Whose fault?

So many school exams related complaints lately... Here's a fresh one.

From: http://news.omy.sg/News/Local%2BNews/Story/OMYStory201011081525-198615.html

时间表误导致迟到　中四会考生考不完哭着回家

家长投诉，儿子中四会考的考卷时间表有误，导致儿子考试迟到20分钟，原本有望拿A的科目，因为赶不及做完考卷，可能泡汤。

家长张女士（43岁，食品业女老板）的小儿子杨涬钦，在西部一所中学念中四快捷班，目前正在参加中四会考。

她说，儿子在上周四考设计与科技（Design & Technology）试卷，原以为下午3时考试，不料学校老师早上7时50分拨电查问，儿子为什么还没到学校。

“儿子跟我说下午3点考试，时间表上也这么印，老师却说是早上8点考试。我急急忙忙载儿子到学校，到考场时已经8点20分，迟了20分钟。”

张女士说，她要求学校老师给儿子完整时间作答，老师只说“试试看”，但儿子考完试说，老师没多给时间，所以第二部分考卷只完成70%，剩大约7题未答。

“儿子哭着回家，原本这科有望拿A，现在没机会了，学校应该负责。”

张女士给记者看考卷时间表，该科目考试时间乍看之下是“03:00”，不像“08:00”，不易判断是打字时的输入有错，还是印刷模糊才把“8”变成“3”。

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(Refer to link to see how the poor printing looks like)

Sigh, sometimes I wish people could exercise their basic common sense first before pointing their fingers to others when they are partly at fault.

Indeed, at a glance, the printed number does look like a 3 instead of a 8. But that is not sufficient to deduce that the exam is held at 3pm. Comparing with the other exam timings, the stated time is obviously in 24-hour format. Like what the school has explained, it is not possible for any exams to be held in 3am before dawn breaks, and furthermore if it is 3pm, the time will be shown as 1500.

Probably the student is not used to reading 24-hr time, but who can he (or his parents) blame? After all he is already in Sec 4, old enough to interpret this kind of commonly used configuration and format.

I wouldn't say the student is entirely at fault, since the misprint can be really misleading. Things might be worse if the '8' is misprinted as '9'. However in this case the error can be easily detected by simple logical judgment. If technical errors cannot be avoided, our humanly mind is still able to realize the mistake, based on our knowledge and experiences.

Let this be a heavy lesson to that student. An 'A' grade for the paper doesn't help if time can be misinterpreted in such manner.