World War 3

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.