Should Parents Stop Complaining About PSLE? | The Daily Ketchup Podcast
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- Опубликовано: 23 июл 2024
- 0:00 Intro
0:45 The Helen and Ivan Question
3:33 How our parents react to results
4:10 I got 236 for PSLE
4:50 Handling exam stress
7:43 Cheating in exams
12:59 Exam Atmosphere
15:26 How we studied for exams 2
17:47 Chris' Gifted program experience
19:09 Is Normal Acad normal?
22:01 Answering PSLE questions
33:09 We are all bad at critical thinking
35:48 Why parents are actually upset
37:39 Outro
What did we actually learn in primary school? How to cheat at exams, what really motivates students, and can we pass PSLE now?
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I think the issue is fundamentally that students are not trained to think critically in the syllabus. So much of education in Singapore is about learning to memorise principles and rote applying them to exercise questions. There is not enough time dedicated to explaining logical concepts to students, hence their critical thinking is stymied. Educators must also be super frustrated since, covering the syllabus is their job and it must be super difficult to prepare students to tackle what are essentially logic puzzles. Last but not least, exam boards also set these questions to differentiate students, it's just the harsh reality that students have to be stratified for a national exam.
This is psle. They are 12 years old. They are expected to do great memorizing work not critique the political climate. Having just 3 out of 30/40 questions which are slightly out of box is to help differentiate out the crème la top whom manage to develop great analytical skills. If you don’t score these 3 questions you won’t fail psle. Parents gotta stop being so kiasu and expect that the paper must be problematic if their kid can’t answer all of them. No, the kid is not the problem nor the paper. It’s ok to not be able to answer it you are not expected to score 100 for everyone.
And yes exams are necessary to help students test their knowledge and create a sense of urgency to cram the information into their brain in preparation of more advanced studies that trains their critical minds. If their foundation is weak then all the more no critical thinking. And doing away with tests will strip this sense of urgency. Just imagine if your work assignments have no deadlines and submission. Will you ever complete them? Will you pay the taxes if they send you the bill with no indication of when to pay it by? Maybe you will and you do. But sadly majority of the people needs such restrain to discipline them to improve.
38mins! Happy to see that you guys listened and are making longer episodes! 😄
I think having a couple of tricky questions is fine, otherwise, how can we differentiate between those that are book smart and those that are smart smart? As long the majority of the paper is straightforward and to the book, ensuring that any kid that did their due diligence to study are able to score decently. I don't see it as a problem.
I remember for PSLE, we are not supposed to use algebra or simultaneous equations e.g: for the 5 circles qn we cannot let the unknown be x. I remember will minus marks!
Totally understood the GEP conundrum. As my mum used to say... "It's better to be at the top of the coffee, than at the bottom of the froth."
Jon's beaker for a cup is iconic 😂
It’s good that there are such questions in our national exams that require critical and logical thinking, rather than just testing a candidate’s mathematical prowess. Critical and logical thinking is applicable to all walks of life, to all kinds of jobs.
I guess the concerns/complains from parents probably stems from the point whether this level of critical and logical thinking is appropriate for the P6 students. My opinion is having one or two of such questions in an exam is just nice, just like how in life, challenges appear once in a while and it’s not that smooth sailing.
I love you guys so much man you guys are like the best podcast man HAHAHAH
We love you too! I think.
That's probably because the paper is out to sift out the higher ability students, especially the system now is no longer about T-score. It's has changed to achievement levels from 2021 onwards.
We didn't get to touch on it but that's from what we think, you're spot on!
Congrats on the new mics! Love the new sounds. Glad to see you guys going places, taking names!
Have been listening to you guys for a while. LOVE the show. Only gripe is that most episodes are TOO SHORT! Haha.
A lot of big topics could be further dissected. Cos each one of you has unique perspectives that sometimes does not get aired. Maybe do 2 episodes or something like that?
The point of the helen question is to have 3D thinking and perception to see the relationshi between weight, value and number of coins.
