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    Bell Curve - To remove or not to remove?

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Secondary Schools - Selection
    72 Posts 25 Posters 22.6k Views 1 Watching
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    • P Offline
      PhoBIA
      last edited by

      Why can’t both the raw and t score be made known to the student?

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      • NebbermindN Offline
        Nebbermind
        last edited by

        Personally, the lesser made known, the better!! 😉

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        • B Offline
          BeContented
          last edited by

          Nebbermind:
          Personally, the lesser made known, the better!! 😉

          Agree to this.

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          • janet88J Offline
            janet88
            last edited by

            BeContented:
            Nebbermind:

            Personally, the lesser made known, the better!! 😉


            Agree to this.

            I agree. Lesser to see, lesser to ponder.

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            • A Offline
              AWSP
              last edited by

              The Bell Curve’s evil is in the distortion in weighting. Mother Tongue becomes the heaviest weighted apparently because of the ‘profile’ of the cohort. A very apparent symptom from past years observation is that is that the top scorers have typically very strong command of second language. You do not see top scorers who demonstrate strong maths or science or english skills over the rest of the subjects. You may also try to guess the profile of last years top scorers which coincidentally has a "significant" number of Malay students. The distribution in Mother tongue is most logically not a bell curve but a hump shaped curve or a very left skewed distribution. A skewed distribution will create a lot of distortion. I think this part is totally unforeseen by the folks in MOE and they are not willing to admit the problem.

              Based on immigration trend, I would place a bet that this years top 10 scorers will have a good representation by Tamil students. (Another skewing effect).
              To the more statistically trained people, I am saying that 3rd moment effect is quite logically present given our children’s profile in mother tongue. The disortionary effect is worse and more drastic than the 2nd moment effect(standard deviation).
              The pressure in PSLE is not due to T-score but the competitive entry into the top IP school with limited placing. It doesnt matter which way you design your scoring as long as demand exceed supply by a huge mile.

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              • S Offline
                SAHM_TAN
                last edited by

                IP track is not for everyone.


                Regardless of how the scores are generated, there are plenty of decent sec schools around, open eyes and will see that there are more than handful.

                We seem to have come to a stage, at least it feels here, that in primary school scoring marks in the region of 70s-80s is a horrible grade.

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                • A Offline
                  AWSP
                  last edited by

                  Rhetoric has limited effect. Taking away the banding and telling people that every school has its merit is not going to work. In finance and economics lingo, the market is always efficient. The price of entry into a school aka "PSLE Tscore" will always reflect the demand. You cannot create enough market noise to convince someone with 260+ to forsake RI and go to "Adams Road School" and let someone with 220 try and get into RI in place.

                  Of course if desired, you can always "do central planning and allocation" ie hold a lottery for the placement of students into secondary schools. (if the assumption that all schools are equal holds). All pressure and stress will be gone then.

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                  • S Offline
                    SAHM_TAN
                    last edited by

                    Will a student who score 220 be able to thrive in RI? Assuming that 220 is consistent with the child’s academic performance in school.

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                    • K Offline
                      kamom
                      last edited by

                      SAHM_TAN:
                      Will a student who score 220 be able to thrive in RI? Assuming that 220 is consistent with the child's academic performance in school.

                      It all depends what the school wants to do. If RI decides to focus on giving every child an opportunity to stidy in their school regardless, then why not?

                      What aboout feeder schools. The T-score for feeder schools is always lower for their own kind but higher for 'outsiders'. I always wonder if it is fair.

                      A child with a T-score of 200 can get into their feeder school.
                      A child wth a T-score of 220 can't get in cos' no \"connection\".

                      If a T-score of 220 cannot thrive in the school, how can a T-score of 200 survive???

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                      • S Offline
                        SAHM_TAN
                        last edited by

                        kamom:
                        SAHM_TAN:

                        Will a student who score 220 be able to thrive in RI? Assuming that 220 is consistent with the child's academic performance in school.


                        It all depends what the school wants to do. If RI decides to focus on giving every child an opportunity to stidy in their school regardless, then why not?

                        What aboout feeder schools. The T-score for feeder schools is always lower for their own kind but higher for 'outsiders'. I always wonder if it is fair.

                        A child with a T-score of 200 can get into their feeder school.
                        A child wth a T-score of 220 can't get in cos' no \"connection\".

                        If a T-score of 220 cannot thrive in the school, how can a T-score of 200 survive???

                        Dunno if can survive but will affect the O level results. Maybe that's why there seem to be a trend of increasing COP for affiliated students bah.

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