[ReCom.org] Lots of A1s, does it show anything?

inevitable wrote:

so, now what do you want? you want them to choose the student based on what then? you want them to test every student in malaysia on their 'real-world' ability? is that what you want? better think about it more logically. there are thousands of students take spm every year, how do you think the scholarships going to manage that? there are a lot of competition. how do you think they want to choose the student? based on spm ofcourse. they cant afford to manage a test of ability on the 'real-world' on every student. even if they do, they would only choose the good results. how else do you want them to? even if the students who are not so good in spm are actually can do the 'real stuff' like you said, then the spm wont be a block for them, if they are good enough, they would survive and be great people. i know a lot of people who did not pass spm but are rich people now. spm is a reward, you work hard, you'll get the prize. but there's not just one prize in this world, there are a lot more. you dont get this one, you can try and get the other. even if you feel unsatisfied and try to prove something ridiculous as you just post here, that's the way it is, better think about it more deeply before you post something like this

youngyew wrote:

First of all, probably you are new in ReCom, but I don't think typing everything in a bold font is a good demeanor in a forum.

And I don't know why you would get so irated with our ongoing discussion. Nobody lobbied for the demolishment of the whole examination system, nobody said university has to pick their students with real-world talent. Please reread carefully and think about it more deeply before you post something like this.

The whole discussion has been orientated on the point that, instead of judging the student's aptitude by his results in the relevant subjects, the yardstick of academic aptitude (which directly affects scholarship chance) has been deformed to the number of subjects he takes up (and get A1 in).

Is it fair? Yes, everyone knows that it has become the rule of the game, you take up more subjects, you get more A1, you get a higher chance of getting scholarship. But is it fair at all? Please don't be complacent as to say that this is the rule of the game, so just accept it. Remember, this is not an opt-out game, every single student in Malaysia has to take it, and we have to improve the game as much as possible instead of just accepting the status quo.

My point is: Okay, assume that I am an excellent student who takes up "only" 10 subjects. I knew very well from the beginning of form 4 that I want to become a doctor in the future, so I only took those core subjects and science electives. Besides, I also didn't feel the need to take up subjects which I was not interested in and didn't find any thrill in the prospect of gaining fame from scoring 20 A1. SPM is over, and I scored extremely well in all of the subjects, and got 9A1 and 1A2 in chinese language (haha, ring a bell?). Now the moment of truth: there are this hundreds of people who took up astronomic amount of A1 and got astronomic amount of A1 (probably some partial supra-result, like those 11A1 and 2A2). Remember these astronomic scorers aren't necessarily better than him just because they scored more A1. I think it's an undeniable fact no matter which side of fence you are on.

You don't have to be a good guesser to know what happens. Those astronomic scorer got the coveted JPA offers, and I have to cry at home.

See, this is the effect of the game. This is not a fabricated story, but it happens to many friends around me. Yea yea, you can say that you should have known the rule of the game, but has any curricular statement of SPM ever stated that "students aptitude are ranked accordingly based on the number of A1"? I was game over, but I lost because I didn't follow the undocumented "rule of game". Now tell me, is that fair?

As I have said before, the problem doesn't lie on the students who take up N subjects themselves, because they are just trying to survive and thrive in the system. It's the system that goes unhealthy. Personally I congratulate Nur Amalina and other high scorers who have proved themselves, and I heartilly think that they should be proud of their paid hardwork and the achievement. But I sympathize even with more emotion for those who are sidelined by the unhealthy system. Even the government itself should feel bad about the unfairness, because it's our beloved country that suffers the loss of talents.

inevitable wrote:

so, now what do you want?

youngyew wrote:

As a remedy, I would like to say that a fixed amount of subjects (or at least set a ceiling limit) is the better way of creating healthily competitive environment. A-level is fairly good, although the decrease of standard has sort of created another problem of unability to separate the diamond from the pebbles.

p/s: For the record, I am currently a JPA sponsored student who was lucky enough to have scored 10A1 and lucky again to have been chosen by JPA. So all my previous posts were not "sour grape" posts. Although I survived the cruel test, I was greatly saddened to hear the stories of wasted talents because of the "rule of game".