Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah

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Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah also known as Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah (commonly abbreviated as UPSR, translation: Primary School Evaluation Test) is a national examination taken by all Standard 6 (12-year old) students in Malaysia. Students in public schools (or sekolah kebangsaan), are required to take a minimum of five subjects in this exam but students in Chinese and Tamil vernacular schools have to take seven subjects.

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

This exam is annually held on the first Monday of September. The passing grade depends on the average scores.

Contents

[edit] Subjects

The subjects that are taken in this exam include:

  • Bahasa Melayu (Pemahaman or Malay Comprehension)
  • Bahasa Melayu (Penulisan or Malay Writing)
  • English
  • Mathematics
  • Science
  • 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

[edit] Science examination

The science paper lasts for 1 hour and 30 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, thus the total weight that can be given is 30. For section B, students are required to answer subjective questions. In the subjective paper, there are 4 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 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.

[edit] Mathematics

The mathematics examination is one hour and forty minutes, and is also divided into two sections, a "section A" and "section B". Section A is multiple choice and consists of forty questions, all have a one point score value. Section B, like Science, is the subjective area of Maths. There are 20 questions here in total, the first five have a one point score value, questions 6-14 have a two-point score value, and the last five have a three point score value. Many students think that this exam is "tough" because section A's time duration is only 1 hour and they can't finish it in time.

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 and date.

[edit] English

The English examination is divided into 2 sections. The first section (Paper 1) is 50 minutes long. Pupils will have to answer 40 questions. The first four questions are general questions. Questions 5 to 7 are fill in the blanks based on an article. Questions 8-15 are based on a picture which the student has to pick which answer is the most suitable. Questions 16 to 21 are grammar questions. Questions 22-23 asks the students to choose the correct punctuation. Questions 24-25 is asking for the correct spelling of a word. Questions 26-30 is the same as questions 5-7 but the answers are slightly different. Questions 31 onwards are comprehension questions based on a story, label and other things. Each question is worth 1 mark.

The second section (Paper 2) contains 3 questions. A total of 40 marks has been allocated for this whole section.

  • Question 1 asks the students to describe the picture which is given. This question bears 10 points.
  • Question 2 has 2 questions. The student is given 3 choices of items or packages to buy, each with their own pros and cons. The first section, the student has to fill in the details of the item into a table with the information given. The second section, the student is given as situation such as buying a birthday gift for their friend and the student must state why he picked that package and how it relates to the person it is about. Section one has 10 points and section two has 5 points
  • Question 3 contains 3 pictures. Each picture, a few words are given below. The student is expected to write an essay using all the words given in any order they like. This section is worth 15 points.

[edit] Format change

Only a few months before the UPSR was held in 2005, there was a change in the format. The Ministry of Education of Malaysia, Datuk Hishammudin Hussein informed that all the Pemahaman (Comprehension), Penulisan (Essay-Writing), and English papers format will be changed. The changes are as follows:

[edit] Pemahaman

  • The Pemahaman paper now has only 40 questions (previously 50 questions) and the duration of this exam has been reduced by 10 minutes to 50 minutes. Previously, this exam lasted for 1 hour.

[edit] Penulisan

  • The new format for Penulisan papers however are slightly different from early 2005. Formerly, each paper consists of two sections namely sections 1 and 2. For section A, there are two subsections. Candidates can choose to answer one of two questions given while for section 2, every candidate must answer the question given. The time given for the older format is one hour.
  • For the newer format, each papers consists of three sections that are sections A, B and C. Candidates only have 1 hour and 15 minutes to answer all three sections.

[edit] Section A

For section A, a picture will be given. Then, pupils must build five compound sentences based on the picture. The estimated time given to answer this section is 15 minutes. The marks allocated for this section is 10.

Occasionally, however, pictures might not be provided and to substitute that, candidates might be asked to write sentences on a graph, a pie chart, multiple images, or a time table.

[edit] Section B

Section B is nearly as similar as the previous format Penulisan paper. For this section, candidates must choose one of three karangans or essays to be written on the UPSR paper. The estimated time given to answer this section is around 40 minutes. The total marks allocated for this section is 30.

[edit] Section C

For Section C, pupils must give at least 5 moral values from an article given to them. The estimated time given to answer this section is 20 minutes.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links