All About T-Score

[verykiasu2010]

matadorepy:

verykiasu2010:

[quote=\"coolit\"]I see thanks verykiasu2010, I did not know this information was so widely available.

I am much clearer about this after reading the info you have given.

credit must be given to the principal of NUSH - he is the one who devised the t-score formula, so i heard

Yep, Dr Hang Kin Boo, current Principal of NUSH was the one that proposed to MOE years back. He was a statisician with a Maths Phd. That's why he knows that student who can scored well in MT (chinese, Tamils, Malay) etc aways has the edge in achieving higher T-score than his chinese, tamil or malay compatroits. That's why you cannot compare T-score at face-value meaning you cannot compare a chinese vs malay vs tamil PSLE candidates.
You will always have a top chinese, a top indian or top malay candidate.

The Indian and Malay pool of candidates is much much smaller than those taking Chinese as mother tongue. The SD and the mean of Malay and Indian is different from Chinese. If you have a year of very tough Malay or Indian paper and a generally easy Chinese MT paper, the top student will be from the Malay or the Indian PSLE candidates , all other things being equal.

Many folks here probably did;nt know about this. [/quote]thanks for the insightful info on impact of MT papers on the t-score.

however, the admission to sec 1 is based on t-score, hence it may some time be unknowingly affected by the difficulty differential between the different MT.
hence it is an idea worth considering to remove MT from the t-score if it helps to compare performance of different racial candidates ...... but anything racial is taboo ..... :censored: :censored: :censored:

[vlim]

verykiasu2010:

matadorepy:

[quote=\"verykiasu2010\"]
credit must be given to the principal of NUSH - he is the one who devised the t-score formula, so i heard

Yep, Dr Hang Kin Boo, current Principal of NUSH was the one that proposed to MOE years back. He was a statisician with a Maths Phd. That's why he knows that student who can scored well in MT (chinese, Tamils, Malay) etc aways has the edge in achieving higher T-score than his chinese, tamil or malay compatroits. That's why you cannot compare T-score at face-value meaning you cannot compare a chinese vs malay vs tamil PSLE candidates.
You will always have a top chinese, a top indian or top malay candidate.

The Indian and Malay pool of candidates is much much smaller than those taking Chinese as mother tongue. The SD and the mean of Malay and Indian is different from Chinese. If you have a year of very tough Malay or Indian paper and a generally easy Chinese MT paper, the top student will be from the Malay or the Indian PSLE candidates , all other things being equal.

Many folks here probably did;nt know about this.

thanks for the insightful info on impact of MT papers on the t-score.

however, the admission to sec 1 is based on t-score, hence it may some time be unknowingly affected by the difficulty differential between the different MT.
hence it is an idea worth considering to remove MT from the t-score if it helps to compare performance of different racial candidates ...... but anything racial is taboo ..... :censored: :censored: :censored:[/quote]aiyo vk2010...u forgotten about the debate about lower the weightage of MT... later those no good in maths or science but v good in MT will come after you :siam: ...

[verykiasu2010]

vlim:

aiyo vk2010...u forgotten about the debate about lower the weightage of MT... later those no good in maths or science but v good in MT will come after you :siam: ...

ya ya ya, soli sori ...... :siam: :siam:

[coolit]

Haha, but verykiasu2010 brought out an important point, since the MT papers differ in difficulty, isnt it rather unfair? Sigh…guess no choice but it is still something that leaves me thinking and thinking…

[jtoh]

That’s why the top scorer is usually Malay, Indian or originally from China. You don’t see many local Chinese toP scorers.

[verykiasu2010]

jtoh:

That's why the top scorer is usually Malay, Indian or originally from China. You don't see many local Chinese toP scorers.

have lah! 2010 psle top 2 from lao sai are locals

[jtoh]

verykiasu2010:

jtoh:

That's why the top scorer is usually Malay, Indian or originally from China. You don't see many local Chinese toP scorers.

have lah! 2010 psle top 2 from lao sai are locals

I didn't say don't have. I said not many. Especially when you consider that majority of the population is Chinese. So the percentage of representation is disproportionately low.

[vlim]

verykiasu2010:

jtoh:

That's why the top scorer is usually Malay, Indian or originally from China. You don't see many local Chinese toP scorers.

have lah! 2010 psle top 2 from lao sai are locals

hello hello..no meh ner... :heresmyfish:

[verykiasu2010]

vlim:

verykiasu2010:

[quote=\"jtoh\"]That's why the top scorer is usually Malay, Indian or originally from China. You don't see many local Chinese toP scorers.

have lah! 2010 psle top 2 from lao sai are locals

hello hello..no meh ner... :heresmyfish: [/quote] :? :?

[Alchemist]

jtoh:

That's why the top scorer is usually Malay, Indian or originally from China. You don't see many local Chinese toP scorers.

If you are suggesting the top scorers are Indian or Malay because of easy Mother Tongue papers - then you may be mistaken. The post clearly states in the years of tough Tamil or Malay papers and easy Chinese papers the toppers may be Indian or Malay - the good Tamil and Malay students get a greater advantage in their T-score due to the lower SD for these papers - as they are minorities - not because papers are easy.

By that token it is the non chinese parents of average students who should be crying unfair - because the Chinese paper was easy and the other papers weren't.

I think the suggestion (and I do think there is one) that non-Chinese papers are easier (hence 'different' level of difficulty) is a little distateful. My first distasteful experience of this forum - but to be expected I guess.

Tamil is a language spoken from 300 BC - it is rich in its tradition and very complex in its development. Tamil grammar is extremely difficult to master - I understand in Mandarin it is the strokes and the memorisation of the words - as it is hieroglyphic - however, from what I understand tense, pronouns etc are to be understood using the context also there are no verb conjugations, noun cases, gender based pronouns. In tamil it is the grammar that is deadly as it has numerous noun cases, verb conjugationsa are difficult, they also need to be related to tenses. Also it is a diaglossic language - formal tamil is vastly different from spoken tamil. Tamil one of the few diaglossic languages still surviving in usage today.

I have learnt 4 languages in my life - although Tamil is my mother tongue, I only speak it, do not read or write - and I struggled coaching my son in Tamil. I have learnt German for 3 years and was a top student at my year in NUS for the language - so it is not due to lack of ability to learn languages that I found Tamil difficult.

Let us not fall into the trap of disparaging others' languages by insinuating that their language or therefore their papers are easier - for whatever reason - all for a thing like PSLE. What is the use of top PSLE marks if we cannot be decent human beings and respect others? The top Malay and Indian students who do well do so out of merit. The Chinese students who do well also do so out of merit. And maybe the top student maynot be Singaporean Chinese - but I am sure the majority of students in the top are SG Chinese - as they would rightly be given their majority in the population.

For me personally - I feel all languages have their own beauty and their challenges. I am looking forward to learning Mandarin soon - to add another dimension to my knowledge of languages.