Insights & Strategies: A Review of The 2023 PSLE Science Paper

Accord­ing to the SEAB syl­labus, stu­dents sit­ting for the PSLE are required to grasp sci­en­tif­ic facts, con­cepts, and prin­ci­ples and utilise them in prac­ti­cal sce­nar­ios. They should pos­sess the abil­i­ty – in the form of process skills – to inter­pret var­ied forms of infor­ma­tion, rang­ing from images to graph­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tions and charts, and to inves­ti­gate diverse hypothe­ses while artic­u­lat­ing their dis­cov­er­ies. 

In this analy­sis of the 2023 PSLE Sci­ence Exam­i­na­tion paper, we will pro­vide an overview of both book­lets A and B, delve into the nuances of select­ed ques­tions from Book­let B and offer com­men­tary on com­mon pit­falls and how to avoid them with some of Think Teach Academy’s answer­ing tech­niques.

Book­let A: Mul­ti­ple-Choice Ques­tions (56 marks) 

Book­let A, com­pris­ing 28 mul­ti­ple-choice ques­tions (MCQs), is designed to enable a major­i­ty of stu­dents to suc­cess­ful­ly pass the exam­i­na­tion. The major­i­ty of the ques­tions assess stu­dents on famil­iar con­cepts encoun­tered in pre­vi­ous years’ prac­tice papers, there­by reward­ing those who have under­tak­en thor­ough revi­sion and prac­tice. Typ­i­cal­ly, only 2 to 3 ques­tions devi­ate from the con­cept-based approach, instead requir­ing stu­dents to analyse pro­vid­ed infor­ma­tion to iden­ti­fy the most appro­pri­ate answer that aligns with the giv­en data. The pre­sent­ed infor­ma­tion or data is straight­for­ward and eas­i­ly com­pre­hen­si­ble, enabling stu­dents to make accu­rate selec­tions. Over­all, the 2023 Book­let A paper does not present any notably chal­leng­ing ques­tions, and indi­vid­u­als with a sol­id grasp of the under­ly­ing con­cepts should nav­i­gate it with­out dif­fi­cul­ty. 

Book­let B: Open-End­ed Ques­tions (44 marks)

His­tor­i­cal­ly, Book­let B has proven time and again to be a pain point for most stu­dents sit­ting for the Sci­ence paper. Even stu­dents with a good under­stand­ing of sci­ence text­book con­cepts may some­times strug­gle to com­mu­ni­cate their ideas in a writ­ten for­mat. Book­let B, com­pris­ing 12 to 13 ques­tions, typ­i­cal­ly con­tains one or two ques­tions that demand a more pro­found com­pre­hen­sion of sci­en­tif­ic con­cepts. These ques­tions eval­u­ate stu­dents’ capac­i­ty to analyse real-world sce­nar­ios and tap on their process skills to con­nect it with their exist­ing knowl­edge of sci­ence con­cepts. Stu­dents who can suc­cess­ful­ly do so are like­ly to achieve AL1 or 2.

The lev­el of dif­fi­cul­ty in the 2023 PSLE Sci­ence Exam­i­na­tion Paper can be described as mod­er­ate. The lack of uproar on par­ent­ing forums also sug­gests that most stu­dents found the paper with­in expec­ta­tions. How­ev­er, there are still ques­tions that chal­lenge stu­dents’ abil­i­ties to com­mu­ni­cate ideas and explain sci­ence con­cepts in a man­ner that is suc­cinct, accu­rate, and thor­ough.

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Elec­tri­cal cir­cuit ques­tions require stu­dents to analyse the set-up and explain how it func­tions. These ques­tion types require metic­u­lous descrip­tion of the cir­cuit and how it func­tions in a loop, which can result in lost marks when cru­cial infor­ma­tion (of which there is much that teach­ers are look­ing out for) is omit­ted.

At Think Teach Acad­e­my, we equip our stu­dents with writ­ing strate­gies to effec­tive­ly tack­le fre­quent­ly encoun­tered and chal­leng­ing ques­tions. Specif­i­cal­ly address­ing top­ics like elec­tric­i­ty, we offer a struc­tured 4‑step writ­ing tech­nique to help stu­dents for­mu­late their respons­es, ensur­ing con­sis­tent and com­plete mark acqui­si­tion.

