Are Singaporeans really the kiasu ones?
Recently, a Mainland Chinese father named Tony who lives in Singapore shared on Xiaohongshu how his son prepared for the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE).
In the pictures, his son Long Long stands between two stacks of paper that are almost as tall as he is.
Tony wrote: “How competitive is PSLE? Just look at the number of exam papers he did this year.”
Another picture from the post showed Long Long looking through past-year papers. He also had on headphones that are plugged into an iPad.
Next to the young boy was — again — stacks and stacks of exam papers.
“It’s all worth it,” said Tony, adding that his son was accepted into a number of secondary schools.
According to Tony, his son scored AL10 for PSLE, which is a stark improvement from the AL16 he scored for prelims. The best T-score one can get for PSLE is AL4.
“Doing past-year papers is the most effective short-term solution, especially for math. His results went from AL5 to AL1,” he said.
In case you’re wondering, AL1 is the best achievement level one can get for each subject when they score more than 90 points for the exams. Meanwhile, AL5 is awarded to those who score between 65 – 74.
A student’s PSLE T-score is the sum of all the ALs they received for the four tested subjects — English, Math, Chinese and Science.
In a separate video, Tony also shared that before Long Long even received his results, he was already offered a place in National Junior College through the Direct School Admission scheme for kayaking.
Netizens, however, found the amount of work “too much” for a kid, with one netizen remarking that it’s surprising Long Long agreed to complete so many past-year papers.
“My son was indeed extremely dejected and cried all the time,” replied an unapologetic Tony.
Tony, who is from Hunan and also has a daughter, explained to another netizen that his kids “have no choice but to work extra hard” because they are not Singapore Permanent Residents.