Friday, May 15, 2009

Show me the papers or not?

She didn't understand how much those marks meant, but the mom who's very digits-mad is.

Everyday, I ask her "how's your paper?"
A :"Good!"
M:"Good means what? 80 over%, 90 over%."
A :"Dunno.........."

And so I crossed my fingers, eyes, hair and hope she did well. It may only be a test and results not taken into consideration but it does tell alot about the child. As the school puts it, "the results are not taken into consideration. It gives us a guide if the children understands the concepts. And use it as a guideline on the setting of the other test papers."
I pray hard she did well for her Chinese coz' they'll be banded accordingly.

Today, she showed me the papers in the car. 37/50 for Maths, 37.5/50 for English which works out to 74% and 75% repectively. It's definitely not good! She did better with those MGS and CHS papers but not her school's?
As I flipped through her Maths papers, she lost 8 marks due to her carelessness. 'Colour the number before XX, ' she can colour the number after XX. !!!!!! And there's the same mistakes of writing 2 different answers on her equations and the blank line. And the best mistake?? "How tall is the clown?" they have balls as units next to it. My dear girl can cock-eye or act smart to draw one line from the clown's head to the ball and write 61/2. ???? Line also didn't draw straight. And since when they're taught 1/2? Can't be the mother geh-kiang and teach her beyond what she's suppose to know. Dunno to call this mistake carelessness or geh-kiang.

I didn't know if I should further flip through the papers. Flip or don't flip also get scolding. Mom say must encourage (wah..........last time she nagged at me when she sees my careless mistakes for my Chinese papers) Don't flip - I wouldn't know what I should emphasize and try to build her up on during the June hols. Flip - I see those careless mistakes which she shouldn't have made and get mad. But I'm impressed there's 2 trick questions which she could answer. ?!?!?!
8 marks leh, That would have been 45/50 = 90%. With that results, I would have signed her papers. Yup! I refuse to coz' I did tell her prior to all her test papers that if she don't get 90% I won't sign her papers. She protested saying that "Mdm XX say must sign, cannot don't sign." It didn't cross her mind that she could have asked her daddy to sign for her?

English
She lost 9 1/2 marks. The same mistake as she did at home. Told her to read the sentence properly. The sentence mentioned 'last night', answer should be past tense. She wrote according to subject-verb agreement. Dunno to praise her for remembering the grammar theory or to chide her for not reading properly. 2 marks lost on 2 cloze passage for her geh-kiang fill-in-the-blanks. Very impressed she can spell the word 'pool' when sometimes she can forget how to spell 'study' but the picture showed a girl swimming. Geh kiang! Another one was either a mental block or carelessness mistake. The rests are in comprehension. The answer is right before her very eyes, she also can write wrongly. I mentioned before she can score at least 3/5 correct. In the written comprehension, she scored 7.5/10. The other one, a graphic comprehension, which I'll expect her to do well coz' she didn't have to think about phrasing her sentence etc.. she made 3 careless mistakes. 6 marks gone! Could have scored 47/50 = 94%.

When daddy came home, she dare not show him the papers. I showed him and expected a different respond from him. Turned out he responded in unison, "how can you be so careless?!" "Still dare to laugh?" So now he knows why I'm so mad with her, now he knows why I nag at her all the time, now he knows how careless his daughter is.

Should I resign to fate that probably that's her average score since she's been showing me 70++% for all papers? I don't know leh.. I expect more since these are works that she did cover in K2. She should be doing better. Then since she produce this kind of result to me, I might as well don't waste my time. Since it's not theory she don't understand but carelessness, I might as well go and enjoy myself. Know what I mean? The build-up frustrations I'm feeling now.

I don't understand why. I have 2 friends who's children (they themselves) are very competitive. They put pressure on themselves while their parents ask them to relax. Woah! If only my daughter is like that, I don't have to worry much. When she checks her papers, I don't know if she's really checking or just flipping the pages just for the sake of flipping the pages.
Then they are some kids who's parents don't give a damn about their studies can score well. I know it's really bad to compare results but I can't help but envy those parents lor.. Maybe my daughter is not smart as I think she is; maybe I should just bloody give up on her and go and enjoy myself. I badly need to go Spa.

The 2 friends I mentioned above. One of them, teaches her 3 children. They didn't go for any tuition at all, the mother handles everything. And when she told us her lifestyle, it sounded just like mine. Weekends are for studies as well. But her children produce superbly good results, always 90 over%, the older one is now in one of the Top Sec schools. So at least it reaped some results. Her youngest child is P1 this year and is very competitive, will cry when she cannot cope. Hmm... may be good/bad. I do worry if it'll affect her psychologically. But I guess she is very competitive herself coz' she saw how her 2 brothers perform in school so she set the high standards on herself. Well, I think that's maturity and sensible. If only Athena have half of her sensibility. Athena is far too playful, she can remember alot of nonsense things like "we've been here before, we eat this and that. I saw that road before etc..." but when I test her on spelling... "I forget."
Another friend, the son, must score better than others. He works hard. She don't have to tell him to bring out the books to revise, he does it himself. I remember telling her about what happened when Athena deliberately took her own sweet time to dress up for school. And she agreed what I did - reverse psychology - was right. Then she asked, "you mean Athena don't love school?" "She does, she enjoys her friends. Which I suspect she's there to play but she'll be happy if there's no school. Like once the P1 didn't have to go school, she was so happy." Her reply, "my son no... he can't wait to go school. Will hurry us instead. " From that conversation I could tell that her son is very responsible. Sigh......if only...............
One friend berates her son for scoring 24/25. She told me in a laughing manner too, that "just for 1 mark I nag at him from school to home."I thought that was funny, if only Athena could score that kind of marks I would be happy. But if that 1 mark was a stupid careless mistake maybe I would also point out.

