Pei Hwa Presbyterian Primary

[Jennifer]

cg88:

2. Open ended Q39. Fatimah decided to cut away all the leaves on his pot of plant in his garden. What do you think would happen to the pot of plant?


Answer : the plant will die eventually.
Reason: the plant cannot get sunlight and will not be ableto make food, hence it will die.

My son's answer: the leaves will grow back.
Reason: there are still food and nutrients stored in the stem, which will enable the leaves to grow back.

the teacher's explanation: the stem is too thin, therefore not much food in the stem!

I think the teacher's ans is quite lame.

Your son's reasoning is correct that new leaves will grow since the stem and roots are still healthy. P4 already learnt plants system right?

[cg88]

Thanks for all the input.


Hi, E3,
This is so confusing for the kid especially the question asked for 'similar stages of life cycle'.
Am i suppose to tell my p6 boy to take note of this and be careful in the PSLE shld such question appear??? :?

Hi Coffeecat/jennifer,
I told the teacher that there is no appropriate answer to this question but she disagree and replied as 'internal fertilisation'. How does a p4 kid know this. Fertilisation is only taught in p5, how to link the two together? Even then, we still classify mammals as having 2 stages, right?


As for the plant, during our revision, we actually went through this question and i told him that if the leaves were only cut off once, it will grow back because of the food already stored in the stem. Now he didnt get this question correct and was questioning why? a thin stem dont really explain my question cos it will still have the xylem and phleom tubes!

I will talk to the HOD to clarify, just to clear the doubts.
Will update again.

Thanks again.

[kohhweelin.010441gmail.010441com]

cg88:

Thanks for all the input.


Hi, E3,
This is so confusing for the kid especially the question asked for 'similar stages of life cycle'.
Am i suppose to tell my p6 boy to take note of this and be careful in the PSLE shld such question appear??? :?

I am very confused too. My understanding is mammals hv 2 stage life cycle. What has it got to do with internal fertilization? How about the young resembles the adult for both duck and tiger? The rest will go thru metamorphosis?

[cg88]

Yes, E3, i will agree with you if the question is phrased as ‘which animals has similarities in their life cycle as that of a duck’ instead of ‘which animals has similiar stages in their life cycle as that of a duck’. See the difference?

[northernlights]

hi cg88,


my 2 cents...

cg88:

1. MCQ Q20, choose an animal that has similar stages in their life cycle as that of a duck (a diagram showing egg -> young -> adult).
(1) tiger (2) housefly (3) butterfly (4) mealworm beetle

duck: egg -> young -> adult
tiger: egg -> young -> adult>
housefly: egg -> larva -> pupa -> adult
ditto for butterfly and mealworm beetle

if we simplify the question & strictly compare the life cycles (without being distracted by discussions of fertilization/viability), the \"tiger\" choice does make sense since ducks & tigers do go thru similar life cycles (without ever going thru the larva/pupa stage).

cg88:

2. Open ended Q39. Fatimah decided to cut away all the leaves on his pot of plant in his garden. What do you think would happen to the pot of plant?

your boy is not wrong but most likely the leaves does not grow at a fast enough rate (both size & quantity) to support food replenishment/sustenance. in the meantime, parts of the plant withers & dies, further sealing its fate.

[kohhweelin.010441gmail.010441com]

cg88:

Yes, E3, i will agree with you if the question is phrased as 'which animals has similarities in their life cycle as that of a duck' instead of 'which animals has similiar stages in their life cycle as that of a duck'. See the difference?

Yes, got what you mean now. It could be phrasing problem. Should clarify with vetter/HOD.

northernlights, the egg stage for tiger is not a Distinct in its life cycle as it gives birth to young alive so tiger goes thru 2 distinct stages, young and adult.

[Jennifer]

cg88:

As for the plant, during our revision, we actually went through this question and i told him that if the leaves were only cut off once, it will grow back because of the food already stored in the stem. Now he didnt get this question correct and was questioning why? a thin stem dont really explain my question cos it will still have the xylem and phleom tubes!


I will talk to the HOD to clarify, just to clear the doubts.
Will update again.

Thanks again.

I asked my elder boy this morning. His take is the plant will grow new leaves becos the stem still has some food to support new growth. But this new growth might not sustain the whole plant by producing enough new food via photosynthesis. So eventually the whole plant might die.

I have seen a tree with most of its branches trimmed away, and very few leaves hanging on the branches. I thought the tree would die. I was proven wrong. A few months later, the tree grew many new leaves and is still healthy.

[Jennifer]

Came back from the PTM.


Very happy to see that the CL teacher is an experienced middle aged lady. She tries to read a story book (ordered by the sch) to the class. Two pupils also share a book. She also teaches compreh and compo tactics to the pupils.

Both teachers know my boy is easily distracted and have arranged him to sit near the teacher’s desk.

The FT who teaches EL, MA and Sc said she would be modifying her approach in teaching how to cope with compreh since the whole class appear to be weak. Also mentioned 5% higher order thinking Sci qn are not covered in textbook, but she will bring some of the ideas into the lesson via powerpoint slides.

[tweet]

E3:

tweet:

Hi Donkey


this P6 CA1 Science Paper also has a question that has mistake, so everyone awarded 2 marks. wonder what HOD Science and teachers are doing!!Did they checked the paper carefully? guess not, if not there wont be any mistake.

Can you be more specific on what kind of mistakes? My dd's Math paper was cosmetic error (number option printed wrongly), cost her 2 marks. :stupid: If the errors for science paper is contentwise, then I seriously doubt the ability of the science vetters. Either they (or he) are (is) not familiar with the syllabus and what needed to be taught in each level (in the case of Jennifer's son, P3), or they (he) is incompetent.

Hi E3

just came bac from PTM. ask about the MCQ Q15.
Question is about cells, given a graph and statements made in the form of A,B,C,D and teacher said Statement A has dispute so this Q15 considered void. I don know how to scan and upload in this forum, if not i can ask for your opinion on this.

From this forum,seems to me that questions set in Science papers have problems one way or another.

[kohhweelin.010441gmail.010441com]

tweet:

From this forum,seems to me that questions set in Science papers have problems one way or another.

I guess I will need to refresh my science knowledge to help my dd. I am getting rusty.

If the science papers have confusing questions or misleading concepts, I will have to ensure she is very clear in her understanding of the concepts as well as being able to apply 'smart' exam techniques to eliminate those that are wrong for MCQ. Is it still the same, 60% (30 questions) MCQ and 40% Open-ended (20 Questions)? Instead of losing faith in PH's science standard, I guess we'll just have to take it into our own owns.

E3:

Hi, I would like to know how your kids are taught to answer the comprehension question that requires them to refer to a sentence in the passage. Are they told to omit the fullstop after the quotes or to include it? For eg, the child wrote:

The sentence is \"That is a flower.\".

I am referring to the fullstop after the closing quotes. I realised there were some inconsistencies in how the kids were instructed by their respective EL teachers.

I clarified the 'full-stop' for the compre question with my dd's FT. It is confirmed that the fullstop after quoting the sentence cannot be omitted. The EL teachers held a meeting to come to a consensus. So much hassle for a tiny punctuation that costs only half a mark. Still, better to get it clarified once and for all.