2012 PSLE Discussions and Strategy

[Mdm Koh]

coast:

Hi parents,


Can share whether the top schools' exam papers are more difficult or easy than PSLE past years' papers (the published booklet that you can get from Popular)?

Thanks!

Hi coast, I'm not a parent, but I've used both. The PSLE papers includes questions of varying levels so that they can be done by students of different abilities in Singapore. In that sense, they are \"easier\" as they have fewer high-level questions compared to the papers from the top schools.

It's still important, however, to practise the PSLE papers. The school teachers may not always set questions that are in line with the types of questions found in the PSLE. The bombastic vocab words that some top schools test may also not show up in the PSLE. Instead, the PSLE will test words that are slightly easier, and it would be a great pity if the student who knows all his bombastic words doesn't know the easier words.

[Chenonceau]

Mdm Koh:

coast:

Hi parents,


Can share whether the top schools' exam papers are more difficult or easy than PSLE past years' papers (the published booklet that you can get from Popular)?

Thanks!

Hi coast, I'm not a parent, but I've used both. The PSLE papers includes questions of varying levels so that they can be done by students of different abilities in Singapore. In that sense, they are \"easier\" as they have fewer high-level questions compared to the papers from the top schools.

It's still important, however, to practise the PSLE papers. The school teachers may not always set questions that are in line with the types of questions found in the PSLE. The bombastic vocab words that some top schools test may also not show up in the PSLE. Instead, the PSLE will test words that are slightly easier, and it would be a great pity if the student who knows all his bombastic words doesn't know the easier words.

:thankyou: You are actually able to get PSLE papers? The full unadulterated and un-reorganized papers? How?

[coast]

Chenonceau:

Some papers have...

(1) spelling mistakes
(2) ambiguous questions

Schools like Nanyang, Tao Nan and Rosyth have very difficult Math questions. We do these FIRST and use them to learn with in a low stress context, way way way before exams. We leave the easy Math exams (e.g., MGS and CHIJ) for just before exams to build confidence and drill for speed.

ACS has very good English papers. One particular comprehension question and passage stood out for me in the subtlety of thought required for inference (and yet the question was not ambiguous). For English, we only do ACS and leave the rest. For Science, RGPS has highly thoughtful questions with multiple answers sometimes. Just this one paper alone teaches a lot about the thinking processes/skills required for Science. No need to do all.

:thankyou:

Good strategy

Perhaps it's because MGS and CHIJ have affiliated sec schools

[coast]

Mdm Koh:

coast:

Hi parents,


Can share whether the top schools' exam papers are more difficult or easy than PSLE past years' papers (the published booklet that you can get from Popular)?

Thanks!

Hi coast, I'm not a parent, but I've used both. The PSLE papers includes questions of varying levels so that they can be done by students of different abilities in Singapore. In that sense, they are \"easier\" as they have fewer high-level questions compared to the papers from the top schools.

It's still important, however, to practise the PSLE papers. The school teachers may not always set questions that are in line with the types of questions found in the PSLE. The bombastic vocab words that some top schools test may also not show up in the PSLE. Instead, the PSLE will test words that are slightly easier, and it would be a great pity if the student who knows all his bombastic words doesn't know the easier words.

:thankyou:

Are your comments for English papers only? How about Maths or Science? I was just sharing in another thread that I heard of a top school raised its internal standard so high that its students did not do well in PSLE Maths for a particular year.

[coast]

Chenonceau:

Mdm Koh:

[quote=\"coast\"]Hi parents,


Can share whether the top schools' exam papers are more difficult or easy than PSLE past years' papers (the published booklet that you can get from Popular)?

Thanks!

Hi coast, I'm not a parent, but I've used both. The PSLE papers includes questions of varying levels so that they can be done by students of different abilities in Singapore. In that sense, they are \"easier\" as they have fewer high-level questions compared to the papers from the top schools.

It's still important, however, to practise the PSLE papers. The school teachers may not always set questions that are in line with the types of questions found in the PSLE. The bombastic vocab words that some top schools test may also not show up in the PSLE. Instead, the PSLE will test words that are slightly easier, and it would be a great pity if the student who knows all his bombastic words doesn't know the easier words.

