“A” Marks All Over

I went to school to collect Sienna’s report card as a very proud parent. She got 100 percent for each of her three exams, Chinese, English and Math. She also got an “A” mark for every area where a mark was given by every different teacher – P.E., Msic and Fine Arts. Also in the “Moral Education” section of this bilingual report card, “A” marks are all over. Our girl will be very busy collecting her rewards, Wii Fit, more Barbie Dolls etc.

Not a big deal if you consider the exams were based on the clearly defined areas. For example, the teacher gave out words they should be able to read and words they should be able to write without looking. Still a marvelous thing to know that after half a year’s schooling in China, she has already picked up quite a few hundreds Chinese characters. For math, she learnt to tell the clock by the minute and count the money, bills and coins. And here is a problem solving question appears on her summer homework. It goes something like this:

John is one year younger than Mark. The total of their ages is 15. How old is John? How old is Mark?