King Scout Examination Camp 2010 (Selangor)

Although this camp was like almost 3 months ago, I still wanna write something about it.

The Selangor King Scout Examination Camp was held from the 30th of April till the 3rd if May 2010. So thats 4 days to be exact. There were 133 examinees from all over Selangor, like Kapar, Putrajaya, Tanjung Karang, Klang, Sepang, Hulu Langat, Kajang, Petaling, Gombak, Hulu Selangor and Kuala Selangor.

My friends and I actually reached to campsite one day before the required date. When we reached there, we unpacked our stuff, and went to greet all our other friends that had reached there too. Since it was drizzling at that time, we had to start putting up our shelter. It was kinda wobbly when we finished but it managed to stand throughout the night.

We woke up around 5 a.m. that day and saw that a few other scouts had already reached. We made breakfast and waited till 8.30 a.m. for the registration counter to be open. While registering, we were asked to randomly take a number tag out of a box. I got number 060, while my friend Der Hao got 089, David Yap got 118, Horng Yan got 075. After that, we were divided into different patrols based on our tag numbers. Apparently the numbers received were numbers for the campsites we were each going to be assigned to. And I have to say that I was slightly disappointed when I found out my campsite was directly under a large tree because the space I had was quite little but I managed to use most of the space. On the bright side, It wasn't that hot in the afternoon thanks to Mr. Tree ~ The main job we had to do in the afternoon was start building up our campsite. I wasn't actually sure about the exact way to construct the gadgets so I just built them based on creativity, and some of the things I built were kinda weird, but overall my campsite was quite good at the end of the day. We prepared dinner at night after a hard, hot, arduous day. Our 1st exam was scheduled at 8 p.m. - an interview with an examiner. Each examiner was assigned to one patrol which consisted of almost 10 scouts. At first we reported at our given examiner, then we sat down and waited to be called out. Truly I was very nervous at the beginning, but after waiting and waiting and waiting for my turn... I finally got bored wondering when it was going to be my turn. Finally it was my turn and I walked up to the examiner. I was asked questions about the history of scout and other scout related questions. Later on, I was asked to sing the Scout Song, "Negaraku", "Duli Yang Maha Mulia" and list out the 10 Scout laws. The last part of the interview was for the examiner to check my log book, but I don't think he was impressed with mine cause he kept shaking his head. After the interview, we were allowed to go back to either sleep or continue constructing our campsite. I decided to sleep early and wake up early the next day to touch up on my campsite.

On the second day, our first exam of the day was to prepare fried rice to be tasted by the examiners which was scheduled at 7 a.m.. The examiners just tasted a bit of our fried rice before leaving, so we had to eat the rest of the rice ourselves. I think the examiner didn't like my rice because he just ate one grain of rice from my plate. But I guess it was most probably because the flag raising ceremony was about to start and he didn't have much time. Well, for those who don't know whats a flag raising ceremony, it a ceremony where all the everyone gather at one place and sing the National Anthem while the flag is slowly being raised. After that, the camp commander or someone else in charge will give a speech to all the scouts telling them about the day's activities. For us, the next activity or exam was a theory exam consisting of 50 multiple choice questions about scout stuff - recent scout camps, history of scout, scout knots, types of scout badges and so on.

After the theory exam, we had our next exam which was map reading, compass reading and estimating the height and width of a tree and river respectively. The map reading exam was mostly just finding coordinates of the map, calculating the actual distance of two points on the map and listing out some of the features on the map. Everyone was given 5 minutes each to answer the questions given with the use of a map, so it was quite hard to answer all the questions because of the short time given. After that, we started our next exam which was to estimate the height of a selected tree and the width of a river using mathematical ways. Later on each patrol was given a compass to do the next exam, which was reading the bearings for different locations based on questions given to each patrol. After finishing all the given exams, we were given our free time to cook our lunch and continue building gadgets for our campsites. Around 2 p.m., we gathered infront of the hall to start our next exam, which was to examine us on knot making, waggle making and bushmenthong making. I guessed i totally aced the test because I was able to make all the knots that were required and I finished my waggle and bushmenthong within time to get full marks. And guess what... It started to rain right after I finished the test, so I quickly ran back to my campsite to find cover from the rain. Since I was among the fastest to finish the test, I got the opportunity to return to my campsite while the other scouts who hadn't finished stayed back.

Thank God it rained... because our next exam was "kawad tongkat" (marching with a walking stick). It was eventually postponed to the following day. So all us gained an extra 2 hours or so to rest and touch up on our gadgets. At that time, I was quite exhausted from all the exams so I took an hour of my time to lie down, enjoy and eat some biscuits, blueberry biscuits to be exact. After a while, I started to get used to my campsite, the red and black ants running all around, the creepy crawlies jumping here and there, the cool night breeze, the big black scary tree infront of me. I guess at that moment I was quite amazed with nature, the tranquility, the peace and of course the little buddies crawling all around me. I was not afraid... I was truly alive...

I continued with my gadgets after my break and managed to put up a swing with the help of Mr. Tree. Actually, it wasn't necessary for me to make the swing but I thought at that time that I wanted to make my campsite something similar to my perspective of a home. I had dinner after that. The next exam was a group interview. Quite similar to a youth forum, each group was assigned to a examiner, the examiner gave us 3 topics to choose from, we chose the topic " Teenage Problems" (the topic is in BM, "Masalah-masalah Remaja"). We were then all given 5 minutes to think of points to present to everyone in the group as well as the examiner. And I have to say that the discussion was quite interesting as mostly everyone was participating and giving their ideas and points of view. After our interview, We had a short briefing on the exams for the following day, then we were allowed to go back to our campsites.

*Just a guideline for those who are going for the King Scout Examinations in the future, make sure you know how to speak Bahasa Malaysia, it not only helps in your interview but also in other exams. I heard someone failed because that person couldn't speak BM.

On the third day, 2nd of May 2010, I woke up after a long tiring night. I had breakfast at 3 a.m. that day so I didn't bother to eat anything when I woke up at 6.30 a.m.. Actually, I was quite nervous because we all had a morning inspection that morning (the inspection is also an exam). The examiner started his inspection at 7.00 a.m., he checked our gadgets, our personal cleanliness and our campsite cleanliness. And just like the fried rice test, my campsite was among the last to get inspected, so he just did a brief inspection. We gathered infront of the hall after our inspection for the flag raising ceremony and a short briefing.

After that, our next exam was a theory exam on first aid. The questions consisted of subjective questions. The exam ended quite fast, our next exam was backwood cooking. We were all given 2 short bamboos, a small plastic bag of rice, an egg and a piece of chicken. The test was to cook rice, chicken and a hard boiled egg. I aced cooking rice, nearly blew it at cooking the chicken and totally blew it at the egg test. The food we cooked was technically our lunch so we didn't cook anything for ourselves after that. After our afternoon break, we headed off for "kawad tongkat". We were required to perform basic marching moves as well as give marching commands to the whole group as part of our exam. We had a gadget pioneering exam after that, we were all given a project to work on, with 10 bamboos for each group, we were required to build a gadget as stated in the project. After that, we had our first aid practical test. Each group was given a case and we had to perform first aid based on our knowledge of CPR, bandaging and so on. After finishing the case, we were summoned one by one by the examiner to check our first aid kits.

It was around 7 p.m. when we were allowed to go back to our campsites again. I quickly took out a bottle of water and a packet of biscuits when I reached my campsite. But after I finished my meal, I had to quickly meet up with my other friends as the last exam for the day was " Cultural Night " where we had to perform cultural dances. My friends and I were going to perform the Lion Dance. ~ To be continued.