Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Thu, 25 Nov 2021 02:13:16 GMT

zac's mum — Thu, 25 Nov 2021 02:13:16 GMT

Can u stop spamming all the threads!!

We already know this info, can get it from MOE website directly!!

Your advertising tactics are a turn off.

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Thu, 04 Nov 2021 08:43:04 GMT

zac's mum — Thu, 04 Nov 2021 08:43:04 GMT

Some really good advice given in this thread!

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Sun, 12 Jan 2020 15:12:01 GMT

durainlover — Sun, 12 Jan 2020 15:12:01 GMT

Since Chinese changed syllabus, wondering what will happen to the past years PSLE papers series?

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Tue, 29 Oct 2019 14:57:05 GMT

kj2008 — Tue, 29 Oct 2019 14:57:05 GMT

Hi, can I get the books name mentioned earlier in the post? Or pics of the books? My child giving PSLE coming year. Thank you

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Sun, 15 May 2016 07:45:51 GMT

Steadyberry — Sun, 15 May 2016 07:45:51 GMT

jedamum:
Steadyberry:
Was searching for psle practice papers similar to psle standard and saw the gear up series recommended by green a. Anyone tried them? I am keen to get the Maths & English. Thanks.

Our experience was two years ago.
We got the Chinese, science and Eng.
Science is OK. My son science is not bad. No comments on it as we bought it for last leg revision where he just did the mcq and read model answers.
Eng he used it to read model answers too. No comments too as he did the revision by himself. But your batch compre OE is different format, so you have to take note if gear up has updated their format.
Chinese proved to be tougher than past year top schools papers, in our opinion. Or it could be just that it happened to have questions than my son could not answer. He did badly for gear up Chinese than his attempts on other assessment and past papers. Dunno why.

hi jedamum

thks. hopefully their eng is the updated format. will chk it out at popular soon.

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Sun, 15 May 2016 01:52:19 GMT

rains — Sun, 15 May 2016 01:52:19 GMT

mum02:
My son is in p6. Didn't do well for SA1. Strange thing is, he projected that he would get A* right after Math and Science exams. But ended up getting 70plus. Primarily careless mistakes.

While working with him, he has one major problem. He simply cannot speed up. At home, he almost never finishes his practices within stipulated time. He takes 4 hours to write a good compo , 3 hours to complete a math paper 2. Despite having quite good memory for Chinese words, he doesn't do well in Paper 2. English paper 2 is as appalling. COE is his major weakness. Making mistakes on Grammar is common.

Given extra time, and explaining certain things he doesn't understand in the papers, he normally can manage a high A or A* (esp compre in both languages). But there won't be someone to explain the things he cannot understand during exam. And no extra time given.
I often shout till I am hoarse when he is slow and exceeds time limit. He then gets stressed and even slower. There seems to be no solution to make him do faster. (Same goes for eating& everything else) when you hurry him, he will say,\"ok I will anyhow do\"

I am at my wits' ends. Can some kind soul offer any advice for this boy? Eg. How to speed up & provide accurate answers.
Thank you!
Harassed parent.

My kid was also a slow coach. What I did was to time her doing individual Math questions, starting from the mcqs. The purpose was to find out exactly what kind of questions was slowing her down, and what she was spending on to slow herself down, but interestingly, the moment I started timing her, the urgency to solve problems was there and she used less than a minute or even 10 to 30 seconds to complete some questions. It made her realise that when she focused on the answering the questions, she could be very fast. By and by, I timed by sections, and then the whole papers.

For compositions, I broke up segments for her and told her she could only spend, say 10 min on the first paragraph. By the 20th min, she had to be on the third paragraph. She was asked to give 15 min to the last paragraph and 5 min to check and edit. And I timed her accordingly while I looked at her write.

You will need to sit beside him to find out exactly what is slowing him down. Provide him with the help he needs at first to give him a sense of security but time him at the same time to see how much time he needs with your help, and perhaps see if there are questions he doesn't need help with to help build his confidence.

