SA2 2009

[amylqf]

jedamum:

i think maybe most kids got scolded for making careless mistakes rather than not scoring high marks.

That's right! Despite that I have done all above mentioned by NIEtrainedteacher, explain all the exam strategy, my child still got a lot of careless mistakes. I scolded her for that, not because she didn't score high marks.

[Emelyn]

amylqf:

That's right! Despite that I have done all above mentioned by NIEtrainedteacher, explain all the exam strategy, my child still got a lot of careless mistakes. I scolded her for that, not because she didn't score high marks.

erm..... making careless mistakes is one problem. The other problem is... they refuse to check after they complete the papers.

DS1 just told me that he only checked his Maths Section A MCQ. He didn't check for Section B & C. And as such, he didn't realise the error of 32 x 8 = 250.



Any idea how to (1) make them less careless, (2) make them check their work ???

:?:

[James Ang]

Emelyn:

erm..... making careless mistakes is one problem. The other problem is... they refuse to check after they complete the papers.


DS1 just told me that he only checked his Maths Section A MCQ. He didn't check for Section B & C. And as such, he didn't realise the error of 32 x 8 = 250.



Any idea how to (1) make them less careless, (2) make them check their work ???

:?:

Give reward as motivation?

[atutor2001]

Hi


I find that \"making careless mistakes\" is more dependent on nature than nurture. No matter how hard he/she tried checking through the works, a careless child will still make silly mistake.

I used to think that a child made careless mistakes because he/she is not interested / bo chiap. Once I played a game with my most careless child, offering a big reward if he can find all the silly mistakes in a paper that he had just completed. Happily, he accepted. I even told him the approximate number of silly mistakes he had made. However, despite all his effort, he couldn't see 2 of the mistakes.

I realised his shortcoming and stopped scolding him for making silly mistakes. Instead, I help him to compile a list of the \"kind\" of silly mistakes he often made. We drew a table with the \"type of silly mistakes\" in the 1st column. Each time he makes the same kind of mistake I will put a tick next to it. E.g. of silly mistakes are : Dividing area of square by 4 to get side, If _ x _ = 16 then _ = 16/2...

Before the exam, I will go through the \"silly mistake list.\" In the end, he still never get perfect score for math but the number of silly mistakes was reduced to the minimum possible with his kind of nature.

Just my experience. :lol:

[karmeleon]

James Ang:

I did my PSLE 24 years ago in 1985 and that year happens to be the first year that uses the 300 point aggregate system. Back then I get 252 among the top 10% of cohort. My elder brother took his PSLE in 1984 and scored 363 (but not under the same 300 point system which makes it not possible to compare apple to apple).

Aiyah, it's similar system, lah. Altho' if compare \"apple to apple\"(unify it to percentages), then your brother did better.

[karmeleon]

girlmum:

Yes, you're right. Only some sch still practising these ranking in the report book. My DD2's school did not hv this since the school started operation. Hv to ask the FT for the ranking and not all FT will disclose. Personally, I feel that as a parent, it would be good if we know our child's ranking so as to understand where our child stands. This will allows parents to be able to monitor better should the child is too far back in the class or cohort. Afterall, this is a Kiasu society whether u like it or not. :stupid:

But very demoralising to the child - imagine, if your child was 299 out of 300.

[karmeleon]

jedamum:

my boy's school does not place those too.
they have however reveal the highest and lowest score of the cohort - that can serve as a rough guide (ie reasonable for the kid to get 80+ if the highest in the cohort is 80+ etc etc).

Yeah, both our kids' schools just give stats. Highest (sometimes lowest too, but lowest is meaningless) and average. And they give that for both the Cohort plus the Class itself.

So from there, you'd know the class standing that your child is in. Unless, your child's school practices mixed classes, like my dd's did last time, so there was no \"best\" or \"poor\" classes, so no point to have \"Class\" highest/average marks. Cohort stats good enough in that case.

[jedamum]

karmeleon:

Yeah, both our kids' schools just give stats. Highest (sometimes lowest too, but lowest is meaningless) and average.

the quote in bold above to me is 'depends'.
one of my friend's girl's school (popular), the lowest for all three subjects hover around 80s+/-. So that is the gauge of whether scoring 80 marks is consider acceptable for that exam. Stressful, right?

[James Ang]

karmeleon:

James Ang:

I did my PSLE 24 years ago in 1985 and that year happens to be the first year that uses the 300 point aggregate system. Back then I get 252 among the top 10% of cohort. My elder brother took his PSLE in 1984 and scored 363 (but not under the same 300 point system which makes it not possible to compare apple to apple).

Aiyah, it's similar system, lah. Altho' if compare \"apple to apple\"(unify it to percentages), then your brother did better.

maybe if the total is 400 but then again nobody knows what was the system before 1985, whether it is out of 400 marks or not. And my sister gets 265, two years after me.

[karmeleon]

jedamum:

karmeleon:

Yeah, both our kids' schools just give stats. Highest (sometimes lowest too, but lowest is meaningless) and average.

the quote in bold above to me is 'depends'.
one of my friend's girl's school (popular), the lowest for all three subjects hover around 80s+/-. So that is the gauge of whether scoring 80 marks is consider acceptable for that exam. Stressful, right?

Actually I noticed during my daughter's time that the lowest tended to be single-digit. So to me, I consider that \"meaningless\" bc it is really not so representative of the whole cohort. These few students are really the ones who ended up doing Foundation level subjects (in her time, there was still EM3).

So personally, I find that to put the \"lowest\" marks was reallyl embarassing to those students. Many would speculate who got \"3\" or \"4\" marks for the exam, and often they would secretly guess. Not nice, lah.