This commentary reflects upon Lazar Stankov's thesis which regards "unforgiving nature of Confucian Asian societies" as the driving force underpinning academic success of students from these societies. The commentary considers theoretical perspectives put forward by Jian Wang and Emily Lin (2008), and by Chiu and Klassen (2010) as two alternative frameworks for explaining the paradox of high academic performance and high self-doubt at large scale international assessments among Confucian Asian Societies. Whilst acknowledging contributions from the systematic logical deduction of Stankov's article, the commentary proposes the use of Generalised Graded Unfolding Model as an alternative analytical tool for the data.