The same thinking process allows you to be a smart investor to see hidden trends in charts, an effective psychologist to associate events with mental trauma and an efficient engineer to see how unobvious factors is cause the engine to break.
I totally get where you’re coming from, but I think it becomes a fallacy if you think that ONLY such a question at such a level would be able to determine if a student is able to have that same thinking process 15 years down the road. I feel like the emphasis placed on what questions like this was supposed to determine is too overstated already. I mean there’s bound to be questions down the road in secondary school and JC/poly that would be able to not only determine, but with even greater accuracy, whether one has the ability to think like that when they finally go out to work, right? I don’t think it’s fair to say that if you can’t answer this question at PSLE level = you won’t be able to answer similar questions in secondary school and/or JC/poly, and therefore = you won’t be a “smart investor”, “effective psychologist”, “efficient engineer”, etc. Point is, not everyone’s minds “open up” at the same time.
@@brxndonnnn You are right. This ability is not natural for us to develop on our own. Thus, the primary school teaches the model building methodology to represent a paragraph of numbers and words into a diagram.
This is data analysis 101. It is the fundamental skill behind how an architect can draw up a blueprint that represents design and dimensions, how an entrepreneur presents his business model and how a soldier translates data into symbols on a map for navigation.
@@jayshen84 It is just denial or refusal to admit that one lacks the natural ability at something. There are always people who are unwilling to acknowledge that they are weak at something and instead find excuses or success at other aspect to justify their weak results as a blip. If you can't solve it now, you are weak now. Do something to improve yourself. No one cares who you might be in the future or are in the past. Live in the present.
I am also shocked that there are actually Singaporean adults who think that "Helen and Ivan" coin problem is trivially unimportant to adult life. How the hell can one make intelligent resource allocation if he/she fails to do that question? Rather than viewing it as a kiddo "Helen and Ivan" riddle, the question should be phrased more seriously as Investment Plan/Work Schedule A (=Helen) and Investment Plan/Work Schedule B (=Ivan). How the hell can one be an effective manager/planner if he can't solve such simple optimisation problem?
Great video! Very insightful and real.
Love that you guys are talking about things that actually matter for the country's future! Helen and Ivan got to me so bad though, I was trying to algebra or simultaneous equations it and got stuck, but in the end the answer was so simple. Makes me think about maybe I overcomplicate while thinking of solutions when a problem is presented to me... Nevertheless, fun and useful!
36:39 Perhaps one possible way to prevent such from happening is to:
1) Not have too many of such "out-of-syllabus" questions.
2) Place all such questions in a separate section by itself like "Section 3" or whatever, you know.
3) Final PSLE scores excludes the score obtained for this particular section.
4) Students who scored well for this particular section can be offered places in whatever gifted programmes via letters/invitations sent to the parents of these students at least 1 day after the PSLE results are released, and not before. Acceptance of place offered is wholly decided by the student and their parents. It is possible and acceptable for parents to decline the offer and place their child in the typical Express/Normal stream in a "normal" school.
5) Students who do exceptionally well in this particular section (maybe the top 25%) are automatically placed in gifted programmes. This is to ensure that our nation continues to be able to access, harness and develop the potential in these children, and be able to have the best shot at producing top talents.
I can't wait for the next episode regarding the Noc drama
im a huge fan of math myself, i love doing those picture questions u can find on the internet, but what got me out of math is all the formulas and stuff. i easily did the helen and ivan question for part a with simple explanation without needing the entire formula.
A model is not necessary for the question. Once you realize that Ivan's pot is essentially replacing 40 of Helen's 50c coins with 40 20c coins all you have to do is take Helen's total amount and deduct 40 differences between 50c and 20c coins (0.108 kg).
this mic makes the podcast easier to listen to! the focus and clarity on your voices really helps...
EDIT: I'm not the one who wants to find out about Mosquito A.
Ex TSL crews on the left! And Chris needs no introduction. Haha
The "funniest" about our system is that the "Special" stream is of prestige, only in Singapore. I used to say that for my ice-breaker during university, just to start the conversation about Singapore for my foreign classmates.
