Reflection (Part 1)

Having participated in Biro Tatanegara (BTN) course that lasted for five days, I'm going to share what was going on throughout the camp. I had the urge to share my point of views while I was having the course, however it is not easy to recall every single incident that happened and come out with an overall review based on what I had been thinking.

BTN, in case you have not come across with this term, and if I'm not mistaken, was introduced at the early age to mould the youngsters who were thought to raise disciplinary problems in school. Recently it was further modified to fulfill the need to instill patriotism in the government servants and those government-servant-to-be. I guess this is also one of those preventive measures in reducing brain drain.

We didn't have enough sleep during the course, but we did not need to worry about hunger. They provided six meals including breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. Teatime would fill in every empty slot of schedule. You would never feel hungry. There would be almost at least a piece of chicken and a fish for every participant in every meal, which is quite costly. The accommodation was the best part of the camp. We were provided a clean dorm with eight bunk beds and new furniture. The campsite is relatively isolated from the city and near to a beach, thus we would feel the calm and windy weather.

On the first day, I was so surprised to find out the campsite actually has a wifi source, and managed to steal some time and stay connected to Facebook for a while before our mobile phones were confiscated throughout the next four days. However most Maxis users received poor signals from the base stations of mobile phones in this remote area. Despite the fact that even if we took control of our own mobile phones, we cannot connect to the outside world with no signal coverage, still, I guess 107 of us were all having a hard time without mobile phone in our pockets.

The whole course was just mainly about presentations and group trainings that involves some aspects to build a civil minded and patriotic soul. Every morning we had to wake up at 5.30am, slightly late comparing to Muslims. We had to take part in so called moral lessons when the Muslims were attending for their morning prayers. After that there would be morning training session. I did not have any experience in marching or foot drill, and it is embarrassing and insulting when the commanders were no happy for he expected everyone of us must have joined a uniformed unit or national service before.

In my opinion, it is just a personal matter whether anyone of us chose to join a uniformed unit, and don't take that as a compulsory when it seems that joining a uniformed unit would greatly help one to obtain extra co-curriculum merit and secure your university seat. Just allow me to speak a little out of topic, I just find it ridiculous when people were so surprised to find out the fact that I, as a PSD scholarship holder, do not hold any certificate of a uniformed team at all. My point is simple, everyone has his or her own liking, interest and time management. When the government is practicing a moderate way of encouraging youngsters to take part in uniformed unit, we can make up our mind to give a full commitment in other kind of co-curriculum activities and the outcomes are beneficial as well.

Back to the marching part in every morning, I truly enjoyed the session as I learn something new instead of listening to cliche that has been aggressively reiterated during speeches given by trainers and facilitators. However when I further analyse the speech content as well as activities curriculum, I notice they had unevenly distributed what they want us to learn and understand in the course by national civic bureau. We were exposed to the content of constitution of Malaysia in different ways. However they just focused on some important clauses. According to the syllabus stated in the official website of national civic bureau, we are supposed to learn about the latest issues, patriotism, the nation history, the government system, social contract, constitution of Malaysia and others. However what had been greatly emphasised was the social contract and some particular facts included in the constitution. I'm glad to learn all of these, and eventually I catch the main point and agenda of the course, which is to indoctrinate participants to understand the social contract based on constitution. Not to say we learn only a little about others but honestly I was a little annoyed by the way it had been emphasised.

Nevertheless, at some point I'm still holding on to my ideology. I would reflect on it and figure out more to share with you next time.

BTN

Finally the final examination is over and this definitely puts my A-Level course to an end. I have given my best shot in eight of the papers and hopefully I would be able to obtain the newly introduced and also the highest grade of the grading system, A* (A star, quite similar to the A+ in SPM). Before going home, all of us would need to attend BTN (National Civics Bureau), a course that is prepared by the government for those students heading oversea in the future and others. The aim of this course is mainly about instilling patriotism by exposing each of us to historical lessons. This should be interesting, however I'm a little worried as when I was digging some information regarding this course, I came across with a lot of negative feedback. One of my seniors who has already taken the course advised me not to take what would soon be exposed to myself personally. Some controversy arose, and issues were discussed as some news reported that BTN has been proven unfruitful to fulfill the aim, and including some sensitive and biased remarks. At that time, our Prime Minister had shown up and promised the syllabus of BTN would be further speculated and made vary to synchronise the aim when political parties were hotly debating about whether to abolish this controversial course or not. So it remains until now, and it is my turn to experience it. I'm sure I would have a lot of stories to share here after this. Hopefully it does change in a positive way after coming across with intense criticism.

p/s : I spent a number of money, just to buy the strictly designated costume, and everyone needs to do so.

