TAWAU: SM St Patrick scored its best result ever in the SPM examination and improved its School Grade Average (GPS) to 3.76 compared with 3.94 in 2009 placing the school among the top five in the state for the second time.
Principal Tung Yow Choi said the achievement was unexpected and attributed it to the school maximising the time of learning and reducing distractions from other activities.
He said the number of achievers of straight As had also imcreased tremendously, from two in 2009 to 10 last year.
The straight As students are Leslie Chong Ming Kiet, Choo Yuek En, Voo Tze Vun, Pang Fei San, Hong Shing Huey, Jagatheesh Subramaniam, Narendran Jagathesan, Joey Teoh, Ruevan Jude and Shia Jun San. All scored 10 As.
Tung said the pass rate dropped from 99 per cent in 2009 to 96.98 per cent last year due to an overall weaker performance in Bahasa Malaysia.
Meanwhile, St Patrick’s top student Leslie Chong Ming Kiet did not expect to score all As.
Ming Kiet said he had no fixed time for study apart from attending tuition and putting all the effort three months before the examination.
“Three months before the exam, I put in eight to nine hours of revision,” he said of his success recipe.
He said he paid attention during lessons and this was another reason for his good result.
“Most important is to pay attention during lessons and to relax, I played basketball,” he said.
On his future, Ming Kiet said he would pursue for further study in a local university in Peninsular Malaysia.