Yea I agree its always that one teacher that changed the way you think
Wah eh nice the sponsors finally start flowing in xD
Bruh we long ago sponsored liao what talking you. Never watch to the end ahhhh basket.
Agree on how a teacher can make an impact and make you study for that subject. Shout out to my maths teacher weeeeeeee
our emotional and mental capacities are limited, the number of faks we give are also limited. learning how to skip certain questions is also a skill that translates into life.
I got almost all except that instead of subtracting the difference of mass between 20-cent and 50-cent coins, I add
I have a totally different approach to the semi-circle diameter question though. Not sure if it can be accepted haha but it's still correct in the end.
me too! I did algebra and when the answer was revealed, I thought to myself, maybe algebra is a bit too much for this question 🤣 sure enough, Helen and Ivan got me when the answer was so simple.
The problem of our primary educational system lies in the remote (almost non-existent) link between the textbooks and the papers. It's impossible for any students to perform if he or she depends primarily on the prescribed textbooks and workbooks - the irony.
You speak as though you have never taken psle. Psle is pure memorization work. 100%. If you had done the textbook in and out you would score. O level is 70% memorization and a levels 40%. Only at university level can you start to say that there is “remote link” between textbook and papers. Because that’s how the brain develops. You need to lay the foundation of knowledge before you teach the theory and application
I think it helps in learning algebra. And also math in general I think supports coding logic. Because ultimately you don't learn coding to become a mathematician, but you can become a coder if you are a mathematician
WAA BUDGET FOR YETIS SIOL NICE LA sounds bloody good guys!! KEEP IT UP GUYS, best podcast ever!! i love that yall just forgot Chris and all HAHAHA its so candid its awesome, its like 5 friends just together but talking about serious things HAHAHA JIAYOUS GUYS God bless yall!!
We get carried away with our conversations sometimes. Sorry Chris! :D
WOAH CHRIS! CRIPSY CHRIS, I mean MIC!
We face this issue/uproar almost yearly
I think the problem is with the whole education system in Singapore. They hardly play to the different strengths of kids growing up there. I agree that learning about the core subjects are important as it builds a good foundation but drilling in the fact that if you don’t hit a certain grade or a certain final score, you’ll be a useless member of society is just horrible. I’m 26 now, finishing my final year of masters in physiotherapy. I can tell you that both my PSLE and O level scores were not considering traditionally good. Because of the flawed system, it took me so long to find what I was passionate about vs just trying to find something that pays well or that my family will regard as a good job and me, a contributing member of society and even when I did, the Singapore system was too difficult for me to get back into and I had to move to Australia to study.
The difference is stark. While it is definitely case by case and a population fall through the cracks here, there’s so much more opportunities for kids to explore their strengths. I think it’s sad, growing up as I did, and I cannot even start to think what the kids today are feeling.
pro-tip for studying (according to my poly lecturer), teach your classmates who need help. worked for me in poly and uni.
How to teach when you don’t know what you’re doing
shout out to dan's pen spinning thinking habit!
At Sec 4 (NA Stream), we had to take our 1st 'O' lv Chinese exams, you can take it again in Sec 5 I think? Forgot. Donkey years ago.
Thing is, when I went for the oral exam, I began reading the the paragraph, only to find myself skipping a fk ton of words.
It was to the point where I looked up once I was done reading and the examination looked at me blankly and said, "where have you read till? You read finished alr?"
She then suggested that I took CLB cos there's no way I would pass my Chinese. That was when I surrendered to my fate that I shall forever be a potato/ banana.
ok so now they have netflix cup. and I'm always looking at John paul and dan's watches.
Can you identify the models doe?
@@TheDailyKetchupPodcast i think its Seiko Turtle on Jon Paul wrist. If it has magnifying glass, it'd be the king turtle.😆 great watch
Parents will start complaining about O Levels soon....Question that did not exist in the 10 yr series turned up in the papers this year.
