Recommended Books for STPM Third Term

As the same, I'll be only recommending books I find good and for subjects I studied. However, each person might have different opinion on the quality of the book, so please make the choice yourself. Compare them before you buy.

(Updated 12/12/14) It is also worth mentioning that it appears that Sasbadi has bought over Pearson Longman, or the publication right has been transferred to Sasbadi. But anyway, the content remains the same. Since the books have ceased being published under Longman, any book below I mentioned as "Longman" is now "Sasbadi". Take note. 

PENGAJIAN AM

The good thing about this semester is that there is no subjective questions. The bad news would be: you have three essays to be completed, together with 15 objective questions, in 2 hours. So time's really precious, use it wisely.

For this term, you'll be studying isu-isu antarabangsa yang melibatkan Malaysia. Malaysia's international involvement will be your main concern, together with threats to Malaysia and problems Malaysia face at international level. You'll need good notes on this as there are quite a lot of organisations out there you will encounter.

Data synthesis will be something new for you. There's no certain format for the synthesis, no strict rules on how they should be written, and no word limits. You'll be taught on understanding the questions' requirement by searching for the key words such as bandingkan pola, bandingkan kebezaan and so on. Jadual will be the easiest to synthesise among all. Carta might be a little confusing but is actually a long essay with points given, provided that you're able to link the points together to deliver an essay that fits the data. Graf has not been asked for years.

Essay questions will test you on Malaysia's international participation or threats to Malaysia, which will be quite tough.

So the reference book I'll be recommending would be Oxford Fajar. The book contains sufficient and well-organised notes on isu-isu antarabangsa Malaysia, and there's a section isu dan cabaran which will be very helpful for the essay part. Longman's incomplete. There's only a little about D8, OIC, ZEE and some organisations that are actually important. Pelangi's good too but not better than Oxford.

I'll say just go for Oxford.

PHYSICS

This term's physics is kinda horrible, perhaps only a little better than the first term (to me). Anything that cannot be categorised under dynamics, thermodynamics and electricity will be thrown into the third term. As a result the students suffer. You'll be studying waves, geometrical optics, wave optics, quantum physics and nuclear physics, which are in no way linked to each other, unlike the previous terms.

You'll need good notes on wave optics particularly as this chapter is considered the hardest for this term.

Pelangi and Oxford are written by the same author, so choose either one if you insist on buying them. To me, Pelangi is the better option. Oxford contains mostly past year questions that you should be able to get from your teacher. Pelangi has more exercise than Oxford, and the questions are much tougher. This is probably because the questions are taken from 1990s STPM which were much tougher. 

Longman's good. For the first three chapters, the notes are written by Lam Chok Sang and Lim Seang Kee. The notes were poor comparatively to Pelangi and Oxford in the sense that the note prepares you for answering but not knowledge gaining. The notes are relatively short, but the essays are good. The remaining four chapters are written by Ng Ow Ving, and like the second term book, the notes are too long and the exercise are too easy for STPM level. 

To me, I'll advise you to go for Longman for first exposure and building basic, and then move on to Pelangi for further solidification. But if you can afford only one book, go for Pelangi. Pelangi's good enough.

*Both Oxford and Pelangi are quite different in their explanations about lensmaker's equation and thin lens formula. The formulae he uses is different from the one required by MPM, although both are correct. 

CHEMISTRY

You'll be studying only organic chemistry for this term. Organic chemistry is rather independent and involves only a little calculation, and you'll not touch the data booklet often as well. And the best thing about organic chemistry: you do not need to balance the equation if the equation is complicated like carbonyl compounds reaction with Fehling's solution. The downside: you'll need to have good memory.

I didn't use Pelangi, so I can't comment on it. Oxford is good and the notes are short and concise. The exercise are mostly past year questions. Longman's very good. The notes are very detailed and the exercise are really good. But longman's a bit poor at polymer. The explanation is a bit vague.

If I were to recommend one, I'll say go for Longman. 

MATHEMATICS (T)

There are three chapters that are not covered in the terminal system, that are sampling and estimation, hypothesis testing and chi-squared tests. Don't be floored by them, hypothesis testing and chi-squared tests are rather easy, you should be concerned about sampling and estimation and probability distribution.

Statistics is very boring, but it does not mean it's easy. It can be quite tough, but however tough it is it won't be as painful as the first term. 

Because the three chapters are new, all three books were published in a haste, and the notes for the last two chapters particularly were very short and vague. Hence, none of the three books are good enough for the two chapters.

Oxford Fajar Maths is the worst reference books you'll encounter in your life. The notes are very vague. No guides on drawing box and whisker plot, very little explanations on probability distributions, focus are given to questions that are too tough and ended up got simple questions like simple integration wrong, answers given are wrong and the amount of wrong answers are way too plenty to be forgiven, contains some topics that are not in the syllabus, and shows examples of tough questions like probability distribution involving method of difference and ignoring simple methods of solving the questions. I don't know what has happened to the book. The previous two terms were of highest quality but this term the book has degraded to a horrible level. I hope it's better for the next publications. It's better if they rewrite the whole book. The notes for Probability is the worst (including the exercise), while the examples for Probability Distribution is worse than nightmare. Don't blame me for being too acerbic. I have the right to be angry for spending RM29.90 for a book that gave me nothing but a life time regret.

Longman's good, but the last two chapters are way too vague and contain insufficient exercise. The notes really are well-organised and written in a way to engage the readers, and you'll really understand what everything is about if you read the notes. The exercise in the books are a bit too easy though. However, the last two chapters spoilt everything.

Pelangi's note a bit long, and the exercise is a bit easy too. 

For the reasons given above, I'll suggest Pelangi. While it is not the best (notes not better than Longman for first four chapters), it contains the least flaw. And so I'll recommend Pelangi. Avoid Oxford Fajar, you'll regret it.

*All reviews above are solely my opinion. 

Recommended Books for STPM First Term
Recommended Books For STPM Second Term