Examination Woes - Parents, students panic as publication of past-year exam papers held up; educators say stay cool
Students have sworn by them to ace their exams for the past four decades, but copyright problems mean that the wildly popular Ten-Year-Series (TYS) have, so far, not been available this year - leaving some parents flustered.
But there is no need for parents and students to panic, according to teachers and private tutors, who say that the schools can easily work around the problem.
"Teachers already refer extensively to past-year papers and examination questions from other schools when we are designing test papers. Without the TYS, it just means we have to spend more time designing more of such papers," said a Secondary School Mathematics and Physics teacher, who declined to be named.
TODAY understands that discussions between the Cambridge International Examinations and the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board on copyright issues of third-party material used in the exam papers are still ongoing and hence the printing of the TYS is being put on hold.
The TYS complies the GCE O- or A-level examination questions of the past 10 years and until the recent hiatus, they had been published yearly for classroom practice or individula revision.
A concerned parent, Mr Goh Kian Huat, wrote to TODAY to say he had not been able to find the TYS in bookstores.
"Working on such questions is better than using assessment books, as one does not know if the latter meet MOE (Ministry of Education) standards," he wrote.
However, private tutors say working on the TYS is not the most critical aspect of students' preparation for examinations.
Regular practice will stand the students in good stead, said Armour Tuition Centre director John Lam.
Most tuition centres have a plethora of other resource materials to fall back on, he added.
The "incremental benefits from doing TYS questions is not that high", he noted.
Learning Media Educational Centre principal Esther Oh added that the standards of school examination papers here are already very high.
Still, some parents who spoke to TODAY hope the TYS books would be available sooner rather than later.
"Without the TYS, students won't know exactly what the standards are after the changes," said Mdm Toh T L, referring to the recent changes in the syllabuses of certain subjects, such as Seconday Mathematics and Physics.
"Looking at the real thing is more reassuring," added the 48-year-old mother of two secondary school boys.
Temasek Secondary 4 student Rachel Lai sums it up: "Knowing how well you do in an actual past-year paper gives you an indication of how prepared you are and how well you will do."
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Source: TODAY newspaper, Tuesday 19 May 2009
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