Censored

This is how the front cover page of TIME magazine gazetted in the first week of October should be.

I received it. But it has been censored by marker pen.

IELTS result

Finally the IELTS result is released! Here is my result:

Listening: 8.5
Reading: 8.5
Writing: 7.5
Speaking: 6.0 =(

Total: 8.5 + 8.5 + 7.5 + 6.0 = 30.5
Overall band score = 30.5/4 = 7.625 ≈ 7.5

Here is the reference of band score:

9. Expert User - native speaker level of the language.

8. Very Good User - excellent command of the language, a few mistakes only

7. Good User - handles language well, some inaccuracies, communicates adequately

6. Competent User - reasonable control of the language, difficulties with unfamiliar

5. Modest User - adequate in own area, difficulties with complex structures

4. Limited User - adequate only in familiar areas, difficulty understanding expression

3. Very Limited User - problems communicating, limited communication abilities

2. Intermittent User - many difficulties, basic information only

1. Non User - understands a few isolated words only

I am quite satisfied with the overall performance despite the poor response rated for my speaking test. However I can't recall much regarding the experience during the tests.

I tried my best and stretched my ears to the max during listening test. However I couldn't catch up the fast conversation by some speakers with thick British accent in one of the parts. I have got some luck to score well in reading test.

Although 7.5 is lower than 8.5, it is still considered as a relatively high band in writing. I think I did pretty well in that paper as I applied a wide range of vocabulary and structures of sentences in appropriate ways. I wouldn't have achieved this band if I did not force myself to pick up the habit of blogging and intensive writing since I failed to score well in SPM.

The examiner who conducted my speaking test was very professional. She is a woman of more than 60 and has a perfect pronunciation. However, she looked very unfriendly, serious and strict. I tried my best to give my best answer for every question or task given, but I just couldn't escape from the fate of getting such an unacceptable band. In fact, if I obtained a band higher than 6.0 for speaking, even by only an addition of 0.5, the overall band score would be 8.0 or higher! =)

In conclusion, IELTS test is interesting and exciting. Every candidate needs to pay full attention to focus on every test after a certain period of training and preparation. Having boosted with confidence, a little luck is still desired.

Respect our name

It has been a long time since I noticed quite a number of my friends have preferred people to address them by their own coined nickname. In my opinion it has nothing wrong to have a nickname for better recognition among newly met friends, as long as it is related to your abbreviation of your name, your character, your appearance and others. For example, my name is Jin Xiang. Some of my Malay friends find it hard to pronounce words starting with the alphabet "X", so I always recommend them to address me in the way they pronounce "Siang" in Malay language. Both of the words are homonym, moreover the word "Siang" brings the meaning of morning in their language. Some of my Indian friends have long names, so they abbreviate it.

Normally Chinese names would not appear to be too long nor too complicated. It usually consists of three words - rarely two or four, and the first word is the surname that enables you to track back your origins and the line of ancestors. For instance, my full name is Lui Jin Xiang, a typical Chinese name that does not fit into the first and last name system existing in Europe because people tend to relate first name to surname. In order to show my Chinese name as Lui Jin Xiang, it is a must to give my name by Lui as last name. We show respect to our ancestors, so we don't put it behind. So, for me it is a little annoying to categorise my surname as last name.

Perhaps you don't know, or even some of the Chinese don't even feel the importance and underlying obligation to be proud of your surname as well as your name given by your parents. It shows a good example of how influential it can be, when we come across with some historical facts of some heroes sharing the same surname with us did something great, we would feel glad and honored. How if that person had been notorious? We would really feel guilty and sorry for him. There lies an invisible link among Chinese of same surname. How about the name given by your parents? Do you think it does not carry any meaning? Or they had not been considerate enough to give you a unique name you desire?

And here comes the main point of updating this post. I do wonder what the motive of getting an unnecessary nickname is. I have no comment on people who changed their names because of some beliefs and religious needs. I guess every Christian would need to add an English name in front of their surnames for the reason I have not discovered. However sometime I sense that several of those who changed their names, either in a formal or informal way, have shown disrespect to their own identities and sheer western advocacy. Maybe you don't like to live with your current name because it is too common, fine, reflect on what you have omitted, feel obligated and rectify it. The reason is simple. It is your identity granted by your parents! Appreciate the only naming system that conserves you and your ancestors' identity relations.

