Peperiksaan Online Pegawai Tadbir Dan Diplomatik Gred M41 Siri November 2014.

Foreword: Is this how my blogging pattern's going to be? Event happened more than a week ago, commentary only appears now when topicality has waned long before. In time of instant gratification of InstaTwitFaceVine generation, this is way too late. Nonetheless, unnecessary sense of responsibility persisted and so here I am, divulging (in what I thought) interesting and reasonably unknown bits of my life that my peer would have (as I would have thought) be interested to know about.

...sebuah ulasan dan rumusan peribadi pengalaman sulung menduduki peperiksaan kemasukan.perkhidmatan awam terutamanya melalui sistem dalam talian/online. Setakat ini sahaja penulisan bahasa Malaysia untuk masukan blog ini dan ulasan ini akan diteruskan dalam bahasa Inggeris, bahasa yang paling saya fasih dalam menyampaikan buah fikiran saya.

*Clear throat or rather, stretch palm since this is more of typing than writing*

As mentioned in my previous post, I have been called to attend the online examination for the Administrative and Diplomatic Officer post I have applied with PSD which took place on 1 November (Saturday), 8pm sharp (examination system opens 7pm sharp). Weary of the potential server congestion when tens of thousands of applicants across the nation clogging the same website, I had begun setting up my so-called "exam table" at about 7pm right after dinner time by moving my laptop from the privacy of my own room to my younger brother's crowded study table downstairs which is near to the ADSL Router to be connected directly via a LAN cable that my home happened to have and logged into the exam system about 40 minutes before exam actually taking place just to prevent any last minute mishaps. For the next two hours, I have to endure oldie dance music emanating from the park within earshot from my house where the local senior citizen association practice their community dance as well as curious/concerned family wandering in and out of the house occasionally stopping by to check out my progress. The anxiety is stifling.

The very first thing that I need to fill in as I logged into the portal is the location where I took my exam which I select Sarawak since I am AT home. Now I am not entirely sure whether this is for statistical purpose (the press release by PSC as soon as the exam finished do note about the locality of 303 applicants who took their exam overseas. 44,908 applicants completed the exam successfully) or actually related to the allocation of servers because unlike the server congestion fiasco occurred during the previous online exam session for Custom Officer, PSC seems to have learnt their lesson and buffed up their server capacity in anticipation for this "mother of exams" as noted by PSC Chairman. So here I am, survived to tell the tale of my examination.

Now, the first page greeting applicants for PTD M41 is this:

Seksyen A: Pengetahuan Am. Section A: General Knowledge.

The first section is a mix of actual news and current affair with knowledge about government and governance of Federation of Malaysia. Questions about news and current affairs are fairly straightforward such as a question about Commonwealth Association of Public Administration and Management (CAPAM) 2014 Conference which took place in Putrajaya not too long ago which asked which of the following choices is incorrect (which I choose D: to discuss and promote Malaysia's GTP and ETP simply because this is a Commonwealth level conference and surely that's not the only focus of the conference while the other three choices are basically about exchange of knowledge and expertise etc, the usual things that happen in international conferences. Good thing I vaguely know about it because I followed SPA/PSC's Facebook page!). I almost got tricked by one question however which asked where did our Angkasawan landed when he's done with his mission on board ISS. The choices are Moscow, Russia; Astana, Kazakhstan; Arkyik, Kazakhstan and Baikonour, Kazakhstan. My first instinctive answer was Baikonour where the Cosmodrome is but only upon second inspection of the question realized that it's a trick question as it asked about where he LANDED not where he DEPARTED. A change of answer followed to the seemingly obscure but most likely true Arkyik, Kazakhstan since Moscow is where he trained and Astana is just the capital of Kazakhstan.

