Chapter 2
A few minutes later, Akmal and his classmates arrived at the assembly hall. At the entrance of the hall, many students were lined up waiting for their turns to enter the hall.
Outside the hall, there was a massive tent erected there with a few projector screens at a few locations inside the tent showing the situation inside the hall.
Parents were flocking to the tent to find a seat while waiting for the announcement to start. Not all parents went inside the tent. Some of them stood waiting in the corridor.
Some of his classmates waved their hands at their parents under the tent. Akmal had no one to wave his hand to because his parents did not come with him.
Akmal's parents wanted to come with him but he refused. He did not want to tire them.
Moreover, PMR's result was not as important as SPM's. Due to this, he felt that there was no need for them to come with him.
Akmal and his classmates lined up at the entrance too. A few seconds later, they finally got inside the hall.
Inside the hall, the chairs were properly arranged according to the classroom. Akmal and his classmates walked around a bit and found the chairs designated for their class.
There were already a few of their classmates at the scene and they all joined them there. The situation got noisier as everyone asked each other their result's prediction.
As Akmal looked around, he could see that some had normal reactions, some did not care much and he was in this group and some looked extremely nervous.
Thirty minutes later, the hall was packed with students. Not all seats were filled with students as it was normal that some of them did not come that day.
As the hall was gradually filled with students, it was time the announcement event started. The teachers came in and filled in the spot at the side of the hall. There was a designated area for them to sit.
After that, the principal as well as the other high-ranking teachers in the school entered the hall. As they were important people, their seat was at the front of the stage.
As everyone was here, the PMR examination's results announcement event started.
The MC started the event by inviting the Ustaz to read some dua to start the event. Malaysia's official religion is Islam and thus, 95% of students in the school are Muslim.
Reading the dua at the start of an event or ceremony was normal. The dua was a prayer to Allah so that the event ran smoothly without any problem.
After the dua, the MC took over the microphone again and invited the principal to give some speeches.
As usual, the principal took quite a while with his 'short' speeches. He took 20 minutes with his speeches.
Moreover, there were rarely interesting speeches coming from the principal and thus, it was an uneventful and boring talk.
After the speeches, it was the start of the main event. The MC started announcing the results of the year 2050's PMR examination result.
As usual, the announcement started with students with straight A's. Last year, there was only one student with straight A's but this year, there were two of them.
Both of them came from the top class and thus, it was nothing weird. Be that as it may, the audience gave their congratulations by clapping hard when the duo went up the stage to take their results.
Next was students who got one of the subject B. There were 10 of them. Eight students from the top class and two from the second class.
After that, it was the students with 2B's. There were too many of them and thus, the MC only announced the names but they did not need to get on the stage. The clapping for them was lowered too.
A few minutes later, the event ended. Among the names announced on stage, Akmal was not one of them. He was not disappointed with it because he knew his capability.
The class teacher got to the front of the area located to the students and handed them their results slip.
One by one, they took their result slip. Some of them sighed in relief. Some were excited. Some did not have any emotion.
Some were shocked with happiness. Some were shocked and sad. Some straight-up cried when they saw their results.
Many emotions could be seen present in the hall.
As for Akmal, he did not think much of the examination's result. His result was not bad with half of them A's and the other half was B's. He had no C's and below.
Akmal expected his result to be at this level though he thought that he would have one or two C's. His final result was far better than his expectation.
All in all, Akmal's result was in the top ten in his class. The best student in his class got only two B's and that girl's name was announced earlier on stage.
Akmal took his phone and snapped a picture of his result slip and sent it to his family's group chat.
Immediately after that, his eldest brother sent a 'thumbs up' emoji. There were five of them.
After that, his second brother sent, 'Not bad! I thought you would get worse than this.' Akmal was speechless at his second brother's reply.
Soon after, his younger sister replied, 'Congrats~ Abang Akmal!!!'
Akmal's dad did not send any reply. He was working and possibly busy with something. As for his mom, she immediately gave him a call.
His mom was super happy when she saw the result. Since Akmal had been saying he might not get a good result, she kept her expectations low.
However, Akmal's results were better than he predicted and thus, his mom was elated.
They did not talk long as there were other matters Akmal needed to attend to.
"Alright! Everyone gets the result. I can see some of you are happy and some are disappointed but PMR is not as important as SPM and you guys are not doing badly."
"None of you failed any of the subjects and the worst of you got a few Ds. So, you guys did well."
"Now, put all these to the back of your head. The important examination in your life will be your SPM."
"You have three more years to work harder and get better results during your SPM. Don't let this small pebble trip you until you cannot get up. You still have a chance," the class teacher spoke.
"Now, fill in this form and hand this back at the start of the school next year," the class teacher handed the form to the class monitor to distribute them to the students.
"Choose which path you want to take for the next three years. Make sure what you choose is on par with your results."
"If you choose the Science stream, make sure your science subjects' PMR results are at least high. Same with Art, Philosophy, Mathematics and so on."
"If your results are bad for the path you want to take next year, you can see me and we will discuss it. Make sure you bring your parents with you."
"Also, if you are going to another school next year, you don't need to fill in the form but come and inform me after this."
"Okay, that was all. You guys can continue with your business."
Akmal took the form from the class monitor and looked at it.
"Akmal~ where are you going next year?" a classmate asked.
"I am choosing the science stream. My science subject's results are all good. I am not good at art and languages and philosophy is too hard for me," Akmal answered.
"I think I can enter the mathematics stream too. Both my science and maths results are good."
His classmate peeked at Akmal's result slip to see if his languages and the philosophy-related subject were bad. They were all B's.
"..." his classmate was speechless.
After that, Akmal chatted with his classmates a bit before he went home. Since the school was located in the middle of the neighborhood he lived in, he got home by walking.
That night, Akmal's family celebrated Akmal's success in his PMR examination.