🪶 𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬’ 𝐆𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐏𝟔 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐦 𝐓𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐬 🪶

🕵🏻‍♂️🔎 Drawing from prelim papers across Singapore, our teachers analyse nine of the most common 2025 topics, pointing out the traps students often fall into and showing how to stay on track.

💡 💡💡 A Plan That Backfired 💡 💡 💡

Traps🪤:

🥺Students may sometimes fail to include their plan or a negative consequence.

🥺Another trap they may fall into is not ensuring that the consequences are serious enough.

➡️The marker may feel the story lacks depth because nothing truly significant happens and award lower marks since the plot is not sufficiently engaging.

Tricks🪄:

🎯The topic requires the main character to be involved in a plan that did not have a positive result. Instead, it should cause negative repercussions.

🎯In fact, the greater the fallout, the more gripping the story becomes.

💡 💡💡 Receiving Encouragement 💡 💡 💡

Traps🪤:

🥺The moment of encouragement must be shown in the story, directed at the main character by someone.

🥺If this encouragement is not shown, or if the source is inappropriate i.e., they remember a motivational phrase instead of hearing support, or receive confidence from a passive source with no actual moment of encouragement from someone of significance,

➡️Missing out on this pivotal moment will weaken the relevance to the topic and theme, possibly resulting in lower content marks.

Tricks🪄:

🎯The student should expound on the moment of encouragement with dialogue because interaction between the characters makes the scene vivid and believable. This shows rather than tells the reader the way that the encouragement is given.

🎯Showing the effect of the encouragement and how it makes a difference to the situation that the main character is in will illustrate the meaningful effect of encouragement. In addition, it highlights the main character’s growth or change and ensures that the story stays on topic.

💡 💡💡 Solving a Problem 💡 💡 💡

 Traps🪤:

🥺Relying on figures of authority to resolve the problem in the story instead of the main character who initially faced the problem actually carrying out the problem solving process. Students usually struggle to show the realistic thought processes towards solving the problem in this case.

➡️Otherwise, the examiner may view this as a weak or off-topic response and a missed opportunity for character development.

Tricks🪄:

🎯To hit the nail on the head, it is crucial for students to ensure the main character must be directly involved in the singular specified problem and its resolution. Extra points if the problem is not something that is easily solvable and requires strong character growth!

🎯In addition, the problem must be specified and targeted from the get-go. There should not be more than one problem.

💡💡💡 Making An Improvement 💡 💡 💡

Traps🪤:

🥺Students may create logic gaps within this story, such as painting an unrealistic picture of the improvement. For example, going from being last in a race to winning it within a single week.

🥺Furthermore, an incredibly common pitfall in this topic is failing to show the process behind the improvement. Students must demonstrate the effort or difficulty in the steps towards the improvement in order for their stories to be on-topic.

➡️The examiner will remain unconvinced of the main character’s growth. Such an undeveloped story is unlikely to score for Content.

Tricks🪄:

🎯In order to score well, an important aspect of this composition is to include the motivation of the main character. Showing the spark behind the action justifies the improvement and shows the drama behind it.

🎯It is important for students to portray the entire process, such as the steps, and even mistakes. This believable story plot format, where failure comes before success, makes the plot more human and relatable.

💡 💡💡 Being Forgetful 💡 💡 💡

Traps🪤:

🥺Perhaps in the haste of brainstorming, students may leap straight into simplistic ideas without a second thought, like forgetting to bring something as trivial as homework. This creates a complication which is both easily solvable and unremarkable.

🥺Misconstruing the keyword “forgetful” as meaning reckless or careless could lead to a story that strays completely off-topic.

➡️Examiners expect to see meaningful stories with consequences. Succumbing to these traps can yield stories that are both shallow and off-topic.

Tricks🪄:

🎯Students should focus on an issue that leads to a blow-up with serious consequences, creating tension in the story that will captivate the reader.

