PSLE Oral Week

Dear all,

As we move into week 7 and PSLE Oral week, do rest well for Thursday and Friday. Take note of your team number for both the days and your PSLE index number.

Tips for Oral:

Reading 

• Be fluent and smooth in your reading. Do not stutter or stop-start. Fluency and flow of your reading is important. Take time to read aloud (I do really mean read aloud but of course, not shouting) while you are preparing for that 5 minutes before the actual exam. 
• Break words up into syllables if you do not know how to pronounce. This will help you greatly rather than skipping a whole chunk of words. Try not to stutter or take too long pauses to read the word. Practise that word beforehand in your preparation. 
• Example: If I do not know how to pronounce the words debatable. Break it up into de - ba - ta - ble. This helps greatly so there are 4 portions or syllables to pronounce. 
• Read with EXPRESSION and STRESS on IMPORTANT words. 
• Do not read like a bullet train. Take time (0.5 - 1 sec) pauses in between punctuations. 

Picture Discussion

• Introduce with 'This picture depicts a scene of (place)'. It could be a weekday/weekend because ............................... There are (number) of characters in the picture. 
• Describe the people and their actions using the DIEO method. In order to help you, remember these key points such as:
• Who are the people?
• What are they doing? Elaborate! 
• How do they feel?
• Why do they feel that way?
• Your opinion of them.
• Conclude with 'In conclusion, from this picture, we can learn about .....................................'

Conversation

• Answer the question given to you first. 
• Describe about the event/actions/people involved. 
• How do you feel? Why do you feel that way?
• Give another example/event.
• Give a conclusion of lessons to be learnt. 

Once again, be fluent and use the correct language and grammar while you go through your picture discussion and conversation. These are important too! 

Tomorrow, I will be putting up some good words and phrases to be used to improve your language for Oral Exams. 

Breakdown of Prelim Exam Marks 

For English:

100% passes for Situational. Most of the marks are lost in terms of language. So focus on that to pull up your scores. You should always aim to get 5 or 6 out of 6 for the content. 

100% passes for Booklet A of paper 2 (Graphic stimulus - Compre MCQ). Improvement in Grammar MCQ with lots of drilling and practice done in this term. You still need to pull up your vocabulary mcq and cloze. 

Only 4/33 passed Booklet B. :( 

Comprehension OE is a section to look out for with many of you not putting the answers in your own words or not reading the question carefully. Key words have to be used. We will continue to focus on Comprehension OE this term. Now I am focusing on how to answer the questions and how to phrase in your own words. 

Grammar cloze - 100% passes

Editing - 24/33 passes 

Synthesis - 0 passes * (Another area for improvement)

Compre Cloze - 2/33 passes (With many of you in the 5-7 range out of 15)

For Science

33/34 passes for MCQ 

17/34 passes for Booklet B (Better improvement) 

Total: 30/34 passes. 

The focus is once again on acing your MCQ. Out of 60 marks, you should aim for 40 and above. That would be the safest range for at least a pass. To score an A, you definitely need to aim for 50 and above. 

Thank you,

Sincerely,

Mr Nelson Ong