Parents up in arms again over PSLE Mathematics
paper
SINGAPORE: The first thing her son did when he came out from the
Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) maths paper on Thursday
this week was to gesture as if he was "slitting his throat".
"One look at his face and I thought ’oh no’. I could see that he
felt he was condemned," said Mrs Karen Sng. "When he was telling me
about how he couldn’t answer some of the questions, he got very
emotional and started crying. He said his hopes of getting (an) A*
are dashed."
Not for the first time, 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.
The reason for Thursday’s tough paper, opined the seven parents
whom MediaCorp spoke to, was because Primary 6 students were
allowed to use calculators while solving Paper 2 for the first
time. Paper 2 makes up 60 per cent of the entire paper and consists
of 18 questions.
Said Mrs Vivian Weng: "I think the setters feel it’ll be faster
for them to compute with a calculator. So the problems they set are
much more complex; there are more values, more steps. But it’s
unfair because this is the first time they can do so and they do
not know what to expect!"
These parents’ children are studying in both neighbourhood and
"top" schools.
In response to MediaCorp’s queries, the Education Ministry said
this year’s paper was "comparable" to those of previous years.
"There is no change in syllabus, question types or number of
questions," a spokesperson said.
"The introduction of the use of calculators does not have any
bearing on the difficulty of paper. The use of calculators has been
introduced into the primary maths curriculum so as to enhance the
teaching and learning of maths by expanding the repertoire of
learning activities, to achieve a better balance between the time
and effort spent developing problem solving skills and computation
skills. Calculators can also help to reduce computational
errors."
But the parents MediaCorp spoke to said students 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.
Private maths tutor Josephine Tan whose son studies at
Anglo—Chinese School (Junior), said he told her that "many A*
students in the top class... couldn’t finish all the
questions".
According to posts on an online forum for parents, one example
of the problem sums given was: "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?"
Mrs Tan said: "They have spent months revising and preparing,
but it’s so much tougher than they expected. It really put a big
dent on students’ morale."
Another common gripe: There was not enough time for them to
complete the paper.
A private tutor, who declined to be named, told MediaCorp she
concurred with parents’ opinions. "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," the 28—year—old said.
However, the parents’ fear of poor grades for their children may
be unfounded since they will be compared against the entire
cohort’s performance.
And the answer to the question? 68.
TODAY/so