Andrew taking a rest
The day of reckoning has come, where my son Andrew will be taking the Primary School Leaving Examination or PSLE for short this morning. Although he is pretty confident of himself, having undergone literally thousands of hours of practice, studying and tuition for all 4 subjects, English, Math,Science and Chinese (Mother Tongue), I am nervous for him.
Like General Dwight Eisenhower, who was tormented on what day to activate the largest airborne, seaborne and landborne attack onto the shores of Normady, after the decision was made for 6th June 1944, all he could was sit tight, wait .. and pray for the optimum outcome. Of course, a major exam is in no way as stressful as what Eisenhower felt, as his decision meant that literally thousands and ultimately millions of soldiers would fight, die and be injured critically for the rest of their lives so that humanity and the future generations of people in more than 10 countries would have freedom to their own self - rule. I had, as the concerned father, run through the textbooks (what do I know now, after 30 + years of leaving Secondary school ?) and given my little input and discipline to junior as and when he slackened on the pace and got distracted. I had also to play friend,confidante, exercise buddy - we went for runs and cycles together and most importantly, motivator to reward him with sweets,drinks and snack food whenever he finished a test paper or had a long 4 - 6 hour tuition session.
The Caltex petrol station opposite our house has become a meeting point, or 'club' of sorts for the friends who hang out after the tuition is over to have a soft drink and snack (Old Chang Kee curry puff or fried sotong which my wife strongly disapproves of as it is deep fried and the vegetable oil is reused again and again). His pals, Aaaron, Glenn, Ava and Yi Fen will in the future years, look back to these days with fondness.
Andrew has been a very diligent, and since he has been under the tutelage of a Mrs. Florence Lim who is a tuition specialist for the last 3 years, his grades have been improving. It is impossible to compare the lives of myself and my peers who lived their primary school days in the 70s and now, as it is as different as living on earth and a living in a space station.
To put things in perspective, Andrew has posted reasonable grades, scoring As and Bs for most of his subjects in this year and including the preliminaries, its just that the points system award to students for their perfomance is based on the National Average of Singapore and one can score say 78 marks for Math and be graded with a 'B' because the paper was an easy one and everybody scored around 75, so the examiners draw up a normal distribution curve and rank the grades accordingly.He has been reminded time and again not to rush through each paper, read the questions properly, circle the ones he is not sure of and move on to the next question and come back to redo the difficult question after he has finished the paper. All this is well and good in theory. How is mood is for taking the exam and whether he will find the 'flow' is another totally different matter.
My other son, Noel is in Secondary 3 and he also has been burning the midnight oil this past 2 weeks. He is taking his final exams these 2 weeks and though they are not as major as the PSLE, this exam for Noel provides the foundation for his GCE 'O" Levels which are targetted for next year 2010. He has to prepare for 9 papers over 2 weeks.
After all that is said and done, and now the first of 4 'battles' over the next 7 days begins, I can only sit, wait and pray for a satisfactory outcome. Good Luck Andrew and Noel !
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