It is the part of government and governance of Malaysia that really gave me lots of headache which eats up valuable time for answering (and let me say this: there's no time to actually grab books to check for answer. Believe me.). There seems to be a sizable amount of questions that asked about division of power between Federal, State, Local Government and Shared Powers referring specifically about 9th Schedule of the Constitution of Federation of Malaysia like asking about which of the following powers falls under the jurisdiction of State Governments and the likes...and people who set up the questions deliberately selects the innocuous ones (instead of those dead on obvious like Foreign Affairs or Defence or Internal Security which firmly under federal list or conversely Land which is firmly under state) within the federal/state/shared list just to confuse the candidates like Orang Asli Affairs (Feds), Sewerage and Drainage (Shared), Public Health and Hygiene (Shared), Forestry and National Park (State...I think. At least for Sarawak it is.) and so on.

Then there is that one particular question about which of the following combination is unwritten/uncodified law, choices being I. Local/ethnic customs, II English Common Law, III Legal precedents and court decisions and IV. Local government statutes. IV is definitely out because it is written law and I, II and III is plausible but lo and behold, the choices available (after eliminating choices that has IV) are B. I and II and C. II and III. Surely local/ethnic customs is part of the unwritten/uncodified law and legal precedents can't be written law, can it? After much contemplation and flipping through my Form Six Pengajian Am textbook (that actually says I, II and III is unwritten/uncodified law!), I choose II and III.

Another particular question which I have no idea of is of course Government Transformation Programme referring specifically of who are responsible for the specific sectors/thrusts within GTP which I hastily choose Ministers after a cursory frantic search online for any random clues and am not even sure I am right or not. The questions also highlighted about my lack of interest to business as I have zero idea what is Liability and which of the following is wrong. In the end, I finished the question barely within seconds before system closed for this part.

15 minutes of rest time later and Part B begins!

Seksyen B: Daya Menyelesaikan Masalah. Section B: Problem Solving.

This section which devoted to Mathematics and logic would've been straight forward if THERE IS MORE TIME. The logic question such as indicating what's next in this sequence or what's the next picture going to be is fairly straightforward....except ONE which essentially is a chart containing and assortment of numbers going bigger and I just can't see the connection from all these jumbles of seemingly random numbers and no amount of adding/subtracting/dividing/multiplying gives any indication. Then there's that question about the cow salesmen and how many cow has been sold to this particular customer. I am sure I didn't read the question wrong but I just can't get the accurate answer so the only choice I can do is to click the closest answer to it. Again, I plough through this section all the way in which I basically guessed five questions at least at the very last twenty seconds and still I didn't manage to answer one question before the system stopped bang on time.

Seksyen C: Ujian Psikometrik. Section C: Psychometric Test

In this section, we need to answer Yes, Unsure or No to various statements which is suppose to gauge various aspect of your character, pretty much no way to cheat whatsoever because it's about YOU. For me, at least I know clearly I don't want to be in anyway close to being an entrepreneur by stating NO to "Do you want to form your own business" or "Do you want to be a (property) speculator" or "Do you want to be a salesperson" etc. I do choose Yes for "I like to meet up with dignitories" and "I like to talk about politics" so...I wonder what do PSC sees in me with the way in answer these questions.

Sesi Peperiksaan Tamat. Examination Completed. Just imagine my sigh of relief that the server did hold on for me. (While apparently some did encounter technical problems as noted by comments on their press release but nonetheless much smoother than the Custom Officer furore).

44,908 candidates took the online examination successfully...result out on 3 November (Monday), just mere two days later! I guess this is where the advantage of online exam really shines. Just a few simple clicks and voila! Exam form (for Part A and B) marked in a jiffy!

"Tahniah anda BERJAYA". [JUBILATION] One stage down and two more stages to go and if it is true, they're going to implement interview immediately rather than going through Professional Assessment Center stage such as last time which involves essay writing...or essay writing is going to integrated with interview itself? *finger crossed and hope it's interview directly)

Meanwhile, I wonder when did the other posts in civil service that I applied will begin their own examination/assessment/interview too. I am interested with Registration Officer or Parliament Interpreter or Language Planning Officer too, you know.

Afterword: I missed out of going to USM's 50th Convocation Ceremony this year, first time in eight years. Oh well, I will just look at pictures on Facebook then.