[Education] Tips for the GEP Screening and Selection Tests from someone who has actually passed the test before

By Adrian Kuek (Joyous Learning) and Marcus Goh

 

With the GEP Screening and Selection Tests just around the corner, there’s not much time left to prepare. But if you’re a parent, you’d want to help your child as much as possible. So here are three useful ways you can help your child prepare for the GEP Selection Test – if you want to help, these are the ways that will make the most impact in the shortest amount of time.

For the GEP Screening Test, students will be tested on English and Mathematics – but not General Ability. In terms of preparation though, you should look at General Ability as something to familiarise students with.

There are three components to the GEP Selection Test – English, Mathematics, and General Ability. You can think of the General Ability component as IQ questions or brain teaser type questions, and the other two are self-explanatory.

Remember to keep these exercises fun and light, rather than forcing your child to plough through yet another series of “assessment books.” When done correctly, they’ll also double up as interesting ways to broaden your child’s horizons!

1. Memorise vocabulary lists 

For regular English exams in school, you can usually infer the meanings of words from context and clues in the passage, since unknown words hardly appear in isolation. But for the GEP Selection Test, you will see a series of analogy questions in the General Ability component.

For example:

FOUR is to SQUARE as THREE is to ______

A. HEXAGON

B. OCTAGON

C. TRIANGLE

D. PENTAGON

If you don’t know what a triangle is, there is no way to infer the meaning because this word appears in isolation. So you need to have a wide vocabulary in order to tackle these questions effectively. Memorising new words (and what they mean) is the quickest way to increase your knowledge in the short time there is left to prepare.

Furthermore, there’s an entire section just for vocabulary in the English component of the paper. Again, there’s no way to infer meanings from the word, so you have to know it beforehand.

Make a game out of it, and challenge your child to use the new words in conversations. That way, it will naturally be part of their vocabulary.

2. Attempt PSLE problem sums

For the Mathematics section, many of the questions are high level (for Primary 3 students) versions of Excess-Shortage, Constant-Sum/Difference, and Making a Supposition type questions. What do these mean? Here’s an example of each

Excess-Shortage

Adrian goes to a stationery shop to buy pens. A red pen costs $0.90 and a blue pen costs $0.70. If Adrian spends all his money buying blue pens, he will have $0.60 leftover. However, if he buys the same number of red pens, he will need another $0.80. How much money does Adrian have?

Constant-Sum/Difference

Constable Acai has 20 badges. If Inspector Dollah gives him half of his own badges, Constable Acai will have three times the number of badges that Inspector Dollah has. How many badges does Inspector Dollah have?

Making a Supposition

Marcus goes to IKEA and buys 16 three-legged stools and regular four-legged chairs. They all use the same type of legs. He has 58 legs altogether. How many three-legged stools did he buy?

If you’re on enough parenting/education Facebook groups, you’ll notice that they’re like difficult PSLE Mathematics questions. So letting your child try out PSLE problem sums will be quite similar to trying out the Mathematics questions they have to face.

Try and change up the questions a little to make them more enjoyable for your child – use names of family members or friends, and change the items to food or toys. That’ll give them the extra motivation to figure out these high level Maths questions!

3. Attempt IQ questions or brain teasers

As mentioned, the General Ability component is quite similar to IQ tests. There are verbal question types (as seen in point 1), and non-verbal question types which frequently involve pattern recognition.

Here’s an example

If it looks familiar, you’re right – they can be found in many IQ question books! These pattern recognition questions aren’t difficult, but they can be if you’ve never seen them before. So one way is to let your child try out such IQ questions so that they’ll be familiar with them when they see them in the General Ability component. There are many, many ways that these pattern recognition questions can be set, so the more patterns your child knows, the better.

I hope this helps. I don’t remember my parents fussing over me as much when I got into GEP way back when, but then times have changed and the GEP tests are quite different from the ones in the 80s. To me, it was a series of puzzles that we got to do (in lieu of regular exams), and maybe that lack of pressure helped.

Also, I am rather peeved that some tutors can lie outright that they were from GEP and give fake material, so here’s some information from someone who’s been through the trenches.

So one last way to help is to get your child to see it as a series of fun puzzles to help, and ease the pressure off them!

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Want to prepare for the GEP admission exercises? Check out these classes at Joyous Learning!

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You might also like to read:

[Education] 6 ways to tackle the GEP Selection Exercise

[Education] Should students train for the GEP admission tests?

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This is an original article on marcusgohmarcusgoh.com

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Grade Expectations is a weekly feature on education in Singapore. Expect fun activities, useful tips and insightful news on learning. It’s not just about your child’s grades — it’s about raising a great child!

Adrian Kuek runs Joyous Learning, an enrichment centre that specialises in English, Mathematics, Science and Creative Writing for Primary. He previously served as the academic director of one of Singapore’s largest enrichment centre chains for over seven years. Send him an email if you’re keen!

Marcus Goh runs Write-Handed, a creative writing studio. At the same time, he teaches at Joyous Learning. He has been a specialist tutor for English and Literature (Secondary) since 2005.

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