Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Pupils from sev­er­al schools in South Trinidad who wrote yes­ter­day's Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment said math­e­mat­ics was chal­leng­ing.

At the San Fer­nan­do Sev­enth Day Ad­ven­tist Pri­ma­ry School, sev­er­al pupils broke down in tears as they spoke about the ex­am­i­na­tion. "Maths was chal­leng­ing. I had prob­lems with Ques­tion 46. I had to leave it out. A lot of peo­ple said they al­so left it out be­cause it was chal­leng­ing," Wong said. An­oth­er pupil, Jameila Alexan­der, said the ex­am­i­na­tion was fun, but her on­ly dif­fi­cul­ty was Ques­tion 46 in math­e­mat­ics.

"I prac­tised hard and this is why it was fun, but I must say that I had to think hard for some of the maths ques­tions," Alexan­der said. Pupils of St Paul's An­gli­can School al­so said maths was dif­fi­cult. One pupil Shari­cia Charles said she was hap­py the ex­ams were fi­nal­ly over. Charles said: "All I want to do now is re­lax and chill at home. I want to en­joy my free­dom." Kar­li­ah Leza­ma said she found lan­guage arts to be easy, but sev­er­al math­e­mat­ics ques­tions were chal­leng­ing. She said she planned to have lunch with her fa­ther at Gulf City be­fore head­ing home.

At the San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry School, the bright­est stu­dents al­so ad­mit­ted to dif­fi­cul­ties. David Se­u­nar­ine, whose sis­ter Danielle Se­u­nar­ine topped the SEA ex­am last year, said he had dif­fi­cul­ties with math­e­mat­ics. He said lan­guage arts was a lit­tle eas­i­er than he ex­pect­ed. Se­u­nar­ine said he spent alot of time study­ing. An­oth­er pupil Ashaish Mo­hammed said al­though the ex­ams were chal­leng­ing, he hoped to pass with "fly­ing colours." The re­sults for the ex­ams would be re­leased on June 25.