After A Decade Of Being An Express Class/PTS Student « Little Girl In A Reverie
 

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Thursday, June 01, 2006


After A Decade Of Being An Express Class/PTS Student

It's been 10 years!

10 years since the government experimentally implemented a compulsory examination for 9 year old students nationwide. It was called Penilaian Tahap Satu(First Grade's Assessment). Doesn't make sense to me, should be called Tahap Tiga, since we were in standard three.

Born in 1987, I was one of the many pioneer students who sat for the examinations somewhere in September 1996. The examination's purpose was to assess a student to see if he or she was fit to skip a grade and proceed to standard 5 instead of standard 4.

When all the other kids were outside playing in the playgrounds or sitting at home playing masak-masak or climbing into abandoned homes to burn dried leaves, I went for tuition to PREPARE for my Penilaian Tahap Satu examinations.

I remember I was so excited that I was finally attending tuition. Oh, I've heard so much about tuition! I finally get to go for something called tuition! I bought nice exercise books for 20 cents from my school bookshop and anticipated the ride to Bandar Sunway every Tuesday evening.

My teacher taught me IQ questions and simple essays.
The types of questions asked in the PTS MCQ examinations were such as:-

1) Spot the odd one out:

A) Banana
B) Coconut
C) Equator
D) Apple

....

Honestly,majority of the nine year olds must've not given a shit about the examinations or else that would not have been a single standard 4 student in Malaysia circa 1997.

The essays were ALWAYS about Berkelah Di Tepi Pantai(Picnicking by the beach). The difficult ones were about being Sebatang Pen(A Pen).

I was actually nervous about sitting for the examination and puked out mushrooms during my grand aunty's birthday celebrations at a restaurant two days before the examinations. I even had diarrhoea because I was so afraid to face the examinations.

The format of the paper was 50 Multiple IQ choice questions and an essay!(Berkelah Di Tepi Pantai came out! Yay!).

-

So, duh, I passed the examinations.

My class teacher called me out of computer class one day.

"Uh oh," I thought. Maybe she wanted to scold me about playing Mario Brothers on the school computer... but everybody's playing it too!

I went up to my class teacher who was leaning against the balcony.

"Pei Shan, you're the only one from the class who passed the PTS examinations."

"Huh?"

"You're going to standard 5!"

"Oh. okay. Thank you!" I was shivering with excitement. I always tremble when I am extremely happy. Don't know why...some physiological effect, perhaps. Body more receptive to cold..?

All the 33 students of SRSS19 Subang Jaya were called to the principal's office to be given a pep talk/to be congratulated. The stupid assistant principal scolded me, "Pei Shan! I said tallest stand behind!!!"

"...um, I'm the only one from my class." I mumbled.

But anyway, yeah, my parents were overjoyed, my partially deaf grandfather who was still alive back then was really supportive of me to take up the PTS offer, relatives far and wide knew... etc. (my paternal grandmother is not called Astro for nothing).

I was having second thoughts because I didn't want to leave my friends! All my classmates asked me not to leave and chided me about being action baby lotion michael jackson now that I'm skipping standard 4.

I was even supposed to go to the top class in standard 4. Oh what fun~~.

-

The first day of standard 5 was pretty awkward. Who were all these tall boys and girls?? They look so... scary and action baby lotion michael jackson. It was hell to stay back after class to attempt standard 4 work and go home to do standard 5 work.

I remember crying about having to draw the South East Asia maps. (just the shape of it lah).

I remember calling my father on the phone and crying, "I don't know WHYYY I must learn how to count the area of a leaf!! I DON'T KNOW HOW!!!!"

I remember crying to my tuition teacher, "HOW ?! TOMORROW EXAM ALREADY!! I cannot remember all the states of Malaysia's flags and their meanings!!"

I ended up getting number 2 in class and number 6(i cried.). Which is pretty silly actually, since it's such an achievement already to be better than the normal standard 5s. Some of you who are reading might know Jade Ho(who was from SMK Seafield and is still very beautiful, smart and popular. But the keyword here is smart!)... I got number 2 she got number 3. Nyahahahaha.

--

From standard 5 to form1, PTS students were treated like outcast by the normal kids. In secondary school, a class was set aside for the PTS students. The other normal kids would usually say, "Oh, right. Aiyer, PTS."

