Review Underway of the Educational System

[Snow Crystal]

Try :goodpost:


Thanks for the information. You are right - it gives a wrong impression of ability. IMHO, strong foundation plays a big part in subsequent secondary school Chinese. But like what you said, MOE's dishing out of so many As certainly boost morale and maintain interest for the subject. Strategic move.

[Brenda10]

try:

Just something I read which I found interesting because I never knew that results were moderated to such an extent for the chinese language.


PSLE Chinese according to past MOE statistics which were similar to those in 2009 - 13% scored A*, 69% of students scored A, 11% scored B, 5% scored C. (Info taken from Eduguide magazine 166/08/2010 Volume 4, published by absolutelyparents.com which quoted its source was from MOE)

From what I gleaned from parents whose children had taken PSLE, most students(69%?) who scored Bs and Cs in schools will be able to score As in PSLE. Its a matter of a high A or a low A, which parents will not know, unless you do so comparison with students with the same number of A*/A/B/C.

Seemed that MOE is trying to encourage students by giving As during PSLE through moderating. Not only might this give the wrong impression of a child's chinese ability, parents whose children had been getting Bs or Cs in school may find it hard to select/decide chinese tutors/tuition centers as many can and should have majority of students who scored at least an A in PSLE given that only 18% scored B and below. http://i52.tinypic.com/3166kh0.jpg\">

Hi Try

:goodpost:

Thank you for sharing.

We can notice that many questions were raised for help at PSLE Math, Science or EL forum but not CL.

For the year 2010, the PSLE exam results:

A and A*
English 44.3%
Math 43.3%
Science 43.2%
Chinese 81.2%

[jtoh]

Can someone please clarify this for me.


If someone scores >91 marks at a PSLE subject, is he automatically given an A*? That is, the marks you score at PSLE are absolute. So if you score 89, you are given an A, regardless of the performance of your cohort.

Then, only after moderation via T-score {where T-score = 50 + 10 ([X-Y]/Z)} , will that subject’s contribution to the T-score be adjusted?

OR is the scenario this: That there is no set mark for A*, A, B etc and that each grade is determined based on cohort performance and a normal curve? So someone could score 85 marks and still get an A* in PSLE?

[Brenda10]

Hi jtoh,


My friend’s DD said she had at least 3 questions wrong (11 marks gone) during 2009 but still managed to get an A* for Math.

This was not included any possible careless mistake that she may make too.

[Chenonceau]

I THINK (not sure) that there is a set mark for A.


However, the paper can be set in such a way that up to 75% of marks are pitched at easy difficulty, with the remaining 25% difficult. The variance would thus be between 75%-100% but within the band, there will still be differentiation that is relevant to the t-score.

My 2 cents. Not sure.

[jtoh]

Hi Brenda and Chenonceau,


Thanks for your replies.

I always assumed that there was no pre-set mark for the grades but got a little confused after reading some of the posts in the Education thread.

[Nebbermind]

jtoh:

Hi Brenda and Chenonceau,


Thanks for your replies.

I always assumed that there was no pre-set mark for the grades but got a little confused after reading some of the posts in the Education thread.

hmm....I've always thought it's the reverse, ie, the grades have pre-set.

[Chenonceau]

Ok… now… I am confused…

[MandyMummy]

The marks for any national exams should not be preset. It should be based on cohort performance. Same for Cambridge exams in which they need to draw the curve and to determine the cut-off for each grade.

[Chenonceau]

Brenda10:

A and A*

English 44.3%
Math 43.3%
Science 43.2%
Chinese 81.2%

Mandymummy, so they set the cut-off at 80% under the curve for A hah?

:faint: