Note (Edit@2228hrs, 30 Sept 2007): If you’re here via a search engine looking for exam tips, sorry, the only tip I have for you here is this: Don’t waste your time surfing the internet looking for tips. Instead, use it wisely to do your revisions!

I was on my way home from buying groceries when I heard a special announcement on the radio just now. No it had nothing to do with the National Budget, it’s something more interesting, less predictable. Do you remember my entry about SPM tips and the craze for more A’s in today’s exams? Someone took it a step further by announcing exam tips on the radio today. Well actually, he made the announcement over the telephone, and it was broadcast to public.

Apparently this man, more popularly known as Mr Andrew Choo, had ‘accurately predicted’ this year’s UPSR questions, and now he’s doing it again for the upcoming PMR paper. He is also said to have predicted last year’s exam questions accurately. The radio station I was listening to was 988, a local Chinese radio station. He was actually invited to make the announcement on-air. He also has a website, which seems to be quite a hit itself.

Now isn’t that interesting? Haven’t we just heard about this year’s UPSR leaks? In case you’ve forgotten, students who sit for the UPSR exam are mostly 12 year-olds. The people who bocor-ed the questions clearly wanted to start these kids young! After all, there never seems to be a shortage of ‘tip-providers’ for PMR and SPM exams, every year. The announcement by Mr Andrew Choo on the radio, at one part, actually went something like this (spoken in Cantonese):

“Our recent predictions for the UPSR had turned out to be very accurate, so now, dear PMR 2007 students, listen up carefully…”

He proceeded to read out the questions, in BM, word-by-word. I found it quite unbelievable, and even thought it was a joke. Honestly, I have heard about exam leaks all my life, since I was in school myself, but I had never heard them being announced openly before. This brings up a question: Can someone actually do that, legally? With the level of confidence that Mr Choo had, I could almost tell that he meant business, especially since his UPSR 2007 predictions turned out to be highly accurate.

Personally, I don’t believe in accurate ‘predictions’; there is no such thing. To me, if the questions are really accurate, then they’re as good as leaks. What happened to the good ol’ way of studying hard for exams, without relying on tips? Do we actually need them? It is unfair to those who have no access to the tips, especially those who’re from the lower-income group because these tips don’t usually come for free. Usually, you either need to find a tuition center that boasts the ability to accurately ’spot’ questions, or buy special ‘workbooks’ that claim to contain accurate predictions of future exam questions.

With all these unfair advantage for the select few and blatant disregard for exam integrity, I wonder where our education system is headed. Our bolehness is getting a little out of hand, don’t you think?