Today is my temporary day of peace and relaxation. I’m a little relieved today because I don’t have to sit for any exams today. The subjects today comprise of basic science (not for science stream students), and tasawwur Islam which are none of my business. Since this exam is different from the exams we took before, many people have been so jittery that they even went over their limit during their last minute revising. You’ll be shocked when you heard how some of these students take the most extreme measures to get good results in their SPM examination.
Most of them will try to redeem the time they have lost by going to numerous seminars to get forecast on what type of questions would be asked in the SPM examinations. These peoples would then study hard for the chapters which the fortune-tellers from their tuition centres have told them to read. To my surprise, they even have forecast on what kind essays would be asked in the examination too. Some students who are trying to do some last-minute revision would even go as far as waking up at 2 a.m. to revise. Some would even take the most extreme measures like staying awake the whole night by relying on caffeine drinks such as drinking super concentrated cups of coffee. They are actually trying to read through the whole syllabi in ONE DAY!!!! Now that’s what I would like to call Mission Impossible. Even so, what’s the use even if they really managed to read through the whole syllabi in one day? Do you think that they really can remember what they have read the day before? Of course not! I myself have spent the whole year doing exercises and constant revision in order to understand and embed the whole syllabi into my brain. These students would then come to school and sit for the exam feeling drowsy and sleepy. Their eyes looked so black that I think that they can even register themselves as the new China Olympic panda mascots. Their mind are so exhausted that all they can think of is to tuck themselves on their nice cosy bed with their air-conditioners switched on and venture into their vicarious dreams. How can they even think properly in their half-asleep state? Instead of being night owls, they should sleep early so that they are well rested to sit for the exam. In that way, they will be able to remember at least a part of what they have studied before. Besides, last-minute revision is often ineffective. They should have prepared for the exam moths ago.
They also shouldn’t rely too much on the forecast given by those big prestigious tuition centres because they are not 100% accurate and dependable. Most of these tuition centres such as “Kasturi” and “Martin” forecast the questions in SPM by observing what they claimed as the “pattern” of the exam. These tuition centres would collect the question paper each year and make a statistic analysis from it. Then, they would predict the possible questions based on the questions that have not come out for a long time. Actually, these seminars and forecasts are not reliable because the questions set by the education ministry are random and not based on a constant pattern. These seminars are like scams which the tuition centre use to make a fortune from the desperate students who are taking the exams. This is proven when some questions a few years ago when some of the students at the tuition centre I have been attending sat for SPM too. The seminars they went to forecasted that the questions asked during the previous year surely would not be asked again. To their disappointment, the questions came out again in the exam they sat for. This kind of situation happens every year on students who rely too much on forecast and seminars. This is why our education has become so exam oriented. Many students in our country are actually studying just to pass the exam. They don’t care whether they really understand what they are actually learning as long as they can pass with flying colours in their exam. This also the reason why I have stopped attending tuition classes for most of my subjects except for accounting. I have to continue to learn accounting at the tuition centre because science stream students who want to take additional subjects in the exam will not be taught by the school. They have to learn it own their own. I have realised that attending tuition classes is actually a waste of time when I was sitting for PMR in Form 3. Unlike school, we only attended tuition classes for 2 hours once a week. That means our tutor has to speed up his teaching. For example, he would only tell us the formula to solve the questions in maths without explaining how the formulae are derived and what the uses of the formulae are. Most of my friends would only accept what they were taught without asking anything else. Students in Malaysia nowadays are no longer intrigued to learn for the sake of gaining knowledge. They learn only to get good results in their exam. Therefore, they will only master the subjects that are necessary to pass the exam. Anything more than that would be considered a waste of effort to be learnt. This can be seen in most students. They only read the chapters that are forecasted by the seminars. They will not even bother to look at the chapters which are not mentioned in the seminar. From this situation, we can conclude one fact from it which is the exam nowadays is not sufficient to determine the students’ performance in academics. The reason some students excel in their exam might be due to the fact that the chapters they have predicted came out in the exam. If the questions asked were different from the ones predicted by the seminars, they will surely flunk their exams.
Tuition centres are usually not necessary if one can study at home because the subjects taught at the tuition centre are also taught at school. The tuition centres are actually repeating what that had been taught to the students. What students really need to is to exercises at home to master the subject and ask the teacher at school if they have anything that they don’t understand. There’s no need to waste money and time on something you already knew. If studying alone at home is boring, you can invite your friends to form a study group. I’m sure that would be much more effective. This novel way of studying would certainly be much more fun and exciting.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Good vs Bad
There are many achievements made by the government lately which became a hot topic among the gazette lately. Among these achievements is the launching of our first astronaut into outer space, text book loan scheme made available to all students, etc. Many people seem to be very supportive of what the government has done lately. I on the other hand have my own opinion. Don’t jump into conclusions and make abrupt assumptions if you are reading this post because I’m not trying to spread any slanderous ideas or defame the government. I just opine that some actions that the government made are good for the citizens and Malaysia while some might not be the best option for the country.
