Today was a particularly exciting day for us here at ACJC with our seniors receiving their long awaited A-level results. Throngs of our seniors came by in their casual wear, but despite their deceptively casual appearance, all could see the anxiety and worry etched on most of their faces. A worry shared, in small part, by the J2s that were also receiving their Mother Tongue results.
I could feel the tension filling the hall as all eyes and ears focused on our principal Mrs Kelvyna Chan, when she spoke about the schools’ achievements in the examinations. Due to the hard work and determination of our J3 batch, ACJC has once again done exceedingly well – a relief for all students and teachers. Especially noteworthy are the two students that have scored 8As in their subjects – Ellie Choi (2SC6) and Dawn Chen (2AA2) topping the science and arts combinations respectively, with Ellie taking the title of Top ACJC Student. There were 190 students that received 3As and above, with the majority of them receiving 5 to 7 distinctions. As the names of these high achieving students were called out one by one, the crowd in the hall slowly thinned out as many of them made their way onto an already packed stage.
Tension filled the air like a haze. One could almost hear the laughter and crying that would soon fill the area around the ACJC hall. In the void deck my seniors sat smiling, but I could see the unease etched on their faces, as if it was carved into their skin, making the muscles freeze up.
My own heart skipped a beat as I lifted my head to look at the clock. Soon their destiny would be revealed, and I would get a chance to document it, and to feel the excitement through them.
When the results were released, I scurried after my maniAC mentor in search of unsuspecting seniors to interview.
I saw tear-stained faces, strained faces, smiling faces, laughing faces. Not a single face was without expression.
Yesterday I got asked if a particular song played in my head during the momentous occasion we call the release of the A level results. Even for someone who listens to music all the time, to tell the truth, nothing did. In moments like these real life tends to crowd out any imaginary soundtrack. But if there is a song that sums up the ‘moral of the story’, if you will, for me, it’s this one.
I know a lot of people who were surprised beyond their wildest expectations yesterday, who were blown off their feet with shock, the good kind and the bad kind, and I know plenty of others who were underwhelmed.
I don’t know if you got what you wanted, and I hope our juniors don’t look at the A level results as the be all and end all of the 2 years you’ll spend in class, because they are not. What it is about the discussions /debates /arguments that send your blood pumping a bit faster: it’s the way you’ll never read the newspapers with the same glazed expression as a history student or ignore the heavy bits to avoid being bogged down in political jargon, and it’s that eureka moment when you’ve finally figured it out – that ever elusive concept or theory and why it matters. The A-Level results are not all about a string of letters that serve as a means to an end.
In the wise words of Mr Jagger below, you can’t always get what you want.
But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.
I was there at the back of LT1 when I heard ‘The top ACJC student and top Science student is Choi Ci-En Ellie of 2SC6’, followed by a roar of applause. Ellie has scored distinctions in H3 Biology, H2 Biology, Chemistry and Mathematics, H1 Geography, GP and Project Work. Immediately I remembered seeing her around AC, and remembered that she was from the same secondary school as me. Somehow I felt a sense of pride swell for this fellow MGSian
ManiAC managed to catch Ellie for an interview in the Hub, enclosed from the all the buzz and flurry of the action outside. Ellie came to us good-spirited; when she started to speak, her words came in a torrent, and her speech was often coupled with her rather animated facial expressions. Talking to us, Ellie gave the impression of being someone full of zeal, passion and energy, one who is determined while humble and really friendly at the same time. Having the opportunity to interview her, we decided to get to know the person behind the fantastic grades, and of course, attempt to unearth how she managed to get those grades.
When first tasked with interviewing the top arts student, I did not expect someone quite as chatty as Dawn. Her initial reaction upon receiving her results was shock, sheer shock, since she wasn’t exactly expecting 8As. As a matter of fact, she expected mostly Bs and Cs and maybe 2As at most. She even told her mother to be prepared for the worst, and her mother’s heartwarming response was “Don’t worry, even if you fail everything, we’ll work something out.” Her mother who initially expected her to fail couldn’t believe Dawn’s amazing results.
Beetsma Diana was the Top N Level student in 2007. Waiting for her to appear, we couldn’t recognize her when she did. (We found out later that she is of Malay, Chinese and Dutch descent.)
