EJC 2025 GP Preliminary Examination P1 SAS

2025 EJC General Paper Preliminary Examinations Paper 1 Examiners’ Report OVERALL COMMENTS FOR CONTENT The overall quality of responses was commendable. There were few instances where question analysis was lacking, such that the majority of the responses were able to answer the question requirements with some success. There were a number of strong scripts that demonstrated all the hallmarks of a good essay like strong content knowledge, an in-depth understanding of current realities and nuanced evaluation. Most responses showed at least a basic understanding of essay writing skills though the quality of writing varies quite widely. Question Analysis Most scripts showed competence in basic question analysis skills. The majority of the scripts were able to competently identify the point of contention and were able to explain clearly the point of contention in the paragraph development. However, examiners noted that candidates were still struggling when the essay questions came with more conditions or qualifiers that required students to deal with more complex ideas in their arguments (e.g. Q4 and Q6). Candidates also had difficulties with abstract ideas like ‘offence’ (Q7) and ‘trust’ (Q8). Content knowledge The quality of content knowledge displayed in the scripts varied widely. The majority of the scripts demonstrated basic competence in content knowledge, showing that the majority of the students have taken their tutors’ advice to go through the Resource Packages prior to the examination. However, the scope of knowledge remained limited especially for questions that require specific content knowledge (e.g. Q4, Q5, Q7 and Q8). For such questions, students’ understanding was limited to a few countries (e.g. USA and Singapore) or common examples (e.g. Social media featured heavily in all questions, regardless of the topic). Due to the limited examples, many arguments were over-generalised from these limited examples when students over-extended the examples beyond what these examples logically represented. It did not help when the cited examples were also limited to extreme situations. Conceptual understanding featured in many of the scripts. The majority of candidates made deliberate efforts to weave in trends, context, connections or implications into their arguments. These efforts gave depth and nuance to the arguments. However, some candidates did this in a mechanical manner by ‘name-dropping’ some standard terms associated with trends, context, connections or implications without any due consideration if these terms were appropriate or relevant to the overall argument (e.g. the description of Singapore as a ‘small, sleepy fishing village’ was a standard contextual statement made in many essays regardless if it was relevant to the point being made). This should be avoided as it distracts the reader from the point and reduces the accuracy of the argument being made. Balanced discussion The majority of the scripts were able to demonstrate basic competence in showing balance. The majority of the scripts demonstrated the basic competence of constructing a counter-argument paragraph with the standard distancing phrases, followed up by a considered rebuttal paragraph and supported with relevant examples and evaluation. However, students are strongly advised to avoid constructing strawman arguments (a logical fallacy that occurs when someone misrepresents or distorted the opposing argument to make it seem weaker or more extreme, and then argues against this distorted version instead of the real situation) as a rebuttal. Also, students should avoid constructing a balanced paragraph containing both the opposing argument and the rebuttal in a single paragraph. Examiners noted that such paragraphs were often poorly written as the opposing argument (i.e. the view that opposed the essay’s stand) consisted of a single sentence and was followed up by an equally short rebuttal that quickly dismissed such views as ‘myopic’, ‘extreme’ or ‘failing to consider’ without any detailed explanation why it was so or providing any supporting example.

OVERALL COMMENTS FOR LANGUAGE Linguistic Ability A number of stronger scripts demonstrated clarity of expression , evident through: ● Clear paragraphing ● Apt and effective signposting ● Strong command of sentence structure ● Appropriate use of hedging words and conceptual terms (i.e. effective vocabulary) ● Distancing themselves from arguments they do not endorse (e.g. using “some might say”) or concession (e.g. “I acknowledge that” / “Undeniably….”) ● Indicating a change in argument direction (e.g. using contrastive words like “however”) ● Use of nuanced language to hedge claims, such as “in general” or “on the whole” as opposed to making broad, sweeping claims Weaker responses commonly featured: ● High frequency of run-on sentences or fractured sentence structure. In particular, the wrong construction ‘ with x, it resulted in y ”, rather than the correct “ x resulted in y ”, was all too common. ● Incorrect or inappropriate vocabulary usage ● Inappropriate distancing terms such as “detractors / critics / dissidents” of my stand ● Invention of words (e.g. enstrangulation of media, trustable/untrustable, irregardless) ● Tone and style issues in some responses included: ○ A lapse into conversational tone ○ Inappropriate or excessive use of rhetorical questions , which weakened argumentative clarity ● Grammar errors, in particular subject-verb agreement errors. ● Vocabulary / expression errors i.e. “since young” instead of “from a young age”, “elderlies” instead of “the elderly”. Candidates should also be aware of the difference between “ oppression” and “suppression”. While they are related, “oppression” is used to refer to an environment / action against a group of people i.e. “oppression of a people group” / “an oppressive political system” while “suppression” refers to the act of preventing something i.e. “the suppression of opposing views.” They cannot be used interchangeably. Apart from that, candidates should take note that ‘which’ is used for non-human entities i.e. “countries which (not who) are small”, and “ artists who (not which) wish to make a point.” Organisation of Ideas Most candidates had clear, structured arguments with paragraphs that focused on one key idea per paragraph. Weaker responses had unfocused, rambling paragraphs with no clear direction. Many paragraphs were excessively long, covering more than one page - such paragraphs could probably have been split up. This would also have made the argument easier to follow. Handwriting In the 2024 Promotional Examinations, examiners commented that “ While most students have lovely and perfectly legible handwriting, having to decipher poor handwriting only to find that the content it was obscuring was not relevant has been an exercise in patience. Please work on legibility to ensure that your hard work and thoughtful ideas can be