p6 math assessment book vs past year school papers

[Leanne]

Hello QuiteKSMum,


Thank you for your kind advice.

These days, we just going with the flow because school really piled him up with past exam papers from his data based.

Best Regards,
Leanne

QuiteKSMum:

[quote]I noticed, if I give him an assessment books with challenging problem, he can take three hours just to do ten questions.I dont know why.

If I give him top past year school papers to do, he can finish it in an hour, as in paper two.

Check wif parents here, do u face the same prob?My child prefer to do exam paper than assessment book

Hi Leanne,

My son was exactly like that last yr! He loved doing the Top Sch papers (esp Maths papers); he would plan himself which paper to do 1st, followed by another one etc...

My own conclusion was that ( he had been like this since P1) he loved to \"pit\" his own std against Top schs' std ( he was fm a neighbourhood sch) & see where he stands. If he did v.well for the top amongst the top papers, could see he would be elated... Just my 2 cts... :celebrate: :celebrate:[/quote]

[QuiteKSMum]

Brenda10 wrote:[quote]Need your advice as your ds had gone through the PSLE last year. We also doing purely in past year papers and would you think that is sufficient if dd don't have much problem with it?
[/quote]Hi Brenda10,

Wow, if your daughter doesn't have much problem with past yr papers, then I think her std is v.high alrdy! Think my son when attempting past yrs' papers only scored ard 80s, sometimes even 70s for some tough papers.

But we still bought q. a few Maths Ass Bks 4 him ( mostly bought during P5 Dec hols Pop Fest - when panic buttons were really pressed! ). I noticed most of the bks were only partially done - mostly less than 50% done. So, IMHO, maybe just get 1 or 2 to supplement ( since now alrdy Apr) - to focus on her \"problematic\" areas ( if any...). Just my 2 cts. :celebrate:

[teh_oh]

QuiteKSMum:

Brenda10 wrote:[quote]Need your advice as your ds had gone through the PSLE last year. We also doing purely in past year papers and would you think that is sufficient if dd don't have much problem with it?

Hi Brenda10,

Wow, if your daughter doesn't have much problem with past yr papers, then I think her std is v.high alrdy! Think my son when attempting past yrs' papers only scored ard 80s, sometimes even 70s for some tough papers.

But we still bought q. a few Maths Ass Bks 4 him ( mostly bought during P5 Dec hols Pop Fest - when panic buttons were really pressed! ). I noticed most of the bks were only partially done - mostly less than 50% done. So, IMHO, maybe just get 1 or 2 to supplement ( since now alrdy Apr) - to focus on her \"problematic\" areas ( if any...). Just my 2 cts. :celebrate:[/quote]Hi QuiteKSMum,
Thanks for sharing. I gave my P3 child mainly past year papers to work on too because he spends a long time on assessment book (last year). However, at P3 standards (foundation stages), most mistakes made are mainly due to carelessness (somehow, most papers that he has attempted does not have Heuristic questions at P3). Bought a problem sum book (it's on offer!) to supplement and hopefully can find time to utilise them. For past yr papers, is it 'safe' to skip MCQ portion if the child has consistently done well for this section? Don't want to increase his 'workload' yet as he is still in P3.

[QuiteKSMum]

teh_oh wrote :[quote]However, at P3 standards (foundation stages), most mistakes made are mainly due to carelessness (somehow, most papers that he has attempted does not have Heuristic questions at P3). Bought a problem sum book (it's on offer!) to supplement and hopefully can find time to utilise them. For past yr papers, is it 'safe' to skip MCQ portion if the child has consistently done well for this section? Don't want to increase his 'workload' yet as he is still in P3.[/quote]
Hi teh_oh,

Hmm... P3 ... let me try to recall... Rem DS was q.careless in P1/P2 . Quite a lot of marks (>10 mks) were lost due to carelessness. What I did when I went thru the papers with him was to identify qns with marks lost due to carelessness & add up all the marks. Showed him the marks he could have scored if he had been more careful. This somehow \"motivated\" him to be more careful...so that he could reach the \"careful\" mks.