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Sun, 15 May 2016 01:06:17 GMT

jedamum — Sun, 15 May 2016 01:06:17 GMT

Steadyberry:
Was searching for psle practice papers similar to psle standard and saw the gear up series recommended by green a. Anyone tried them? I am keen to get the Maths & English. Thanks.

Our experience was two years ago.
We got the Chinese, science and Eng.
Science is OK. My son science is not bad. No comments on it as we bought it for last leg revision where he just did the mcq and read model answers.
Eng he used it to read model answers too. No comments too as he did the revision by himself. But your batch compre OE is different format, so you have to take note if gear up has updated their format.
Chinese proved to be tougher than past year top schools papers, in our opinion. Or it could be just that it happened to have questions than my son could not answer. He did badly for gear up Chinese than his attempts on other assessment and past papers. Dunno why.

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Sat, 14 May 2016 20:42:19 GMT

mum02 — Sat, 14 May 2016 20:42:19 GMT

My son is in p6. Didn’t do well for SA1. Strange thing is, he projected that he would get A* right after Math and Science exams. But ended up getting 70plus. Primarily careless mistakes.

While working with him, he has one major problem. He simply cannot speed up. At home, he almost never finishes his practices within stipulated time. He takes 4 hours to write a good compo , 3 hours to complete a math paper 2. Despite having quite good memory for Chinese words, he doesn’t do well in Paper 2. English paper 2 is as appalling. COE is his major weakness. Making mistakes on Grammar is common.

Given extra time, and explaining certain things he doesn’t understand in the papers, he normally can manage a high A or A* (esp compre in both languages). But there won’t be someone to explain the things he cannot understand during exam. And no extra time given.
I often shout till I am hoarse when he is slow and exceeds time limit. He then gets stressed and even slower. There seems to be no solution to make him do faster. (Same goes for eating& everything else) when you hurry him, he will say,"ok I will anyhow do"

I am at my wits’ ends. Can some kind soul offer any advice for this boy? Eg. How to speed up & provide accurate answers.
Thank you!
Harassed parent.

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Sat, 14 May 2016 12:45:59 GMT

Steadyberry — Sat, 14 May 2016 12:45:59 GMT

Was searching for psle practice papers similar to psle standard and saw the gear up series recommended by green a. Anyone tried them? I am keen to get the Maths & English. Thanks.

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Sat, 27 Sep 2014 13:41:06 GMT

jedamum — Sat, 27 Sep 2014 13:41:06 GMT

[quote] . . .

I suggest a set of books, called “Gear Up For PSLE”. It is available for all subjects. These series of books are not very difficult. However, there are tricky questions here and there. My daughter did these books during the last two weeks. She told me that the difficulty level is very similar to the actual PSLE exam papers. It gets here warm up and comfortable to the upcoming tests.

-- In early September, I found the \"Gear Up For PSLE\" series very useful. However, I only managed to get copies for English, Science and Higher Chinese. Copies for Maths and Chinese were no longer available. !)[/quote]Did anyone try the Gear Up normal chinese book ? How you find it ? I find it tougher than top school papers.... :scratchhead:

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Sat, 06 Sep 2014 05:50:14 GMT

staypositive — Sat, 06 Sep 2014 05:50:14 GMT

:lovesite:

:thankyou: Green A for starting this thread.

My turn next year :rahrah: :xedfingers:

always stay positive!

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Fri, 05 Sep 2014 08:08:23 GMT

zbear — Fri, 05 Sep 2014 08:08:23 GMT

PSLE is an external major exam. All kids will go home immediately after the paper but I think some school teachers make the kids stay back for remedial lessons.

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Fri, 05 Sep 2014 05:36:35 GMT

magicpiglet — Fri, 05 Sep 2014 05:36:35 GMT

Hi not sure where to post this bt I would like to know what’s the usual practice, do students taking psle get to go home after exams fin or they must stay bk till normal sch hour end?thanks

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Tue, 02 Sep 2014 16:18:48 GMT

anonymousguru — Tue, 02 Sep 2014 16:18:48 GMT

Just to clarify, I am a Sec 2 student. I go to school 8-5 everyday and 9-5 on Wednesdays. I am now currently undergoing through an arts education, which is evident if you look through my previous posts on other subjects and forums. I posted those lines because people have asked before and I would just like to clarify any doubts.

