PSLE English

PSLE English – 4 Simple Tips to Boost Your Sentence Synthesis Scores in 2019 1) Simple pronouns – take note of genders! 2) Check your answers – Subject-verb-agreement, spelling, missing words, punctuation, capitalization 3) Revise your connectors – which word goes with which? e.g. prefers…to, rather…than, etc. 4) Revise grammar rules for challenging topics – […]

PSLE Creative Writing Past Year Questions Examined 2016 – 2018 Year 2016: A Secret •  What was the secret? •  Plenty of opportunities to exercise your creativity. •  Some suggested storylines… •  Something that is heavy and serious. •  Being told that you are an adopted child. •  Lots of drama… •  Something that is […]

PSLE Composition – 4 Story Starters You Should NEVER USE One Day… Starter 1: One day… Learnt this in primary one or two? Easy to learn and understand – it has ONE adjective and ONE noun. But it doesn’t say a lot… Plus, it’s kind boring… And it doesn’t add to the word count – […]

PSLE Creative Writing Developing INTERESTING Characters The Perfect human being Is it a good idea to have a main character that is kind of perfect? Overpowered, suave and handsome, flawless, with great virtues, etc… That is not how people are in real life. People are flawed and that can be, at times, interesting. So let’s […]

MASTERING PSLE Comprehension Cloze Comprehension Cloze, Cloze Passage (15m) What is the comprehension cloze passage about? • First, understand that it is “C.L.O.Z.E” passage and NOT “Close” passage… • …so you don’t go and close the passage once you see it and you’re done with it. • The word “cloze”, according to dictionary dot com, […]

PSLE Visual Comprehension Tips The untold secret…(it’s a secret, so of course it’s untold) Tip 1: Use Visual Aids • The most obvious visual aid is, of course, a pair of spectacles. • …or wear your contact lenses, whichever makes you more comfortable. Tip 2: So that you can see better… • The headlines… • […]

Strat 1: Annotate to the death Annotate is to make highlights and notes. What then do we annotate? Do we annotate EVERYTHING? To annotate everything is to annotate nothing. So we don’t annotate everything… …we just annotate the footnotes, the instructions, the paragraph numbers… NO! WE DON’T!!!! We want to annotate only the KEY points […]

PSLE Sentence synthesis Fastest & most accurate way to join sentences…(maybe) PLUS 5 Common Mistakes Complete Sentence Synthesis Using PPAP method Example 1: Addition Example: John laughs at himself. Sally laughs at herself too. Ans 1: John and Sally laughs at himself too. Ans 2: John and Sally laughs at herself too. Ans 3: John […]

PSLE English listening comprehension – how to score well Key points: 1) Test of listening skills 2) Practice listening for key points and other important information such as numbers and adjectives 3) Key: Students are given time to go through the questions before the actual reading. Read the questions and don’t daydream! 4) Continue to […]