CNA | Talking Point | E32: Are PSLE maths papers too difficult?

PSLE mathematics papers have been a thorn in the side of some parents who claim they are just too tough for 12 year olds. But are they really? Are students being adequately prepared for such questions? Talking Point finds out.

About the show: Talking Point investigates a current issue or event, offering different perspectives to local stories and revealing how it all affects you.

Follow us:

[NangongReng]

They say it is too hard every year since many years ago.

[jason]

Student: I've studied for years and yay I am well prepared for the exam!
PSLE: I'm about to end this man's whole career

[kitkat]

Every year I look back into the recent PSLE and will solve the fun tricky questions. Sad that the O levels additional maths paper are just dry and pur cancer.

[BryanTan]

Siding with Dr Yeap on the idea of those tricky questions being deliberately designed to not closely resemble exercises seen before. If they are too similar to past problems, you only encourage students to recall fixed problem forms and their associated solving routines (aka "vomit out" whatever you crammed in mugging), but not actually test their mathematical/analytical skills by applying on new unseen problems.

[zav]

Half of the comment section is parents agreeing with this, other half is Sec 4s who just did their O levels complaing too

[LWL-szlh]

9:25 "This qn is part of sec 1 syllabus"

Clearly has never heard of "heuristics" before.

[ruiying]

Honestly, it's good that there are tough questions. Do we really want students to be regurgitating whatever they learnt in tuition? As for the patterns question, it wasn't too bad, just a step further from our typical exercise questions. After all, we do need something to set the kids apart. And I say this as a person who took the PSLE last year

[charlie-tgrw]

I took the psle this year and
at the egg tart math question, i was like
‘oh gosh, i like egg tarts, i want to eat one now’ 😂😂😂

[PhysicallySane.]

PSLE tackles one's "thinking out of the box" skills which makes it hard for students. In terms of solving, it's simple, but the questions in PSLE are tackling students visual aspects rather than just solving the question. Pattern questions are one of the good examples of literally thinking beyond what you can see and stuns you(not everyone) due to the unusual question that has never been attempted in practices, making it hard for students to solve them. However, with practice and dedication, which is the biggest hurdle for learning literally anything and the hardest to master, you can also shine like those who deemed to be a "genius".

[voidnoidoid]

The paper is fine lol the parents are just whiny

[shdbbdnd]

If they made the paper easy, everyone will do well and there is no point in exams....if they make it tougher with hard qns, the exceptional students can be picked out...i think all the parents should rethink about this....i took the papers before and they had tough qns as well....its not like their entire life is ruined just by that one qn

[albertongoogle]

The adults tested suck at math :p I think those question are ok if they represent the hardest questions on the test. But parents should not be forced to send kids to extra tuition. If these tough questions are to be in the exam, it should be taught in school. If the teacher cannot teach it, perhaps the teacher or curriculum should be reviewed first.

[Cedric-wkyt]

at this point singapore media just milking ppl complaining abt psle, this looks like they copy paste from kiasu parents and put on nice slideshow xd

[chandar]

Think about it, there are only max 1-2 hard questions that’s require out of the box thinking, this is to separate the smart from the smarter students. The other questions are usually well practiced before-hand. Furthermore, even if it is true that a certain question is really difficult, the psle scoring system works in a way where your marks are pit against other pupil’s marks around Singapore, which means that no matter how tough questions are, your marks depend on how you perform as compared to your peers. Parents need to understand how the t-score system works and why papers must have varying difficulty levels.

[ChengXinJin]

This is hilarious especially when parents think they are qualified to decide if questions are difficult. I'm sure most would not be able to do a PSLE Science or Mother Tongue paper. Leave it to the experts and teach your kids to deal with disappointment. Its just PSLE. A small part of their life.

[zoolz]

Tbh these questions for me i think are designed for multiole different reasons.Since Many parents prepare their sons/daughters for PSLE that if the questions are not challenging most would score well.Thus i think that they are designed to differianciate between students who can/cannot think outside of the box

[markleong]

I knew how to solve those questions mentioned in the program cos i learned what my kid learned in the past few yrs. she got A for her maths in this yr’s PSLE. 19:05 is the essence of what one can learn and practice to solve many primary school maths questions today. It’s simple but very powerful. Incidentally, my interest in UML may hv help me to visualise how an application works and designed to work and more depending on which role one is holding in a IT project.

[osasinator]

Imo the psle paper is to differentiate the students between the streams so even if you do not fare that well for psle you could still do well in the future if you try hard enough.

[alvachan]

8:58 since no one has pointed this out, i shall.

If any person, student or not, can solve part b which requires knowing how to find an arithmetic sum (apart from brute force), how does part c require a more advanced concept? It's just converting a fraction to percentage form.

[joan]

9:50 learn in secondary 1
Me in sec 1: got learn meh