Its quite ignorant and hurtful to assume something about someone based on not talking or interacting with them, but rather on trivial matters such as usernames and profiles.

And yes, guru is a teacher or a knowledgeable person. The definition of teacher is a very well read and knowledgeable person that instills this information to people that are thus his/her students. Its quite similar to what people do on this website, giving advice and experiences, as well as answering people's questions and doubts.

I guess this deviates from the topic of this page and now considered 'chit-chat'. I discourage you from pursuing this matter further as there are actually people who need advice and answers to help themselves or their children and don't deserve to read this chit chat if you haven't noticed.

:thankyou:

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Tue, 02 Sep 2014 01:43:47 GMT

seaglass — Tue, 02 Sep 2014 01:43:47 GMT

2Transformer:
anonymousguru is an adult not a kid.

This is not the first time....an adult pretend to be a kid and give advise...

Just give advise as an adult la....why pretend ?

Btw, guru is a teacher (Malay) = cikgu = Lao shi (Chinese)

Why are you so sure that anonymousguru is an adult?? :scratchhead:

And why would he / she want to \"pretend to be a kid and give advise...\"? :scratchhead: :scratchhead:

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Mon, 01 Sep 2014 12:15:17 GMT

2Transformer — Mon, 01 Sep 2014 12:15:17 GMT

anonymousguru is an adult not a kid.

This is not the first time…an adult pretend to be a kid and give advise…

Just give advise as an adult la…why pretend ?

Btw, guru is a teacher (Malay) = cikgu = Lao shi (Chinese)

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Mon, 01 Sep 2014 02:22:17 GMT

chloecube — Mon, 01 Sep 2014 02:22:17 GMT

thks anonymousguru, you sounded like a matured and sensible kid to me

i left with only 3 weeks to PSLE, and i do not think is wise to do major changes now, i will just continue to the current tutors (which is think is not their issue but my son).
i will not load him with more hw, he will just continue to do his school and tuition hw.
i have tried soft and hard approach on him, neither works. i blame myself for not being a good mum, i do not know how to teach him well.
i just hope he can do his best during psle, his biggest weakness is nervousness and no confidence.
hope he can overcome that.
i have accepted the fact that he probably will go to normal stream with his current prelim results, if he needs to take a longer time than others, so be it. so long as he is comfortable with it and not be stressed by others.

hereby, i wish all parents whose kids are taking psle with good luck.

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Sun, 31 Aug 2014 04:48:13 GMT

anonymousguru — Sun, 31 Aug 2014 04:48:13 GMT

chloecube wrote:

> mommybel! u not kidding me arent u?
> i suddenly am full of hope again reading ur post
>
> DS math is between 50-60, one a few occasion fail by 1-2 marks
> his paper 2 failed and pull down the overall marks
> he wout say he is lazy, he trys his best to complete all hw given by teacher and
> tutor. problem is he does not speak up or ask when he does not understand. he will
> just do the correction and then forget how to do again when the same kind of questions
> was given to him. so its kind of frustrating
> when i explained to him, he understand but after a while, he forgets again,
> got to repeat and re-inforce the same kind of sum many times before it gets to his
> head.
> nevertheless, i am not going to give up on hin now
> but its not easy to strike a balance of \"overloading\" him and letting him enjoy his
> childhood

Hi chloecube! I took the PSLE 2 years ago and I cam empathise with your frustration. Its like your child is doing great at home or in tuition, but during the exam performs not to your expectations. Your son's results are somewhat similar to mine. My results for prelim were:

Chinese- C (borderline pass)
Science- C (also borderline pass)
Math- U
English- A (high A- 89/100)

I have no idea what contributed to the odd fluctuation in subject scores, but I always could write well and had a natural affinity for English. My math and Chinese tuition teachers were not working for me and this was 1 and a half months before the PSLE.

