THE male candidates of this year's Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE) showed they were kings with a record eight scoring a royal maximum of 10 distinctions each in results released yesterday. Another 26 students scored nine As each.
Despite that, however, results of this year's Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE), released by the Hong Kong Examinations Authority to schools and candidates, showed a slight drop of 1.7 per cent school candidates achieving results of Grade E (or above) and a drop of 0.3 per cent of Grade C (or above).
A total of 120,555 candidates sat for the examination this year, marking an increase of 1.7 per cent compared with 118,516 last year. More than 18,000 candidates achieved 14 points or above in their best six subjects, representing 23.6 per cent of the total candidates.
There were 83,915 school candidates, of which only 64,807 were first-timers. The 19,108 repeating school candidates together with the 36,640 private candidates constituted over 46 per cent of the total candidates.
Altogether 41 subjects were examined, 11 of which were taken by less than 500 candidates. Thirty subjects offered both English and Chinese version question papers. Of the 403,424 entries in these 30 subjects, 17.2 per cent entered for the Chinese version, a slight increase of 0.8 per cent compared with last year (16.4 per cent in 1993).
According to Hong Kong Examinations Authority, the grading policy is aimed at maintaining the standards represented by its grades over time. Long-term research has been carried out since 1982 to detect any slippage with the passing of time in the large-entry CE subjects. Until very recently there was no sign of any significant fall in standards.