Rangga's Blog

Allow me to share my failure experience to other people out there. Some of you (most likely a lot) might fail to enter your desired university. I can tell you that being grateful is the most difficult task for everyone. Everyone has the right to covet anything he/she wants. The nature of greed is deeply rooted in every single heart. Thereby, people begin to make life dreams and goals, and so do I. Uniquely, most dreams are created with almost zero percent of failure. I once dreamed to study in Singapore. I prepared a lot of things to make sure that I would be admitted. From being a sluggish student, I transformed drastically into an assiduous student. Every night or every two nights, I always spent some time to study. I was extremely proud of myself that I was invited to sit the exam on both NUS and NTU. Even my two classmates were not invited by both universities. This just boosted my confidence that I would ace the exams. And the exams were ultimately strenuous, not like what...

Two reasons why I choose to be secular: freedom and tolerance. Firstly, I believe that I do not have to be supremely pious to enter the heaven. Pious in this case means that I need more than just doing five prayers all the time. I also have to do dress properly, speak properly, etc. according to the Koran AND "the additional Koran" which actually limits me from even being a human. I also do not like the fact that being a true woman who can enjoy her beauty and sexuality is forbidden. I decided to be irreligious after I was fooled for a lot of years. God never shows up so why do religions exist in the first place? I just see religion as another support for politics, including Islam which is used to make Indonesians act like pure (or brainless) Muslims who came from Arab. "All religions are equally sublime to the ignorant, useful to the politician , and ludicrous to the philosopher." - Lucretius Secondly, my religion has become a source of intolerance for...

UPDATE: This article is outdated. I've started to blog on Medium instead on Blogger. Please visit here for the updated article . For those of you who wonder whether you should take TOEFL ITP, TOEFL iBT, or IELTS, please visit this page . I will not discuss about TOEFL iBT's basics; research about the test on Google. This is my experience of taking TOEFL iBT for the first time! :) 1. Registering You can just register at the official TOEFL website. No worries, just register because you will not be charged for anything yet. After you are done registering, if you just want to check the test centers availability, log in to your account first. Then, click register for a test - > TOEFL test -> I agree to the statement (no worries just do this) -> check your city's test centers. I scheduled my test to be on Sunday, 1st February at TBI Dago. I only chose my home and HKUST as the only scores report destination. You can actually send four free scores reports to any d...

A lot of English proficiency tests, and you are confused which one should you take? Well, I have summarized some of the most common tests conducted in Indonesia. 1. TOEFL ITP vs TOEFL iBT Firstly, let yourself acknowledge three types of common TOEFL Tests: ITP, PBT, and iBT. TOEFL ITP is what most of Indonesians think as the usual TOEFL. This test, however, is not official from the ETS (the TOEFL company). The test is offered by particular institutions, and most of the reliable institutions are universities like UI, ITB, etc. It is fairly cheap, ranging from Rp300,000 to Rp500,000 per test, ITB offers this test for Rp350,000. This test is comprised of three sections: Listening, Structure, and Reading. The maximum score is 677.  TOEFL PBT (Paper-Based Test) is the same as TOEFL ITP, yet it is officially conducted by ETS. However, there is an additional section which is TWE (Test of Written English), and I think this part is scored separately. Only few countries that do...

Many of you probably are curious how to register and how it feels to take the tests. I think there are only a few Indonesians who told their experiences of taking the test on the internet, either in blogs or facebook. Err, to be honest, I did not even find one. I would like to tell you my experience. 1. What are SAT Subject Tests? The SAT Tests are primarily used only for US undergraduate admissions, although Asian universities like KAIST, HKU, HKUST, and NUS acknowledge the test as well. There are two types of the tests: a. SAT Reasoning Test (also known as SAT I) It is quite tantamount to "Tes TPA" in Indonesia. The test will evaluate three skills: Critical Reading, Math, and Writing. It has ten sections. Look at the website for more information. My opinion? You want to get 2100, or even 2200+? Warning: do not take the test, especially if you rarely read reading materials that have lots of high-level vocabulary words. This warning is intended especially ...