My mum's strategy was to firstly get rid of my tuition teachers. She got through with them quickly, and started to immediately coach me. I dumped my English one side and practised on it less (not advisable in your case). For math, the strategy is that you must score close if not full marks on the MCQ and first short answer part. Its much easier to score better in this part than in the problem sum section, and if I remember correctly they had close to equal weightages. If you could lets say get 40 or 35% on the first part (its max mark is 40%), you only need to just pass or get a little more than that, say 30-40% out of the 60% (max mark for problem sum section) to get an A or high A.

The MCQs and the short answer question are the parts where you cannot afford mistakes or blank out. (Focus about 60% of your math effort on this). If you get full marks on this section, you have already passed your math paper (50%). However, you should also not neglect your problem sum part, as they hold an equal weightage (another 50%) as well. In the math paper, there are 13 problem sums/ long answer questions. Revise on the basics over and over, especially fractions, decimals, percentages, etc. Examiners absolutely love mixing these subjects up. Also, learn to spot the trick questions. These questions look very easy but typically have about 4 to 5 marks on them. At the end of the paper, there will be more 4 to 5 mark questions, and if you can get all of those right, you have already passed your problem sum section.

For Science, my mum also used the same strategy. The MCQ is 60% for science, and if you practise enough and in depth, you can get a 50-60% for your MCQ and you would have also already passed the paper. In these PSLE subjects in general, if you look closely in any P6 exam paper, there will always be recurring themes, such as fractions, percentages, geometry in Math, life cycles, the water cycle and the conduction, condensation, evaporation etc. in Science. There's nothing new they can test you! Afterwards, you just need to pass your second paper to get an A or potentially A*.

For these two subjects, practise, practise, practise! Practise till your child can understand and recall all these facts and recognise the questions, and thus know the standard protocol to answer them. After 10s of times doing the same type of questions during different times, I'm sure he can understand. Revising it in different times can really help the brain recall the protocol to answer these questions. (A good math book would be +hinking math @onSponge- Conquer Problem Sums. Their questions tend to be a bit on the difficult side, so I suggest you do them with your child. They focus on the strategy to tackle different types of problem sums and I hope its useful to you).)

For Mother Tongue, the MCQ and the Comprehension parts are the easiest, but is deadly if your child is unable to read well. Read more Mother Tongue to your child, and they will recognise and recall words, leading to more understanding of the topic and thus being able to answer the questions better.

Just for your info, my final PSLE score was:

Chinese- A
Science- A
Math- B
English- A

I know you are concerned with your child's social life, but I highly suggest you clear your tutors if they are not working for your child and coach him yourself. Your child can have a slight afternoon nap (1 hour) before you coach him in the evening after work (like my mum) and hopefully he can last a bit longer and can stay more focused. Also, in the weekends, you can let him do whatever he wants to in the afternoon but in the evening he must listen to you and you must be able to coach him.

Remember, if academics isn't really your child's thing (like me ), you can always try out DSA, and help your child get into a school based on talent, but I'm not sure if you can apply this late into the year.

Hope this helps, and I hope you can benefit and score your child a breakthrough! :rahrah: :rahrah: Sorry for the long, long reply!

PS. if you're wondering, I am a Sec 2 student, and though my profile doesn't say so, its quite common for kids to fake details anyways. I just want to help out and give a new perspective on things

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Wed, 09 Jul 2014 08:52:30 GMT

littleprince — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 08:52:30 GMT

Following this thread for advice. Thanks to all who posted advices for the rest of us here

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Tue, 08 Jul 2014 09:30:42 GMT

Xeraph — Tue, 08 Jul 2014 09:30:42 GMT

AdvancedAcademia:
chloecube:
mommybel! u not kidding me arent u?

