Let’s take a trip down memory lane for a start. I remember six years ago, I was stumped by a few Mathematics questions during my PSLE and the then innocent me came home crying over the questions. Fast forward to six years later, the candidates are still facing the same problems as indicated by a letter to the Strait’s Times today from a parent, lamenting about the difficult Mathematics questions and question the necessity of such questions. It’s the time of the year again when parents debate about the PSLE.

I don’t even know where to begin to talk about this. Firstly the parent questions the objectives of such questions. These questions that were “unheard of and never seen before” are meant to test the application of knowledge in “new and novel ways”. I’m pretty sure this objective is included in the syllabus objectives of most of the subjects administered by the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board (SEAB). Head over to their website and you can see them.

I have seen such questions not only during PSLE but also during my O Level days and I still see them coming up from time to time in the A Levels papers, especially for our batch which is the guinea pig batch for the new A Levels Syllabus. I’ve seen questions in the specimen papers of several subjects including Mathematics and Physics that were unheard of and still, we need to tackle them and apply what we know to solve them. I, frankly, do not see many O Levels and A Levels parents writing to complain of such questions. Perhaps this is partly due to students learning to deal with it and not “lamenting” to their parents about such questions.

Pure rote learning has no role in the fast moving society. I’m not sure how someone who has an encyclopedia-like knowledge can be of use. Our examinations are recognised by other education institutes, including several USA universities who acknowledge our A Level certificates. To keep up with the times, we have to move away from pure recall questions. Sometimes, I wonder if this is fortunate or unfortunate for students like us. Besides, these kind of questions can help to differentiate stronger students from weaker students though I’m sure there are not as many questions that “kill” as seem to be inferred by the parent’s letter. So, basically, the point of such questions is to keep up with the times!

Secondly, so what if there are difficult questions? If the whole cohort is slaughtered by these questions, then there are no grounds to be worried about. Everyone will have their absolute scores shifted by roughly the same amount and in the end, the relative scores still stay the same. FYI, SEAB does not use absolute scores for grading. They use what is normally termed a “bell curve” or what A Level students probably call “Normal Distribution” to do the assignment of grades. What this means is that students who fall above a certain percentile are awarded grades. Say, if all the students of Singapore scored a zero for that question, their percentiles would certainly not change much! If the parent had understood this and still written in to complain, I can only say I smell the Kiasu spirit at work again.

To end off, let me reiterate: the questions are used to keep up with the times. I don’t see many O Level and A Level parents complaining about these kind of things and it’s the usual Kiasu parents of Primary School children that are so worried that they keep writing in every year to debate about the PSLE so much so that it has almost become an annual event. Take a deep breath and calm down!

Tags: singapore