‘We want to honour our students’ responses’: Chief marker lifts veil on PSLE marking process

More than four in 10 primary school teachers are mobilised for PSLE marking, which is done online after scripts are scanned and uploaded to an on-screen marking system. SINGAPORE: As the Primary School Leaving Examination science chief marker for the past five years, Jay Mahardale has noticed something rather encouraging about the way the exam papers are marked.

“But if a student is able to show that water gains heat and turns into water vapour, they don’t need to use the term ‘evaporate’. They can just show the understanding the concept.Jay Mahardale has been the PSLE science chief marker for the past five years. There is then a standardisation meeting at the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board with key personnel such as chief markers at the PSLE marking centres, which will cover the “possible, acceptable and non-acceptable answers as well”.

Once the marking scheme is finalised, the key personnel will go through it with markers at the marking centres. And all the marking is done online now; the scripts are scanned and uploaded to an on-screen marking system.To help ensure consistent, accurate and fair assessment, PSLE markers are given a practice session with scripts pre-marked by the chief marker.

Markers also specialise in “just a few” of the open-ended questions, based on the number of markers and the complexity of the question. Then we’ll come to a conclusion whether … the student’s response shows a good conceptual understanding and we can give the marks.”The focus on conceptual understanding means the marking scheme focuses less on keywords in answers. The question on evaporation is an example.But external tuition - or, in his words, “additional lessons outside of school” - might account for some parents’ “fixation” on keywords.

“These are scientific literacy skills that I think our students mustn’t forego in the pursuit of allowing to use their own terms in explaining scientific concepts,” he said.When it comes to open-ended questions, there are two main types. The first tests pupils on basic knowledge. The second tests them on the application of that knowledge to different science scenarios.

“That’s when they’ll learn how to connect the concepts that they learn in the classroom to the scenarios that are presented to them in the open-ended questions,” he said.Pupils are not marked down for poor spelling and grammar.

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