Let’s apply the 4‑step writ­ing tech­nique to part (a) of this ques­tion:

1. Sit­u­a­tion
2. Open/closed cir­cuit
3. Flow of elec­tric cur­rent
4. Out­come 

(1. Sit­u­a­tion) When switch S was closed, 

(2. Open/closed cir­cuit) a closed cir­cuit is formed,

(3. Flow of elec­tric cur­rent) allow­ing elec­tric cur­rent to flow through bulbs Q and P and the fixed iron cylin­der,

(4. Out­come) which becomes an elec­tro­mag­net. Bulbs Q and P also light up. 

(1. Sit­u­a­tion) The elec­tro­mag­net attracts the iron bar, which moves to point B and touch­es the met­al con­tacts. 

(2. Open/closed cir­cuit) This forms an open cir­cuit 

(3. Flow of elec­tric cur­rent) and elec­tric cur­rent stops flow­ing through bulb P and the fixed iron cylin­der.

(4. Out­come) The fixed iron cylin­der is no longer an elec­tro­mag­net and stops attract­ing the iron bar, caus­ing it to fall back to point A to close the cir­cuit again. The process repeats and the iron bar moves between A and B repeat­ed­ly. 

With this writ­ing tech­nique, stu­dents will be bet­ter able to organ­ise their thoughts and pro­vide a com­plete answer in the most effi­cient way pos­si­ble to secure full marks. 

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Anoth­er inter­est­ing ques­tion fea­tures hot oil being poured into a sink, and stu­dents are asked to explain why a sol­id formed in the water pipe even though the sink pro­tec­tor pre­vent­ed sol­id waste from enter­ing. 

This ques­tion is chal­leng­ing because stu­dents need to pick out the clue that the hot oil passed through the sink pro­tec­tor in liq­uid form before freez­ing to become a sol­id in the water pipe. Stu­dents will also need to recall that the melt­ing point of a sub­stance, which is pro­vid­ed in the text, is also the freez­ing point of a sub­stance. 

Heat process ques­tions require very spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion to be includ­ed in stu­dents’ expla­na­tions. Here at Think Teach Acad­e­my, we utilise a 3‑step writ­ing tech­nique to help stu­dents acquire com­plete marks in the top­ic.

Let’s apply the 3‑step writ­ing tech­nique to this ques­tion:

1. Heat trans­fer
2. Heat process
3. Outcome/change

When the hot oil, which was a liq­uid, was poured into the sink, it flowed through the sink pro­tec­tor into the water pipe. 

(1. Heat trans­fer) The hot oil lost heat to the cool­er water in the water pipe,

(2. Heat process) and froze

(3. Outcome/change) into a sol­id, which accu­mu­lat­ed at X to block the water pipe. 

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Con­clud­ing Remarks 

Suc­cess in the PSLE Sci­ence exam­i­na­tion hinges on the abil­i­ty to con­nect text­book knowl­edge with real-life sce­nar­ios and the process skills to com­mu­ni­cate this knowl­edge in writ­ten for­mat.

At Think Teach Acad­e­my, we fur­nish our stu­dents with real-world sci­ence knowl­edge after each les­son to expand their under­stand­ing, illus­trat­ing how sci­en­tif­ic prin­ci­ples stud­ied in class man­i­fest in every­day occur­rences. This approach steers our stu­dents away from fix­at­ing sole­ly on famil­iar ques­tion types and shifts their focus from rote mem­o­ri­sa­tion. Armed with robust gen­er­al knowl­edge and writ­ing tech­niques, Think Teach Acad­e­my stu­dents will be bet­ter pre­pared to tack­le out-of-the-box ques­tions effec­tive­ly and effi­cient­ly.

Our aspi­ra­tion for every stu­dent engaged in Sci­ence edu­ca­tion at Think Teach Acad­e­my is the cul­ti­va­tion of crit­i­cal think­ing abil­i­ties from an ear­ly age, lay­ing the ground­work for them to emerge as for­ward-think­ing and curi­ous indi­vid­u­als who are Thinkers of Tomor­row.

This arti­cle was proud­ly writ­ten by TTA’s Sci­ence Team. We aim to help stu­dents achieve exam excel­lence in Sci­ence with our sig­na­ture tem­plat­ed answer­ing struc­tures which will help your child tack­le with ease and con­fi­dence even the hard­est of sci­ence ques­tions