I am happy to know I am able to solve that maths question seeing as I am taking an engineering degree right now. hahaha. I would doubt myself if I can't solve it and dropout of my degree if I couldn't
i do some coding, this doesnt help my coding, but my coding helps with this question.
Am i doing something wrong the question said “EACH of them had a MIX of 20 AND 50 cents coins” doesnt that mean helen and ivan must have both 20 and 50 cents coins? The answer given is saying ivan only has 20 cents coins. Or is my english just bad pls no flame genuinely confused
Where’s the THIS IS THE DAILYYYY KETCHUP intro?
Thank you
I think having such questions that encourage critical thinking is great instead of having all students memorize syllabus like robots. however the answers should also be flexible. like the first question with the mosquitoes, if my answer made sense but they were very strict with the marking and only go according to the answer sheet then I would be so mad
The difficult questions separates the wheat from the chaff.
The only math that makes sense is how to exponentially grow our own assets with commas and zeros
Anyone else have the urge to join them in their conversation?
Good to see TSL people here. Their content is getting stale.... at least to me.
There’s nothing wrong with sifting people out with exams… but the issue is, sifting people out at 12 years old is unnecessary. At that age, scoring good grades is probably more reliant on good parenting, money (i.e. tuition opportunities), a healthy environment, than solely intelligence.
The justification of sifting people out at such a young age is to “cater a child to an education that suits them better”. Sounds great, but cmon, this is the most insincere bs ever.
Govt says “all schools are good schools”… but cmon lol, w the recent leaked gossip of our ministers in parliament, it’s clear tht even members within our govt continues to tag ppl’s worth to the secondary schools they go to.
So what age should we start “sifting people out”? You know the whole point of sifting people is to enable continued studies at the appropriate level for the appropriate audience right? Targeted education is to help students reach their potential. If you don’t sift them out at 12 then you’re gonna have a bunch of parents either complaining about their kids being underwhelmed or overwhelmed at 16 yo and so-called missed the golden window to be groomed.
Suggestion for next podcast:
-How squid game relates to how some people around the world are facing debts and how human nature is being reflected in the show (e.g. life and death situation can show the bad side of humans)
Sry for bad english 😅
Qn pretty straight foward
I was P5 when I solved the question (taking psle this year) but it wasn't very hard... Solved it in around 5 mins
The real issue is that we are so conditioned to pursue successes and avoid failures. Doing badly for national examinations and receiving not so promising 'labels' unavoidably have detrimental impacts on students. But have we taught them how to manage failure as individuals and cope with those detrimental impacts? Are we competent at managing failures?
The system of stratification and labelling is a mere reflection of how the world works. Even if the PSLE doesn't stratify as primary school students, they would still eventually be stratified and labelled by the society as adults. Will having an easier PSLE examinations for the kids ensure that they will never face failures in the future as adults? So, is it our job to prepare them for the real world or to make exams less stressful and more compassionate for them?
17:45 "I'm gonna take meth seriously now."
I think basic math itself is less about the actual real world use case and more about training your brain to think logically which translates quite well to engineering fields
18:07 what does "plebian" have to do with "Rick and Morty"?
CHRISSSSS
Here is how I see it: You set up an environment whereby you put so much pressure on exams because it is dependent on your child's future success, is it surprising so many parents complained?
Is the stressed out environment “set up” by the government or by these same parents whom are complaining? Did sg government at any 1 point of time encourage pressured studying or stress that if the children don’t do well in exams they are gonna be unsuccessful? I don’t think so. The environment was set up by parents themselves and now they blame the government for being too competitive? What should the government do then? Start giving out awards for everyone even though they score 180 for psle? Or perhaps no psle not o levels and while we are at it might as well do away with a levels too and everyone gets to go university instead? Let’s see when things are a given will the meritocracy system still stands.
21:17 time... wow big statement
Edit: i used to be bad at maths, and it took my tutor who was amazing, that taught us simple and easy methods to do questions, which made things easier in Pri Sch and that sparked a liking to maths which made me do better. That is also one of the point which I'm sure has been brought up in previous episodes. When you are not being stressed out and is being given free-reign with some help, it can ignite a liking to the matter. Which can also spark passion.