When I asked him to check his papers upon completion, he always said he had checked - but his checking was simply to flip thru the pages and make sure everything's done. Never go into the details at all! So told him how to check...slowly his level of carelessness decreased.

Also, think some kids when they check, they only checked their ans. However, I think it's also impt to read thru the qns again. If at the onset, qns were read wrongly/misinterpretated (esp for Paper 2 problem sums), then your ans will definitely be wrong alrdy (maybe some method mks would be given where relevant)...

DS didn't skip any MCQ qns in the papers - he enjoyed doing them! Definitely by upper pri, besides accuracy, speed also plays an impt part; even in paper 1 (50 mins - need to do 10 1 mk MCQ, 5 2 mks MCQ, 10 1 mk short problem sum, 5 2 mks short prob sum - avg 1.67 min per sum). Hence, IMO, practising Paper 1 consistently will help to build up his speed too. Just my 2 cts (as I did minimal Maths with him, DH guided him...). :celebrate:

[Brenda10]

QuiteKSMum:

Brenda10 wrote:[quote]Need your advice as your ds had gone through the PSLE last year. We also doing purely in past year papers and would you think that is sufficient if dd don't have much problem with it?

Hi Brenda10,

Wow, if your daughter doesn't have much problem with past yr papers, then I think her std is v.high alrdy! Think my son when attempting past yrs' papers only scored ard 80s, sometimes even 70s for some tough papers.

But we still bought q. a few Maths Ass Bks 4 him ( mostly bought during P5 Dec hols Pop Fest - when panic buttons were really pressed! ). I noticed most of the bks were only partially done - mostly less than 50% done. So, IMHO, maybe just get 1 or 2 to supplement ( since now alrdy Apr) - to focus on her \"problematic\" areas ( if any...). Just my 2 cts. :celebrate:[/quote]Hi QuiteKSMum

Noted with thanks.

Her standard is slightly above average lah. We use to KIV those that she has problem and will visit them again.

We have a few assessment books on hand and will focus on her problematic area as per your advise.

Wish you a nice weekend. :celebrate:

[Chenonceau]

My take on the Top School Exams VS Assessment Books is...


(1) Top School exams are good diagnostic tools to highlight topics we need to cover or strengthen.

(2) Top School exams (in the past 2 years at least) seem to give a good approximation of the level of difficulty of my son's school exams (give or take some)

(3) Assessment books come in useful after the diagnosis. I dun buy any English nor Science assessment books because there are other more fun ways to teach these 2 subjects. For Science, I used to read Horrible Science books with my son... and we indulge in his love for experiments. However, there are drawbacks. Once, he tried to build a mini Tesla coil and almost set our house on fire. Another time, he was studying mould growth on chitin and I found a tarantula in a box all covered with furry fungus. And then there was the time he was breeding mealworm beetles. I strenuously objected when he wanted to see what would happen to his skin if unwashed for 1 month. This way of teaching Science is fun and builds scientific thinking skills. He is now quite independent in experimental design. He wanted to know why birds sitting on electric wires don't get roasted, and he went and concocted an experiment with light bulbs, controls etc to get his answer. I was actually quite amazed because I didn't help him at all. However, we built these skills in P3 and P4. So P3 and P4 parents may wanna steer away from assessment books and build these foundational scientific thinking skills by doing practical experiments. I realize I have an advantage here because even a social scientist (I am a psychologist) is trained in scientific thinking so all this came naturally to us. However, there are many many \"101 Fun Experiments\" type of books that explain each step etc... and the more you do these experiments, the easier and more natural it'll be to internalize scientific thinking skills. Dun need to get too serious. A lot of learning can be unconscious. In fact, I never really explained to my son scientific thinking, I just did simple experiments with him... giggle about the effects, and then later, he was on auto-pilot. So... you dun have to be a scientist to teach science.

