self-doubt has never been this pervasive.
written: 6:17 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 08, 2004

1. In a particular school, Student Y will achieve either an A, a B or a C in a major examination. What is the probability of Student Y achieving an A?

Ans: P(Student Y achieving an A) = 1/(1+1+1) = 1/3.

a) All things remaining constant, calculate the probability that out of all four subjects which Student Y is supposed to take, she will achieve an A in all four of them if she will either achieve an A or not achieve an A.

Ans: Let X be the number of A's that Student Y will achieve in the major examination.

P(X=4) = 4C4.(0.3)^4(0.7)^0
= 0.0081

b) If Student Y's academic performance is governed by the law of diminishing marginal returns, and if diminishing returns set in immediately after her first paper, calculate, to three significant figures, the probability that she will not get a single A in any subject if she has ten papers in total.

Ans:

P(X=0) = 10C0.(0.3)^0.(0.7)^10
= 0.0282

c) Suppose that Student Y's self-confidence level is inversely related to the number of days she has left before the beginning of the major examination. That is to say, if she has less than three weeks to go before November 4 counting from today, her confidence level today will be higher than her confidence level ten days later. If Student Y's optimal performance in the major examinations fully depends on her confidence level, calculate the probability that Student Y will still get an A for the major examinations if her confidence level falls to zero upon the commencement of the major examination.

Ans:
Binomial distribution does not apply for this question. In fact, all rules and regulations of the various statistics chapter in the Mathematics 9233 Syllabus are redundant. The correct answer can be easily deduced by, of course logical deduction. If Student Y's performance in the major examinations depends on the degree of her self-confidence, and if her level of self-confidence falls as she inches closer to the start of the exams, logically, the probability that she will still get an A for one of her subjects is zero. This is because the conditions stated in the question explicitly says that Student Y's confidence level is zero on the first day of the major examination; hence, it will only follow that her ability to score at least an A is also zero, since the probability of her obtaining an A is directly related to her level of self-confidence. Therefore, by logical deduction, the probability that Student Y will score an A for the major examinations is zero.

2. In a preamble to the major examination, the scores of two students, Student Y and Student Z, are taken and recorded as follows:

Student Y: 60, 70, 65, 49
Student Z: 60, 65, 70, 75

a) If the rate of inflation of marks in Student Y's school is 10%, what are the real scores that Student Y obtained?

Ans: 54, 63, 58.5, 44.1

b) Assume that Students Y and Z have the same amount of resources, and that the level of intelligence between them is constant. Which student has an absolute advantage over the other in the major examination? Explain your answer and state any assumptions that you make.

Ans: Student Z. The scores of Student Z is higher than that of Student Y's, and this gives Student Z an absolute advantage in the major examination over Student Y. In addition, we can safely assume that Student Z's scores were not inflated in any way, shape or form, because it was not stated in the question.

c) Based upon the above information, who is more likely to do better in the major examination? Explain your answer.

Ans: Student Z, obviously. The figures speak for themselves.

3. The genre of Utopian literature usually revolves around a particular central paradox, one that is best summed up by William Shakespeare in one of his sonnets: "Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds/The sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds." Bearing this in mind, how far do you think a student such as Student Y adheres to this idea in her relentless quest for a perfect A Level certificate?

Ans: Perfection is a concept. To quote Allen Ginsberg, "A concept is about looking at the earth from the moon without ever getting there." Indeed, the essence of the impossibility of perfection is aptly captured by Ginsberg's words: it is something that is lofty, abstract, and not at all down-to-earth. Hence, to a large degree, Student Y's relentless quest for a perfect A Level certificate conforms to the central paradox found in Utopian literature. One may argue that her efforts are noble and long overdue; there is (seemingly) no harm in a person trying to carve out the best possible path for herself and to stretch herself to her fullest potential.

