Q&A - P3 Science

[janet88]

Answer:

Q1 C
Q2 A

A seed is the start of a new life. With warmth (sunlight), air and water, it will be develop into a new plant.

[mama_mia]

mrswongtuition:

Actually it depends alot on how the kids are taught. When I tutor my students, I do not force them to memorise. They are taught how to THINK & analyse experiments. What MOE wants to develop are THINKING MINDS.


However, there are of course basic facts they must memorise. The main topics which I feel needs alot of memorisation are Plants, Life Cycles, Solar System (P5 topic), Human Systems and Pollution (P6 topic). The other topics are generally 'easier' to tackle if the kids can use logical thinking to think through the experiments given.

Knowing the science is one part. The next part is being able to answer the questions the 'scientific way'. I have students who give answers which are logical, but their wording & phrasing is not the 'scientific way' that the teaching is looking out for, therefore they do not get the marks.

Example:
Why did John use a plant of the same type & size?

Answer given by student:
So that we can compare the two plants after the experiment without wondering which plant was bigger first.

Answer expected by the teacher:
To ensure a fair test as different plant sizes at the start of the experiment would affect the final results of the experiment.

In this case, the child understood the concept of making it a fair test, but could not phrase his answer properly and resulted in the loss of marks.


The topics that are tested are suitable for cognitive level of 9/10 yo. Many kids do not have trouble understanding or applying the concepts (sometimes the questions are also not phrase clearly).

The main problem is how they answer the question. Not all children have strong linguistic skills to answer the question to the teacher's expectations.

Due to this, I also include 'ideal phrases' commonly expected in answers when revising with my tutees. & with these 'ideal phrases', they score better (although they told me sometimes they really do not know the answer, so they just try the 'ideal phrase' which they think is most applicable to the question instead of leaving blank).

& another problem is that there are many science TBs in the market now. All of which have varying content. There is not 'standard' content to follow & it makes it really hard as some books really do not cover much & if the teacher is not hardworking in creating their own extra notes for the students, the students really lose out! In the past we only had ONE science TB (I remember the first P3 topic was MATTER!). It was much easier then as all we had to do was make sure we knew the content from that textbook!

Even if you take a look at MOE's syllabus, it is not specific. One example would be the type of plants which are flowering plants. We can't expect the child to know ALL the flowering plants in the world! There should be a fixed list of plants which they must know (maybe the common ones in SG/Asia for a start).

Dear Mrs. Wong, thank you for sharing, it had helped to put my perspective rights towards handling science subject together my girl. My girl is in P3 now, science is a new subject, i had been looking around trying to find materials, info. to see how i can help her. As you also mentioned the TB, or ABs vary in content and focus, so i was quite confused myself. I hope while pursuing the answers, my girl will pick up new knowledge that could apply. Thanks again.

[Snow-white]

Hi


Can anyone help me with the following two questions? Would appreciate if you could provide an explanation for each given answer. Thanks!

1) Lydia has a pot of orchid plant and a pot of articifial orchid plant. Which one of the following is the incorrect method to find out which is the real plant?

(a) Place them near the window sill.
(b) Count the number of leaves they have.
Leave them without watering for a few days.
(d) Check for wilting or dying leaves and flowers.


2) Vanessa has a pot of sunflower plant and a pot of artificial sunflower (made of plastic).
Which one of the following steps is incorrect to find out whether the plant are living things?

(a) Leave them in the sun for a day.
(b) Count the number of leaves they have after a month.
Leave them without watering for a week.
(d) Check for wilting or dying leaves and flowers after one week.

[ooptimizer]

My answer:

1
2

[acforfamily]

Snow-white:

Hi


Can anyone help me with the following two questions? Would appreciate if you could provide an explanation for each given answer. Thanks!

1) Lydia has a pot of orchid plant and a pot of articifial orchid plant. Which one of the following is the incorrect method to find out which is the real plant?

(a) Place them near the window sill.
(b) Count the number of leaves they have.
(c) Leave them without watering for a few days.
(d) Check for wilting or dying leaves and flowers.

