bAH~~~

Pengajian Am, or General Paper, is a compulsory subject that every Form 6 student has to sit for. It is also a @#$#% killer. In st Thomas, all the lower 6 classes had to sit for a paper that involved 20 objective questions & a line graph. Nobody really gives 2 hoots about the subject. i mean, it involves outdated statistics & figures that we don't care about anyway & ancient M'sian history that is of no significance whatsoever... Do we really want to know that the Malaysian Constituton has an exception in every single rule? Shows how unstable the politician's decisions are, doesn't it?
So we all took the exam un-seriously. our strategy was simple... Draw a beautiful graph, tembak all the objective questions. Simple yet effective.

Anyways, back to the topic at hand. Today, we received our test papers. I got 10 out of 20 for my objective questions, not bad for someone who didn't study for this test, eh? (Joash got 12 out of 20. Dang) We were all smiling & whatever, i mean, it was the end of the short test. We were happy.
Than we got our line graphs back.

My first reaction when i got my paper back was laugh my head off. I mean who wouldn't? i only made 2 mistakes in the graph, & i obtained 4.5 marks out of 6 in my graph. So i didn't write the 'Malaysia' in my tajuk (it was supposed to be something like: Malaysia=jumlah kemasukan bla bla bla.... tahun 1991-2005, or something liddat.) Big deal! I had it made!!
Big mistake.


Me, laughing my head off.

Than we got our total tally. i scored 14.5 out of 35. what the? i was still laughing like a hyena, since i thought the teacher obviously made a mistake. I mean, 6+20=26 right? where did those other 9 marks come from? Joash & Jason TAY were also equally confused. They also had a graph that was over 6 marks, yet the score tally was over 35 for them too. than we found out this horrifying fact: the graph was worth 15 marks.
WHERE DID THOSE 9 MARKS GO?? I LITERALLY EXPLODED ON THE SPOT.



The teacher explained. Joash didn't label his axis with "tahun". I didn't write "malaysia" in my title. Damn. ONE WORD LIKE THAT?? WORTH 9 FREAKIN' MARKS??!!"

okay, i can see you guys rolling your eyes & thinking "so what? 9 marks nya mah!!" I would normally agree, but her's the catch. the whole exam was only 35 marks. So 9 marks is converted to 25 marks. 25 MARKS FOR A WORD!!!

click to enlarge. read highlighted word. laugh or cry in agreement in the irony of it all. (my correction, to show you if you STILL don't understand.)

Let me explain my anger. We have been taught since we could draw graphs that graphs are important for one reason & one reason only:: The information it conveys. Other stuff, like labelling the axis or the title were only points of interest, right? At most, they're worth 1 or 2 marks. Not much weightage there.
But no~~~~ according to our teacher, the marking scheme clearly states that the format was worth 9 marks, and anyone who did that wrongly, (e.g. FORGET 1 WORD) would be automatically recieving a maximum of 6 marks instead of 15.

Charming that an exam should be so strict isn't it? Ok, so how about the information of the graph? According to the smart!@# teacher, 'content' is worth only 4 marks. Meaning that if they were 16 points on the graph, 4 wrong points would only mean a deduction of ONE MARK!
So even if i just draw the axis & label everything perfectly, & DRAW A SMILEY IN THE PLACE OF WHERE MY GRAPH WOULD BE, I WOULD SCORE HIGHER? "technically yes."
Dang.


how line graphs should be drawn...

In fact, one girl in my class actually proved this. She drew a completely irrevalant graph, yet got the axis & title correct. As a result, she obtained 7 out of 15 marks. Talk about setting your priorities straight.

WHAT IN THE NAME OF @#$@#$ ARE THE PEOPLE AT THE MOE DOING? Instead of trying to find ways to help students learn more, they're setting a completely irrelevant set of format rules to screw with people's examination scores. As a result, students all spend their time memorizing format rules instead of reading the paper in their free time. And they dare to call it "General Studies".

Picture this scenario: Are Lawyers going to lose a court case if they Draw a perfectly relevant graph, but forget to label one axis, even though it CLEARLY SHOWS THE YEARS??
Are Businessmen going to impress their clients if they label all their axises correctly, BUT SCREW UP THE VALUES?
Are doctors going to lose their job if they show you your heart ecg that doesn't have a label over the y-axis?

Our education system is doing a great job telling us our priorities, i tell you.

p/s: why should we accept it just because "Malaysia punteng liddat"? We live here, we're supposed to make it better by fighting for what's right, not what the politicians tell us is right. It's our home, we're supposed to Lurvvve it.