Exams and Self Examination

It wasn’t too long ago that 150 medical students graduated with Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) from University Malaya by feigning surprise in their practical examinations...



Exams and the futility of it all.

Allow me to let you all in on an open secret: examinations are a farce in Malaysia.

From pre-university to undergraduate to postgraduate, Malaysian examinations are a mockery of knowledge and academic pursuit.

The questions for my STPM Biology paper were partially leaked just a week before I sat for the examination. The similarity between the questions I practiced on and the ones in the real examination was beyond the logical explanation of logic and coincidence. So you see, I may not deserve the ‘A’ I scored after all. In fact, many who passed Biology in the STPM examination of that year could do so merely because of leaked official national secrets.

It is not something unique. It has been going on for years and probably will forevermore until the Lord Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead.

It is not limited to the STPM either. The privileged and brilliant students studying in their exclusive full hostel schools (sekolah asrama penuh) have been enjoying immeasurable assistance in exams for generations. When we the non-privileged folks needed some clues as to what might be forthcoming in the Fifth Form examinations, we would seek out our privileged friends in these elite institutions. The trial examinations in the Maktab Rendah Sains MARA (MRSM) colleges are usually uncannily similar to the real thing.

For this very reason, I am personally not impressed by the 100% excellence passes obtained by the all-Malay MRSM colleges and full hostel institutions. It is but a grand charade produced and directed by a political party saddled with inferiority complex but is also narcissistic and kiasu.

The practice of ‘assisted examinations’ extends all the way to tertiary educations.

It wasn’t too long ago that 150 medical students graduated with Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) from University Malaya by feigning surprise in their practical examinations. The MBBS finals were approaching faster than we could prepare ourselves for. We had two weeks to revise what we had learnt in five years. There were theory papers, clinical assessments and practical skills examination.

The relatively high passing rates of previous years were no consolation. When one is faced with a daunting task ahead, no hopeful hindsight is helpful.

It was Sunday, a day before the examinations were due to begin in the week ahead. There was a sudden mad stampede of medical students to the general clinic. Seemingly, we were to be tested on the techniques of using asthma inhalers and obtaining consent for a major surgery. The rumors surfaced after a prayer session in the college surau.

It was to be kept a secret – restricted to within a certain community. Our Muslim colleagues were of course not as selfish and racist as their lecturers who leaked the questions. We ended up discussing about asthma inhalers and pap smears and the important points in breaking bad news and obtaining consent for clinical procedures. It was a demonstration of racial unity and interfaith goodwill, albeit in an exercise of deceit and fraud.

On the day of the examination, we laughed to ourselves quietly within but feigned surprise and astonishment when faced before the examiners. The external examiners from Hong Kong and United Kingdom must have been so impressed with our apparent familiarity and smooth handling of an asthma metered dose inhaler. We handled most questions that were thrown at us coolly and calmly, an evidence that we were well-trained and diligent by nature.

We knew better, of course.

There is a third party in the midst of our stageshow. Along with the 160 of us then medical students were eight medical students from unrecognized universities. They too were sitting for the final MBBS examinations with us but without the aid and help that we received. They failed miserably, needless to say – all eight of them. Frankly speaking, there little possibility they could have passed the examination on sheer hard work alone.

So you see, perhaps I am not in a position to write about meritocracy and injustice. After all, I was an unintended beneficiary of the university’s biased lecturers.

In my previous articles on the sham academic program termed Skim Latihan Akademik Bumiputera (SLAB), an infuriated UM academic who christened himself Tengku Cougar remarked that the SLAB candidates have achieved impressive passing rates in their final postgraduate examinations. Such arguments are essentially witless, to say the least. If questions were leaked and candidates were given a leg-up, passing rates are then meaningless and of no relevance.

Now before anyone accuses me of degrading local graduates, allow me to clarify that whatever I wrote today and revealed in this article is based on my brief Malaysian experience.

This article is focused solely on the isolated topic of examinations and not on the final products of local universities, most of whom are comparable to foreign institutions regardless of ethnicity.