2012 PSLE Discussions and Strategy

[concerned_of_PSLE 10]

fifiyeo:

There is one question on the height of water in the end. What's the answer DS asking??

I got a weird mixed number.
13 something over something

[Chenonceau]

ruohoo97:

Chenonceau:

The discrepancy in impressions is not surprising. Historically, PSLE Math has the widest spread in marks. There are very low marks and very high marks (i.e., the difference between the lowest mark and highest mark is large). In contrast, the language papers have the narrowest spread of marks (i.e., the difference between highest mark and lowest mark is smaller).


If you imagine all the PSLE scores plotted on a graph... there will be 4 bell curves looking like the following... See here for a picture of the bell curve - http://www.robertniles.com/stats/stdev.shtml

(1) Math - wide bell bottom
(2) Science - less wide bell bottom
(3) English - even less wide bell bottom
(4) Chinese - narrowest bell bottom

In order for EACH subject to have equal weightage, statistical operations have to equalize the spread across subjects. This means that they will have to have the same size bell bottom for all the subjects.

Now, if your bell bottom was narrow... you would have to pull it wider to fit the spread of the t-score curve. If your bell bottom were wider... you would have to compress the spread to fit the spread of the t-score curve. The t-score curves for each subject have EXACTLY the same spread.

This means that every 1 mark increase/decrease in raw score for Chinese (narrow curve that is pulled wider) gives you a higher increase/decrease in t-score than every extra mark in Math (that is compressed narrower) raw score.

A friend of mine works in After School Care... and there are some kids who could not finish HALF the paper. Yet, there are kids from Tao Nan, who complete with time to spare. This just follows the same pattern as every year's PSLE, there will be a wide spread in marks.

That is a very interesting point of view. I have always thought, if a paper is easy, T score will actually be lower, comparing to that of tough papers. Now you brought the spread of bell curve. how did you know the Maths curve is widest while Chinese curve is narrowest? Is there some publications by MOE? or KSPs? Thanks a lot.

Google the formula for t-score? You will find that it involves the standard deviation. Standard deviation is a measure of spread. Does this help?

[concerned_of_PSLE 10]

kuts:

singergirl:

Eng pp2 was ok (PHEWW!)

For vocab, is the decipher or determine correct

I put determine if you say decipher it must be something about codes

[mummy so kiasu]

Big fish:

worldangel:

don't think I am being a wet blanket here; I am merely cautioning the children to be more careful in their work and to spend time reading the questions carefully. Anyway, there is no award for who finishes the fastest in every exam

Great minds think alike, I totally agree with you, that is why I urge students/parents to be sensitive and humble.
And a student posted he/she finished Paper one in 20 mins, what is she trying to show??????

Only 20 mins? Either she is a Math genius or she does not know how to do. Hope she gets all or most of the questions correct & not by guessing. PSLE is an important exam & she should not take any risk. Better spend some time to do checking than to be sorry.

[Studious Alien]

concerned_of_PSLE 10:

kuts:

[quote=\"singergirl\"]Eng pp2 was ok (PHEWW!)

For vocab, is the decipher or determine correct

I put determine if you say decipher it must be something about codes[/quote]I put determine too!

[kuts]

concerned_of_PSLE 10:

kuts:

[quote=\"singergirl\"]Eng pp2 was ok (PHEWW!)

For vocab, is the decipher or determine correct

I put determine if you say decipher it must be something about codes[/quote]
Not necessarily it must! It actually means figuring out/make out

The police could not ____________ the cause of death as the vicitm has lost his memory

[mommylow]

Chenonceau:

ruohoo97:

[quote=\"Chenonceau\"]The discrepancy in impressions is not surprising. Historically, PSLE Math has the widest spread in marks. There are very low marks and very high marks (i.e., the difference between the lowest mark and highest mark is large). In contrast, the language papers have the narrowest spread of marks (i.e., the difference between highest mark and lowest mark is smaller).


If you imagine all the PSLE scores plotted on a graph... there will be 4 bell curves looking like the following... See here for a picture of the bell curve - http://www.robertniles.com/stats/stdev.shtml

(1) Math - wide bell bottom
(2) Science - less wide bell bottom
(3) English - even less wide bell bottom
(4) Chinese - narrowest bell bottom

In order for EACH subject to have equal weightage, statistical operations have to equalize the spread across subjects. This means that they will have to have the same size bell bottom for all the subjects.

Now, if your bell bottom was narrow... you would have to pull it wider to fit the spread of the t-score curve. If your bell bottom were wider... you would have to compress the spread to fit the spread of the t-score curve. The t-score curves for each subject have EXACTLY the same spread.

This means that every 1 mark increase/decrease in raw score for Chinese (narrow curve that is pulled wider) gives you a higher increase/decrease in t-score than every extra mark in Math (that is compressed narrower) raw score.

A friend of mine works in After School Care... and there are some kids who could not finish HALF the paper. Yet, there are kids from Tao Nan, who complete with time to spare. This just follows the same pattern as every year's PSLE, there will be a wide spread in marks.

That is a very interesting point of view. I have always thought, if a paper is easy, T score will actually be lower, comparing to that of tough papers. Now you brought the spread of bell curve. how did you know the Maths curve is widest while Chinese curve is narrowest? Is there some publications by MOE? or KSPs? Thanks a lot.

Google the formula for t-score? You will find that it involves the standard deviation. Standard deviation is a measure of spread. Does this help?[/quote]

I learnt that if the general cohort does well, they will be bunched up towards the median score. The highest and lowest will also be nearer to the median score. In very difficult exams, the highest score will get higher and the lowest score even lower. That translates to easy papers give smaller standard deviation from the mean score.

[Chenonceau]

ruohoo... do these help?


http://www.greatminds.edu.sg/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=89:disclose-t-score-secret&catid=59:great-minds-club&Itemid=91


http://road-to-psle.blogspot.sg/2007/11/how-psle-aggregate-and-t-scores-are.html

The t-score formula has both cohort average (difficulty of paper) and cohort standard deviation (spread of marks around average). Both have a bearing on how much 1 mark raw score increase in a particular subject contributes to t-score. Most people look at paper difficulty... but given the formula, spread is important too.

http://i48.tinypic.com/245wldx.png\">

Read the above table with some pinches of salt... it is NOT confirmed that Chinese has the smallest spread of marks around the mean. If any parent can confirm/disconfirm this, it would be good. What the table above shows is ONLY that difficulty of paper (cohort average) and spread of marks (gap between best and worst student) has a bearing on t-score.

The relative spreads of Chinese, English, Science and Math are drawn from here - http://www.greatminds.edu.sg/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=89:disclose-t-score-secret&catid=59:great-minds-club&Itemid=91... this site reverse engineered the spreads from pass rate and quality pass rate for each subject.

[SAHM_TAN]

I think in the earlier posts, or maybe in another thread, there are a couple on PSLE that I’m a bit confused, parents were wondering abt the difficulty level of Eng and Maths papers. I view the posts by the students as response to those earlier posts, nothing more.


Best wishes to all P6 kids.

[fantasy1]

Hi


for the vocab, my DD chose decipher, but she said all her classmates had chosen determine