So what's the main problem with my girl? Maybe she's not smart as I think she is. Maybe should go and hypnotize her and brain wash her to be very careful. I'm thinking if the other kids, at 7 years old, can check through their work carefully why can't my daughter do so too. Master Tan did mention this girl is really smart but needs alot of pushing. Mom went to the medium once, the medium also mentioned the same thing. Ill-fated me!!

If it's theory she don't understand, still can teach. Now I teach also no use, she understands but it's just her carelessness; or in a hurry to finish her papers. Thank goodness this is only a CA, imagine if it's a SA. I'll flipped and bring out the cane on her. Hopefully by Sept and year end, she'll do well.

Maybe I should start finding rat's eyes, tiger's eyes, lion's eyes - any animals eyes except for bats (blind as a bat) and let her eat.

It's a blessing in disguise that I didn't put her in RGPS or St Nics (ai yah..that place also difficult to get in) to face the pressure. I would have my blood vessels burst.
So she don't get to relax much in June for sure!

12 comments:

Karmeleon said...

actually st nics not pressurising at all.

erm.....my kids are like your girl, lah. Average 70% kind. And careless...don't know what to hope for.

Lily Ann said...

I heard it's pressurising in there. Maybe all the "brainy girls" are in there so they don't feel the pressure. An average girl like mine will... not too - the mother WILL!

Karmeleon said...

Cheh - how do you choose "brainy girls" for P1 entry? If you're talking about St nic's secondary, then maybe lah.

My girl also not v smart. In the bottom few classes in school bc she's in express and not special stream.

Lily Ann said...

Quite true. But I guess the Primary has to upkeep the standard right? When I select the Top school papers, I'll choose SNGS, CHS, NYang, NChiau for Chinese. I gauge her standard from those papers.

But you know I was thinking, if she continue to give me this kind of score in P1 and P2. By P3, P4 the year gets harder her marks will definitely drop. Then what it become in P6? Fail?

teni said...

haha!! talking abt carelessness! my boys been careless since p1 till now! the younger twin did better this yr but older one was so careless for his maths sa1. he got 92 marks whereas his bro, 97 marks. and i cried all the way home! haha...

Teni

Karmeleon said...

wah, i'll be soooooooooooo happy if my boys get anything above 88! It's so rare. Average? Anything from 75 to 85. How sad.

And the careless stuff? Hah - too cute. If I post on the blog and they see, surely they wring my neck.

Karmeleon said...

By the way, Lily, I think SNGS math & science are not that tough. CHS ones for math are tougher. And yeah, i usu use Nanyang or Ai Tong. Maybe ACS for english.

Do you download from MissKoh.com? And can download the whole load of 2007 papers from http://www.topschoolexampapers.com/, altho' I sometimes find their answers weird for english esp.

Lily Ann said...

Teni : Hi Teni, I'll be glad if my children can do that well like your twins. 90% should be fine for me considering the mother is a little stupid (herself) - heriditary?
Teni dear, if I were you. I would be crying tears of happiness. Athena lost too many marks over the same carelessness.
BTW, do I have permission to view your blog? Can you email me at my temporary email address :athenamummy@yahoo.com.sg with your password? Thanks!

Sam : I never download from MissKoh. I buy those papers, no difference between them right?
Tell me, tell me... I want to know. Then they'll wring my neck too!

Karmeleon said...

i'll post the pics for you to see and let u know later. *hehe*

top school papers - download from misskoh.com - free, mah! Don't need to pay! Then I look thru 1st before printing.

Karmeleon said...

OK, here goes...very funny - esp the "box" one. Thankfully this is done at home, not in school...I don't know how he did in school papers yet:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2035/3527396919_44eb24cfd4.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2193/3527396841_2de34e1b0d.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2008/3528208038_af2fd1078c.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2190/3527396965_e9e7df5439.jpg

And this was when he was in Pri 1:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/121/275153808_a2aa0d2c74.jpg

teni said...

oh so u mean my expectation too high huh? haha... maybe cos they r in lower primary so its not surprising if they can score close to full marks for their papers cos when they reach upper primary, FAT HOPE!! and esp they hvg streaming end of this yr. only those with high band 1 (> 90%) for all 3 subjects get to be in best class. and they usually assign best teachers and mix with the better, less naughtier boys in this class.

genuine mistakes to me are acceptable but not careless mistakes! and like ur athena, they can tackle those challenging questions but make stupid mistakes for the easy ones. really wanna bang my head!

oh i also always download from misskoh.com. cos i dun always make them do other papers anyway. where got time????

btw, i have emailed u :)

Teni

Lily Ann said...

Chengs : I'm very kiasu must have alot of assessment books + papers.
Saw the mistakes, not as jialat and so careless like my girl.

Teni : Received! Thanks! dunno what to do with kids, straightforward question - careless. tricky - can do.