Beetsma obtained 4 Distinctions in her A Level Examinations, and she felt rather numbed with feeling as she had spent the whole week feeling nervous about it. She was from the class of 2AA3, where she took H2 Econs, Geog and Malay Lit and H1 Math, and she was very much involved in her CCA, the Malay Cultural Society. Talking to her was like talking to any AC friend around. As part of a casual interview, we decided on getting to know about how she felt and her aspirations for her future.
I had the chance to conduct an interview with Jingyi, someone who has displayed great determination and willpower in the face of adversity. Visually impaired because of Stargadt’s disease, Jingyi has to use a glass hemisphere to read any text with a font size of less than 16. In class, she was unable to see what was on whiteboards or screens, and depended mainly on listening intently. In spite of this, she received distinctions for Project Work and Mother Tongue in 2007. In 2008, she got Bs for Maths and H1 Economics, but chose to take her A Levels again last year in her pursuit of even better grades. She was also CIP rep for her class and an active member of the Interact Club, and remains a regular volunteer at the Methodist Children and Youth Centre.
Today, we interviewed Bernadette and Anne, our dear maniAC seniors who look almost identical but have very different academic inclinations. Bernadette was in AH, the arts class with all the scholars, and her cheery disposition has served her well in her duties as a Student Councillor. Anne, meanwhile, is a true-blue SCone, her steely character reflected in her illustrious portfolio as a debater. We talk to the pair, who both received their results from Mrs Chan herself, and find out exactly how different they really are.
Yee Hui on Honours Night 2009, lurking behind a certificate
We caught our senior smiling along the hall walkway and decided to corner her before anyone else got to her and took her away. From her responses we initially inferred her results were lacklustre, but this interviewer caught a glimpse of her results slip and saw the immense number of As on it. From that, we knew this was not a senior to be trifled with…well, not academically, at least.
Thanks to the Photographic Soc for a particularly evocative photo.
By a really big stroke of luck, we bumped into the representative of 2009’s cohort – the Council president, Peter Wang. ManiAC had the privilege of asking this president-cum-rugby-president a few questions about his time in the college and his expectations for the future.
M: Which subject’s results did you dread the most?
P: I’d say chemistry? Yeah H2 chemistry was the worst.
It was the big day for the many people who reported to the ACJC auditorium at 2 pm.The atmosphere was tense with everyone there anticipating, arguably, the results of one of the most important exams in their many years of education. The class of 2009 graduated with a new benchmark for us juniors to beat. The high flyers went up to the stage to receive their spectacular results from our principal, Mrs Chan. Of the 190 people who went up to the stage, we got to interview Hairul Hakkim from 2SB1, class of 2009, who was amongst the top scorers with 6 distinctions including a merit for his H3 subject.
For this A-Level Results 2010 maniAC special, I’ve chosen to interview Tan Zhi Hao, from 2SB3. With an unexpected 4As and a stage position, Zhi Hao was all smiles when I met him for the interview. Always hoping but never really expecting to get these amazing results, his first reaction when he was called to go on stage was literally “AHHHH!!!!”.
ZhiHao, Rach
His A-Level journey can be pretty much summed up in the next few lines. While studying, guilty pleasures included “Facebook and Soccer…[he] pretty much Facebooked the moment he got home until [he] fell asleep”. Indulgences aside, when the going got tough, here’s what kept him going:
Many of my friends have just received their A level results or their A level Mother Tongue results today and despite the fact that the school had done very well in both aspects there will always be people who aren’t all that satisfied with the results they have received. As a friend, I really want to know if they are alright especially after receiving such important news, but i don’t want to come across as insensitive if they haven’t done as well as they had expected to. As it is, i never ask my friends how they fared, i always ask them if they are okay. But I feel that this is sometimes interpreted as prying for their results.
For someone who’s going to receive her GSC (General Studies in Chinese, a.k.a. Chinese GP) results tomorrow, I sure am a cool cucumber. So far I haven’t experienced any of those typical day-before-results symptoms: nightmares of failing that jolt you awake in the middle of the night, sweaty palms, racing pulse…you name it, I probably don’t have it. It seems to be a complete turnabout from the time I was waiting to receive my O level results. The memories of those sleepless nights still haunt me.
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