The above school of thought may be valid, but in the case of Student Y, I feel that it is a gross exaggeration and over-calculation. First of all, how are we so sure that Student Y has the potential to achieve what she wants? Second and most importantly, Student Y's aim may be a noble one, but the very act of pursuit necessitates that she will fail. Like all utopias conjured up by writers like Julian Barnes, George Orwell and Yevgeny Zamyatin (whose name is Russian and hence impossible to spell), the end result of what began as an idealistic experiment to improve society is nothing more than the manifestation of mere excesses of the over-ethusiasm of human beings that sometimes degenerate into worlds more nightmarish than the one that they initially attempted to rectify. In this light, it is also safe to logically conclude that Student Y's quest for a perfect A Level certificate will bear the same characteristics of these failed utopias: not only will her eventual A Level results reflect hugely on her excess of enthusiasm (read: lack of ability), it will also be a lot worse than the grades that she initially tried to improve upon. In simpler terms, if Student Y obtained Bs and Cs in her preliminary examinations, in the actual A Level examination, her grades will not be any higher than a C. Student Y also bears the markings of somebody who is too full of herself, such that she is blinded to her own limitations; in this respect, she adheres to the central paradox found in Utopian literature even more.

In conclusion, therefore, Student Y will not get what she wants. Instead, her eventual results will turn to nothing but shit. Pardon my French.

***

Lost concentration halfway through. I'm sure that some of the Maths things up there are wrong but whatever.

If I were a country's balance of payments accout, that country would be suffering a major deficit right now.

But let's not talk about that.

I'm going for the so-called "prom" even though it's held in school. Actually, I'm pretty glad that it's held in school, because it makes the cost of going for it cheap. Since I really, sincerely, genuinely do not give the slightest rat's ass about "prom night" and the pomp and fuss that come along with it, my new-found sentiment is, the lower the price, the better, even if it is to be held in school.

And why do I not care about prom? Because it's stupid, it's pointless, I hate half the people in my school so why would I get teary at saying goodbye to them?, it's also extremely juvenile and retarded. And let us not forget. I am in JJC. If you want to talk about 'quality guys', you're staring at the wrong school crest. Can I be remotely interested in anyone in there? Of course not. The Science stream students are... well, Science sream students, and the Arts stream guys are... well, JJC Arts stream guys. With the exception of a few people, all the guys seem so... to borrow a non-word from my History teacher, they seem so iffy. Like, ew. Nobody I would go near even if I were absolutely desperate.

Hence and in spite of that, Mel is my date by default. She's a major reason for my decision to go. Another reason for my decision to go is really stupid and embarrassing and so I shan't reveal it.

Honestly, the word 'prom' really prompts me to burst into jubilant, ubridled laughter. How absolutely banal. Everyone is like, "Oh, the prom is such a once-in-a-lifetime thing! We won't get another chance to dress up nicely and dine in nice hotels!"

My reply: Fuck off and die. Who the fuck remotely cares about dressing up? Been there, done that, and it was wholly unnecessary. I spent about 80 bucks on my Sec. 4 graduation dinner alone and I don't think it was worth it. The dress I bought was S$189, my shoes like, S$50 or so, and my parents had to pay too and it was about S$80 each. What the hell is the point? I'd rather have it in school and spend twenty bucks on a stupid event that I would forget as soon as it's over.

What is so great about a prom? And please, we are talking about JJC here. How glamourous can JJC students possibly become? To hold it in a hotel and to pay a bomb for it just to see people looking awkward in their failed attempts at dressing up and looking "nice" is too high a price to pay. I get the same amount of entertainment by paying twenty bucks.

So yeah. I'm glad that it's held in school because I really don't give a shit. Mel and I intend to split after getting our certs and all anyway. We'd probably stick around long enough for us to laugh our asses off at the elaborate decoration and the appearances of our fellow schoolmates, and that would be about it.

Heard various schoolmates (read: the guy who complained about Tubby's alleged favouritism, whom I commented on yesterday) bitching about the supposedly "cheapskate" twenty dollars that we're requested to pay for prom, and how other schools like RJC and ACJC are making their students pay like 60 bucks and 80 bucks in their hotel proms.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

To reiterate my previous point: WHAT THE FUCK IS THE BIG FUCKING DEAL? IT'S JUST A STUPID FUCKING PROM THAT MAKES NO FUCKING DIFFERENCE SO GET THE FUCK OVER IT AND STOP PLACING AN UNNECESSARY MONETARY VALUE ON THIS STUPID THING.

Honestly, I'm just like, Stop whining lah wah lau. I don't really have anything against the guy but I find it really intriguing that he spends about 1/10 of his blog entries bitching about the "cheena-ness" of the students in JJC. I mean, yeah, I agree with him; they're too cheena for their own good, such that their command of English is practically non-existent and their Chinese is Singaporean Chinese, a.k.a Shit Chinese, and so, tough shit for them. But what really gets me is how he can combine grammatical and punctuation errors in his sentences with simultaneous bitchings about the poor English of the students in the school.

