>Easier maths paper wouldnt it mean easier for more kids that are more inclined to Maths to score?



Difficult math: pupilA 95 pupilB 75, 20ponits difference
Easy math: pupilA 100 pupilB 90, 10points difference
Know what I mean?

floppy:

Sakaki:

My DD's case this year, the top class of the neighbourhood primary school, top 5 out of overall 42 pupils, still got 265-270, the rest puplils most of them are stong in Math and Science, in average got 5-10 lower PSLE score compare to Prelim. 3-4 pupils weak in Math and Sciene but stong in English and Chinese got 5-10 higher PSLE score compare to Prelim. Not sure what happen to other primary schools but I think maybe the same thing happened. Also curious to know why there is no consistancy for the difficulity of the PSLE Math, Science, English, Chinese test.

Firstly, preliminary exam is just that, preliminary exam. It has no bearing on the actual exam as they are set by different people. Most schools try to set it right, ie same difficulty, but in reality, it’s hard to achieve (can’t really read the mind of another person).

Secondly, even if the exams are set exactly right, your school is not the same as my school, ie you can’t tell the standard of the entire cohort. All schools are good schools BUT not all schools are equal.

Lastly, there is consistency. It’s known as normal distribution, aka standard score, aka t-score. The t-score doesn’t really tell how well you do, but it does tell how well you do relative to the cohort.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks a lot for the input. Agree with you, all your points are politically correct. To make my point clear, this year math was much easier than last year, which became a slap to those pupils who spent lots of time and efforts on math, as they thought the math will be important, based on the difficulty of last PSLE math. Agree?

My DD’s case this year, the top class of the neighbourhood primary school, top 5 out of overall 42 pupils, still got 265-270, the rest puplils most of them are stong in Math and Science, in average got 5-10 lower PSLE score compare to Prelim. 3-4 pupils weak in Math and Sciene but stong in English and Chinese got 5-10 higher PSLE score compare to Prelim. Not sure what happen to other primary schools but I think maybe the same thing happened. Also curious to know why there is no consistancy for the difficulity of the PSLE Math, Science, English, Chinese test.