Jennifer:

justsay:

Jennifer, you are not alone.

Scoring 80+ marks and T score is only 50 ? ...Arrgg. :stupid: Demoralising isn't it ?

My boy just broke the 70 pts hurdle, barely 80 pt. Hiaz

Remember, it is not the marks! It is the mean and the SD of the subject Vs the cohort. The best clue is to look at your child mean and SD per subject to guage his/her performance. If the pri school your child is in is one of the top school in Singapore (Sch students scoring at least 60% above A & A* every year for the 3 subjects and 80% abv for Chinese subject), if your child consistently do above the 1st SD (add the SD mark to the mean score to see if your child mark is above it) for all the 4 subjects, your child would likely do well - top 10% of the PSLE cohort. We have to work on their languages as early as Pri 1 and not wait till their score is way below the mean of the school. I have tried almost everything for my Son since Pri 4 knowing that he is well below the school mean score for that subject but so far, I have not seen any improvement. Athough the PSLE Chinse paper is so much easier than the Sch's paper and the marking is probably very lenient (that accounts for the reason why nationally 80% got their A and A*), but, the chance of getting above the mean score can be very challenging.

Lynn2:

thanks for sharing.


Just wonder, how is the grade for science, as in A or A star affects the overall T score, is it as much as CHINESE?Thanks

Firstly, if u may notice that every year all the three subjects (math, Sc, Eng), 41-43% of the cohort would obtain A & A*. Statistically, i do not agree that every year there would be same % of students obtaining that score (of course nobody knows the % of A and A*). I am not sure if there is any adjustment/moderation etc. Even there is, it will not affect the relative scores of all students. What i m trying to say is that, it doesnt matter how your child scores in the subject but wat is important is that as long as relative to the cohort, your child must be above the mean score and his score is better than his/her peers. The T-score measures how well your child has done relative to the entire cohort. The mean score and SD should have already taken care of the papers' level of difficulty. In the case of Chinese, every mark counts as the mean is 'high' and SD is 'low' - the difference between scoring 90 and 75 marks for Chinese could mean a T-score of 18 pts (+ and -) difference. Honestly, if you peek at the results of schools like TaoNan (or most Hokkien WK), you will know what i mean - one year (07 or 08) almost 45% of the students score 250 and above. Such schools are reputated for their Chinese language. I must also qualify that the school (Tao Nan) was equally good in their English (80% A &A*).

Jennifer:

P6boy-dad:

What i can say about the T-Score for Chinese is that, the mean score is VERY high at least 82 and the SD is about 7-8 marks. It means that your child has to score above 82 before he can obtain a T-score of 50 and above. Any marks below the mean score would result in score below 50 for Chinese. I am sure alot of parents dont realise that, thinking that as long as my child score 75 marks would be sufficient. That was why a student who scored 3A* and 1A (chinese) would get a score of 244. The A for Chinese would have given him a T-score of 41 if he scores only 75 marks.

Pls share how you get the numbers in the above computation. Your post makes me depressed

Sorry to make you depressed. Actually it is quite easy to derive the mean marks and SD for Chinese. Firstly, around 80% of the candidates scored A & A* almost every year. Therefore, the mean score would never be 75% and below. Secondly, Statistics 101 says that most students (34.1%) would fall between the 1st standard deviation on the left and right (layman) of the mean score. Meaning, adding or subtracting the SD to the mean score would cover the entire 1st SD left and right of the mean score. It also means that, only with a mean of 82-83 marks and a SD of 7-8 for Chinese would likely cover the entire right hand side of the mean score as 80% of the students obtain 75 and above. Every one SD in the T-score terms constitute 10 pts (+ on the left and - on the right). The next SD would be another 10 pts (2nd SD). If our child score 75 marks, the T-score for Chinese would be est. -9 (41) although it is an A grade. Those who score a high A grade of 90 would have scored a T-score of 9 (59). The difference is actually quite great. Even if you scored VERY well for your other 3 subjects, it would likely pull down your T-Score. For example, imagine scoring 70 pts (which is top 2.1% of the cohort) for all three subjects but with a score of 41 in Chinese, it would pull your score down to only 251. That is why, those who are very good in Chinese would definitely have an advantage. All the talk about giving language double weightage is not correct. Well, I am very concern for my boy too.


I have attached the bell curve for your info

http://www.postimage.org/

justsay:

[quote]So now you have to use Skewed Gaussian, but by how much.

Hi crazydad , can you help this suaku parent to put it in more layman's term. :oops:

Do you mean first T score formula shall apply using their raw score, then Skewed Gaussian will apply to moderate the T score further if the whole cohort don't do well, the Skewed Gaussian is used to push up the marks of the whole cohort ?

Thank you.[/quote]Statistically, the mean score and the standard deviation are already a moderating tools. What i can say about the T-Score for Chinese (with 80% scoring A and A*) is that, the mean score is VERY high at least 82 and the SD is about 7-8 marks. It means that your child has to score above 82 before he can obtain a T-score of 50 and above. Any marks below the mean score would result in score below 50 for Chinese. I am sure alot of parents dont realise that, thinking that as long as my child score 75 marks would be sufficient. That was why a student who scored 3A* and 1A (chinese) would get a score of 244. The A for Chinese would have given him a T-score of 41 if he scores only 75 marks.

ApronMama:

turquoise:

Thanks, Dharma. Am I correct to assume that generally, if a paper is easy, there will be a low t-score and that is not in the favour of those good in the subject.


Conversely, if the paper is very difficult with the general population performing poorly, then the ones who score very well will have a high T score?

Thanks.

Could someone please help understand how the grade A*, A, B ...etc are determined for a simpler or a hard paper? Thanks!

What i can say about the T-Score for Chinese is that, the mean score is VERY high at least 82 and the SD is about 7-8 marks. It means that your child has to score above 82 before he can obtain a T-score of 50 and above. Any marks below the mean score would result in score below 50 for Chinese. I am sure alot of parents dont realise that, thinking that as long as my child score 75 marks would be sufficient. That was why a student who scored 3A* and 1A (chinese) would get a score of 244. The A for Chinese would have given him a T-score of 41 if he scores only 75 marks.