2014 PSLE Discussions and Strategy
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I think I’ll bring ds to his dream school to inspire him next yr
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We are all parents of babies born in the year of dragon and horse, so with the 龙马精神, we will surely make it through !!!
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Hi!
My dd is also in P4 this year. I thought I'll post useful tips and hints given from other forumers in this topic. This first on is from psle2011mum. Thank you very much, psle2011mum for your insightful post on teaching your kids compo. I hope I'm not infringing any copyrights here. It's just that your post are just too good to not be repeated.psle2011mum:
Hi Everyone
This is the promised post about the P6 compo.
Copyright is waived for your use of this piece of work if you are a parent helping your child or your are a child helping yourself ( Bravo!) It is not waived in particular for tutors/tuition/enrichment centres as the purpose of this is to help parents and kids.
I am not saying that this piece of work is an A* grade compo, I am saying this is what I taught my DDs to help them consistently do better in an easy paper school that tests hard for English and I believe it helped them pull in the stars for PSLE English.
I am not a qualified teacher, I am not a qualified writer; I am a qualified Mummy who stood in the gap for my children to help them as they needed me.
Key amongst our startegies are: Write the obvious story; apply the same structure for our compos; practice; show and not tell. Confidence begets confidence and while it was painful to structure their thinking in the early days, it paid off in the long run in that they became able writers.
The marks in a compo are given for linguistic ability - the ability to use words as a palatte to paint pictures in your readers' mind, to evoke emotions in your reader.
Many have written beautiful notes to thank me -- thank YOU and you are all very welcome; I am merely a fellow traveller in this rough road of PSLE and having journeyed the same, I want to pass on the blessings that others have so generously shared with me. I hope some of you will find this helpful.Gb!
Q : You were in class sitting for a test when suddenly the teacher next door runs out of her class screaming for help.
General Pointers:
a.\tStart at the crux of the story because if you start too far back, you have a lot to write to get to the end and you will get tired. Often this results in a poorer grade because the ending is a rushed effort.
b.\tLots of kids do write wonderful beginnings, but not that many will write a good ending. However, the end is the point just before the teacher awards you the mark, so it is more important to make a good impression at the end.
c.\tPlanning – I didn’t expect my DDs to do much of this because under PSLE conditions, you can get very nervous and blanking out is common; so it is best that your plan is the simplest plan of all – write the obvious story, stick with the focus, be descriptive, resolve the problem and do a reflection.
d.\tI think of an appropriate end first before I write the composition. Again, under PSLE conditions, coming up then with a good end is not easy; so I thought about all sorts of different endings in our revision, wrote them out as “variations on a theme” and then “practised” using these with every compo question that came along.
e.\tAdaptation –the actual PSLE compo exam is NOT the time to be thinking up a brand new story line. If you don’t believe me, then take this challenge. In long hand, attempt a PSLE compo question and complete it (including checking) within 50 minutes. I found it tough, so we practiced many compos and as we were able, “recycled” the story lines by adapting them.
f.\tStructure of the compo – start [at the crux], body [Part 1]– focus on the question that is foremost in most readers mind – what caused the screaming ; body [Part 2] – make the problem worse; end – focus on the resolution and do a reflection.
g.\tThroughout the compo, we are describing, describing and describing –this is what it means to show not tell.
h.\tThe original story line from which this compo was adapted, came from the model compo book I earlier recommended, which is now out of print. In that model, a class bully got his just reward when the author preyed on his fear of spiders and played a prank on him in retaliation for bullying a girl in class. I also drew inspiration from Ron Weasley of Harry Potter fame who is inordinately afraid of spiders.
i.\tBoth my DDs used this story line in their actual PSLE compos – I am not entirely surprised because the tension can build up tremendously in the exam (and these are only 11-12 year olds), so it is no wonder that they resort to the familiar.
j.\tIf you analyse the PSLE questions, you will see a few of them in the vein of “running/screaming for help”; the below is a piece we practiced with [not sure of the original source of the question, could be school] but both DDs in 2009 and 2011 adapted this for their PSLE pieces because the PSLE questions in those years were in the vein of running/screaming for help.
Pointers for this composition:
a.\tStart at the crux -- test itself
b.\tBody part 1 – Focus -- What caused the screaming? Teacher got scared by a spider.
c.\tBody part 2 -- Make the problem worse. How? Teacher who was thought to be a source of help turns out to be no help
d.\t Resolution – How was the matter resolved ? I saved the day because I was not afraid of spiders.
e.\tReflection – This is the “nice” ending where you want to leave a good impression – note that it is more than the resolution itself.
f.\tThe magic of 3 – a suspense technique but also a “rule” we devised, where we described things twice if not thrice over.
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“Your test begins now!” the towering Mr Lee barked at the class, his forehead creased into a stern frown, even as his piercing eyes glared at us. The rustle of test scripts being turned over was immediately followed by the scratching of pens on lecture pads. It was the day of our Math common test and while the Fibonaccis of our class were making light work of the paper, I was miserably struggling to make sense of even the first question.