Abolish examinations?

I can still barely remember the title of continuous essay I chose to elaborate on while taking English paper during SPM examination in year 2008. It was asking for the advantages and disadvantages of examination. I thought I had given my best shot and expected to score a satisfying result, but I had to face the fact that my essay could only rank B4 in the 1119 paper (it is the English subject of GCE O-Level examination) when the result was released.

Based on what I read, examination was first introduced in ancient China when the emperors required a system to evaluate the nationwide scholars. Their knowledge of history, their personal virtue and capability in handling or solving problems such as military dilemma and economic crisis would be heavily tested within continuous days, restlessly. Passing the exam was a prerequisite before scholars are awarded the authority of managing a designated mission as "cabinet member" or what has been famously known as "guan", the court officer who was involved in judiciary decisions. During that particular period, serving the government under the emperor's name was the ultimate ambition of every man. They had no choice but sit for examinations.

After centuries, examination is seen to have assimilated into different nations. It eventually becomes one of the most common evaluative measure conducted to different groups of people in various ways, but with a similar objective. Examination has always been hotly debated for its disadvantages as what is happening recently in our society of Malaysia. Policy makers announced it is the time to reevaluate this measure as it seems to bring more harm to students. At the same time, people are suggesting the need to modify the flawed education system by reintroducing a relatively dynamic learning method under an atmosphere that appears to be more conducive and less stress. The most possible outcome is that one or more significant examinations would be abolished.

In my opinion, straight to the point, examination is a system that was well practised for a long term of time before people could really find out its harm. Further analysing would tell us the colossal and accumulative stress does affect the students adversely. However I believe moderate stress is the best motive force that keeps our pace in track when we own a target to achieve.

Another thing we concern is, how are we going to handle the problem of a large number of fresh graduated primary school student with "unknown potential" in their enrollment of secondary school? Apparently there must be a final exam such as UPSR to do this job.

PMR might seem less significant, thus it would most probably be abolished. However, when we reflect on the benefits of taking PMR, candidates can actually find out whether he should prepare himself to pick up subjects of art stream or science stream. Having prepared in PMR, students can be mentally prepared to sit for SPM too.

Examination in Malaysia has been mechanized and doing not-so-good in its quality control. It can be improved, but not easy though. I am wondering why the policy makers do not prefer to modify it before getting rid of it.

Whether there will be a real abolishment or not, this is the critical moment whereby people's concern has finally brought about some stirred movement in the cabinet. However, this is also the moment when a considerate attitude is needed to reach a compromise, or else the latest generation of students in Malaysia will get trapped in the uncertainties in their fate.

If the government does take care of this issue so much, do remember to reevaluate the recognition of Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) of Chinese Independent High School and tune the huge injustice gap existing between the preuniversity programmes.

I remain positive to receive the next news.

The controversy

Since it was announced that the grading system is slightly changed to introduce a higher distinction namely "super distinction" for SPM, I had been wondering how it would result in a different outcome regarding the proportion of candidates scoring the so called perfect result in a particular subject or all of the subjects taken, which have been limited to 10+2.

A grading system is like a measuring tool. It is designed to measure something. It should be moulded and calibrated considering the main aspects - is it too long or too short to measure the full size of the object? Is it sensitive enough such that smallest division used is helpful to give a reading including the significant figures needed? Can it be used to measure different objects, and give a comparison of them? A bad tool is not meant to be a bad tool as it might still be useful to measure other objects of different requirements. Applying the same analogy, I soon realised the new grading system is not competent enough to calibrate the candidates nationwide from the same batch in a credible and sensible method.

The SPM wouldn't be so important if it hasn't been included in the main consideration taken into account while the government department such as Public Service Department or other party such as National Bank is going to determine scholarship winners. Therefore SPM result is often related to these scholarships because they are closely linked. To maximise the chance to qualify oneself as the applicant and at the same time secure such scholarships, scoring a perfect result is necessary. It could be scoring all A1 based on the previous grading system or all A+ based on the current grading system. These are so called "perfect result" which would guarantee you, or at least it is very hard to deprive your chance to secure the scholarship provided by government. This is why candidates used to take more insignificant subjects, leading to improvement made to the examination system whereby maximum number of subjects taken has been limited. However, the flawed remains flawed until today due to the lack of transparency as some parties are still seeking for explanation for the unsolved yet prolonged problems, or even some conspiracy as mentioned by others.

