Junior College Timed Practices (TPs)

Q: What does Junior College Timed Practices (TPs) cover?
A: What "Timed Practices" (TPs) are, why every Singapore JC now relies on them after mid-year exams were scrapped, and how IP Maths & Physics students can exploit.

TL;DR
Many JCs now run 45–90 min Timed Practices (TPs) as Weighted Assessments in place of mid-years, but exact dates and weightings differ by school.
Each TP mimics a slice of A-Level conditions-no pause, no hints, calculator rules enforced-so students spot pacing gaps months before Promotional or Prelim blocks.
Maths & Physics marks rise fastest when students map tuition drills to their school’s TP timetable, run home-grown 30 min mini-TPs, and debrief with an error-journal inside 24 h.
Always check your JC’s official assessment plan; MOE’s exam-reduction push for primary/secondary levels does not publish JC-specific TP schedules.

1 | What exactly is a "Timed Practice"?

• Schools use Timed Practice for any in-class, unseen paper sat under strict A-Level rules and counted as a Weighted Assessment (WA). Weightings and labels are school-specific.
• Formats vary-30 MCQs for H2 Math, a 45 min Section A for H2 Physics, or a Paper 1/2 mash-up for General Paper-but clock pressure is the common spine.

Because TPs are WAs, they appear on report books and drive promotion decisions even though no TP mark is reported to SEAB. Check your school’s assessment plan for the official schedule and WA weighting.

2 | Why TPs matter after mid-years were trimmed

MOE removed mid-year exams for primary/secondary levels (announced 2018) and encouraged schools to reduce high-stakes testing; many JCs responded by using 2–4 TP windows as formative-but-weighted checkpoints. Exact timing remains school-run: