The pressure of the upcoming PSLE examinations is no stranger to parents of Primary 6 students.
By now, your child would have done enough mock papers to familiarise themselves with the PSLE English examination format. But what should they note across papers one to four to knock each one out of the park?
Below are the components of each paper, and how parents can help students avoid common pitfalls to achieve their desired results.
Three years’ worth of syllabus may sound like a lot, and if you’re not sure where to start, The Learning Lab’s program can help. From strengthening their command of language to imparting writing techniques, it covers the following bases well ahead of the national exam.
PSLE English Paper 1
Situational Writing
This section requires a response – be it a letter, report, or email – to a given context. It could be inviting a friend to an event or reporting an accident in school to their teacher.
Students should read the context carefully and ask themselves: Who is my audience? What is my purpose for writing? What are the most relevant details? It helps to highlight the latter before they start writing, lest they get carried away and omit important information.
Continuous Writing
Students will write at least 150 words based on a given topic and three associated pictures, though they need not use all of them. Like in situational writing, a little planning goes a long way no matter the text type they go for.
Start by brainstorming keywords and possible storylines. For instance, given the topic “a pleasant surprise”, students can demonstrate their understanding by timing their story’s climax with an unexpected event and using adjectives like “speechless” and “elated”.
PSLE English Paper 2
Grammar, Vocabulary, Synthesis & Transformation
Students select the correct answer from four options under Grammar and Vocabulary, and transform or combine sentences with connectors and conjunctions under Synthesis and Transformation. Acing them may be a long game, but here’s the good news: similar questions show up year after year.
Look out for these patterns across past year papers, mock examinations, and assessment books. Chances are, you’ll find recurring tests of subject-verb agreements and connectors. Importantly, once you’re on to something, test your application by practising its variations.
Cloze Passage
Paper 2 comprises Grammar Cloze and Comprehension Cloze, which tests a student’s ability to fill in the blanks in a cloze passage. Since predictions are made based on contextual clues littered throughout the cloze passage, clocking the latter is key.
That being said, pronouns, prepositions, and connectors are not all. Students will do well to revise their phrasal verbs, word collocations, and common idioms, as exposure to these expressions will help them score in a cloze passage.
Comprehension
In the final lap of Paper 2, students have to read a given text and answer open-ended questions. It sounds straightforward, but candidates often lose marks by misinterpreting the question or submitting incomplete answers. How can they avoid these pitfalls?
For starters, students can analyse if the question requires information from the passage or a version in their own words. In the latter case, remember to use synonyms and amend the sentence structure without changing its original meaning. Either way, do not assume the examiner knows what you know. Clear and specific nouns and pronouns leave little room for ambiguity and, by extension, penalisation.
PSLE English Paper 3
Listening Comprehension
Listening Comprehension tests for a student’s understanding of spoken English. After a passage, which could range from an advertisement to a conversation, is narrated twice, students will answer 20 multiple-choice questions.
Focus is everything in listening comprehension, and students who feel nervous can practise taking deep breaths to calm down. Ideally, they should use the first recording to select their answers and the second to confirm them. Not everyone is an auditory learner, which is why jotting notes or painting a mental picture helps with the retention of information.
PSLE English Paper 4
Oral Examination
The oral examination has three parts. Students will read a passage aloud, respond to a relevant visual, and converse with the examiner about an associated topic. To minimise surprises, students can take advantage of the preparation to predict questions and mentally prepare responses.
When answering the examiner, students can structure their answers by first stating their view and reasons for it, before backing them up with personal experiences To round up, they can also share recommendations related to the broader topic.