Past Exam Paper

In my humble opinion, practising past examination paper is not a good way of learning, but merely a short cut. I guess part of the reason is that I had a perception that the question may repeat.

In Singapore, primary school test or exam paper are easily available.  However, the problem is that you have to buy the entire set. That would mean a stack of 1-2 inches of papers to carry home for each subject, and certainly the children will have to spend a lot of time doing the questions. I think that's a torture.

I know many parents ask their kids to do at least one past year paper per day.  From my experience in hiring and managing young people, I would like to urge you not to do so. It has a bad consequence.  Why? Doing the past exam paper will not train your kids how to think. In fact, it is innovation spoiler. Students doing too much exam paper or going through tuition are very used to solve problems in a systematic or controlled way provided or learned through practice. No doubt, this group will do well in exam.

I really feel sorry for this group of people when they come to workforce. Many of them cannot think, cannot analyse, and they like to be told what to do. They want a magic formula, a manual, or something that they can refer to. However, we all know that every boss wants employees who can work independently, right?  Every entrepreneur or boss knows that the skill they need most to be where they are, is not be able to innovate, to think, to analyse, and to work independently.

Considering all the above, is past exam paper really necessary?  If you want to print a few paper, I think that's fine. You need to assess the ability of your child.  So, having the past exam paper is handy.  The good news is, most of the papers are available for free. No need to do bulk purchase.

Here are two websites that you can download and print some past papers:

http://www.java-samples.com/testpapers/

 http://test-paper.info
(registration needed)