🎯Bonus points if they also show the main character’s effort to resolve the issue as this results in a well-rounded resolution and a meaningful conclusion.

💡 💡💡 Overcoming A Fear 💡 💡 💡

Traps🪤:

🥺A touch-and-go portrayal of the fear, where the intensity and emotions are barely conveyed, is quite a common scenario.

🥺Similarly, an overly rushed depiction of overcoming the fear (such as stage fright resolved by simply “mustering courage”) fails to show genuine struggle or personal growth. This often stems from examination pressure or poor planning and strips the story of any creative layers.

➡️The story ends up feeling very predictable and unimpressionable, being another story in a sea of other stories with mediocre results.

Tricks🪄:

🎯Extra marks would be given for creativity if students manage to write about a fear that is uncommon or is rooted in a unique situation.🎯This shows originality, adds emotional depth and demonstrates the student’s ability to think beyond clichés.

💡 💡💡 Making A New Friend 💡 💡 💡

Traps🪤:

🥺A lack of description of the friend leads to weak characterisation. This reduces the emotional connection the examiner may feel towards both the main character and the new friend.

🥺Due to the positive nature of the topic, it is common to miss out developing problems or complications. This results in a story that feels superficial and lacks significant impact or conflict.

➡️ The examiner may feel that the theme is underdeveloped and that the story lacks vibrance or creativity, offering no twists or surprises, just like a carnival ride that moves straight ahead without any ups and downs.

Tricks🪄:

🎯The key to a compelling story here is to ensure colourful characterisation here. Detailing the friend’s physical looks, personality and establishing the relationship to the main character is key to making the friendship believable and showing the importance of this connection.

💡 💡💡 Doing Something Meaningful 💡 💡 💡

Traps🪤:

🥺Meaningful indicates engaging in something that feels serious or important to the main character with purpose. Students may mistakenly treat doing something meaningful as simply performing a good deed or even a deed that requires minimal effort.

🥺A meaningful deed should involve intentional personal effort, going the extra mile and not just a simple and convenient act.

➡️Without these, the story is unconvincing, failing to capture the significance of doing something meaningful.

Tricks🪄:

🎯Was there something that stopped the main character from doing the meaningful deed? Including this will highlight the effort and determination required, showing that the action truly mattered to the main character.

🎯Detailing the meaningful deed and actively stating what significance and impact this deed had on the main character and other peripheral characters in the story paints the full picture for the reader.

💡 💡💡 Being Late 💡 💡 💡

Traps🪤:

🥺In many cases, students tend to rush through the actual scene of being late, skipping details and jumping from problem to resolution without properly developing the story.

🥺There may also be a lack of actual consequences for being late. It is common for students to neglect the outcomes or reflection. The story will feel incomplete and even shallow.

➡️Students may fail to engage the marker’s interest as the main character in the story is expected to problem-solve and reflect. Without this, the main character may be perceived by examiners as being complacent and indifferent.

Tricks🪄:

🎯Choosing a scenario that begets a high-stakes situation, showing both dynamism and the negative consequences of one’s action of being late, will intensify the suspense and drama.

🎯The main character experiencing the negative consequences will also highlight their personal growth and improvement, demonstrating great insights to the reader.

Intrigued? Hard copies of the model essays for the Popular P6 Prelim topics were distributed to WG students from P6 writing classes.

Stay tuned for more updates where we will share additional insights on the actual 2025 PSLE topic!

𝑾𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒅𝒓𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝒂𝒍𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔 𝒃𝒆 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒅𝒈𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒔𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝕗𝕝𝕦𝕤𝕙𝕖𝕕 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕗𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈? 𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒄𝒕 𝒖𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒆𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒅 𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒅𝒍𝒚 𝒑𝒐𝒑𝒖𝒍𝒂𝒓 𝑬𝒏𝒈𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒉 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑪𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝑾𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒄𝒍𝒂𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒔! 𝑳𝒊𝒎𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒗𝒂𝒄𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒊𝒆𝒔!

𝐶𝑎𝑙𝑙/𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡 𝑢𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑤:

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