I mean, I'm aware that I have my own share of linguistic errors as well, but seriously, half of my errors are due to a lack of proof-reading. I type fast and I think even faster. Sometimes I leave out words when typing out a thought that has been floating around in my mind for a few seconds too long and since I don't bother to proof-read or to spell check, such errors go unnoticed by me until I read my entries over, like, ten years later. And obviously, since I'm only 18 and hence inexperienced, my English isn't perfect as well.

But a few facts remain: My English is good; my English is better than his; and I got an A1 for GP while no one else did. (Haha, you totally saw that coming didn't you?) Hence, I still have the prerogative to criticise other people's English because I have proven that I know what I'm talking about.

Uh, so what was my point again? You see, this is the problem I have with writing essays, especially Lit essays about which I'm passionate. I tend to go off on tangents, although not to such a grotesque degree, and sometimes it takes me two redundant paragraphs to get myself back on track. Happens a lot for Paper 8. It sucks, really. What a stumbling block and I hate the phrase 'stumbling block'. So why did I use it? Because my brains are dead and I can't think of anything else.

So yeah, I'm going for graduation and I'm thinking of wearing a nice black halter dress with a skirt that falls around my knees. Yay. I don't know though. We'd have to see. I'm not going to bother too much about my appearance...

Then again, I think I will, considering my other main reason for going. Mel would know this but it doesn't really matter if anyone else does.

But still, I'm not going to spend a bomb on this shit like I did in Sec 4. It was utterly stupid. I don't think it was worth it and I don't think it will be worth it.

Oh how nice; just remembered that I have to do Maths tonight. Joy. Took me ages to get through like three Econs sub-topics for MCQ and true to what my previous Econs tutor predicted, I totally do not understand the speculative demand for money and the prices of bonds and the effects on interest rates or whatever at all. Have to dig out the handout she gave us then. I think it's a lot more comprehensive and comprehensible than the pathetic three paragraphs that make no sense in the lecture notes.

This explains why I only got a 6/10 for question 5 part A of my prelim essay. "Explain what causes a rise in interest rates." Did okay for transactionary and precautionary demands for money; when it came to speculative, my teacher finally had the chance to scribble things like "why" and "how" and to underlines phrases and to put crosses on my script. Prior to that it was a nice wave of ticks which promptly stopped when I got to the speculative bit. I also spent quite a long time during the actual thing itself thinking of what to write, trying to reason it out, but I still got it wrong. And the most shitty bit? It was my third time doing that question. The first time was a practice test thing that I did on my own will and the second a test she imposed on us because everyone was and is so bad at Paper 3. The fact that I did not manage to fully understand what the hell the speculative demand for money is on about should have alerted me to the imperative need to study for it but nope, I didn't.

In fact, I didn't do much studying for Econs prior to the Paper 3 exam. All I did was to read through my balance of payments and foreign exchange notes, as well as half-heartedly thumbed through stuff on international trade, monetary policy, fiscal policy and economic growth. Oh, and market structure as well, which still hasn't gone into my head after so many weeks. Hence, most of the stuff that I wrote was based on memory and, yes, rather in-depth understanding of the topics which, incidentally, I really like. I'm only proud of my 5b, for which I had a 12/15. Mr Girl got an 8/10 for the first part. If I had got an 8, I would've had another 20/25.

Oh well. What does it matter. But honestly, I'm really really scared that Cambridge would set some nonsense question on some country which I've never heard of and hence I wouldn't be able to display real application skills. I mean, if they set something that goes like, "In 1995, the UK suffered a balance of payments deficit. Give possible reasons for a BOP deficit.", I would totally die.

Of course, it wouldn't be so straight-forward and simple (I think) but you get the gist, right?

So the point is, I know nothing about the UK's economy. Like, at all. And the fact is that people in Hwa Chong and Raffles and National will know stuff about it and hence they'd have that advantage over me and hence I'd only get a B for my essays.

Argh. Bullshit. I'm gonna die. What if I can't remember things on market structure? I've forgotten how to do market structure essays; the last time I did any was for the promos last year. And I only got a 15, I think. Or was it a 17? Well, one of them essays was on production and costs and the other market structure so it's an either or thing.

