Sample Answer Ccts by Miss Emy Jong

National level public examinations such as the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) and Sijil Pelajaran Tinggi Malaysia (STPM) have always generated a lot of interest among the general public as they are essential for entrance into universities and also to enter into the work market. In the recent few years, attention has been drawn to the phenomenon of students getting up to 20 As in the SPM examinations and this has been a source of contention especially with regards to scholarship allocation and university placements.

The government then has been mulling a decision to set a limit on the maximum number of subjects a candidate may sit for as a way to simplify the selection process into tertiary studies. The writer of this article, Dr. I. Lourdesamy of the Pacific Institute Technology in Petaling Jaya offers his views on this development and the article is aptly titled “SPM Subjects: Let students make the choice. Basically, the writer is of the opinion that setting a cap on the number of subjects a student may sit for does not address the real issue of suitable selection criteria into tertiary education, and he goes on to suggest how we may best tackle the issue by giving his recommendations as well as what he feels the goal of education should be. The writer proposes that we should not limit the number of subjects SPM students can sit for, and instead students can be evaluated on the basis of their performance in subjects directly related to the proposed field of study.

He is disagreeable to limiting students’ opportunity to learn, and feels that the students should be allowed to decide on their own goals based on their capacity and aptitude. He also suggests that schools offer a range of elective subjects to cater to different student interests. Furthermore, the writer opines that most students have too much free time and actually should be encouraged to do more.

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Finally, the writer addresses the primary objective of education – to provide opportunity for its students to maximize their learning potential. Personally, I find the writer’s argument of not limiting the number of subjects for SPM students to be reasonable and logical. As he said earlier, if the concern is the assessment process for scholarships and places in universities then what we need is a clear and comprehensive guideline on the selection criteria for the various disciplines in tertiary education.

Actually, the practice of taking into account only subjects which are directly relevant to the proposed field of study has long been practiced and limiting the number of subjects would not help in any way to determine which students are more deserving of university placements or scholarships. What students need to be made aware of is that they need to prepare for their desired field of study by taking relevant subjects which would be necessary in the selection process.

The author’s arguments on allowing students to decide on their own goals based on their capacity and aptitude, besides having schools offering elective subjects are indeed good suggestions. Having gone through the path of being a student myself, I strongly feel that if students are given more say in what they are studying, it will make them more motivated and keen to learn. They can also be challenged appropriately, and the scenario of having students being bored (because the syllabus is too easy or uninteresting) or not being able to follow lessons (because they are too weak) will be greatly reduced.

However, the implementation of such suggestions may be very difficult as a lot of resources will need to be made available to schools and students. We would have to first have a large enough pool of competent teachers to teach students these various subjects at all levels of difficulty, and sorting out the logistics such as allocation of classrooms and time-tabling could also prove very challenging. Students’ use of their free time was also one of the points raised in the article. The author obviously feels that students could be more productive and that they do not have much to do.

While there may be some truth to his argument, I think that it is not fair to generalize and say that all students are too free and should be asked to do more. How much time a student actually spends on his studies and other worthwhile activities differs greatly from one student to another. It really depends on the individual’s motivation and goals. Some students who are already pushing themselves very hard should actually be taught to relax and have more balance in their life. Therefore, this argument shows the author’s bias towards students nowadays and he should give more careful thought to this before making such conclusions.

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