by Qiu Kexin (16A13A) and Justin Lim (16A01B)
As the week progresses, results from our long-dreaded CTs begin to slowly drip in. At this juncture, we’re sure you may be anxious or maybe just curious about the level’s performance– which may be telling of your own results. Whether some may find it relieving or frustrating, the rumour mill this year hasn’t yielded many especially revealing facts. Nonetheless, we’d like to remind our readers to exercise healthy levels of discretion as they read the rumours – without further ado, here they are:
General Paper:
- The level’s overall performance was not outstanding, but also not exceptionally bad – though objectively, the average grade was heard to be a D.
- Question 11: “Should society pay more attention to the needs of criminals?” was leaked to be the hardest question in the entire paper by a GP tutor. We sincerely wish all the best to the brave souls who attempted it.
- 80% of the J1s who attempted the media question for GP failed their essay.
- Yes, legends who score nearly full marks for the comprehension paper exist.
Knowledge and Inquiry
- An insider tells us that “the performance for KI was a lot better than GP”.
Mathematics:
- “Functions was an area that the level needed to work more on”
- Most ex and current Math RA students finished the paper with more than 40 minutes before the end of the paper.
- The average grade in HP is a E
- Someone scored 1/65 out of the whole paper
- Considering how GCs were frantically dropped onto the tables or even floors (out of panic), students were not the only party scathed by the CTs
Chemistry:
- 80% of students failed the MCQ. Overall, 70% students failed the subject.
- Careless mistakes in questions related to Chemical Energistics were the downfall of countless, countless students
- Energy Cycle diagrams were generally not as well done as expected
- There was a horror story of somebody who gave up after attempting Section A, and handed in blank scripts for both Sections B and C
- One legend forgot to bring an eraser and couldn’t change his wrong answer but still got 14/15 for MCQ
Physics:
- Performance for the MCQ was average, the outlook for sections B and C are more bleak
- A Physics RA class’s MCQ average was 12/14, while the school average was 7.6/14
- Students found the entire paper esoteric and obscure
- 30% of students failed
Biology:
- The essay question was badly attempted, insiders tell us that the answers were insufficiently precise
- Dodgy insights tell us that 40% of the level failed, and only 8% received an A
- On the other hand: Performance for the MCQ was okay, with people getting 26 or 28/30 easily
Economics:
- The highest score for the Case Study paper was 21/30
- There are horror stories of students sleeping after writing 5 lines into their essay
- Even scarier horror story of someone wrote 6 pages for essay within 45 minutes (which is in no way common)
- Some students misinterpreted “monopolist” to mean “actors in monopolistic competition”, resulting in devastating penalizations
History:
- The average grade across the level is a C
- Teachers agree that students needed to understand the needs of the questions more, ie the difference between “Assess…” and “Why…”
- Both International and SEA Hist’s performances were nearly the same standard
- Highest score for History in HP was 37/50 overall
Geography:
- Scores were on average better for the Physical Geography component than the Human Geography section this time around, which a tutor found “weird”.
Literature:
- The issue at the heart of the poem in the Victorian Lit segment was not women, but apparently the senses of Duty in the Victorian era instead.
- The performance for Reading Lit exceeded that of Vic Lit
- A horror story of a student who took a 15 minute break because he was “[expletive] anyway”
- Then again one student wrote 5 pages for paper 1 and scored full marks.
While curiosity killed the cat, we hope you’ve survived after reading our rumours. We wish our readers all the best for their results!
