PSLE - New Format for Maths

[atutor2001]

abc321:

My friends and I think that the paper is normal, not as difficult as you think. Most of the methods were taught by our school maths teacher. I think maybe you did not teach your students methods to solve these problems.

My personal guinea pigs are not my students. They are my very own dearest kids, in Uni and JC. Many here think that I am a tutor. Sorry I am not tutor. \"atutor2001\" stands for \"a tutor for my kids till 2001\".

I pick my kids for the test because it will be a fair assessment, knowing that they have not done such questions for the past many years and they are not that stupid.

Your assessments on the level of difficulty of the questions is biased. You have done them before. You are lucky that your teacher spotted the correct questions. Would you dare claim that if faced with any other tricky questions of the same level of difficulty (you have not done before), you will be able to solve each question within 5 min?

Undoubtedly, there are definitely math wiz-kids who can see through the questions differently. But how many are there? Unfortunately, you can't be assessed because you have done the questions before.

The strategy for solving the questions on \"speed\" and \"geometry\" is definitely not covered in the normal school curriculum. Therefore, it is definitely not fair to assess the entire cohort with such questions as some, like you, have the luxury of doing them before while most of the other poor kids have not.

If you are really a kid, you will not understand the frustration expressed by this kay poh parent. But I doubt you are a kid. Hope you are not going to post here the name of the \"Great tuition agency\" that so cleverly spotted the correct questions for you.

[atutor2001]

justsay:

My DD has lost 18 marks already... Hope this won't affect her chance of going to her dream school....

This is a factor that angered some of my friends. They fear missing their dream school because of the math paper.

There is no humans subject in PSLE. But some of the bright students excel more in humans subjects than sciences and math. Most top A level students are from the \"humans\"

Is the system not penalising these group of bright students with a disproportionately difficult math paper? They have no way to counter the advantage that students good in the sciences are having in PSLE.

[endingteen]

eddie tan:

i think most p6 student NO HOPE to go to their dream sch already ready to go to lousy sch :love: :love: :love: :shock: :shock:

please do not worry too much. you must remember that Singapore's education system is generally very similar throughout the all the levels of education under the MOE. there is always the moderation factor- the bell curve as its more commonly known. its not a reliable factor to pin all your hopes on it but its good to know that the absolute marks of what your kids may get wouldn't mean that he/she will get a certain grade. Ie to say, 75 marks does not guarantee an A. hope none of you will come to the conclusion that everyone will do badly because that will never happen. it depends on the results of your kids relative to the rest of the cohort. same applies to the O's and A's.

[Gerri]

The question about the time Lin complete the race. This is just my 2 cent thought;


Mei speed is 20km/hr
Lin is always 3.5km behind Mei.

In 1 hr, Mei would travel 20km
And Lin would travel 20-3.5=16.5km
So the speed of Lin is 16.5km/hr

We only need to know the how much faster is Mei to Lin and add the diff to the Mei’s arrival time.

Sound logical, can someone tell me if I’m right.

[atutor2001]

Gerri:

The question about the time Lin complete the race. This is just my 2 cent thought;


Mei speed is 20km/hr
Lin is always 3.5km behind Mei.

In 1 hr, Mei would travel 20km
And Lin would travel 20-3.5=16.5km
So the speed of Lin is 16.5km/hr

We only need to know the how much faster is Mei to Lin and add the diff to the Mei's arrival time.

Sound logical, can someone tell me if I'm right.

I am afraid it is not so. Lin is 3.5m behind Mei when Lin reached the mid-point. The time taken by Lin to reach the mid-point is not 1 hour. We can't find that time as we do not know the distance to the mid-point. So we cannot find Lin's speed by subtraction as 3.5m is not the difference in the distance travelled after 1h

[kiasiparent]

Some of the students are trained in maths olympiads. These kind of questions were not too difficult for them. Believe it or not, there were some students who complete the maths paper 2 in just 40 mins and have nothing to do after that.




Geometry questions: Look out for equal lines (common sense)

Speed question: Maths olympiad style (Some students can solve it in under 5 mins, believe it or not)

balloon question: Test on LCM. Almost every year, a question like this(LCM or HCF) came up.

computer question: Very obviously 25mins (so short) cant be the answer right? Just think more and one should realise the time played is 100 mins each.

cookies, curry puff: Well, these kind of questions also came up in psle last year.

[endingteen]

actually i hae no idea why they introduced the use of calculators into the PSLE. i mean i do not see the point in making tough questions to cater for the use of the calculator. i remember my psle being a test for us to use your mental calculations and the ‘model’ method to solve questions. calculators are actually only needed in the upper secondary years.

[david59]

atutor2001:

justsay:

My DD has lost 18 marks already... Hope this won't affect her chance of going to her dream school....

This is a factor that angered some of my friends. They fear missing their dream school because of the math paper.

There is no humans subject in PSLE. But some of the bright students excel more in humans subjects than sciences and math. Most top A level students are from the \"humans\"

Is the system not penalising these group of bright students with a disproportionately difficult math paper? They have no way to counter the advantage that students good in the sciences are having in PSLE.

I agree with you. I remember my younger girl who was the top student in Science in her school Prelim Exam. Wow! But you know what? She did not get an A* in the PSLE! Otherwise she would have got into a better school. Nonetheless, she is now in a top but not very top JC Hehehe. :celebrate:
Moral of the story - PSLE is not the end of the educational pursuit. There are many more chances to achieve your dream along the way up the educational ladder if you stay positive and work hard and smart.

