second chances

I shall type this whilst i'm still grumbling about it all.

My dearest brother just came up to me and said "eh this question how to do ah, totlaly don't know how to write". then he went to bathe.

I stared at the piece of foolscap paper he had just placed on my desk, and on the very first line was the question:

"Technology increasingly brings out the worst in people." Discuss.

And so i thought to myself. Hmmm GP question. My GP techniques were rusty, so it took me to come up with the initial points which didn't seem to make any sense. But in the 5 minutes that he was showering, the rusty old GP cogs in my head started tinkering away by themselves. And just a minute before he came out of the toilet did i realise what i was supposed to do - apply the techniques my dear GP teacher had taught me in school. With those techniques, which i had practised at numerous times before my own A levels, the question's difficulty level seemed to drop to an all new low. So i wondered, did his GP teacher teach him these techniques?

When he came out, the first question i asked was, "Did your teacher teach you the techniques in analysing the question?" And he replied a confident yes. So i questioned him on the techniques and he answered them well, telling me that "technology", "increasingly", as well as "worst in people" were the key words required to answer this question. Full marks if this was all GP was about. But unfortunately, he couldn't tell me anything further than that. he told me "i can't link the terms together"/"i don't have the examples".

That was when i got really mad.

"You have to THINK!" i told him after i explained the flow of thoughts that came from the techniques. And all he could do was say "ok" and walk away sheepishly, with all my examples and reasonings.

And then i felt like i couldn't stand not giving it an afterthought. I can't be there telling him what to write during his exams. And GP is an important subject after all. If you fail GP, that's the end of the road in JC for you, because it would mean you failed your entire A-levels. It seems ironical that people can get straight As for every other subject, but yet fail GP. But it has been done before. And what an awful waste of time and effort it would be to fail GP.

So i stood up, walked to the doorway of his room, and said "eh if you're going to do this for gp then you better go and get gp tuition. if u fail gp like some people den u're not going to be able to go to uni. its uni ok, no second chances"

I admit that i then behaved like my mum. But i believe that at this time of the year when his prelims are so near, that it was apt.

True, there will be chances for us. But the second chance will no longer be as pure as the first. It would be as if it has already been tainted. True second chances don't really exist, especially on matters as grave as your studies and in such a cold and meritocratic society as in Singapore. People are more likely to give second chances, but institutions don't dole out second chances you know. That's why they're called institutions for a reason because there are systems to follow.

And these second chances will hurt.

alright. said my fill. time to bathe.