5915 persons who took the PSE got their results on Tuesday and today the Ministry of Education released the figures to the public. Finishing in first place was Tina Shen of Belize Elementary School, who got 379 out of 400 possible points or 95%. Second was Mischa-von-Derek Aikman of Grace Primary who got 372 out of 400 points or 93%, while third was Donovan Holder of Hummingbird Elementary, who earned 371 out of 400 points, or 92.75%.
Of the 11 candidates with the ten top scores, 5 are from private schools, and 6 are from church managed schools. And while all 10 of them are worth a story, we spoke to the top three and the young lady with the 7th highest score, Alexandria Hertular, who topped English and mathematics.
Tina Shen: I feel excited. I am feeling happy because I worked hard for this.
KS: When you say you worked hard what do you mean?
Tina Shen: Before I took the exam I reviewed over everything that the teachers taught us and I succeeded.
KS: How was the exam for you? Was it easy or hard?
Tina Shen: It was alright and the math was easy.
KS: How does it feel to have placed second?
Mischa-von-Derek Aikman: Well I feel honored to get this position but at the same time humble because there are a lot of other bright students from around Belize and it could have easily been them standing here today but it was just a stroke of good fortune that I am the one standing here and so I would to congratulate all of them as well, especially Tina for coming in first.
KS: But you also worked hard right? What was the preparation like?
Mischa-von-Derek Aikman: Well I started studying from September as I entered school and I consistently studied and prayed consistently as well. And I was always an advocate of the philosophy of my current teacher Ms. Azueta and my former principal Ms. Edwards and that was to never prepared just for an exam but to always have a well rounded education so when you get to high school you can still excel in your academic performance. I think the school did a good job of doing that by incorporating music, dance, sports, religion, and all of that so when we get to high school you still can succeed.
Donovan Holder: I worked hard for it.
KS: When you say you worked hard what do you mean?
Donovan Holder: Well I have been studying from Christmas. I let my mom take me up on science and social studies and my dad gave me techniques for math.
KS: So when you took the exam what parts were easy and what parts were difficult?
Donovan Holder: Well the easiest one for me was math because they gave the formula so you just had to think straight and make sure you were multiplying and subtracting correctly.
KS: A lot of students told me the math 2 was hard.
Donovan Holder: No they gave you the formulas for every problem so you just had to know like which numbers to pick and what to subject or multiply.
KS: You got a perfect score in math. How did you do it?
Alexandria Hertular: Well what I did for the problem solving was I
remembered the teachers always kept telling me not to rush my work and for the computation, once you had studied throughout the four or three years of school that they started preparing you for the PSE, you would have done well. We did a lot of extra classes, especially with Ms. Edwards, who I really have to thank, and Ms. Arana our math teacher at school. They really covered everything with us so that we would have any problems in the exam.
KS: How does it feel to have done so well?
Alexandria Hertular: It feels good because I can make the people who prepared me proud of what I did because I wasn't expecting a perfect hundred but I knew I had done well."
Keith Swift,
What do you think you did different at Grace Primary School?
Diana Azueta, Teacher at Grace Primary
"Just a lot of working with the students and encouraging them and getting the parents to help at home, that kind of thing. We try not to focus only on the book work, more on getting them to understand the concepts and implementing the skills, rather than just drilling for the exam."
