Weighted Assessments (WAs) versus Mid-Year-Examinations
Download printable cheat-sheet (CC-BY 4.0)20 Jan 2025, 16:00 Z
Join our Telegram study groupQ: What does Weighted Assessments (WAs) versus Mid-Year-Examinations cover?
A: Weighted Assessments (WAs) versus Mid-Year-Examinations outlines key points and next steps for students and families.
Since 2019, Singapore schools have been phasing out mid year examinations in favor of weighted assessments in the hopes to decrease student stress. The implementation of end year examinations still continue to stay in Singaporean education. For Integrated Programme students, this can mean a lack of a chance to do timed practice for their end of year exam, and without a ten year series as a guide, it can prove to be quite difficult.
| Weight assessment format | Mid Year Examinations |
| Equal weightage spread throughout 3 WAs | Small CA before and after mid year exam, lower weightage for CA, high weightage for MYE and EOY |
| Lower topic count per exam, 2-3 topics | MYEs serve as a benchmark of EOY based on topics from Jan up till June, 5-6 topics tested |
| Good gauge of competency in the term itself | Good gauge of overall competency in terms 1 and 2 |
| Time taken is shorter, can be from 45mins to 1.5h | Time taken is longer, usually 1.5h to 2h |
From the table above, it is clear that the WA format helps in spreading the marks across the year, and the MYE format focuses more on big exams every two terms. While spreading marks across the year helps in reducing temporary stress by exam fatigue, it can also result in a lack of a long, timed practice for the end of year exam, as well as serve as a checkpoint for students to realize that they need to catch up in their studies.
WAs also test very little topics, but during the end of year, all topics are combined together and there are inter-topical questions which test more than one topic at once