How if there are too many perfect scorers? I didn't expect to know there is a large number of "perfect" scorers nor did I believe it if approximately 90% is the official threshold as reported. I'm not certain whether the number of candidates who managed to score A+ for any subjects is almost equal to the figure of the previous batch of candidates, however and still, there is something very obvious and provoking - the steep gradient between Chinese subject and any other subject. All of that is just playing with the normal distribution. Apparently it is not hard to set a threshold with the marks needed as the responding variable based on the proportion of the distribution required artificially. For example, if we want only 8% of those, let say 10000 of them who take a particular subject to get an A+, we can easily determine the threshold of the marks needed for the A+ by considering the lowest marks obtained by the candidates in the 8% of distribution. We might question how if the overall performance has greatly declined and what other changes should be made. In this case, a smaller proportion can be selected, for example, 5% or lower. Therefore, this flexible method is not applied blindly, but considering all the possible situations with a fair solution.

It has been a known fact that the "hardest" subject appears to be Chinese subject. In case you don't know how "hard" it is, you can ask any of your friends who were sitting for SPM in 2009 and could proudly tell you he or she had gotten an A+ in that subject. I don't have an official figure nor statistic for this, but it is fairly easy to spot the flaw when you heard there is only one hundred and more candidates scoring A+ nationwide, while a school could have equal number of candidates achieving the same result for any other subject. Why is the percentage of proportion scoring A+ for Chinese is less than 1% while other subjects can have relatively high percentage such as 8% or even more than 10%? All we need is an explanation.

Put the grading system of SPM aside, I would like to share some of my views towards the distribution of PSD scholarship. I used to think it is the best to give away the scholarship to the best brains. However when I further reflect on this issue, I think of wealth gradient among the people in our country and the way our government is trying to minimise gradient. We can't let the people in poverty to stand in the tight competition alone, that's why some policies such as free tax or extra subsidy are introduced so that they can have a better living condition, although it is still considerably terrible. This issue would be less controversial if everyone understands that. However it is not easy to protect everyone...

[To be continued...]

Change or not change?

I'm currently operating Compaq Presario C700 notebook which is relatively old considering the fact that my father had been using it installed with Windows XP for years ago before passing it to me. Now it appears to be terminally ill. The fan is constantly giving out irritating noise as if it is overworking although the cooling effect is fairly dissatisfying. I suspect the easily accumulated heat is one of the factors contributing to the occasional system lagging. However there are credits I can still give. I particularly enjoy the sensation of typing on its keypad. As a gamer, despite the graphic limitations that allow its user to run only gaming applications with low graphic requirements, I love the widescreen too.

My Sony Ericsson K618i has been following me for more than three years, it is gradually exposing its glitches too. The main faulty aspect that annoys me is the "instant auto-shutdown" of my phone. Whenever I insert it into my pocket and walk for some distance, it would automatically shut down, causing inconvenience as people can't reach my phone to give me a call. The phone needs only a small knock from sideways to slump into unconsciousness. I guess it must be the battery being unable to hinge to the terminal in an appropriate and functional way. To type instant messages in Chinese has caused me a hardship too. It takes a long time to fully read the pinyin (the standard system of Roman spelling in Chinese). Therefore it is considerably slow and insensitive. Furthermore, the metal plates which are responsible for adapting the charger are severely corroded. Whenever I want to charge my phone, I have to give it a "comfortable position" so there is current passing through the loosely connected junction, not to mention it might break and cut the circuit if slightly disturbed.

Actually I don't mind using old products as long as they are still capable of performing routine tasks in a satisfying way to users. However if I'm given the chance, I would certainly change both of them, or at least one of them. My parents are generous enough to sponsor whatever I want without further consideration, but I don't really want to spend too much of their money on my needs without further consideration too. I thought of smartphones, especially iPhone that has dominated the recent market with its cool-looking features. I thought of laptops my roommate recommended to me by introducing a lot of terminology which is not layman-friendly such as those modeling codes of hardware. I'm clear that I have to be clear to my requirements before choosing any product from the vast available options I can simply grab.

I do hope to accept any suggestions you might be able to share with me.