Hi snow-white, just giving my 2 cents worth here.
In answering science questions, we must also go back to the concept. The concept here is the characteristics of living things, one of which is
\"Living things need food, water, air to survive\". For plants, we have to change that to sunlight as they make their own food.
Another characteristic is that they die.

For q1
(a) Place them near the window sill.
This by itself does not tell you whether the plant is real or not. If it has food, water and sunlight, even after a few hours, you won't be able to differentiate.

(b) Count the number of leaves they have.
The real plant and the artificial one can have the same number of leaves. You can only differentiate it if it is left for a few days / weeks when new leaves grow or leaves wilt.

(c) Leave them without watering for a few days.
The real plant will die

(d) Check for wilting or dying leaves and flowers.
Even the real plant may not have dying leaves and flowers if you provide it with air, water, sunlight.

I would be really careful with some of the assessment books' questions ( I presume this is NOT from the school.) I usually cross out those questions which I think is teaching my child the wrong thing! IMHO.

So if forced to answer the question 1, I would choose (b).

[Snow-white]

Hi acforfamily


Thanks for providing the explanation for each answer in question 1. Yes, you are correct. The answer for question 1 is indeed (b)

These two questions came from CA1 and SA1 of two top primary school examination papers.

The answer for question 2 is (a), it is quite confusing as I am not sure if the answer sheet given together with the exam paper is correct or wrong.

[acforfamily]

Snow-white:

2) Vanessa has a pot of sunflower plant and a pot of artificial sunflower (made of plastic).
Which one of the following steps is incorrect to find out whether the plant are living things?

(a) Leave them in the sun for a day.
(b) Count the number of leaves they have after a month.
(c) Leave them without watering for a week.
(d) Check for wilting or dying leaves and flowers after one week.

(a) Leave them in the sun for a day.
This by itself does not tell you whether the plant is real or not. Unless you give it water, the real plant will wilt.

(b) Count the number of leaves they have after a month.
The real plant and the artificial one can be differentiated when new leaves grow or leaves wilt.

(c) Leave them without watering for a week.
The real plant will die

(d) Check for wilting or dying leaves and flowers after one week.
Even the real plant may not have dying leaves and flowers if you provide it with air, water, sunlight.

[Muffins]

Snow-white:

Hi


Can anyone help me with the following two questions? Would appreciate if you could provide an explanation for each given answer. Thanks!

1) Lydia has a pot of orchid plant and a pot of articifial orchid plant. Which one of the following is the incorrect method to find out which is the real plant?

(a) Place them near the window sill.
(b) Count the number of leaves they have.
(c) Leave them without watering for a few days.
(d) Check for wilting or dying leaves and flowers.

Hi Snow-White, I would choose (b) as the incorrect method. For (a), if you put them near a window-sill, the real plant might photosynthesise, while the artificial plant will not, and, after a few days, more leaves might grow on the real plant, or it might grow bigger, while the artificial plant will stay the same. For (c), if you leave them without watering for a few days, the real plant will wilt whereas the artificial plant will stay the same, so this is also an accurate method. For (d), if you check for wilting and drying flowers, the real plants might have dried leaves and wilted flowers, whereas the artificial plant will never have them. That is why that is also an accurate method for solving the problem. The only inaccurate one is (b), as you can count the number of leaves they have, and if both have the same number, then how will you know which one is the real one and which one is the artificial one?

Hope I helped!

[Snow-white]

Dear acforfamily and Muffins


Thank you so much for helping and sharing! I appreciate your valuable inputs to the questions.

[kitty2]

Please help with the below questions,got them from top school papers.I’m afraid some of the anwers are wrong.Thanks for your help


1)Animal A Shark
Whale
Dolphine

Animal B Ostrich
Penguin
Sparrow

Which animal is classified wrongly?


2)

Which of the following does not show that plants can move by themselves?

1)Leaves sway in the breeze
2)The sunflower turns to face the sun
3)Leaves of the rain tree fold up at night
4)A mimosa plant closes its leaves when touched

3)

The pull of a magnet is not likely to pass through a

1)plastic wrapper
2)piece of steel plate
3)thick piece of wood
4)piece of tracing paper

4)Plants take in__________and give out_______all the time
Plants take in __________and give out_______in the presence of light