Comment:
Look at the description of Mr Lee – towering, stern, piercing eyes, glared at students. We described him 3 times over.
Look at the description of what the class was doing – we used sound – rustle, scratching of pens.
The stern Mr Lee walked down the aisles of the class, his muscular arms clasped behind his back. Sadly, Math was not my forte and my answer script remained pristine even as the clocked ticked on.
“ Ah… Ah…Ah ” continuous, piercing screams erupted out of the blue and as we looked up in amazement, Mrs Toh, the English teacher from the next class screeched to a halt at our classroom door, tottering unsteadily on her high heels. Her arms outstretched, her usually neatly styled hair in a frazzle, Mrs Toh’s eyes opened wide with fear as a torrent of words poured out.
Comment:
This is Part 1 Focus – description of how scared Mrs Toh was – screams – see that we said they were both continuous, piercing; she is tottering on high heels; arms outstretched; hair in a frazzle; eye’s opened wide with fear, torrent of words spill out of her.
“Mr Lee, Mr Lee! Thank goodness you’re here! I was just waiting for my class to return from PE… just sitting there innocently when… when this monster… this monster, terrible, terrible monster …monster of a spider …. as big as my palm… hairy, grey, oh, huge… horrible.... it just leapt off the fan and landed right in my hair! Urgh! My hair… my hair….Urgh…Urgh…I hate spiders… I’m afraid of spiders…I’m deathly scared of spiders. You have to come to my classroom at once! You have to help me get rid of it!” Mrs Toh’s voice rose an octave from her usual pitch as she pleaded for help.
Comment:
This is Part 2 Focus – description of Mrs Toh being incoherent, her voice rising an octave ie description of her being scared.
“Spiders? Did you say spiders? Uh.. the eight legged kind? Um… I’m afraid… I’m afraid… I’m afraid I can’t help you. Allergic to spiders… yes, that’s it… I’m allergic to spiders. Uh… I’ll get help.” With that, Mr Lee strode in quick steps out of the classroom, vanishing at top speed around the corner.
“He’s disappeared …he just walked away..” Mrs Toh stared in disbelief as the hulking frame of Mr Lee disappeared in the distance. Mrs Toh put an arm to her head, looking about to faint away.
Comment: This makes the problem worse; there is no immediate resolution and in fact, the one hope of the ‘saviour” turns out to be a false hope.
I could stand by no longer. While I had no affinity with Math, spiders were my friends. “Don’t worry Mrs Toh,” I cheerfully told her, “I’ll help you.” With confident strides, I made my way to her classroom and spied the erstwhile spider calmly astride the teacher’s desk.
“Hey little pal… you’re in the wrong place. I’m just going to give you a lift back home, alright?” I said soothingly to the creature. With a quick scoop, I helped it onto a tree branch just outside the classroom window. The creature was momentarily still, before it scampered into the dense foliage.
“All done Mrs Toh,” I cherrily announced as I made my way back to my classroom.
Comment: This is the resolution – the author is the “hero”.
“Thank you… uh… I don’t feel too well… going to the staffroom to rest…” Mrs Toh appeared to say this to no one in particular, as she exited our classroom.
All too soon, our hulking but deathly afraid of spiders Math teacher was back. Seeing that calm had been restored, he proceeded to bark at us to hand in our test scripts. Suffice to say, there was nothing much to mark for mine and my fail grade was as expected.
Comment : this tidies affairs up and returns everything to normalcy after the incident. It is evidence that the matter is satisfactorily resolved.
That evening, as Mother Nature bathed the evening sky in hues of pink and gold, I sighed to myself about my poor Math grade. Yet deep in my heart, there was a kernel of joy -- somewhere out in the blue beyond, a spider was enjoying the magnificent sunset along with me.
Comment: This is the reflection – we wrote different versions of this for typical scenarios all in a contemplative setting for better ‘reflection”.
Final Comments:
There is a problem with this compo - the rest of the class are mute ! But we can't write more within the 50 minutes so we tended to leave this 'problem\" unresolved.
I'll look for sometime so see if I can do another piece so that you can see the strategies in action again.
BTW, I apologise for poor punctuation; it's my weakest part of English and it does not help that my work does not require me to punctuate! -
Hi KSP
Visiting open houses give my ds an idea if he likes what he sees as well as finding out more about the schools esp. Cca offered. My friends actually asked me to go this year but I think its too early. P5 will be better as it will give him ample time to consider. -
Thanks Laura02.
This is indeed helpful. Thanks for the sweet thoughts. -
:thankyou: Laura02
I have saved this page for reference. -
Hi Laura02,
Thanks for sharing! I find it very useful. -
Me joining the discussion, getting my engine ready.
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Just curious to know from experts here for answers on few questions :-
1) 2014 p6 cohort will be smaller than usual? read somewhere it will be smaller
2) If yes to qn1, will the cutoff for schools be lower? -
Hi 33mama
I don’t think so…