Ava misses SEA first place by one point

AVA MARIE BRUCE, the country’s second highest performer at this year’s Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) exams, missed out on sharing the number one spot with eventual winner Shivan Ramlochan, by a single point.

Bruce, a pupil of Robert Village Hindu School, Tableland, secured 100 percent passes in the Essay and Mathematics categories of the SEA exams, but 99 percent in the English category. Ramlochan scored 100 percent in all three categories. The 12-year-old budding scholar, however, bears no ill-feelings towards Ramlochan, nor does she in any way feel disappointed about her performance. “No, I am extremely happy at my performance and in fact, I am very relieved at having passed for the school of my choice, which is Naparima Girls’ High School in San Fernando,” Bruce told Newsday during an interview yesterday at her Robert Village, Tableland, home. “I am not disappointed at all. To reach this far is satisfying enough for me,” Bruce said, with her bright, attentive eyes twinkling.

When Newsday visited her yesterday, an elated Bruce could hardly contain her excitement saying that on the morning of the SEA results, she had experienced “tiny fingers of fear” running along her spine as she thought about securing a place at one of the nation’s top secondary schools. “After the exams, I don’t know, most of my friends said they found that it was easy,” she said. “But to me the exams were challenging, especially maths.” Bruce, the penultimate child of eight children, said faith in God together with the support of her parents, Alpha and Angela, provided the platform for her success. She said this was coupled with lots of hard work and extremely supportive and dedicated teachers, singling for special mention her Standard V teachers — Mr Harry Seehara and Mr Biddal. She said her study regime consisted of two hours of study on evenings with over seven hours of extra lessons on Saturdays.

An avid reader, Bruce admitted that she was a sci-fi addict, with a love for the X-Files television fiction series. As for her future career, Bruce, brimming with confidence, said her desire was to become a medical doctor. “I want to help people,” she said with a shy smile. It was a goal met with the approval from Bruce’s mother, who said her daughter was capable of becoming the family’s first medical practitioner. “Ava takes her school work very seriously and is very dedicated to whatever she sets her mind to,” the proud mother said.