The Much Dreaded PSLE

A typical Primary School Leaving Exams (PSLE)math exam question for a Primary 6 student in Singapore is like this:

"Jim bought some chocolates and gave half of it to Ken. Ken bought some sweets and gave half of it to Jim. Jim ate 12 sweets and Ken ate 18 chocolates. The ratio of Jim’s sweets to chocolates became 1:7 and the ratio of Ken’s sweets to chocolates became 1:4. How many sweets did Ken buy?"

No wonder , parents are up in arms over the PSLE Mathematics paper, which some have described as "unbelievably tough" this year. As recently as two years ago, the PSLE Mathematics paper had also caused a similar uproar.

When I asked my son Niles how his Math exam was he said that his Paper 1 (multiple choice) was easy but Paper 2 (problem solving) was so so. When he said so-so, sabi ko "patay na".

In todays newspaper parents said their children were apparently so stumped that many — even top students who have regularly aced past school examinations — broke down in tears in right after the paper.

This year’s paper demanded more from students. It required them to read and understand more complex questions, and go through more steps, so time constraints would have been a concern,and that is the reason why for the first time they were allowed to use calculators in the exams.

By Monday, my son will be taking his last exam in Science to complete the Primary School Leaving Exams(PSLE) for this year. He is very confident that he will sail through his Science exams since has been consistently a top Science student.

He is still over the moon on putting one over (Naisahan niya)his elder brother Nygel. You know why, because his tactic worked. He simply played dumb (or was he really dumb enough) not to take his Chinese paper tests. His brother Nygel took the CHinese exams last year.

Finally, I will be done with this PSLE matter over my head since my two sons will both be in secondary school by January 2010.

The next big thing to watch out for is the release of the results,Expect the media to devote headlines to this years topnotch students.And for weeks after that Singaporean parents will be talking about the results of their children and how they got into the "big schools" .Its really part of the Singaporean culture.

And the answer to the above question: 68 (I bet you didnt get that huh?)