STPM NINE OUT OF TEN ANSWERED IN ENGLISH

 KUALA LUMPUR: Nine out of 10 candidates candidates who sat for the Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia (STPM) examination last year opted to answer the Science and Mathematics papers in English.

“Candidates don’t take risks in examinations. If they had not been comfortable, they would not have answered in English,” said Malaysian Examinations Council (MEC) chairman Tan Sri Prof Dzulkifli Abdul Razak said when announcing the STPM 2008 results here.

“Urban candidates performed better than their rural counterparts, with 10.39% obtaining three to five As compared with 6.77% in rural areas,” he said.

But, he added that for the first time, candidates in the science stream from rural areas did better than those in the urban areas.

“About 14.18% of rural candidates obtained three to five As compared with about 12.99% of those in urban areas.”