC’s statement, ”the requirements for the issuance of Certificate of Registration and Professional Identification Card (ID) are the following:

• duly accomplished Oath Form or Panunumpa ng Propesyonal, latest Community Tax Certificate (Cedula);
• 1 piece 1” x 1” picture (colored with white background and complete name tag),
• 2 pieces 2” x 2” picture (colored with white background and complete name tag), metered documentary stamp for the Oath Form; and
• the Initial Registration Fee of P600 and Annual Registration Fee of P450 for 2008-2011.

Successful examinees should personally register and sign in the Roster of Registered Professionals.”

If you want to see the results, click the letter of your Surname.

Elementary teachers’ results

A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  

N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  Y  Z  

Secondary teachers’ results

A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M 

 N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  Y  Z  

Today, I was reviewing the laws related to Philippines Education, decided to browse online, what other resources could I read, and just happened to land on PRC’s official website. Being an internet savvy, I decided to explore the site and surprised to see there the room assignments for September 28 Licensure Exam for Teachers. Since my application was for Secondary Education specializing in English, I clicked the linked for English and Literature, and on the pdf file that loaded, I found out that I will be taking the exam in UE-Recto.

Oh my, this is it. I have been worried these past few days what my room assignment would be, since I didn’t receive any letter, yet, and was so happy I found it online. Now, I just have to be prepared for that day.

Hmm… I did not review today, but I went out to meet my college friend, Roni, whom I have not met for 7 months. We met because she wanted to photocopy my reviewers for the LET, and I’ll photocopy her notes as well. While we were waiting for the photocopies to be done we ate in Wendy’s and chatted about what had been during the months we had not seen each other. It was cool, and I found out that we shared the same thoughts of what happened in our life lately. Kinda regretful of our the course we took in Collge, and I was surprise to learn that she is interested in Internet Technology.

Anyway, I read some notes on Foundations of Education yesterday, as well as continued reading notes on Economics, and other topics under Social Science. Answering sample questions though made me think, “What the! This is hard!”

I am supposed to entitle my post today as “30 days before LET”, and then my post tomorrow as “29 days..”, and then post the next day again, until there’s only one day left before I’ll take the Licensure Exam for Teachers. However, when I checked the exam guide I found out that the test is on the 28th, so there are only 29 days left before the exam. I thought it was on the 29th. So, yeah, I can’t use anymore the days left on the titles of my upcoming posts.

But anyway, when I woke up today around 5 in the morning, I was already decided that I would start reviewing for the test. So after eating breakfast, I went to my room with a bunch of review notes on my hands. I put them on my bed, and browsed the papers. They are really a lot. I didn’t know what specific topic to start reviewing so I just chose what was on top of all on the papers that were stacked in front of me, and that was Economics, a subject under Social Science. So I started reviewing in Economics. After reading a few pages about the basics on Economics like what is it about, economic systems, demand and supply, etc. my eyes gone tired, so I decided to take a nap instead of reviewing.

When I woke up it was already 10 in the morning. Oh well, I needed rest since I went to bed midnight last night. I barely had enough sleep. I went back reviewing and stopped when I saw  mathematical graphs related to Economics. I didn’t avoid reading them because they were complicated to me, it just seemed to me that I had information overload in Economics so I decided not to read them. I went out of my room, and prepared lunch.

After eating lunch and taking a shower, I decided to review on Society and Culture. Reading my book though reminded me of my college years when I was still taking that subject. I saw my handwriting that time, and the notes I scribbled on the pages of the book, and the key phrases I highlighted. But there were interesting words on one of the pages of the book that made me stop and thought of it. The scribbled words were neither about the society, nor culture, but was a clue of who was my crush that time. I think it is funny that I wrote it because it seemed I liked this guy so much that I was able to write Marneth, Reineth, and netheah while I was in the class. Well, his name is Kenneth, and perhaps, while in class I thought of combining our names, and produced Marneth, Reineth, and netheah. LOL. My whole first name is Marycris Reah by the way, that’s why I have Marneth in the list.

Aside about those combined names, I had my memory refreshed on Filipino culture, on Society and Culture in general, and there were topics I’d read that are interesting topics to blog about in the near future. Although I would like to talk about more about Economics and Social Science, I just got lazy to talk about them now. So, that’s it. For tomorrow’s review, I am still not sure what subjects I will be interested in reading. Probably I’ll continue reviewing my Economics notes or another topic on Social Science.

I decided to take the LET this year, and up unto to these days, I still have not reviewed for it. Well, the reason was that I don’t want to get myself confused between what I have learned from my work lately, since those are very complicated computer-related things, and if I will try to review for the LET, I may not be able to concentrate on my first days on the floor as a Technical Support Representative.

But there’s a month left now before the exam, so I had to force myself to review, or else I will fail. So, I have to get my time managed well now, and besides this will just be one month of review. Good luck to me. I’m glad though that I only have six hours a day work, and I have weekends. 

Anyway, the reason I am taking LET even though I am a Mass Communications Major in Journalism graduate, is that I also have 18 units of Education. And since my major is Journalism, I am trying to get a license to teach English in Secondary schools. And these are the subjects I have to review for the exam:

• English
• Filipino
• Mathematics
• Natural Sciences
• Social Sciences
• Foundation of Education and Human Growth Development
• Principles and Strategies of Teaching
• Measurement and Evaluation
• Social Philosophies