2021 PSLE Discussions and Strategies (Children born in 2009)

[floppy]

I think the entire point of AL is that.

Worry about your problems, let others worry about theirs.

[bbcxd]

I think the entire point of AL is that.

Worry about your problems, let others worry about theirs.

Agree!

Just that your own worries get worse...even for those who managed to score AL 4 in SA1 if all subjects sat at the edge of 90...(i.e. 90, 91) One careless mistake changes everything.

[floppy]

I think the entire point of AL is that.

Worry about your problems, let others worry about theirs.

Agree!

Just that your own worries get worse...even for those who managed to score AL 4 in SA1 if all subjects sat at the edge of 90...(i.e. 90, 91) One careless mistake changes everything.

I can totally understand.

My daughter sat for her first mid-year Math paper. Got an answer half-right. She wrote the right formula / right equation but made a careless mistake and divided wrongly. Teacher was quite nice to give 2 marks out of 4 marks and that was the difference between her score of 89 (AL2) vs a potential score of 91 (AL1). Luckily for her, still ok to make mistakes and learn from them (she actually made 3 similar mistakes, rectifying anyone of them would have gotten her to 91).

[SG_KP1]

I think the entire point of AL is that.

Worry about your problems, let others worry about theirs.

Agree!

Just that your own worries get worse...even for those who managed to score AL 4 in SA1 if all subjects sat at the edge of 90...(i.e. 90, 91) One careless mistake changes everything.

I would say do this: take P5 SA2, P6 SA1, and prelim scores for each subject. Then take worst and best score for each subject and calculate the range of total PSLE AL score for worst and best case scenario.

Hopefully the boundary doesn't bite in all 4 subjects. But at least one is mentally prepared for it.

[zac's mum]

Based on probability, the boundary is unlikely to bite in all 4 subjects.

One subject maybe just scraped into a higher AL band (yay!), another subject just missed the higher band (oops!), remaining 2 subjects somewhere in the middle of the band. Middle of the band has more probability than right at the edge.

[SG_KP1]

Based on probability, the boundary is unlikely to bite in all 4 subjects.

One subject maybe just scraped into a higher AL band (yay!), another subject just missed the higher band (oops!), remaining 2 subjects somewhere in the middle of the band. Middle of the band has more probability than right at the edge.

Agree. My scenario is extreme. But it removes one systematic bias nearly everyone has; good outcomes are attributed to skill and bad outcomes are disregarded as outliers, had a bad day, revised to fix mistakes, etc, etc. Truth is the good outcomes may have been the result of good luck too (easy question set, guessed right).

Regardless, I wish everyone much luck this year and hope they reach their goal. But I think the new system (while neither better or worse on the whole) is potentially a lot less forgiving for relatively small changes in aggregate performance, and I am at least cognizant of a much wider range of outcomes when it comes to school choices...

[zac's mum]

We just have to adapt to this new system, no choice anyway.

But I get what u mean about wider possible range of outcomes (total score, school posting). Can calculate the worst case & best case scenarios like how u suggested.

Btw, my P5’s Semester 1 HDP shows the raw whole number marks (which is optional, according to MOE) alongside the AL band. How about your school P5?

[SG_KP1]

We just have to adapt to this new system, no choice anyway.

But I get what u mean about wider possible range of outcomes (total score, school posting). Can calculate the worst case & best case scenarios like how u suggested.

Btw, my P5’s Semester 1 HDP shows the raw whole number marks (which is optional, according to MOE) alongside the AL band. How about your school P5?

Don't have the HDP yet, as WA2 slipped into Term 3. Hopefully this week...

[zac's mum]

We just have to adapt to this new system, no choice anyway.

But I get what u mean about wider possible range of outcomes (total score, school posting). Can calculate the worst case & best case scenarios like how u suggested.

Btw, my P5’s Semester 1 HDP shows the raw whole number marks (which is optional, according to MOE) alongside the AL band. How about your school P5?

Don't have the HDP yet, as WA2 slipped into Term 3. Hopefully this week...

All the best! Ours was disproportionately low as expected, since the WAs tested the difficult components only.

[horisono]

Yeah, I agree with floppy. But I still have like one problem -

I am pretty sure that at least 50~ people will get the exact same score as me. So will that like affect the posting of Secondary schools by increasing more ballotting? Because if you think about it the fewer possible scores there are the more people getting the same score as you. Can someone please explain to me cuz I'm a very blur P6 student lol, it will be appreciated if someone could help. Thanks!