All dead... or not?!

On the 4th of October, I entered the little dingy room, peered through my thick-rimmed glasses and surveyed the damage. I realized just how many casualties there were... Oh no. This is disastrous, I said to myself, as I absorbed all the gory images around me...

Oh nooooooooooooo....!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Courtesy of heroic SEAB educators.

Through more detailed supervision, Mr Fong realized that some of them were still alive. Arms moving painfully, slowly and weakly, they flailed their arms rather agonizingly, signalling that they were still alive, but Mr Fong knew they would still die soon.


The air stank of decomposition, and Mr Fong retched as he approached the 'war zone'. A wave of sadness and tiredness swept over him as he noted the casualties, and he, still reeling from the smell, picked up the paper (well, he thought it was a death cert, but...) and realized there were, OMG...Maths questions on the paper!


As Mr Fong read through and studied all the death certs papers, he realized most of it were left blank. A certain question 37 had done the trick, for he realized that the rest of the questions were ignored. On the contrary, question 37 was littered with random workings and doodles, and rants like "Wah lau, so freaking difficult la!" and "I am so freaking stupid laaaaaa!" (except they did not use freaking).


To his utter surprise, he read some papers that gave him a jolt on the fateful question 37, as written on those papers were: "I should have gone for the freaking Eatyourmaths sessions!!!!!" Well, this time they really did use 'freaking' (right).


As Mr Fong finished observing the debris and rubble strewn around in the classroom, he gently wiped his spectacles, and also tears of sadness. He concluded that he MUST do an analysis for this massacre- the PSLE Maths paper, to help other batches avoid this massacre (you all know Mr Fong is how patriotic.)

*

[...]

PSLE Maths is a comparative study. This means that your score is not your own score, but a Transformed Score. (For example, if you were lucky and studied hard, you would get the score of Megatron, the big scary Transformer.)


Your scores are compared using the bell curve, and this is also judged by the range, or standard deviation, of the scores. This means that assuming you are of an OK standard, have done Mr Fong's Eatyourmaths worksheets with great care, devotion and love, any question that you find difficult, will be as difficult to all of the rest.


Therefore, you will NOT lose out in this study when you find an abnormally hard question. Reason being, the majority are not able to answer it too! This is how the bell curve works- you will not lose out, unless you are aiming for a 293 score in PSLE to better the previous record.


Therefore, it is important to remember that for future exams, be it PSLE, O-Levels or A-Levels etc, do what you are sure you can do. This will give you an advantage over those who gets stuck at a crazy question, and do not finish what they can actually do.


Do what you can do, and do not waste time moping over what you definitely cannot do, for PSLE is a speed test! Any moping, crying or sleeping is heavily penalized as you will definitely lose marks for not finishing the paper.

[...]

*

Mr Fong wiped his eyes again on his sleeve, gazed sadly at the numerous casualties and after a few 'minutes of silence', grumbled, "Am I a Maths tutor or ICU staff?! Am I here to teach, or to resuscitate PSLE victims who fall blindly to the same tricks (both mathematically and mentally) every year?"

*

(Writer's Note: Till now, Mr Fong still does not know whether his future lies in the classroom or the ambulance.)