Maktab Nasional top IGCSE achiever shares success tips

KOTA KINABALU – Maktab Nasional’s  top  International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) achiever shared tips on how she made it to the top.

Claire Yong Pei Yii, a Catholic, scored 5 A* (above A) plus 1 A. Yong, who is also Head Prefect of the school, is viewed by teachers and her peers as a model student.

In a recent interview with Catholic Sabah,  in the presence of her principal, Yong shared her road to ‘glory,’ with all its struggle and sacrifices, its joys and sorrows, in a bid to challenge her peers to emulate and even outdo her in what she has achieved so far.

Maktab Nasional Principal Alexander Funk explained that the Cambridge exam is something that the school offers as an additional enrichment programme, taught outside the regular timetable.

Yong recommended consistency in studying each day.  Whenever she had free time, she would polish what she was weak in.  She took part in sports and exercise which help her to focus better.  She relaxed by taking up hobbies and cut down on television.

Yong believed that it is through God’s grace that she was able to balance school activities (competition, SPM, Cambridge), “the wisdom of the Holy Spirit who guides me the way to study.”  She credited her family for having a set time for prayer, goes to church regularly.  She is involved in the school’s Christian fellowship and helps out in her parish’s Sunday School.

Her advice for SPM students: don’t give up, work hard, do our part, offer it to God and He will do the rest. Whatever result that we get, He would know that we have done our best. We must be able to accept also what God has put for us. I just do my best. One of the things that really help me is support from my teachers, family and friends.

Yong said she prefers to study alone but discusses  a lot with supportive friends.  She also said that “study should feel like a journey, a discovery to see the bigger picture and to know who we are… to see how God has created it so well. The whole process of building up and learning, to discover the world so big and so wonderful… there’s just so much to know.”

She intends to be a veterinarian as she loves animals.