The things they used to call us were like Pencuci Tandas Sekolah. or Pityass. ;

It's like our mentality was deemed lower than theirs. For lack of better word, they hated us. Because we were childish and too smart for our own good.

Damn funny though because they loved calling PTS kids, "Small kid". My dear best friend Melody Song Faye-Lynn would not allow me to touch her Girlfriend/Bliss/Seventeen/Cleo magazines because I was a "small kid" and should not be allowed to indulge in reading material with sexual contents.

-

After form1, the PTS kids proceeded to form2 along with the other normal students and we mixed well and found our own cliques. Puberty kicked in for most of us and soon you couldn't differentiate who was a PTS and who was not.

Previously it was very obvious. The PTS kids were SMALL in size. I was one of the unfortunate extremes lah. I've been tall most of my life.

The so called childish mentality became less and less obvious due to peer influence. (and of course, growing up helped alot too!)

Soon the PTS students camouflaged with the normal students. It was always so fun to see the surprised look on my form4 classmates' faces when they found out that I was a PTS.

-

Sitting around with an addmaths book in my hands, I looked around the class. Cliques were sitted around gossiping and trying to study prior to the SPM examinations. It was the last week of form5. I saw the fat little boy now mixing with the 'cool gang' from primary school....and they are no longer little and fat and 'cool', but lean boys with low pants and spiky hair. (The standard look for any boys in the Malaysian education system with half a brain to fit in).

I looked at the people surrounding me. ALL of them were older than me by a year.

The PTS students have been distributed evenly amidst the high school crowd.

As a result, I have NO best friends from secondary school who are of the same age as me. I looked at the students who were in the year below me as my juniors and felt that they were younger than me. One of them even confided to me before that he felt I was older than him even though I'm his age, but a senior.

Sometimes I even felt that I was 14/15/16..and thought that I was 15/16/17.

But NOW? I feel that the 1986 kids in my class are like.. well, the young ones. The 1985 people are like, the normal age for my course. And of course we have the 1984 and the 1983 and the 1982 whom I feel inferior to. There is that "senior" feeling somewhat. Even though I'm the youngest one in the class, I hardly feel like I'm the youngest. The entire class seems to be the same age.

Which leads me to my conclusion: No matter how old your peers are, peer influence will occur, and the mentalities will be in tuned.

---

Sorry for babbling for so long as I get carried away sometimes when reminiscing.

I don't see why the government decided to scrap the examinations. The last batch of PTS will be 15 year old this year. After 4 years of PTS examinations, the government thought that it brought more disadvantages than advantages to those who managed to skip standard 4.

As far as I know, most of the PTS kids who managed to get through are doing really well for themselves. I'm not blowing my own horn, because I'm nothing compared to the really outstanding ones. And most of the PTS kids went on to become best students.

Alot of people think PTS kids are extremely smart. Yes, the extremely smart ones are sometimes PTS kids. But there are also average students who are PTS ie. myself. And there are crazy students who are PTS kids who had to repeat form5 because he couldn't give two fucks about his SPM examinations. (and did silly things like standing on his chair and singing metalicca songs during the SPM trials, taking a chair and threatening to hit the teacher etc)

What I'm trying to say is that getting to skip standard 4 was only tough in the first couple of years. I don't know why the government took this opportunity away from the 90's babies.

We're still here. Surviving. And it's always nice to find out that a new acquaintance is a PTS. :)

I wonder if the government ever wondered whatever happened to the ...19,000(or something like that) who got pass the examinations in 1996.

Jayelle's back and neck ached at 4:51:21 am
 

Jayelle
June 6, 2006   02:58 AM PDT
 
bren: oh yeah!! ur a pts kid too. hahaha yalah, exactly my sentiments. the older kids DID think that we were stuck up.

lilynn: LOL quite a few from Pre-Iris Tadika Ladybird came out as PTS kids huh?
we had early training, us. hahhaha
li-lynn
June 5, 2006   04:02 PM PDT
 
yayyy...my kindy and pts fren =)
Bren
June 5, 2006   03:03 PM PDT
 
The only thing I recall about PTS was that I was really annoyed that it was held on my birthday that year, lol.
Shuen and I were in the same class, but if I remember correctly, there were 28 of us that year. =) I remember the older kids used to think that we were really studious and stuck up, meh. =P
Has it really been 10 years already? Damn.
Jayelle
June 4, 2006   05:18 AM PDT
 
walau..so many of my brother's friends are pts kids!

twinbuzz: hahaha hey there!! fellow pioneer! :) yalo, time passes damn fast. it was quite an experience. but the novelty of it faded adi.. sigh. u take care too!!

e2wen~* : lol yeah... must look our age bla bla bla bullshit. :) reunion..mm..maybe more of an alumni perhaps;D too big a number for a gathering. hahaha..

py: ahhaa man, u are a pts too? see, this is why i like to meet other pts-es. nice to get these teeny surprises. :D aneka books shit easy.
dunnolah why they scraped. our government is funny like that.

fern: ahha why la u feel uncomfortable?
should be proud of urself!! ahem.:P but it's fun to be a pts. can watch the shocked expressions of the unsuspecting ones. kekekeke
fern
June 4, 2006   03:37 AM PDT
 
i was a pts student and i'm so proud of it :D

yes, when people ask me about my age i jsut say i'm 17 (as opposed to the little 16 year old i am) because i'm too lazy to explain i'm pts and feel uncomfortable if they think i'm form 4... don't ask me why @@

:D
-pY-
June 3, 2006   07:41 PM PDT
 
90's babies?? Nope. I'm a PTS, and I'm a '90 baby!

The last year was for the 91 babies. No more for 92's. =)

Yeah, I SO remember those times. Wheee~ Gosh, you bring back those good ol' times.

And I miss those IQ Aneka Pilihan books! Seriously fun! (er...really)

And yeah, I don't understand WHY they scraped that thing of. Why, dowan so many people to skip ah? Want all of them to stay lah? Meanie. LOL. =P
e2wen~*
June 3, 2006   05:04 PM PDT
 
Though I did it in a different year, but heck, we should have a PTS-ee Union~!!! Lolx.

I'm a new reader so I'm not too familiar about you, but know this, you are not alone about the height factor. People don't believe me when I tell them I'm a PTS jumper. =/

ANyway, nice post. Makes me think about my own experience. (o=
twinbuzz
June 3, 2006   12:25 PM PDT
 
Oh my..it's been 10 years ALREADY?? >.< Time sure passes by real fast. But this post sure did bring back lots of memories for me too. =D

Anyway, take care.
Jayelle
June 3, 2006   12:06 AM PDT
 
myc: ahha wow.. a blog entry in my comments:D but i guess the reason for our different experiences is because we are of different batches. for yours they have already filtered out the best of the lot ma;)

kellyk: haha thanks. got it from wikipedia.

debun: haha yalo yalo. berlambak sial. and what brag..hahahaha..no lah where got brag.

kailiN: lol NOW u know.

mel: lol yalah. damn bitch that time:D .. come back lah..i'll make you your glu condoms;D

elaine: ahhaha.. they like scare us young nine year olds didn't they:D tough la primary school. secondary school smooth sailing only;P

thecw: ahhaha..where got.. we lost touch temporarily only. thank god for the internet;D
thecw
June 2, 2006   09:48 PM PDT
 
see la u.. pass PTS d den din get to see you around d!
elaine
June 2, 2006   04:51 PM PDT
 
jolene! haha! the penolong penyelie called us out to go pricipal's office and told us, that we have been quite naughty. we were dead scared.

and yes, i cried to my parents too. the first 3 months in std 5 was hell, coz we have to finish the entire std 4 syllabus after normal school hours and homework was killer. i wanted to go back to std 4. =.=
meldee
June 2, 2006   01:15 PM PDT
 
hahahahahaha omg i was such a bitch weh. yalah used to love making fun of you about it man..haha. sorry la! but if i remember correctly it was you who introduced the concept of dried gum/condoms. how DID you know, hey? =P haha...shattered me weh. oh jo i miss those days.

i wanna go home >.< get me out of this bloody ulu kampung place.@#%#$%^
Debun
June 1, 2006   10:47 PM PDT
 
hahaha,jolene!! remember how many PTS students were there in PM9?? lolll... eh, i was being bullied when i'm in Std 5!!! and i still remember who are those ppl.. coz they're close frens now. LOL, amazing how things work out..hahaha. I was also bragging why they wanna demolish the PTS??? stupidity..haha
anyways, good luck in everything yah!!
kai lin
June 1, 2006   10:13 PM PDT
 
omg you're PTS!! I never knew...
KellyK
June 1, 2006   09:39 PM PDT
 
Heya:) Tahap satu is primary 1 till primary 3... Tahap 2 is from primary 4 to 6.. Something like a level 1 and 2 crap..hehe
MYC
June 1, 2006   07:28 PM PDT
 
OH MY, Tuition? :x

Wow, your side of story is totally different from mine. I'm from SKSJ & sat for the exam in 1999. I still remember the time they made an announcement through the PA system that there will be a PTS exam for those who got more than 3As for midyear. I was already praying to get at least 3As. HAHA. But I did get 5As.