:thankyou: You are actually able to get PSLE papers? The full unadulterated and un-reorganized papers? How?[/quote]You wait long long ... I believe she is referring to the PSLE past years' booklet you can buy from Popular

You never ask the MOE official why they do not release the actual papers?

[Chenonceau]

coast:

You never ask the MOE official why they do not release the actual papers?

I forgot.

[Zekezachzoom]

Chenonceau:

Schools like Nanyang, Tao Nan and Rosyth have very difficult Math questions.
ACS has very good English papers. For Science, RGPS has highly thoughtful questions with multiple answers sometimes.

I share the same observation as you

[Zekezachzoom]

Essential:

I just enquire full set 58 for 13 Sch, 70 for 15 Sch and 100 for 21 Sch. Not sure which one should buy

I bought the one with 13 schools though I know there are websites that allow free download as I figure out the ink used to print the papers will come out almost the same price for paying for the papers. Moreover, my printer does not print double sides;)

However, I do go to http://www.test-Paper.info to print older papers. It's free and comes with answer keys too

[coast]

Chenonceau:

coast:

You never ask the MOE official why they do not release the actual papers?

I forgot.

No worries Who knows? They might release it soon

[Honey]

psle2011mum:

I scratched my head over the weekend to see if there was anything else I missed sharing about, but I believe my earlier posts are largely it as to the mechanics of what helped us for the PSLE.


I thus leave you with these small thoughts:

Why I share my \"tips\"

Parents have constantly asked this [I have been sharing in small groups of friends who asked for help since DD1 was in P6] and they also wondered why I shared my tips even while my DDs were along their PSLE journeys. Wasn't I afraid that others might use the tips and get ahead? I don't take that view. What I shared may have saved some parents some time, but what needs to be done is a lot of hard, hard work. If a child was willing to put in that effort, how could I not do my little bit to \"help\"? The \"tips\" are just a helpful start - much work still needs to be done and a lot of it by the child. I am delighted if the children improve with these tips, and I am ecstatic when they learn that they can achieve so much more -- given the right resources and good old fashion nose to the grindstone, hard work on their part. I've seen my own children and my friends' children blossom in this way and it is totally gratifying.

Additionally, I share because I did not arrive at this point, all on my own. I have been blessed by generous parents who pointed me in the right direction too. As a beneficiary of the goodwill of others, I cannot remain a custodian but am obliged to pass this on.

Kindly friends have also asked if I am afraid that parents ask to learn from me only to see what we are doing and in essence to \"peg\" the competition. Well, in life you meet all kinds of people; we did not have a secret formula -- old-fashioned hard work tempered with common sense hardly qualified for status under the Official Secrets Act, so I took it positively that they wished to help their children and for the aforesaid reasons, I was happy to share.

It's a marathon not a sprint.

DD was unlikely to last till anywhere near the PSLE if we went full throttle from the start, so it was helpful for us to keep at a steady hum in readiness for her Prelims and then give a final push to the end. We tried not to do the run/stop and then “re-rev” pattern of life, as it was usually more difficult for us to “re-rev”, so a steady day to day routine of 4+ hours work on weekdays and about double that on weekends was how we \"passed the days\". Rest was very important and rest meant time totally away from the texts and preferably a romp in the park. A flexible enough time table is crucial as you need to weave in homework from school and a whole host of other activities too; we just used the \"number of available hours in a day\" principle combined with a rotating subject roster so that we had an idea what to do but if it was necessary, we could adapt. We didn't specify to the day what topic we would be doing but holidays [both public & school] were good times for us to do catching up if we \"missed\" some slots on our broad-stroke timetable.

Monkey see monkey do

If I wanted DD to put in her effort at 100%, I had to show her I was doing 200%. If I didn't grumble, she too, felt bad at whining. If one was only using \"mouth power\", the kids see all too clearly, and are less motivated to do their bit at the grindstone.

Little drops of water, little grains of sand…

Building confidence and self-esteem were also aims I had for this PSLE journey, so I supported to give DD small victories. With the small victories [eg improving grades], she was self-motivated to ride those small waves of success into the larger crests.

The Venerable Mountain of Past Year Papers & Assessment books

That mountain of \"to-do\" papers and assessment books on the table or scattered about the room-- don't be daunted by it; seek to achieve quality and not merely quantity. A piece of work done by your child deserves to be well analysed and critiqued so that the child can learn from his/her efforts and the experience. If something is poorly done, it is often because of a weakness and if you don't address it fully, it'll only creep up again. In this case, \"less\" can be \"more\". Very likely, you won’t have time to revise everything again, but if you deal with it thoroughly the first time round, it’s unlikely you’ll ever need to look at those papers again.

Supp classes

Supp classes - I go back to my basic point - analyse the classes critically and see if your child is benefitting from it. Many of the schools and the teachers do have your DC's interests at heart, so do seek to understand what they do in the supp classes, and assess critically if your child is benefitting from the classes. If he/she is, it is good to continue but the converse is also true - if he/she is not, politely decline. Many have asked me what I told the school to justify DD's non-participation in the Supp classes; the answer is: the truth -\" DD was at home revising for the PSLE\". We sought to be polite and our aim was not to incite a rebellion, so we did this as quietly as we knew how to. Teachers' KPIs may be tied to this issue, so we made sure we were sensitive to their problems too, and that the powers that be understood that the teacher was doing fine, but it was just our personal choice in the matter.

DH

DH was a silent partner in this journey but that was critical too - a bus driven by 2 drivers in conflict is only going to mean one thing - a bumpy ride for the passenger to an unknown destination. DH was Minister of Play for DD and he arranged nice dinners, fun movies, back rubs and toe massages, so that DD could relax after a hard day's work.

Tuition

Friends remarked that it was \"amazing\" that DD was not having any tuition other than 3 hours a week for Chinese; my reply was always that in my view, DD was more tutored than their children who had tutors the week through, since all of DD hours after school including all her weekends were ‘supervised” – whether through assigned Mummy homework or when I took leave to be at home with her. I am not advocating more tuition for anyone here, but I am saying that DD did put in many hours of hard work under my watchful eye.

The Best Teacher

The best teacher for any child is one who is knowledgeable [both as to content and marking rubrics ie what teachers award marks for in any piece of work], can empathise with the child [sees the child’s individual shortcomings and feels for the child, most likely because they took that same journey in their own learning – hence the over-comers in my view, make better teachers than the only brilliant] and looks to build the child up [in self-esteem and confidence]. In essence, the best teacher for your child is one that aims to push the child to rise above what the child himself could imagine or even what the teacher had ever achieved. Who is the best teacher for your child?

Sustenance for the Journey, Manna for the faint

The PSLE journey is not an easy one for most, and it was certainly not a breeze for me and DD. Our Faith in God sustained us when we felt that we could do no more. In 2011, we both grew in our Faith- DD and I. Our Faith kept us calm and allowed us to focus on the possible, and leave God to complete the impossible. God provided what we needed unfailingly, always comforting and carrying us through when our human wills and abilities let us down. Shin-time [me on my knees in prayer] anchored me and was a well where I drank deeply from, to gain renewed strength to face the challenges each new day brought. More than anything else in this PSLE journey, assuredly far more than grades – this growth in Faith was the most precious asset DD and I took away.

More than just an exam

Many things may be said of the PSLE, but it is also without a doubt an amazing opportunity for you to spend time with your children to mould them and gift them with life-long treasures that will stand them in good stead throughout their lives.

As the Chinese New Year approaches, I take this opportunity to convey my best wishes to the 2012 PSLE parents – May you and your families have a year of great health, much peace and abundant joy; may your days be filled with great teaching and much learning, as both you and your children scale mountains and reach for the stars.

\"The greatest sign of success for a teacher... is to be able to say, \"The children are now working as if I did not exist.\" - Maria Montessori

God Bless!

psle2011mum, thank you for your sharing once again. You are such an amazing person with such a BIG heart. You seek to bless others with your sharings & I know that your family & you will be richly rewarded too. It is really encouraging for us as 2012 PSLE parents to read about how you (as well as other generous mums & dads who share their tips with us) have gone thr the PSLE journey with your dd. We are faced with the unknown - mounting amount of homework, whether our kids can last the journey or not, whether they are terribly stressed up in school or not but we know that others have gone through it before us & so can we. The end result is not as important as the journey itself tho some may beg to differ. It is a journey we walk together with our kids. We walk alongside with them, holding them & being there for them. This is also afterall their last year of entitlement to celebrate children's day. Our PSLE kids will soon leave this path as a child & journey into the teenage years. So even tho it is PSLE year, let's continue to enjoy our kids .