[atutor2001]

kiasiparent:

Some of the students are trained in maths olympiads. These kind of questions were not too difficult for them. Believe it or not, there were some students who complete the maths paper 2 in just 40 mins and have nothing to do after that.




Geometry questions: Look out for equal lines (common sense)

Speed question: Maths olympiad style (Some students can solve it in under 5 mins, believe it or not)

balloon question: Test on LCM. Almost every year, a question like this(LCM or HCF) came up.

cookies, curry puff: Well, these kind of questions also came up in psle last year.

I agreed with you, I remembered the method for solving the geometry question because one of my kids ever asked me exactly the same question while training for maths olympiad many years ago. However, only selected GEPs and a few from the express had the benefit of such exposure.

I feel that if MOE wants to find out who are the really brilliant by including such questions to identify them, they can adopt the format used in my kids' former Sec sch.

Their math paper has a few \"optional\" questions at the end of the paper. Maximum mark including these \"optional\" questions is 110%.

For computation of their aggregate, the total is still taken as 100% even if one managed to score a full mark of 110%. So kids have the choice of trying the optional questions or not. With this system, a normal kid can still obtain full 100% without attempting the \"optional questions\". A brilliant kids will only get 100% even if their actual score is more than 100%.

This system fixed the level of difficulty of the paper for normal students. However, it also allows the school to identify the super brilliant for math without affecting the performance of the other students. Maybe for PSLE, they can give a A** for those with above 100 marks as a form of recognition but the T-score will still be computed based on 100 marks.

My concern is that if the PSLE paper will to continue with the current trend, our future students will be forced by parents to take up tuition for Math Olymiad questions. In a few years time, the question will become even tougher. When will it end? At the end we have more children hating math and a bunch of so call \"intelligent\" kids memerising hundreds of different math solving strategies and approaches.

[tutormum]

//Editor's note: Topic selected for Portal publication.


As parents, I understand we want the best for our children. We can help by giving them full support and have realistic expectations from them. My 2 elder boys are average students and I don't push them to be top scorers. Though they don't take the university road, they are doing well in their own capacity. I'm very happy that they are well rounded and decent citizens with no vices. My youngest boy however show great potential and is among the top scorer for maths in school. He's a genius in maths and represents his school in competitions but weak in Chinese. I have to add that I didn't help him much in Maths and many have the misconception that I trained him. In fact, he's better in Maths than me. :oops: He was stunned by the angle and sweets questions but confident that he did well for the rest. He had 40mins left to think but somehow couldn't break out of the box and solve them. Worse, on reflection (with some prompting from me), he realised that he could have solved them. He realised he had made a careless mistake and got the curry puff question wrong. Of course I encouraged him to move on. The consolation was those top scorers in his school didn't do better either cos everybody seems to be floored by the same questions. To him, the paper is difficult but he's happy it's not easy as he tends to make careless mistakes with easy questions and perform well in difficult tests compared to easy ones. :? The reason I share this is because I hope that if your child is an average performer, he or she will not take it too hard and if he/she is a top scorer, there's company. Moreover, being good in Maths plays only a small part in getting into top schools. One has to be good in all four subjects. If your child is good in Chinese, my son has no advantage over him/her cos overall they may have the same T-score, so take heart.
I am also a tutor and I also find that letting children use calculator is more of a detriment than help at primary level. Most of my students have become too lazy to calculate mentally and don't even know their timetable. They are actually taking one step backwards cos they are so dependent on calculators instead of doing simple mental calculations. I ban calculators during tuition and allow them to use only for complicated sums. My advice to all parents when helping their children in Maths are:
1. Cultivate an interest in Maths first. Without passion, your child will never love and do well in the subject. Worse, they'll hate it when they can't solve the sums as they become disheartened.
2. Give encouragement and moral support by finding ways to help them e.g. find creative methods or looking at the sum at another angle.
3. Simplify the concepts taught to help them understand
4. Take one step at a time. Many parents insist that I teach their children how to solve difficult sums despite the fact that their children have yet to master the concept. Make sure that your child know the basics well and proceed from there. Give me a child who understand the concept thoroughly and I give you a child who can solve any maths questions.
5. Last but not least, practice and more practice as practice makes perfect. Most students forgot what they've learnt cos lack of practice. There's no room for laziness. Some parents mistaken that if a tutor has reinforced what is taught in school, their children should do well. However, from my experience, pupils who do badly in Maths are those who don't do their assignment cos they are too confident that they can remember how to do a particular sum just cos they did it before.
Regarding the Maths paper, I agree that it is difficult because there are too many complicated sums compared to previous years. Given the time constraint and exam pressure, I can understand that they won't perform as well compared to normal circumstances. However, children have been taught and drilled in all aspects and have the capability to solve them. They knew the requirements for every question, e.g. for the speed question, they have no doubt that it implied that the cyclists are cycling at a constant speed although we know that it is practically impossible to to so. I think the reason why parents find the sums difficult themselves is cos they are not exposed to such questions. My husband who boasts to be a top scorer in Maths in his school days can't answer any of the questions and has totally given up. :stupid: So cheer up parents and children, all is not lost. :love: