SINGAPORE: The first thing her son did when he came out from the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) maths paper on Thursday this week was to gesture as if he was "slitting his throat".
"One look at his face and I thought ’oh no’. I could see that he felt he was condemned," said Mrs Karen Sng. "When he was telling me about how he couldn’t answer some of the questions, he got very emotional and started crying. He said his hopes of getting (an) A* are dashed."
Not for the first time, parents are up in arms over the PSLE Mathematics paper, which some have described as "unbelievably tough" this year. As recently as two years ago, the PSLE Mathematics paper had also caused a similar uproar.
The reason for Thursday’s tough paper, opined the seven parents whom MediaCorp spoke to, was because Primary 6 students were allowed to use calculators while solving Paper 2 for the first time. Paper 2 makes up 60 per cent of the entire paper and consists of 18 questions.
Said Mrs Vivian Weng: "I think the setters feel it’ll be faster for them to compute with a calculator. So the problems they set are much more complex; there are more values, more steps. But it’s unfair because this is the first time they can do so and they do not know what to expect!"
These parents’ children are studying in both neighbourhood and "top" schools.
In response to MediaCorp’s queries, the Education Ministry said this year’s paper was "comparable" to those of previous years. "There is no change in syllabus, question types or number of questions," a spokesperson said.
"The introduction of the use of calculators does not have any bearing on the difficulty of paper. The use of calculators has been introduced into the primary maths curriculum so as to enhance the teaching and learning of maths by expanding the repertoire of learning activities, to achieve a better balance between the time and effort spent developing problem solving skills and computation skills. Calculators can also help to reduce computational errors."
But the parents MediaCorp spoke to said students were apparently so stumped that many — even top students who have regularly aced past school examinations — broke down in tears in right after the paper.
Private maths tutor Josephine Tan whose son studies at Anglo—Chinese School (Junior), said he told her that "many A* students in the top class... couldn’t finish all the questions".
According to posts on an online forum for parents, one example of the problem sums given was: "Jim bought some chocolates and gave half of it to Ken. Ken bought some sweets and gave half of it to Jim. Jim ate 12 sweets and Ken ate 18 chocolates. The ratio of Jim’s sweets to chocolates became 1:7 and the ratio of Ken’s sweets to chocolates became 1:4. How many sweets did Ken buy?"
Mrs Tan said: "They have spent months revising and preparing, but it’s so much tougher than they expected. It really put a big dent on students’ morale."
Another common gripe: There was not enough time for them to complete the paper.
A private tutor, who declined to be named, told MediaCorp she concurred with parents’ opinions. "This year’s paper demanded more from students. It required them to read and understand more complex questions, and go through more steps, so time constraints would have been a concern," the 28—year—old said.
However, the parents’ fear of poor grades for their children may be unfounded since they will be compared against the entire cohort’s performance.
If it was my mom she will say serve me right for not studying harder and adapting to the new format, i bet MOE or the setters of the PSLE already told these kids that they will be using the calculator in advance. My mum will just taunt me and say the blame is on myself, which is so true. What are these whining parents thinking? All hail singapore...
-Andre
10:26 PM
Monday, September 28, 2009
Rhyming is the civilised version of rapping.
Slowly but surely, I'll be the jury. Jury of what? The jury of my life's cards. Draw the ace of hearts. Not quite the trump card... But like life everything's a risk. So why not just play by your gut. Better still, with a frisk.
If you win, its really quite a shocker. Well... if you're mean, You could be a mocker. Well you get my point... Isn't life just like poker?
-Random fact... there is a 1 in 6000 chance that a coin will land on its edge. (Yeah pretty useful huh?...)
> Recycled post from http://www.bizarreantics.blogspot.com/ ( I got really lazy to post, so i resorted to such despicable means)
-Andre
7:14 AM
Friday, September 25, 2009
The never ending mysteries of the ever blazing beauty of the night sky.
Wonder wonder I do wonder, wonder when? Usually at night, when I lay on the cold still bed gazing up at the ceiling, partially lit up by the abysmal moon's moonlight. And than weirdest sorts of taught will hit me in the head, and usually when that happens. My mind will stay active until the wee hours. I don't know if its just me, do you guys ever had that?
Than some nights ago, the taught of reality and surreality. What is reality? Reality refers to whats existing objectively and in fact. But I would say, reality is actually what you perceive and choose to see, believe. Have you ever thought to yourself that your current life is actually a dream? No, because we believe what we see. This might be a far fetch idea, "idea"? We are discouraged to think beyond the square box which our routine life and stale world. Like if I say we were it deep slumber, a coma, that we actually had a life outside our life. That our current "life" was non-existent and that its all in our head. But no, you will think that people around you say that its the real world, this isn't a dream. And naturally, almost mysteriously we would accept the fact, thinking, and now questioning yourself "how can that be?".
In our "life" when we sack in the imaginations of our dreams during slumber. Has there ever been a moment that you were aware that it was a dream? Now, conscious, you might think the surroundings in your dream is different shade-able, you can't explain it, you just think so. But in a dream, you make up your surroundings, the people who talk to you, interact with you is created and controlled by non other than, you.
If you're reading this now, you might be the one that created me, you might be the one to make me type this entry. You might not be self aware that deep down in your dream, you are questioning yourself. Just that you carve me as an entity in your imagination to do so. And look at it this way, that the media, the world catastrophes it has never effected you, you are invincible. People around you die, but you don't. You're the author of your own reality.
Its really fascinating to me, and I find it so difficult to express this in text. I really think I have failed to bring what I thought about and felt about to you, as a reader. I really think you're lost right now, yeah gibberish...gibberish...
-Andre-
10:08 AM
Friday, September 4, 2009
Reminder
Reminder to myself.
Asteroids = rocks which haven't entered our atmossphere Meteors = Rocks which become "fireballs" of rock due to our atmosphere, and during its fiery process. Meteoroids = After it infiltrates the atmosphere and falls at terminal velocity.
6:23 AM
Friday, August 28, 2009
Relativity
(Boring post alert)
I recently read the book about Einstein, and i finally, truthfully cleared all doubts on why if, yes and i repeat if, you could travel at the speed of light. You could actually stop time, (giving you could travel faster than light itself, you could time travel into the future). Okay, I'll kinda break it down for you guys (If you already know this, just shut up and quit bragging). For example, you are on a train which is traveling at the speed (I am giving an example, don't go "THERE IS NO SUCH SPEEDY ASS TRAIN TARD") Okay i think i am being too negative thinking you guys would actually do those stuff which i bracketed. ANYWAY, If you are traveling at the speed of light and look back. You would notice that the light behind you which haven't reflected off your eyes is chasing after you, or a blank space behind you when you look back, followed by a beam of light behind it. As long as you travel as fast as the light the light behind would not catch up. Or if you were to travel faster than light. You would catch up with the light in front of you (The future). Correct me if i am wrong, I hate to say that i am not Einstein himself.
Okay so that's not quite it... Gah, in the end, i actually haven't quite grasp hold of perfect understanding. One more doubt is that... Is time referred to as light? (Or is light) What really is time? I mean time is just the making up of a marker humans to represent the present events and past, because time is not actually there physically like fire. But isn't light just light? Why would light not reflecting off your eyes mean that time itself was slowing down. We obtain current vision by allowing light to reflect of our eye. If the light doesn't bounce reflect of our eyes if we are traveling as fast, wouldn't it just mean that... We would just have no vision? Darkness?
Well, I am not quite sure... I haven't read this information of the Einstein book. But I propose my own thesis (If i am correct, means that its Einstein's thesis because he invented it way back, but i think i would be dead wrong). Hell, it would be interesting to imagine a little...
Here it goes....
We only maintain existence, when we are able to be physically felt or seen. That's quite the meaning of existence itself. Like currently, when you close your eyes you are unable to see (You still can see light going through i know, try taking a bag then). Problem is, light still reflects of your body for your surrounding to notice or realise your existence (meaning duh, you exist). But... If you were to travel at the speed of light. Light is unable to reflect or bounce off your body, which technically means, you cease to exist.
(A bit of a Eureka so I'll propose and try to make sense in what i think should be the case) So lets say you look back on the train and after that shade of darkness, there is a beam of light which is unable to reach you. That beam of light is rather a time-line, which people in that beam of light, is unable to see because you cease to exist in that current point of the light (Time). Which means, in that beam of light or time. Life still goes on as it is, but without you because like i said, light isn't reflecting off you meaning that your current existence is removed from that current beam of light.
But i still can't quite make these foolproof, or even fully understand it myself. I still don't get why light itself would make you time-travel or slow down time, i mean the beam and train thing kinda makes sense... So in a nutshell if light doesn't reach you you're not existing or slowing down time. So if you trapped yourself in a full 100 inch steel room, would that mean you're out of existence itself? What would actually happen inside (other than you suffocating). Sometimes the more you understand and thought you got hold of everything, you realise that from your point of understand, you discover more doubts and complex "why's".
Though that's what i cooked out of my squishy mind, I doubt i am close to coming up with real stuff which make sense. I hope there is someone out there which can actually clarify it to me, its really been bothering me lately.
I could pretty much go on and on asking more question and pointing out my views, but its boring to most people, sigh. Why can't school teach something this interesting, curses...
(IF YOU ARE NOT A FAN OF MYSTERY OR SCIENCE, IGNORE THIS POST. IT WILL BE EXTREMELY LONG AND BORING.)
Hmm... This post will be just random shit, so don't expect much hopeful readers. Brain brain brain... We always refer our brain to be the object or tool to store our memories whatsoever. But have you ever asked yourself, how do your brain remember? Our brain is roughly about, say... 60% fats, and then mostly water. So why can't your little tummy remember stuff and solve your math equations. Yeah its quite a wonder, and mystery itself.
QUOTE: HONEY FROM YAHOO ANSWERS
"Our brains are better than a computer. it's garbage in garbage out.
We never forget, we just don't recall and our professor told us never to say "I have forgotten" you have to say I just dont' recall right now..........even a smell can trigger a thought from 20 years ago.....when you have de ja vu it's because of something we have done.........also when you smell something it may bring back a memory. Our brain is powerful. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
We all can learn and be rewired from some stokes. That's how powerful our brain is............so people that use drugs, STOP."
Heh, cool (To me at least). Now after some reading, i have dug up some cool stuff and things to consider. It is a myth that our brains work at only about 10% (It cannot be confirmed, the mysteries of the brain is yet to be solved). But lets say that the myth turned up true. An average fully functioning brain can generate up to 10 watts of electrical power, typical power to household is 1800Watts (USA). Hmm 100 watts at 100% brain power?(might not seem much, but its like charging your cellphone 18 times slower) Looking at it at a dumb simple way. Imagine, that you could freely go around using 100 watts of power on an object just with your brain power.
Now, on the other hand the first to outline this theory, later proved a fact by others, was Australian Neurology Nobel Laureate Sir John Eccles. (Lecture: University of Colorado, University Memorial Center Boulder, July 31, 1974.) "The brain indicates its powers are endless." Like since when there was a limit to what we could remember, like a computer. With a fixed limit with a "not enough memory" error popup, infinite brain power? This is where it gets interesting.
"In England, John Lorber did autopsies on hydrocephalics. This illness causes all but the 1/6th inch layer of brain tissue to be dissolved by acidic spinal fluid. He tested the IQ's of patients before and during the disease. His findings showed that IQ remained constant up to death. Although over 90% of brain tissue was destroyed by the disease, it had no impact on what we consider to be normal intelligence." "Today, most would agree without argument that the potential of the human brain is infinite. Thus, to state that a person uses 10%, 5%, or even 1% of their potential brain capacity (infinity) is overly generous." "How can you calculate a percentage of infinity?"
Its hard to believe about the infinite theory, but when you think deep. It kind of starts to feel like, or at least make you believe that... "Hey this might actually be true, no shit." (AT LEAST FOR ME). If so, this is where psychic and supernatural powers starts to kick in. Even though the human race has been evolving and using our brain constantly. Are we actually at a point where we have no idea what our brain's potential actually is? Yet another question left unanswered... Well that concludes. -Andre Out-
Beautiful song, especially when you're feeling suicidal, reminding you to "let go". Just screwin' with you.
Its alright... More modern. This post might be insignificant to people who finds that listening to a song which utters thrash which you don't understand, but yeah... Whatever. For you retards who has shitty internet bandwidth un-click the HQ quality, since I embeded this on HQ.