Parents complaining about the PSLE parents are the same ones that make their child weak mentally. They induce unnecessary stress and then cry about the paper being too hard when their kids can't do the paper. Based on the questions this year, the 3 hardest in this paper i would say has the same difficulty as some of the easier questions from last year's paper. Even then parents had been complaining about the paper being difficult which it isn't really. This differentiate the "stronger" and "weaker" student. PSLE result is not indicative of your future. You can do badly in PSLE but be very successful in life. It is how it's been handled at young. Our older generations we took it to the chin no matter how difficult the questions were, which strengthen some of our mental state as adults. Those that were complaining and getting upset over their past result tends to end up being "weak" in society.
These are just facts that can be SEEN from real life examples(as some parents will say)
Yes! Finally someone making sense! Thank you! Why are we bashing a perfectly functioning education system?! If we keep making things easier for kids that’s not the meritocratic society anymore. And I perfectly agree with you that the stress is induced by parents themselves not the government. They need to acknowledge that despite the importance of psle and the need for good preparation, if the child fails (upon making good effort) then they still have other ways to make it in life. They are not doomed for failure. Singapore’s system has allocated many options for those who failed and parents need to play a part in helping the kid to identify too. Instead of keep putting the blame on education and artificially lower the bar to have more people in the loop. If you are a size L in clothing just embrace it and be proud, not relabel all size L to be size S instead right
I did the Helen and Ivan question. It's fine, but probably difficult for a 12 year old. I do know coding.
omg Chris!
Same!! I'm like.. "It's Chris!!!"
It helps with coding because coding involves a lot of logic and having to think abstractly to untangle complicated systems.
but the qns say each of them have a mix of twenty n fifty cent coin... this is misleading...
As a software engineer, I am not sure if it would have helped in building the foundation for coding also would like to point out that the math questions did require a more in-depth logical thought process than exam questions from our generation
Isnt it helen and ivan because of alphabetical order, h and i
is itttt?
Yes. All primary sch questions are named in alphabetical order to assist drawing of models.
Hence , Alan, Betty and Charles share...
I would appreciate the jokes and understand a lot better if there were subtitles
Yes. Parents should stop complaining but on the other hand we should not stop people from complaining or sound out...
do asmr style
i think the problem lies from how the education system doesn't really prepare students to think critically. we're trained to memorise and copy paste, rather than to think critically.
I just answered another’s opinion that points at our primary education being a failure because no link between textbook and papers (100% not true for psle btw) and here someone claims we are copy paste machines no preparation for critical thinking. You need both to succeed. You need the knowledge to be a foundation of your wisdom. If you cannot even form sentences or spell properly how are you gonna think critically? And how do you get good grammar and good spelling? By copy and pasting others. You first learn by copy and pasting THEN you try to think out of the box, if you are smart enough that is. If you’re not smart enough to think out of the box then you won’t be able to. Wisdom can be guided but never taught. You can’t teach a monkey to speak properly because they cannot make more sounds than they already can.
I kinda wing it in PSLE haha
Now I need to buy better earphones/speakers…. to hear the difference….
Maybe we could have a giveaway soon? hehehe
@@TheDailyKetchupPodcast ooh i call dibs on the price of the future contest. :D
'self motivated to relax' rofl
Ladies & gentlemen....
How do you address the issues when it is written and/or spoken boys & girls, sir & madam, Mr & Mrs, husband & wife, lion & lioness etc....
back in my day, paper hard means nvr study hard enough, stop with the whining
exactly
You how old?
@@TheDailyKetchupPodcast dont tell u
If we stop complaining about PSLE, then our education system will continue regressing until it only serves the purpose of differentiating students by academic abilities for the *convenience* of identifying the pool of students that would form our next generation of potential scholars + streaming students far too early in their lives with economic efficiency. The MOE of today is no longer genuinely interested in educating primary school students of all backgrounds, neither is it interested in ensuring that its exams are an accurate indicator of each student's abilities notwithstanding those of others. Combined with the disastrous AL system this will only erode our meritocracy and lead to a greater divide between higher-achieving students, late bloomers and lower-achieving students. MOE may call it "differentiating" but we all know they truly meant "discriminating" and "disenfrachisement".
