Going Drogba

I had my Business Law II examination during the earlier part of the night and words cannot adequately convey me feelings of despondency. I feel robbed, raped, thrown to the dogs and if there is a word I cannot use enough, it is “disgrace”.

Let’s start from before the examination.

My Business Law II lecturer was full of confidence when he gave us the examination tips. Like the investors who were similarly buoyant before the economic collapse, we invested in his Minibonds, were denied the possibility of recourse, and ultimately left to our own pathetic chest-beating and vitriol-driven rants.

People will say that we deserve it and I concede they have a point, but only to a certain degree. A lecturer should not have given his students tips if he is not confident that they are useful. In our case, the situation is exacerbated to such laughable proportions because my lecturer was the one who set the paper. At least, that was what he said. It is tragicomical, the equivalent of Fann Wong starring in a Shakespearean tragedy and then speaking her lines in her broken English.

I have nothing against a lecturer who does not give tips. My Marketing lecturer didn’t say a word but I never said a bad word against her. I even gave her a good review when I did my course evaluation. By choosing to “help” your students out you give people false hopes. People will rely on the information and they will suffer because they do exactly that. If I had my way, there should either be tips for all students taking the same course, or none at all.

The smell of conspiracy pervades the air. In my previous posts I had mentioned that students from the other classes had been crowding my own because of my lecturer’s reputation as a tip-giver. There were a few embarrassing and rather infuriating occasions win which he had difficulty getting the “illegal immigrants” to go back to their own classes.

My theory is that the original paper was changed to “teach these gatecrashers a lesson”. The other lecturers, neglected as they were, had a chance to reward their loyal students by giving them the correct tips, while the disloyal ones rightly deserved their punishment.

What I don’t understand is, why make us suffer as well? We didn’t do anything wrong in the first place. It was our own class, as stated in the attendance files and other people did not have a right to come into our class and fight with us over seats! And secondly, didn’t they, in their vindictive wisdom realize that students swap assignments and files around? The ones who would have gotten hit, regardless of guilt, would be those who didn’t interact much with their fellows!


The questions were quite long, possibly twice as long as what were in the past year papers. To make things worse, three were spilt into parts, meaning that we had to flip through our textbook, guidebook and notes madly. We were only given two hours to finish the paper, not three hours! Time was never going to be enough, and if in our haste, we misread or missed some key words in the question, we would never have time to redo our answers. Contrast this paper to previous years, which were more direct.

The thing that pisses me off is the last question on corporate governance. Corporate governance, being a set of ethical guidelines and not legislation, is debatable. Different cultures and countries have their own unique definitions of what constitute corporate governance, and as such, any definition is contextual at best.

Due to the difficult nature of this topic, it would be reasonable to provide us with material of sufficient quality and quantity so that we can examine this in greater detail. The course chair had to write two short sections on corporate governance in the study guide because the topic was beyond the scope of our textbook. All well and fine. The topic may require more thinking but its inclusion does not dilute the structure of the course. It should enhance it but unfortunately the way the question was set, made some of us felt robbed.

How in the Hells did they expect us to answer a question like this, bearing in mind we had to finish four other questions and were given a paltry two hours?


Both investors and governments have been active in the realm of corporate governance by seeking to ensure that corporate boards are more accountable, that qualified independent non-executive directors can and do play a key role, that audit committees are able to operate effectively. In the Singapore context it is evident that publicly listed companies are expected to disclose their corporate governance practices and to give adequate explanation for deviations from the Code of Corporate Governance in their Annual Reports. In the light of these current reforms, explain how the practice of corporate governance in Singapore has provided a climate that is conducive to the orderly development of the capital markets and at the same time meets the increasing expectations of the investing public and institutional investors.


I searched through my guidebooks and notes and I could not find anything I could use. In the end I just wrote whatever drivel my desperate brain could conjure up. Admittedly I am a mediocre student, but at the risk of sounding like a broken record, there is no doubt that this question will challenge even business professionals and academics alike. The problem is not that we could not try to use our critical thinking, it’s that we had absolutely no time to do so!

What is the point of having an examination when you are testing students’ writing speed and to some extent his speed of thought instead of his knowledge of the subject and his faculty for critical thinking?! I am absolutely against the idea of having a two hour examination! It’s obscene and people who are naturally deliberate thinkers are going to get the short end of the stick.

Granted, that part of the answers to this question could be found in the notes and in my feverish haste I had overlooked them. In that case, I should lose quite a few marks for my mistake. However, when SOME fortunate students got exactly the same question and the answers in their revision notes, then obviously the ground was “uneven”. A friend happily told me that he just copied the whole chunk in. 20 marks in the pocket, free and easy. As far as I know, my class didn’t get that particular set of notes! Some will pass because they had some extraordinary help and some will fail because they were screwed. It’s a disgrace, a fucking disgrace! A damning indictment of my university!

And I would love to kill the whoreson who set the temperature in the examination hall to near Arctic conditions. For most of the examination my fingers were stiff from the cold and I had a torrid time writing on my script. My handwriting was barely legible, and I hope I would not be penalized for producing something that reminds one of the sigils in a Taoist talisman! At any rate, I hope my drivel is enough to secure the required 40 marks for survival. (I think I got most of the concepts right. Problem is, my writing was absolutely shite.)

Now I know what Drogba and Company must have felt when Ovrebo robbed them of a place in the Champions League final. It’s a disgrace! A fucking disgrace!





I would love to do the same to UniShit.