i suddenly am full of hope again reading ur post

DS math is between 50-60, one a few occasion fail by 1-2 marks
his paper 2 failed and pull down the overall marks
he wout say he is lazy, he trys his best to complete all hw given by teacher and tutor. problem is he does not speak up or ask when he does not understand. he will just do the correction and then forget how to do again when the same kind of questions was given to him. so its kind of frustrating
when i explained to him, he understand but after a while, he forgets again,
got to repeat and re-inforce the same kind of sum many times before it gets to his head.
nevertheless, i am not going to give up on hin now
but its not easy to strike a balance of \"overloading\" him and letting him enjoy his childhood
Just to share some experiences. Some pupils have difficulty retaining what was taught because they treat the specific process, data, information as \"discrete data\". The more discrete information is, the less likely it will be retained in their memory.

One way to help anchor lessons taught is to created as many connections to examples, real-world applications, other concepts, etc... as possible. The more connections the child can make, the more likely he/she will be able to remember. Sometimes we are so focused on the child getting the answer \"right\", that we forget to provide the needed connections that help them anchor their learning in long term memory.

Hope this helps...

Hi there!
When I was preparing for the PSLE I remembered I studied by reading all the keyphrases aloud to myself for Science, doing/going thru compre for English, reading the textbook/guidebook for Chinese and for Math, doing sum after sum. For math there really is no escape. You just have to drill it until you're familiar. My PSLE score was 272 (a bit of a disappointment for me), because I was pretty sure I made careless mistakes for math.

You are right that you have to link the concepts to real life examples. However to me math is not just about concepts. It's the process;the way of doing a question that matters. Please correct me if I'm wrong!

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Mon, 07 Jul 2014 18:16:43 GMT

STCY — Mon, 07 Jul 2014 18:16:43 GMT

Hi

Can i check what is the topic for 2013 English and Chinese oral?
I am trying to find online but don’t seem to find anything.

And what is the topic for 2013 English and Chinese compo as well?

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Fri, 06 Jun 2014 08:04:03 GMT

AdvancedAcademia — Fri, 06 Jun 2014 08:04:03 GMT

chloecube:
mommybel! u not kidding me arent u?

i suddenly am full of hope again reading ur post

DS math is between 50-60, one a few occasion fail by 1-2 marks
his paper 2 failed and pull down the overall marks
he wout say he is lazy, he trys his best to complete all hw given by teacher and tutor. problem is he does not speak up or ask when he does not understand. he will just do the correction and then forget how to do again when the same kind of questions was given to him. so its kind of frustrating
when i explained to him, he understand but after a while, he forgets again,
got to repeat and re-inforce the same kind of sum many times before it gets to his head.
nevertheless, i am not going to give up on hin now
but its not easy to strike a balance of \"overloading\" him and letting him enjoy his childhood

Just to share some experiences. Some pupils have difficulty retaining what was taught because they treat the specific process, data, information as \"discrete data\". The more discrete information is, the less likely it will be retained in their memory.

One way to help anchor lessons taught is to created as many connections to examples, real-world applications, other concepts, etc... as possible. The more connections the child can make, the more likely he/she will be able to remember. Sometimes we are so focused on the child getting the answer \"right\", that we forget to provide the needed connections that help them anchor their learning in long term memory.

Hope this helps...

Reply to Our Experience with PSLE and Suggestion for PSLE Preparation on Wed, 26 Mar 2014 00:13:04 GMT

chloecube — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 00:13:04 GMT

mommybel! u not kidding me arent u?

i suddenly am full of hope again reading ur post

DS math is between 50-60, one a few occasion fail by 1-2 marks
his paper 2 failed and pull down the overall marks
he wout say he is lazy, he trys his best to complete all hw given by teacher and tutor. problem is he does not speak up or ask when he does not understand. he will just do the correction and then forget how to do again when the same kind of questions was given to him. so its kind of frustrating
when i explained to him, he understand but after a while, he forgets again,
got to repeat and re-inforce the same kind of sum many times before it gets to his head.
nevertheless, i am not going to give up on hin now
but its not easy to strike a balance of \"overloading\" him and letting him enjoy his childhood