As for the blasted case study, I'd get an A for sure (ceteris paribus) if it were on international trade. But the probability of that happening is like, 1/20 or something to that effect. So yeah. I had no idea what the prelim case study was on about and I wasn't remotely interested in the issue of productivity, so it was a mere 17/30. (I'm pretty shocked that I got an 8/10 for the first part, considering I hazed my way through and really didn't know what I was off about save for when I was doing the balance of payments portion. But yeah, got a 3 for the next and a 6 for the last.)

And why am I talking about the Econs prelim which is already over?

I think I should shut up now and go take a shower so that I can start torturing myself with Maths. And speaking of Maths. I hate it. The only affinity I have with it is the whole Binomial distribution thing. Even so, it's not like I can do every single binomial distribution question correctly, as half the time I'm too lazy to read the whole damn question which can be half a bloody page long, let alone digest fully what the hell it wants. So, yeah, I'm screwed. Really screwed. Hence, I should shut up and take a shower. Like now.

Another thing I like about Maths is that differentiation is the easiest thing in the world. Despite that, I still manage to do stupid things like forgetting to differentiate a constant for one of the equations and hence getting the stuid dy/dx wrong. It's so bloody braindead. I mean, everyone knows that when you differentiate 13-x you get -1. But no. When I differentiated 13-x during the stupid exam, I got 13-1. (The actual question is more complicated than that, involving x to the power of minus 2 and all, but let's simplify matters for the sake of my sanity, yeah?) What the fuck gives man? I told you. Habits carried over from childhood. If I bothered to calculate the amount of marks I lost over stupid errors like that, I think I would total to like, ten marks or so, which will definitely give me a pass in the stupid, piece of shit subject.

Okay, this entry is ridiculously long. I think I can get a C at least for the Maths A Level, assuming that what I'm trying to do now will be enough. If I'm lucky, I'd get a B. If the paper is shit-easy, I'd get an A.

Knowing my luck and my level of mathematical understanding though, I'd end up getting a C.

I'm just really afraid of failing the A Levels, ie. not get the 4A's that I want. Honestly, it's impossible for me to get F's. No matter how much I didn't study and other lovely things along those lines, it's impossible to get F's or even O's (Maths is exempt, of course), and for some, even D's and E's. So I really should embark upon my journey of nerdification to ensure that I, uh, I don't know, do whatever's necessary for me to, yeah, get what I want.

Ah, fuck it. Brains have already shut down. It's 8.28 and this entry started at 6.17. What a waste of time. I think I'm going to do more Econs tomorrow. Have to do two History essays. Should I write them out or type them out? Typing will take longer 'cause I'd probably end up surfing the net simultaneously, but writing will take even longer 'cause I'd put down my pen after one sentence and look at other stuff.

I guess I'm typing then. Gives me the leeway to go on and on and on. My teacher gave me a really challenging question, ie. one that makes no sense, for European nationalism. Fun. Can't wait to do it, and I'm serious.

I'm thinking that it would be interesting to do S paper for History as the questions sound really intriguing and more gratifying than the usual A Level questions of "Was the Japanese Occupation a turning point in the development of Southeast Asian nationalism?", but of course, it's too late for that now. Oh well.

Okay. It's 8.33. It's way too late. I haven't planned my revision timetable and I wanted to do it like, last week. Shit. I'll do it tomorrow.

Funny. That was what I said to myself yesterday, as well as what I said to myself the day before. Hmm. Interesting. Not. Whatever.

Is it possible for me to just do international trade in the university? I really like it. It's one of the best things since my birth. But if Economics in the tertiary level of education is mangled by pedantic mathematical nonsense that I would totally die whilst doing, then I think I'd just go for Lit.

But what's the point of doing Lit in NUS? You're just going to end up teaching and that's the last thing I'd do. In fact, I'd rather choke on my own vomit and die than to become a teacher.

FUCK IT'S 8.37. I'm shutting up now. Once and for all.

I bought two sets of Jay Chou stickers today out of a strange urge to be grossly self-indulgent. Haha. I'm such a teenybopper.

Right. Self, please shut up. If you don't, you're not going to pass your Maths, let alone get an A. Shut up NOW you doofus. I don't really want to re-visit the O Levels, if you know what I mean.

The Jay Chou stickers are funny though. I love Jielun.

Yeah okay this it is.

before sunrise // before sunset

Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010