The 2009 GCE O Level E-Maths Prayer

Let us pray …

Oh our dear Heavens, look down on us
your humble GCE O Level 2009 students,
who are doomed to stop our MSN chats,
neglect our pets, and put our mafia wars on hold,
as we face our destinies in this Week of Mathematical Armageddon.

Grant us a good sleep the night before
and the willpower to forget the Liverpool-ManU match
for our maximum focus on the papers at hand.

We pray that the roads be clear,
so that we reach our exam halls on time.

We pray that our calculators (with fresh batteries) work,
and that our curve rules bend smoothly,
and that the lead in our mechanical pencils don’t fall out.

We pray that our breakfast be cooperative
so we don’t lao s face an emergency in the middle of it.

• Give us this day divine guidance
  that we may NOT accidentally write as ,
  and that 2(3.1 × 10²) = 2 × 3.1 × 10² NOT 2 × 3.1 × 20²,
  and we may recognize that 1 m = 100 cm but 1 m² = 100 × 100 cm² = 10000 cm²,
  and that retardation in Kinematics has NO negative sign.

• Give us the wisdom to unlock the differences between Integers, Rational, Irrational, Prime, Natural and Real Numbers.

• Grant us the strength to summon up ancient knowledge from Sec One to find our HCFs and LCMs,
  and to recall that, in a n-sided regular polygon, each exterior angle = and interior angle is actually = .

• May we not forget the steps to construct perpendicular & angle bisectors,
  and we pray that the screws on our compasses be tight enough to save our accuracies.

• May we be wise not to trust blindly
  our super duper calculators’ EQUATION functionality
  which MAY shock you with an answer when there’s none (non-complex ones)
  (e.g. try solving x²+x+1=0)

• Guide us with your light
  as we cross the treacherous swamp that is the completing the square method
  and bless us with the wisdom
  to find the max/min point of y = ±(x − a)(x − b) via the line of symmetry .

• Bestow upon us the mega memory to recall all 12 Graphs of y = ax, ax², ax³, , , a^x,
  though only 6 are listed here.

• Bless us with the instinct to switch the inequality sign whenever the signs are switched e.g.
  −p > −3
  ⇒ p < 3

• And bless us again
  with the instinct to draw a Probability Tree Diagram whenever we are stuck in the Probabilities question.

Grant us our wish
for our spotted questions to appear (and must be easy too)
But forgive us for spotting questions in the first place
for not everyone is a study PRO whose life is a timetable.

And forgive Miss Loi for not saying more
since she doesn’t like repeating some stuff that’s been said before (read only the EMaths portion) .

So lead us, oh dear Heavens, to our Mathematical Salvation!
For if we pass this, we promise to be good
and stop our MSN/Facebook earlier for our poly/A-Levels.

Oh and if by any chance our handwritings look horribly illegible on the script,
pray tell the examiner to have mercy on us
for we may be nervous and our fingers tremblingly weak.