Love of learning best antedote to exam pressure

DOING supplementary exercises on each exam subject has done obvious good to fifth-former Felix Lau Yu-hin. This technique boosted the Hong Kong Wah Yan College boy sufficiently to hit nine As in the Hong Kong School Certificate Examination (HKCEE).

Besides a C credit for Religious Studies (which he had expected to ace), his other subjects - English, Chinese, Mathematics, Additional Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography and his self-taught subject, Computer Studies - were all distinctions.

Not that the public exam result is all-or-nothing to Yu-hin.

''The HKCEE was not like an exam to me because I loved all the subjects I took,'' he said, ''The result does not matter. The most important was it offered me an opportunity to learn.'' This study approach is Yu-hin's antidote to exam pressure. He counted his result as 40 per cent talent, 50 per cent effort and 10 per cent luck.

''I don't burn the midnight oil. It would only make me wake up mentally exhausted the next day.'' Already expecting seven to eight As 'even before the exam started', Yu-hin's surprise came from elsewhere.

A chestnut cake -celebratory token from his parents - greeted him when he returned home. Yu-hin praised his family for giving him encouragement but not pressure.