Section A: Reading Comprehension (30%)
Although more and more women are rising to higher positions, there are still many deep-rooted prejudices and double standards that keep them from achieving the very top positions. Companies may say that they value interpersonal skills, but they still look for a leader who is decisive and a risk taker. These qualities are perceived as being mainly masculine, and a new study has shown that women may be penalised for having the same attributes. Although women have proved that they are capable of leading a company, it seems that they will not get the chance to do so unless their superiors are prepared to enter the twenty-first century.
For a growing number of environmentalists, the humble plastic bag has become public enemy number one—an unnecessary evil that must be stopped. The only people who have a good word to say about plastic bags are the owners of the plastic-bag industry. They claim that plastic bags are nowhere near the world's worst environmental problem. They say that the reason they are under attack is because they are an easy and emotive target that reflects the individuals' guilt about general environmental responsibility. So who is right?
The piranha is a much-maligned fish. Most people think that this is a deadly creature that crowds the rivers and creeks of the Amazon rainforest looking for victims to tear apart... The truth is that the piranha is really a much more misconstrued animal than the mindless killer portrayed in the media. In fact, piranhas are a group made up of roughly twelve different species... Each piranha species plays a unique role in the ecology... So what would you do the next time you hear someone talking about the "deadly piranha"? You can remind them that the piranha is not always the notorious killer that the popular nature television shows would have us believe.
Have you ever wondered how people's personalities and behaviours are formed? Two distinct schools of thought on the matter have developed and they differ in their approaches. The dispute is often referred to as nature and nurture. Supporters of nature believe that our personalities and behaviour patterns are largely determined by biological and genetic factors... Advocates of the nurture theory claim that our environment is more important... Neither of these theories can yet fully explain human behaviour.
Both Sam's parents worked in towns far from home... Sam found direction from these sources: the explicit rules laid down by the school resident matron and the implicit rules that governed his relationships with his peers. He was further guided by the strong value system inculcated over the years when the family spent time together at home. Sam was thus in a position to make the right decisions most of the time... His sources of direction were sufficiently strong to create a safe path through his teenage years.
Childhood Memories
What are the special memories of your childhood? Joanne's routine reminds me that nostalgia (line 2) can do a lot to help you unwind. If you ask our daughters what they remember, their first answer would be "freshly-popped popcorn". The fragrance of popping corn would permeate (line 4) the house, as Jack would regularly make huge bowls of it. This was before the days of automatic poppers or microwave popcorn. Jack just poured the corn into a big frying pan on the stove and shook it vigorously (line 6). The smell was even better than what you would find in movie theatres, and the house was filled with wonderful aroma.
When I think of the smells that made my childhood special, I remember running home for lunch rather than eating in the school cafeteria because we lived only two blocks away. The winter days in Michigan were cold and blustery (line 10), and I could still feel the crunch of the snow under my galoshes as I hurried home, often with the cold biting my face (line 11) and my 'babushka' getting all snowy as I made my way through the drifts (line 12).
I would run up the steps into our house, and as I came through the door, I would smell that wonderful homemade tomato soup, which Mom had canned the summer before. Her sauce was so thick that it would be equivalent to what people call the salsa today. Mom always made a lot of it. Canning it in old glass jars and then stringing them in the root cellar (line 16). The sauce was her special blend, and along with onions, peppers and tomatoes, of course. It made her soup unforgettable (line 18). How I would love to come in and out of the biting cold wind into that warm house and stand over the floor register (lines 18-19), feeling the heat flow up around me. And then I would sit down to a bowl of steaming hot tomato soup (line 20). What a delight! It was worth the freezing hike home just to smell that delicious soup.
The Maid Phenomenon
It was a strange scenario: three people walked in together. They kept circling the buffet table, pointing to this and that and then the ones who appeared to be the mother and son, seated themselves at a table and waited. Much to the amazement of everyone present in the Premier Lounge at KLIA, the third person, a young Indonesian girl, began to serve the pair. Back and forth she went, carrying plates of their 'chosen' food to the two persons who seemed perfectly capable of serving themselves but chose not to.
There were many in the lounge who found it hard to mask their shock and disgust at what they were witnessing. The only ones who did not bat an eyelid were the Malaysians so accustomed to this culture of maids attending to their employers hand and foot. However, it was embarrassing all the same.
Poverty in neighbouring countries, coupled with a booming economy in Malaysia, has given rise to a strange phenomenon of entitlement amongst Malaysians. It has suddenly become unthinkable, almost disgraceful to be seen attending to menial household chores. The maid is the status symbol to announce that some things are beneath our dignity to attend to! Serious repercussions have begun to manifest themselves in our society as a result of this 'phenomenon'.
With the arrival of the maid, a hierarchy of power is immediately established. Children learn fast that these girls, usually sheltered, inexperienced and ready to please, are easy to manipulate to ensure that their every whim and fancy is attended to. More often than not, this is actually endorsed by the parents themselves.
How does this play out? Toys never have to be picked up and put away by children. I remember clearly the image of my sister's living room with toys, cushions and books strewn all over by my little nephews and nieces. When I asked them to clean up before we called it a night, one of my nephews very reassuringly said, "Don't worry, Aunty. When we are fast asleep, kakak will put everything neatly away." Is it any wonder that at twenty-two years of age, this same nephew of mine still has no clue as to how to keep his room tidy?
On a school trip to Japan, my daughter told me about how bags that were obviously packed for the students by their maids, had to be repacked at the end of the trip by the teachers because the children had no idea how to do it themselves. And these were fifteen-year-olds!
A Singaporean friend witnessed a most amazingly funny scene where a sturdy young man reporting for National Service duty walked energetically towards the office. Behind him however, lo and behold, was the maid, barely able to lug his overloaded knapsack! Our neighbours across the Causeway too seem to be suffering a similar fate of pampered children!
Is it really necessary to make our children's lives so 'comfortable'? We send them into society totally unable to fend for themselves even in the most basic circumstances. Recently, there was an 'uproar' in a Los Angeles campus about comments made by an American sophomore about Asian parents actually coming to the campus on weekends to cook, clean and do laundry for their college-going kids. Their presence, she claimed, changed the whole atmosphere of what was designed to be 'student' living quarters. It would be interesting to hear the answer to her question: "Don't Asian parents teach their children how to do anything for themselves?"
Malaysians seem to have been struck by this insidious social disease where live-in maids do every conceivable chores for their children—so much so they fail to grow up equipped to do the most basic things for themselves. I cannot help but wonder if the recent difficulty in procuring maids might be that 'silver lining' to halt this long-glossed over insidious trend of over-pampering our children. Hopefully, it will allow us once again to equip them with the basic skills that allow them to grow into responsible adults who will be a credit to society.