Let’s start with the achievement that I opine is a wise decision which deserves compliment from all of the Malaysians. I’m sure all of the students in Malaysia rejoiced when they heard that starting from next year onwards all the students in Malaysia will not need textbooks anymore as the textbook loan scheme will be made available to all students regardless the amount of income of the family. This is really a wonderful step to improve our education system. This should alleviate the burdens of impoverished students who are unable ineligible to get the textbook loan scheme either because he or she is an immigrant or because the textbook stock is limited. Even so, I’m sure that there also many students who prefer buying their own textbooks if they really use them to do their revision considering the advantages having your own textbooks. When you buy your own textbooks, you can do whatever you want with your textbook. You won’t need to be afraid of sketching it or damaging it as you are not obliged to pay for it if you damaged it or lost it. There are so many thing that you can do to the textbook that you own to help you to improve your revision. For example: you can highlight the keywords in the notes of your textbooks and you can also jot down extra notes during class. I think that one should not be afraid to fork a few hundred ringgits to buy textbooks because they are one of the best and reliable sources of knowledge when compared to other revision books. One should not be thrifty when it comes to knowledge as they are also a type of worthy investment for our future. People who prefer using textbooks to other revision books in the market should have realised that some of the notes in certain revision books are incomplete while some other have additional notes that are not in our syllabus. If you bought the wrong revision book, you will encounter some problems when revising. I’m telling you this because I myself have encountered this problem before. Plus, reading different types of revision books at the same time can also get you confused because their styles are different from one another. Here are some of the books that I regret buying and I strictly recommend other not to buy also. Do not believe in what the publishers usually claim such as “We are the no.1 publisher in the country” or the comments from teachers that are printed on the back of their book because normally they would only choose the compliments out of all the comments by the teachers.
Below are the books that I have blacklisted:
Don't trust the award printed at the front of the page. This book does not deserve the award.
If you want the formulae to solve your maths questions, you can refer to your textbook.
Instead of making it easier for you to understand Biology, this book makes it harder.
Don't believe what they say. These teachers are probably bribed.
After considering all the advantages of having a textbook, I would recommend students to buy their own textbooks if possible unless you really cannot afford to buy them. Since the textbook loan scheme will be made available to all students starting next year, most book stores such as “Popular” have removed their textbooks from their shelves. So, it would be a little difficult to buy textbooks next year.
Now let us proceed to the next agenda. A while ago, I was being more of supportive citizen, now is my turn to be a critic. While everybody is cheering for the launch of our first astronaut into space, I was not happy about it. I don’t criticizing the first launch because the first RM3.42 billion cost of training and transport was sponsored by Russia. I was referring to the plan of second launch of our astronaut into outer space again. I don’t think our country should be involved in any space research or activities yet. May be I would advocate this project after we reached the year 2020 but not now. Keep in mind that our country is still a DEVELOPING COUNTRY and not a DEVELOPED COUNTRY. That RM3.42 billion budget can be used on so many sectors and fields to improve our country, our nation. Does our country really have the capabilities and technology to send our own astronauts to outer space? The answer is obvious! No!!! We don’t even have our own control centre to monitor the development at space. We don’t even have the technology to build a spacecraft. The satellites that our country launched into outer space were built by other countries. Our country still doesn’t have the basic necessities needed to indulge in space exploration. Before we should even think about space exploration, we should first use the public funds wisely to develop the country especially the rural areas in Malaysia such as Sabah, Sarawak, Terengganu and Kelantan. Instead of using the public funds to provide our country with space exploration technology, why don’t we use the money to provide our universities with better infrastructures and facilities? Do you know that our universities rank lower than 300 among all the universities in the world? That means that our universities are inferior to many other universities in the world. How are we supposed to compete internationally in terms of education? That huge sum of money should also be used to increase the salaries of the public servants such as teachers, police officers, etc. I do really pity our teachers. Some of them have so many impressive degrees and diplomas but the wages they receive every month are even less than the salary that my father receive. Some of them have taught for so many years yet their salaries are only around RM2000. The situation aggravates when the government prohibits teachers from working as part-time tutors to earn extra income without permission. The government fears that the teachers will neglect their duty at school if they are too busy with their part-time tutoring. This isn’t the right thing to do. Think about it rationally. How does a teacher with a miniscule salary of RM2000 can cope with highly-cost lifestyle in the city? Everything sold in the market is getting more expensive every year. According to a newspaper report, our living expenditures have gone up by 120% since the 1999. The prices of our basic necessities such as petrol, food, flour, water and electricity have soared so high over the past few years but their income still remains the same. So, the government should raise their salaries instead of preventing them from giving part-time tutoring. In my opinion, our teachers should be given higher salaries because their occupation is a noble job which will shape the fundamental pillars of our nation. Those fundamental pillars are our youths who will determine the future of our country.