Then there will be extra classes for those who'll be sitting for PTS and those who didn't get selected will have some free time in another class. I remember we had like 10000 of Aneka Pilihan books & we had to do a few model papers in every class.

There was this girl who sat next to me in class. She'll always get really high marks for the model papers. like, 47/50 (or was it 37/40, can't really remember.) & I'd be the average student & score average marks. But I did like solving the numbers thingy. Anywhos, I wasn't really determined to get it. So when I found out that I passed right after I came back from my vacation in Europe, I was like "OH, really." I got it, but the girl didn't. HAH.

I didn't really think about the whole leaving-behind-friends thing. I don't know why. I'm selfish la, still is. HAHA. ALL I CARE ABOUT IS MYSELF.

I remember there were only 2 classes for PTSstudentsmixedwithnormalstudents in Std.5. & we used to have extra classes. I never really bothered to go for extra classes. Super boring. I used to have tuition til 7.30, still clad in my school uniform. & I will always end up behind super sleepy. School in the morning, then stay back for extra class, then straight away to tuition for 4 hours.. Haha. Those were good times.

In Std.6 I used to get #1 all the time, probably cause I'm in an average class. not the atas classes. haha. In UPSR, I got straight As and I didn't even bother to revise the Std.4 syllabus. it shows how useless std. 4 is and thank god I didn't have to go through a whole year of learning nothing.

Anywhos, I've never experienced the whole "pityass" thing in secondary school. hell, no one bother about pts students. "Oh, pts student? okay." You know, stuff like that. Right now, I'm a form 5, and half of my class are pts students. Even the girl sitting next to me in class is a PTS student. So there really isn't any WOW factor yknow.

I agree with the whole blending in thing. I was going through gemala2005, and was in shock when i saw some exfifthformers who are pts students. i've always thought they were and "look" like 88ers & not 89ers. haha o.O
Jayelle
June 1, 2006   06:22 PM PDT
 
simon: that was back in primary school rite? if only such essays came out for SPM. sigh.

shuen: EH! i didn't know! (see this is what i meant by that 'happy feeling'.)

jean: lol yeah..in consequent years they had some filter system going.. lol feel old meh???.. :) but i thinbk come to uni level..the age varies more.

zachary: haha omg!! u still visit me! :D lol u can remember the area of the leaf ar? remember i was the most tension one in pn.kogi's class!! her classes were damn fun.;) like a mother to us, right. hahaha.. and i remember how i amazed all of you with my super memory work of some science topic back in std5. hahaha . those days are gone wei. now... blank headed and stoning everyday(internet ...sigh). how have u been???:D
Zachary
June 1, 2006   04:15 PM PDT
 
Now THAT brought back memories! I remember the area of the leaf thing! Pn Chang right? haha.. it WAS sooo intimidating. Remember our tuition with Mrs Kogi? Good times.. Good times =)
jean`
June 1, 2006   03:45 PM PDT
 
i nvr liked that sorta essays.. =P how sad they didnt have PTS during my year :( and in chinese school the students were actually selected to attend extra classes as prep for PTS.. so not many in my bro's year had a choice even if they wanted to do it..

i enjoy being the youngest of the group :P i feel so oLd with so many intl school students being in the same year as i am in uni yet a year or 2 younger ^^
shuen
June 1, 2006   11:18 AM PDT
 
hey.. i'm a fellow pts-eee too!! hahaha..
simon
June 1, 2006   10:39 AM PDT
 
my teacher always told me not to do those essays about 'saya sebatang pen'. he said it was easy, everyone did it and therefore it was hard to 'score'...
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Hi, my name is Jolene and if there is a question in your head, this answer will definitely answer it: I was wrong and irrational. I was being a woman.


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