Q&A - PSLE English

[atutor2001]

Learning Partners:

......The PSLE syllabus covers the standard cases and not the special cases. In a school test or examination, the parent could still go to the teacher or HOD and argue for the mark, although his success in getting the lost mark is not guaranteed.


In the PSLE, there is no redress; even if you request to view the script and argue about the special cases, it's highly unlikely that MOE will agree to re-mark all the scripts.


2. 'Study dead book' as you say is indeed a problem with our academic system.

But please understand the dilemma of the teacher or even parent: teach too much and you may confuse the kid more than ever, teach too little, and you're accused of rote-learning without understanding.

A fine balance has to be struck, although the right balance may seldom be achieved.

Cheers.

I think tagging with \"dislike\", ,,,did come out in psle before. ,The problem is whether will an answer with \"does\" be marked wrong. I am pretty sure that if it is from a school exam, the answer with \"does\" will be considered as wrong, leaving a wrong impression forever.

The most obvious example is on the use of tense. Ask any adults on when to use present tense and most likely the answer is \"for action in present time\" which is not totally correct.

In my view, common \"exceptions\" should be taught so tha we will not construct sentences like, \"yesterday, the sun rose from the east\" - since we were told to use past tense if there is a past time indicated.

[redruby]

A large number of poultry is or are…

[atutor2001]

I hope this site can explain better


http://languagetools.info/grammarpedia/clausetype.htm

jetsetter:

atutor2001:

\"Jane dislikes chocolate, does she?\" is syntactically incorrect.

When doing tag questions, kid must always hunt for the AUXILIARY (be it \"be\", \"have\", \"do\" or a modal \"can\"/\"may\"/\"will\" etc.). In this case, don't be fooled by the main verb which connotes negativity. There are other words with negative meanings like hates/loathes/detests that are inserted to confuse the kid.

REMEMBER: There is a covet Auxiliary hidden in an SVO sentence like this. The V in this case is \"dislike\" while the Auxiliary is actually what syntacticians would call a DUMMY \"do\" (or \"does\" in this case cos of Singular Subject).

Jane does dislike chocolate.

Your tag should negate the positive \"does\", so it should become \"doesn't\", NOT \"does\".


As such, you can have a sentence like:

Jane hates Math, doesn't she?

+++
Let's not confuse or compare BrE with SG Eng!!!

Another misconception is that putting \"doesn't it\" doesn't nec mean it's automatically an affirmation. You need to check whether it's rising/falling/rise-fall intonation which will invariably affect the semantics. This is too high-level and WON'T be tested in PSLE!! Tk God!

[Jamesbond]

Learning Partners:

Jamesbond:

http://i60.tinypic.com/ygmc6.jpg\">

The answer should be (3).


The common confusion is there are two rather similar verbs:


infinitive form : 'lay' (to put down), 'lie' (two meanings: to bluff and to be in a horizontal position).


The forms of 'lay': lay laid laid

The forms of 'lie' (when we mean bluff) : lie lied lied

The forms of 'lie' (when we mean to be horizontal): lie lay lain


In your question, we want to say the students have put their papers down on the desks, so should be 'had laid'.

Y can't it be (2)? Can u pl explain... :?

[jetsetter]

Nebbermind:

jetsetter:

Am I confusing u? :siam:

Understand you I not. Confused I am - NBM

Specially for NBM and SOS Mum:
http://i61.tinypic.com/b3mxp4.jpg\">

Pardon my messy handwriting! :rotflmao:

[atutor2001]

jetsetter:

Nebbermind:

[quote=\"jetsetter\"]

Am I confusing u? :siam:

Understand you I not. Confused I am - NBM

Specially for NBM and SOS Mum:
http://i61.tinypic.com/b3mxp4.jpg\">

Pardon my messy handwriting! :rotflmao:[/quote]For simplicity, I just told my kids in the good old days to replace words like barely, hardly .. with \"does not or do not\"

\"He barely has the opportunity ..\" becomes \"He does not have the opportunity ...\" Then the negative of 'does not have' (negative of negative becomes positive) is 'does he'

\"They hardly have proper meals.\" become \"They do not have proper meals.\" Then the negative of 'do not have' (negative of negative becomes positive) is 'do they'

[Nebbermind]

See! English is difficult only when one tries to be more creative.


Use it simply and plainly and suddenly, it's so straight forward!

P.S. JS, me referring to that 'barely' sentence..

[PiggyLalala]

Thank you all the teachers. Appreciate yr time and effort.


May I ask if the same question is changed to ‘Mary has the opportunity to … …?’, without barely, what would be the answer, hasn’t she or doesn’t she? TIA.

[Nebbermind]

PiggyLalala:

Thank you all the teachers. Appreciate yr time and effort.


May I ask if the same question is changed to 'Mary has the opportunity to .... ..?', without barely, what would be the answer, hasn't she or doesn't she? TIA.

This one I'll go for 'hasn't' coz I have nothing else to bio...waiting to see what the 'chers say!!!

[jetsetter]

atutor2001:

For simplicity, I just told my kids in the good old days to replace words like barely, hardly .. with \"does not or do not\"

\"He barely has the opportunity ..\" becomes \"He does not have the opportunity ...\" Then the negative of 'does not have' (negative of negative becomes positive) is 'does he'

\"They hardly have proper meals.\" become \"They do not have proper meals.\" Then the negative of 'do not have' (negative of negative becomes positive) is 'do they'

COrrecto. :hi5:

\"has\" is a TRAP verb planted by the examiner. It appears like the auxiliary \"has\" in perfect tenses, so the kid will be tricked into using it for the tag...

But \"has\" wears 2 hats and means \"possesses\" here (Joan possesses the opportunity to...).