Some students from ESCS-advantaged homes participating in PISA 2012 were classified as academic slackening (called advantaged low-achiever, the ALA in this study). Drawing data from the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 mathematics literacy survey, this study sought to examine the similarities and differences in two selected pertinent learning mathematics characteristics (i.e. mathematics work ethics and attributions to failure in mathematics) amongst students of the top five high-performing East Asian economies, i.e. Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea, respectively (OECD, 2013). These two characteristics have been shown in an earlier study to be protective factors of the academic resilient students of the top-performing East Asian economies in PISA 2012 (Cheung, et al, 2015). Logistic regression is carried out for the ALA versus non-ALA student classification, as a function of the demographic and the two selected learning mathematics characteristics. Mathematics work ethics is found predictive for Taiwan and Korea, whereas attributions to failure in mathematics is predictive for Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The findings are discussed with reference to the attribution theory (Weiner, 1986) and expectancy-value theory (Eccles et al, 1983), as well as the influence of the Confucian "work hard for success" culture on the ALAs of the five East Asian economies examined in this study.