For English we let him read. He is currently reading a book by Howard Gardner called the Science of Fear... and another book on The History of Money. He also likes Time magazine. Last year, I channelled him to fiction but I realize that PSLE has a fair amount of non-fiction compre-clozes so we've been reading more non-fiction this year. There was a happy side effect too because my boy enjoys non-fiction more than fiction. We only really work hard on compo writing for English. He does one compo every week for me. These methods gave him a good grounding (and all by himself, he had already progressed beyond his level) in P3 and P4 so these 2 subjects worry me least. In a way, he pre-taught himself. All I did was shop for stuff he wanted to buy.

(4) For Math, I had one topical assessment book in P3 and P4. Step-by-step by Simon Eio. Once he has completed the topics required for SA1, I give him Top School papers. This year (P5) we lost our footing because the Step-by-Step Simon Eio book covered the basic topics without the complex skills. I didn't know these complex skills were needed because we had only identified topic gaps when we did a diagnostic earlier this year. So... I now use Onsponge to teach topic and skills. For the moment, I have completely stopped Top School Exams because we already have a diagnostic, and until he has completed Onsponge, he is not ready for exam drills. This is a departure from our normal practice because his work schedule in the past 2 years always involves Top School Exam drills (dry runs that teach him to manage time and exam techniques) 6 weeks before exams. But Top School Exam drills are no point if there are questions asking for stuff he has not been taught. It is demoralizing to do and score exam practices and run into stuff that has not been taught. When he does exam practices, I wanna be sure that he knows enough so that he gets a good grade because good grades at exam practices build confidence and gives pleasure (and studying must be pleasurable). No doubt studying isn't all fun but if I can engineer a positive experience to make him feel good about studying, I do that. So, I am shelving the Top School Exams for the moment.

I notice that P5 SA1, P5 SA2, P6 SA1 and P6 SA2 are all of pretty equivalent difficulty. In effect, P5 SA1 paper is 90% of a PSLE paper. There's no way to do well at any of these practices right now (for us)... even if we do a lotta it simply because skills tested have not yet been covered. Hence, I have decided that I won't give him Top School exams to do until he has covered all the topics reasonably thoroughly.

Maybe he'll be ready by Aug this year? I dunno... This PSLE thing has thrown us so many curved balls since the start of the year that I am not sure of myself anymore. That may be good because no matter how experienced the mother, pride goes before a fall... one mustn't believe that one knows everything about motherhood and become complacent. I guess I'll just have to make it up as I go along... and pick up some ideas from parents here.

[teh_oh]

QuiteKSMum:

DS didn't skip any MCQ qns in the papers - he enjoyed doing them! Definitely by upper pri, besides accuracy, speed also plays an impt part; even in paper 1 (50 mins - need to do 10 1 mk MCQ, 5 2 mks MCQ, 10 1 mk short problem sum, 5 2 mks short prob sum - avg 1.67 min per sum). Hence, IMO, practising Paper 1 consistently will help to build up his speed too. Just my 2 cts (as I did minimal Maths with him, DH guided him...). :celebrate:

Hi QuiteKSMum,
Thanks for this highlight. Will continue to get him to do MCQ but will try to see if he can do it in 'record' time with minimal mistakes.

[canadataboo]

You are good. :salute:


As for my dd, she will do 2009 and 2010 top school exam papers. Any 'dun know' questions or wrong answer she have to seek help from her teachers or tutors. Simply put it that I want her to be independent in seeking answers rather than spoon fed.

So far so good.

Chenonceau:

My take on the Top School Exams VS Assessment Books is...

(1) Top School exams are good diagnostic tools to highlight topics we need to cover or strengthen.

(2) Top School exams (in the past 2 years at least) seem to give a good approximation of the level of difficulty of my son's school exams (give or take some)

