Students taking the PSLE this year would already be in the thick of things. I can feel it even though there is no-one in the family taking it this year, and I hear about it even in the office, with colleagues discussing their children’s progress and their struggles. While some students don’t seem to be fazed by it, or perhaps have not yet grasped the significance of this national exam, most appear to be experiencing the most stressful period of their life so far.

Tips on managing stress are aplenty on the internet and I’m sure all parents have already applied all the methods possible to help their children manage this stressful situation. I’ll share some reminders below which I use on my little pandas and which I hope it will help to bolster your child’s confidence and alleviate some of the nagging fears they may have.

By now, the syllabus will already have been completed in school. Rather than cramming new information, this is now a critical period for consolidating the knowledge you have acquired over the past few years, and ensuring an optimal mental state and physical health.

(1) You have already learnt the full PSLE syllabus in school. You have all the knowledge you need to take on the exams.

You already have all the information you need to tackle the PSLE. Your school has been preparing you well for this exam since Primary One, from teaching you to read and spell simple words, to the confident reader and bright student you are today in Primary Six. Think about how far you’ve come. You are READY for the PSLE.

(2) It is now revision period. Revision means to review information you already KNOW.

Revision period is for you to recall and review information you already KNOW, so that you can more quickly and readily access this information during the exams.

There is likely to be little additional benefit in cramming new information at this point. Revising per your normal routine would be most effective at this point.

(3) Being stressed does not help you do better in the exams. You gain no additional knowledge nor skill from being stressed.

Think about it logically. Being stressed does not give you any additional knowledge to use in the exam. Neither does it grant you any additional skill to take on the exam. There is literally no benefit in stressing yourself out.

Having a calm mindset, on the other hand, allows you to see through some of the trickier questions and also recall the information you know more easily.

(4) Exams aren’t life-changing. What you do later in life has a bigger impact on your future than this exam.

It sounds cliché but it’s true. Yes, we all know that the exams are important, blah blah, everyone says that. But it’s not life-changing.

Yes, doing well in the exams can indeed give you some advantages in life, but only some, and probably only in the earlier stages of your life. As you get older, the advantages peter out, and even these advantages can be overcome and overtaken with additional effort in your secondary and tertiary school years. The effort you put in in later years will have a much greater impact on your life than this exam has.

This is just an exam. It does not change your life.

Good luck and all the best!