I try not to push my son academically, but honestly, it’s hard to remain as cool as a cucumber when he has not been enrolled in any tuition class. Lest you accuse me of being kiasu, let me reveal that I once taught a Creative Writing Course at The Write Connection for Primary 2 pupils. Some of them could write quite impressively — and he is nowhere near their standard. And don’t even let me get started on his Chinese.

Anyway, I was caught in a dilemma. Should I let him try the P4 mock paper questions or the P6 Foundation questions? Decided to go with the latter option for ease of decluttering. To my utter surprise, the son took one look at the three questions and got every one of them right verbally. When asked to put down his answers on paper, he emerged largely unscathed. Well, he got the second one wrong because of an unnecessary comma. But this also meant that he took my nagging to heart because he did put a comma accurately for the first question.

An intoxicating mix of relief and pride washed over me.