(3) Assessment books come in useful after the diagnosis. I dun buy any English nor Science assessment books because there are other more fun ways to teach these 2 subjects. For Science, I used to read Horrible Science books with my son... and we indulge in his love for experiments. However, there are drawbacks. Once, he tried to build a mini Tesla coil and almost set our house on fire. Another time, he was studying mould growth on chitin and I found a tarantula in a box all covered with furry fungus. And then there was the time he was breeding mealworm beetles. I strenuously objected when he wanted to see what would happen to his skin if unwashed for 1 month. This way of teaching Science is fun and builds scientific thinking skills. He is now quite independent in experimental design. He wanted to know why birds sitting on electric wires don't get roasted, and he went and concocted an experiment with light bulbs, controls etc to get his answer. I was actually quite amazed because I didn't help him at all. However, we built these skills in P3 and P4. So P3 and P4 parents may wanna steer away from assessment books and build these foundational scientific thinking skills by doing practical experiments. I realize I have an advantage here because even a social scientist (I am a psychologist) is trained in scientific thinking so all this came naturally to us. However, there are many many \"101 Fun Experiments\" type of books that explain each step etc... and the more you do these experiments, the easier and more natural it'll be to internalize scientific thinking skills. Dun need to get too serious. A lot of learning can be unconscious. In fact, I never really explained to my son scientific thinking, I just did simple experiments with him... giggle about the effects, and then later, he was on auto-pilot. So... you dun have to be a scientist to teach science.

For English we let him read. He is currently reading a book by Howard Gardner called the Science of Fear... and another book on The History of Money. He also likes Time magazine. Last year, I channelled him to fiction but I realize that PSLE has a fair amount of non-fiction compre-clozes so we've been reading more non-fiction this year. There was a happy side effect too because my boy enjoys non-fiction more than fiction. We only really work hard on compo writing for English. He does one compo every week for me. These methods gave him a good grounding (and all by himself, he had already progressed beyond his level) in P3 and P4 so these 2 subjects worry me least. In a way, he pre-taught himself. All I did was shop for stuff he wanted to buy.

(4) For Math, I had one topical assessment book in P3 and P4. Step-by-step by Simon Eio. Once he has completed the topics required for SA1, I give him Top School papers. This year (P5) we lost our footing because the Step-by-Step Simon Eio book covered the basic topics without the complex skills. I didn't know these complex skills were needed because we had only identified topic gaps when we did a diagnostic earlier this year. So... I now use Onsponge to teach topic and skills. For the moment, I have completely stopped Top School Exams because we already have a diagnostic, and until he has completed Onsponge, he is not ready for exam drills. This is a departure from our normal practice because his work schedule in the past 2 years always involves Top School Exam drills (dry runs that teach him to manage time and exam techniques) 6 weeks before exams. But Top School Exam drills are no point if there are questions asking for stuff he has not been taught. It is demoralizing to do and score exam practices and run into stuff that has not been taught. When he does exam practices, I wanna be sure that he knows enough so that he gets a good grade because good grades at exam practices build confidence and gives pleasure (and studying must be pleasurable). No doubt studying isn't all fun but if I can engineer a positive experience to make him feel good about studying, I do that. So, I am shelving the Top School Exams for the moment.

I notice that P5 SA1, P5 SA2, P6 SA1 and P6 SA2 are all of pretty equivalent difficulty. In effect, P5 SA1 paper is 90% of a PSLE paper. There's no way to do well at any of these practices right now (for us)... even if we do a lotta it simply because skills tested have not yet been covered. Hence, I have decided that I won't give him Top School exams to do until he has covered all the topics reasonably thoroughly.

Maybe he'll be ready by Aug this year? I dunno... This PSLE thing has thrown us so many curved balls since the start of the year that I am not sure of myself anymore. That may be good because no matter how experienced the mother, pride goes before a fall... one mustn't believe that one knows everything about motherhood and become complacent. I guess I'll just have to make it up as I go along... and pick up some ideas from parents here.

[Saralala]

hi all,


I find the PSLE Math assessment book by Publisher Cosmic is one of the better ones. I feel that it is rather worth the money due to the numerous questions. EPB do have good books too.

I feel that one assessment must be coupled with past year school papers as past year school papers can be rather tough and interesting at times.

For those who are more tech savvy, I find http://www.witsvale.com. Tried letting my son use it and he told me that it was fun because he get to gain points, collect badges as he improves and he can interact with friends.

Hope this helps.

[susantmy]

Thank Saralala for the website…


My boy is taking PSLE soon but no mood to study. buy many books for him but he never even touch. Hope the fun part can get him to do more revision.