Let’s start with the achievement that I opine is a wise decision which deserves compliment from all of the Malaysians. I’m sure all of the students in Malaysia rejoiced when they heard that starting from next year onwards all the students in Malaysia will not need textbooks anymore as the textbook loan scheme will be made available to all students regardless the amount of income of the family. This is really a wonderful step to improve our education system. This should alleviate the burdens of impoverished students who are unable ineligible to get the textbook loan scheme either because he or she is an immigrant or because the textbook stock is limited. Even so, I’m sure that there also many students who prefer buying their own textbooks if they really use them to do their revision considering the advantages having your own textbooks. When you buy your own textbooks, you can do whatever you want with your textbook. You won’t need to be afraid of sketching it or damaging it as you are not obliged to pay for it if you damaged it or lost it. There are so many thing that you can do to the textbook that you own to help you to improve your revision. For example: you can highlight the keywords in the notes of your textbooks and you can also jot down extra notes during class. I think that one should not be afraid to fork a few hundred ringgits to buy textbooks because they are one of the best and reliable sources of knowledge when compared to other revision books. One should not be thrifty when it comes to knowledge as they are also a type of worthy investment for our future. People who prefer using textbooks to other revision books in the market should have realised that some of the notes in certain revision books are incomplete while some other have additional notes that are not in our syllabus. If you bought the wrong revision book, you will encounter some problems when revising. I’m telling you this because I myself have encountered this problem before. Plus, reading different types of revision books at the same time can also get you confused because their styles are different from one another. Here are some of the books that I regret buying and I strictly recommend other not to buy also. Do not believe in what the publishers usually claim such as “We are the no.1 publisher in the country” or the comments from teachers that are printed on the back of their book because normally they would only choose the compliments out of all the comments by the teachers.
Below are the books that I have blacklisted:
Don't trust the award printed at the front of the page. This book does not deserve the award.
If you want the formulae to solve your maths questions, you can refer to your textbook.
Instead of making it easier for you to understand Biology, this book makes it harder.
Don't believe what they say. These teachers are probably bribed.
After considering all the advantages of having a textbook, I would recommend students to buy their own textbooks if possible unless you really cannot afford to buy them. Since the textbook loan scheme will be made available to all students starting next year, most book stores such as “Popular” have removed their textbooks from their shelves. So, it would be a little difficult to buy textbooks next year.
Now let us proceed to the next agenda. A while ago, I was being more of supportive citizen, now is my turn to be a critic. While everybody is cheering for the launch of our first astronaut into space, I was not happy about it. I don’t criticizing the first launch because the first RM3.42 billion cost of training and transport was sponsored by Russia. I was referring to the plan of second launch of our astronaut into outer space again. I don’t think our country should be involved in any space research or activities yet. May be I would advocate this project after we reached the year 2020 but not now. Keep in mind that our country is still a DEVELOPING COUNTRY and not a DEVELOPED COUNTRY. That RM3.42 billion budget can be used on so many sectors and fields to improve our country, our nation. Does our country really have the capabilities and technology to send our own astronauts to outer space? The answer is obvious! No!!! We don’t even have our own control centre to monitor the development at space. We don’t even have the technology to build a spacecraft. The satellites that our country launched into outer space were built by other countries. Our country still doesn’t have the basic necessities needed to indulge in space exploration. Before we should even think about space exploration, we should first use the public funds wisely to develop the country especially the rural areas in Malaysia such as Sabah, Sarawak, Terengganu and Kelantan. Instead of using the public funds to provide our country with space exploration technology, why don’t we use the money to provide our universities with better infrastructures and facilities? Do you know that our universities rank lower than 300 among all the universities in the world? That means that our universities are inferior to many other universities in the world. How are we supposed to compete internationally in terms of education? That huge sum of money should also be used to increase the salaries of the public servants such as teachers, police officers, etc. I do really pity our teachers. Some of them have so many impressive degrees and diplomas but the wages they receive every month are even less than the salary that my father receive. Some of them have taught for so many years yet their salaries are only around RM2000. The situation aggravates when the government prohibits teachers from working as part-time tutors to earn extra income without permission. The government fears that the teachers will neglect their duty at school if they are too busy with their part-time tutoring. This isn’t the right thing to do. Think about it rationally. How does a teacher with a miniscule salary of RM2000 can cope with highly-cost lifestyle in the city? Everything sold in the market is getting more expensive every year. According to a newspaper report, our living expenditures have gone up by 120% since the 1999. The prices of our basic necessities such as petrol, food, flour, water and electricity have soared so high over the past few years but their income still remains the same. So, the government should raise their salaries instead of preventing them from giving part-time tutoring. In my opinion, our teachers should be given higher salaries because their occupation is a noble job which will shape the fundamental pillars of our nation. Those fundamental pillars are our youths who will determine the future of our country.
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