Hello parents and primary school kids! I’m Teacher Augustine, and today, let me share with you the 7 tips that I share with my students for them to prepare for the English exams when there is only 1 week left.
It is a common misconception that the English paper cannot be prepared for. True, there are no hard scientific facts to remember, nor are there complicated math formulas to memorize. But! Singapore’s primary school English exam papers are designed to test the students on the various applications of the English Language in different contexts through the 11 sections in Paper 1 and Paper 2. Ultimately, it all boils down to the understanding and the application of the various techniques involved in each individual section that will help ensure your child perform his best during the examinations.
Alright, let’s begin with our first tip!
1. STOP WORKING ON PRACTICE PAPERS
First thing first, when there’s only 1 week left before the English exams, stop working on new papers. Instead, focus all your child’s energy on reviewing past papers done in the school, at the tuition centre, or at home. Learning from past mistakes to prevent them from making the same mistakes again in the exams is waaaay better than giving them opportunities to make new mistakes at this point in time.
2. PREPARE A SMALL VOCABULARY HANDBOOK – (FOR CONTINUOUS WRITING)
Prepare a small handbook of good descriptions given either by the school or his tutor. Memorize at least 30-50 short descriptions, phrases, and words, particularly those that are describing emotions, as well as 3-5 awesome introductions of different settings to kick-start the story. Remember, setting a good impression at the beginning and maintaining the story with wonderful, appropriate descriptions throughout are the key ingredients in doing well for it.
3. REVIEWING ALL THE PAST GRAMMAR MCQ SECTIONS
Go through all the grammar MCQ questions done from past papers, and understand all the reasons for all the answers. Remember, the grammar MCQ section is designed to test the child on the grammatical rules and its applications, such as tenses, prepositions, subject-verb agreements, phrasal verbs, and so on.
Also, remind your child to get rid of the lazy “hmmm… that answer “feels” correct” approach. Grammar is all about discipline. Know the rules, underline them, apply them to the blank, and your child should always aim for full marks in this section as well as for the Grammar Cloze and the Editing sections.
4. REVIEWING ALL THE PAST 2 VOCABULARY SECTIONS – (VOCABULARY MCQ AND VOCABULARY CLOZE)
Similar to the previous tip on grammar, go through all the questions done in these 2 sections once again and make sure your child knows what all the tough words mean. If your child comes across any difficult words, ask him to use Google and write down the definitions! But do be careful, the vocabulary sections aren’t just testing the students on the knowledge of those words, but on the context in which they are used in the sentence as well. So, when he is using the online dictionary, remind him to write down the definition that goes with the context of the sentence, not just the first one that he sees.
5. REVIEWING ALL THE PAST SYNTHESIS SECTIONS
Once again, go through all the past papers and pick up on the commonly tested sentence structures to prepare for this section. Make sure that your child understands the different types of synthesis questions, for instance, the suuuper popular direct and indirect speech, if only, either/ or, etc.
6. REVIEWING ALL THE PAST COMPREHENSION OE SECTIONS
By going through the past comprehension OE questions, your child will have a better understanding of the different types of questions and the structures required for each type, for instance, factual questions, inferential questions, thinking questions, vocabulary in context questions, etc. In addition, he should know when he is allowed to lift (when they ask you to find a word/ phrase/ sentence) and when he must paraphrase (all other types of questions).
7. BUG THE TEACHERS AND TUTORS
The last tip. If your child comes across any past mistakes that he doesn’t understand, ask him to tag them using post-its, and encourage him to approach his school teacher or tutor to explain them to him once again. And when he’s back, ask him to explain them to you, just to make sure that he fully comprehends what he just learned.
And there we have it! The 7 tips on how to prepare for the Primary school English exams when there’s only 1 week left.
But before I leave you, don’t forget that I’m here for you and your kids as well! So if your child has any past mistakes that he still couldn’t understand why the mistake was committed, or why the answer is the answer, feel free to leave a comment below with the question or shoot me a direct message on my facebook page, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can!
All the best now!
If you would like your child to get a head start in the subject, you may find out more about our English tuition for primary school students here.
For over 15 years, Augustine’s English Classes has helped hundreds of students fall in love with the subject and excelling in school exams. If you are interested to know how our classes work, or what our secret winning formula is, do feel free to drop us a message or give us a call.
