UPSR ( Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah )

UPSR ( UJIAN PENILAIAN SEKOLAH RENDAH )

PRIMARY SCHOOL ACHIEVEMENT TEST

INTRODUCTION

UPSR is an assessment test that is very important in the Malaysian education . Every student studying in standard 6 shall take the examination before entering high school . So in writing this time I will explain a bit about the exam.

Primary School Achievement Test, also known as Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (commonly abbreviated as UPSR is a national examination taken by all students in Malaysia at the end of their sixth year in primary school before they leave for secondary school. It is prepared and examined by the Malaysian Examinations Syndicate (Lembaga Peperiksaan Malaysia), an agency that constitutes the Ministry of Education. Students in national schools (sekolah kebangsaan) are required to take five subjects, in addition to an aptitude test. Students in Chinese and Tamil national-type schools (sekolah jenis kebangsaan) are required to take two additional language subjects, totalling seven subjects.

Multiple choice question are tested using a standardised optical answer sheet that uses optical mark recognition for detecting answers.

This exam is held annually on the second Tuesday of September. The score is calculated based on a bell curve thus the passing grade is reflected by the yearly performance.



SubjectsThe subjects that are taken in this exam include:
Bahasa Malaysia (Pemahaman or Malay Comprehension)
Bahasa Malaysia (Penulisan or Malay Writing)
Mathematics
Science
English
Chinese (Pemahaman or Chinese Comprehension) - Compulsory for Chinese school students      only
Chinese (Penulisan or Chinese Writing) - Compulsory for Chinese school students only
Tamil (Pemahaman or Tamil Comprehension) - Compulsory for Tamil school students only
Tamil (Penulisan or Tamil Writing) - Compulsory for Tamil school students only
Apitude Test
Each of the two Bahasa Malaysia subjects is offered at two different levels: the harder SK level and the easier SJK level, due to the difference in the Bahasa Malaysia syllabus taught in SK and SJK. However, SJK students may opt to sit for the SK paper with permission from their schools.


Mathematics

The mathematics examination is one hour and forty minutes long, and is divided into two papers, paper 1 and paper 2.Paper 1 is multiple choice and consists of forty questions, all have a one-point score value. Paper 2,is the subjective area of Maths. There are 20 questions here in total, the first five have a one-point score value, questions 6-15 have a two-point score value, and the last five have a three-point score value.

Questions that are frequently asked in this exam are :           fractions, subtraction, multiplication, division, addition, area, and volume, mass, perimeter, decimal points, average, data, digit, numbers, percentage, money, time, date and duration.

Science

The science paper lasts for 1 hour and 15 minutes. This exam is divided into two sections, A and B.

For section A, students are given 30 multiple choice questions with a weight of one marks of each. For section B, students answer subjective questions. In the subjective paper, there are usually 3-5 questions and each question has 4 to 5 sub-questions which carry 1 to 3 marks depending on the question. Usually, the subjective questions will start with a diagram of an experiment and the questions are based on that diagram. The total weight that can be given here is 20.

When one adds the score of both sections, that person must multiply it by 2 to get the grand total. The first batch who took this exam were the candidates sitting for the UPSR year 1997.

Aptitude test

Introduced in 2009, this test is used to evaluate students' aptitude and are written in the language familiarly used by the majority of students in a school(Although this is true, three choices only are usually available,namely Malay, Chinese and, Tamil).

The one and a half hour test comprises 61 multiple choice questions, divided into three sections based on three core areas namely thinking skills, problem solving and decision making. Students are graded according to band scores, ranging from Band 1 (Extremely Limited User) to Band 6.

Examining and result
After the completion of all exams, the examination papers will be brought to centres across the country to be evaluated. The distribution of papers across all the states can be random or otherwise, according to the wishes of the invigilator. All objective answer sheets are examined by computer, and all subjective answer sheets are marked by professional examiners. After completion the examination of all papers, the marks will be registered into an online system. A council will be called to ascertain the specific marks for the grade of each subject (the standard mark for an 'A' grade is 80 and above, however, should the year's cohort perform badly, the marks may be lowered to 70+ and above for an 'A'). The results are then printed and distributed to the education department of every district. Usually, the results are announced on the last Thursday of the school year (it is the second-last day of school for all states except Terengganu, Kelantan and Kedah, where it is the final day of school for the year), but in some years, it is published during the school holidays.

How to improve testing of this evaluation is to broaden the scope of subjects to students at school . Students also must be disclosed extensively about every subject taken by them so that understanding can be improved further . Things like this can also help students who are having problems that are slow to understand each subject . Teachers must also be disclosed in more detail ways to teach students so that students quickly understand through attending courses or seminars .

So I hope that everyone is clear about the UPSR assesment through this writing. To the students who taking the examinations this year, I wish you all "good luck ".