Graduation Day

Published in the Guardian

 

These senior high school students in Medan, North Sumatra, completed their national exams on Thursday.

Compared to previous years, they had something extra to celebrate: they actually took the ujian monyet.

Students in 11 provinces were unable to sit the exams, set by the Ministry of Education and Culture, because the papers hadn't been delivered.

Police are investigating whether "the delays were only due to technical error or possible criminal acts.”

Junior high school students start their national exams on Monday.

What's Wrong With This?

I'm not referring to the mix of English and Indonesian, but there's a marketing ploy in this package which justifies its inclusion in the Boggles category.

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And this?

Regular readers of Jakartass will be aware that I take great care with sentence structure and punctuation. None of us are perfect, so if I spot an error in a post, however old it is, I correct it.

It was with some trepidation, therefore, that I did the sample grammar and punctuation test in today's Guardian. Thankfully, I got 14 out of 14 correct. Apparently, year 6 pupils in the UK will be taking something similar in June as they sit their 11+ exams, or whatever they're called now.

This past week I've been helping Year 9s with 'simulasi' (practice) English tests as they prepare to take their ujian monyet  exams which they have to pass if they are to graduate and enter senior high school. There are practice books available from book stores, but this illustration is from an official simulasi provided by the Jakarta Education department last year.

(Of the 50 questions students are expected to answer, just 17 were in 'good English, and three of them were so simple that they could have been answered by anyone who's never had an English lesson.)

"What does the caution mean?"

It obviously means that those charged with raising academic standards are incompetent.