Actually all the three questions are simple but you just have to understand the logic and don't get bogged down by the pressure of time and expectations.
1 question answer was simple yet 3 of our podcast hosts only came up with since the simple answer forced to revalue lte what we see infront by the concept of can the answer be this simple thus complicating the thought process.
2 question was also simple if we can logicaly identify the clues in the question.
3 question the answer is already infront of us ( they have the same number of coins) yet because we already made up our mind about question being difficult you couldn't crack it .
That's why practice makes it better, practice more of questions especially under time constraints which can help us to handle the pressure.
𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐀
It is certain that Ivan has 40 more 20 Cent Coins
(104 - 64 = 40)
For every 20 Cent Coin, there is a difference of 50c - 20c
Thus, difference of Forty 20 Cent Coin would be = (50c - 20c) x 40 = $12
Logically, the more number of 20 cent coins,
the lesser number of 50 cent coins.
Since Ivan has more 20 cent coins, the difference
of extra $12 would belong to Helen.
Helen has $12 more.
𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐁
Logically, Ivan's coins would weigh lesser since
more number of 20c coins = less 50c Coins.
For every 20c coin, there would be the difference of 2.7g
Since Ivan has 40 more 20c coin, the difference should be 40 x 2.7g
1134g (weight of Helen's Coins) - (40x2.7g) = Weight of Ivan's Coins = 1026g
I think I actually prayed 1000 Hail Marys the year I took my PSLE
Wah I will fail PSLE now confirm
I just cant get why they can discuss so many things right of the bat because of the names Helen and Ivan. lol.
i thought its a question that need simultaneous equation 🤣🤣🤣
The biggest irony that exist in our society.
“Why our education system only teach us how to memorise? Why didn’t improve since the 60’s”
Also the same people: “Why exam so hard? Why so much harder and different from last year?”
the exam paper really needs to be counter checked by different age groups before it is actually set. . . like get a test group of students, give them a large pool of questions that was created, the test group will try to solve the problems and rate the questions. after that, the lowly rated questions will be reviewed and checked by the board on why it is badly made while the highly rated questions will have its information tweaked for the actual paper. then final exam paper will then be filled by picking out the approved questions in the large pool and then be finally reviewed by the board again before the exam is held.
Gov keep saying exam are there to test the knowledge and problem solving of the child, but if so, the process to make up the questions will also need to be that much important and require more checks to be logically correct and balanced for the proper level of education.
and given that if the testing criteria had changed from how we were last time, i.e. critical thinking, the teachers need to teach by that methodology of "there are many ways to view the question, here's how" instead of the usual "here's a question, use this method to solve it"
It's hard because it's testing IQ, not knowledge. Don't know means don't know.
The problem ain't difficult at all if you visualize it in reality (physical coins in 3D form) rather than drawing charts or lines of arbitrary algebraic symbols. Many solutions out there, even in this show (Bar-graphs), are 1 or 2 dimensions or reduction of dimensions which increases the difficulty of viewing the problem at its crux. One should remember that information is lost or translated whenever you reduce dimension. It is like reading a long crime report in English (1D like writing algebra) or drawing the crime scene (2D like graph bars) versus witnessing the crime itself (3D/4D). Which is easier to understand? Through witnessing, even a dyslexia can reach the same conclusion as one that is not and even someone who knows no English (or algebra) will have the same understanding as one who can read the report. Why conjure a complicated solution to solve a simple problem? Just try viewing the height of the coin by its weight/value and the same number of coins for both Helen and the who-ever. You can easily see that the differences in weight or value of both of their shares can be computed as the (differences in height or the weight or value of the 50 cent vs 20 cent) X (the number of coins that are different).
First!
NOVIATION