TMJC 2026 Prelim P2

1 Tampines Meridian Junior College 2026 JC2 Preliminary Examination H1 General Paper This Insert consists of 3 printed pages. Passage 1. An author explores the idea of liveable public spaces in cities. 1 2 3 4 5 6 For generations, urban planning rested on a clear divide: the home was a private sanctuary for rest, while the street was a cold, public arena for commerce and transit. Today, this hard boundary is collapsing. As modern apartments shrink, real estate costs skyrocket, and urban loneliness rises, a new planning philosophy is taking over – the domestication of the public sphere. Healthy cities are now intentionally designed to create local, informal, liveable public spaces that feel like natural extensions of our own living rooms. Designing the city as a shared home has grown from an appealing concept into a psychological and social necessity. The need for this ‘urban living room ’ stems directly from a housing crisis where homes everywhere are shrinking. The private living room has historically been a sanctuary for unscripted conversation and downtime, but when a home is reduced to little more than a place to sleep and work, there is little room left for either. These everyday human needs do not disappear; they spill into the public realm. Without public spaces to absorb them , cities become places where people merely pass through, never truly connecting. If people cannot find an equivalent environment outside their front doors, loneliness and social isolation inevitably increase, taking a toll on our mental well-being. Crucially, this approach to urban design democratises resources that market forces would otherwise price out of reach, helping ensure greater equity and access. Outdoor exercise corners and free sports courts give lower -income residents a place to keep fit without prohibitive gym fees. Sheltered, accessible pathways physically integrate the elderly and disabled into the landscape, reinforcing the message that they too are valued. Moreover, contemporary urban design has transformed the concept of liveability, placing people’s everyday experiences at the centre of public space. Previously, making a city ‘liveable’ meant making the streets conducive for business instead of people. Today, urban designers have turned that idea on its head. Once, a plaza permitted one thing only – passage, hurried through on the way to somewhere else; now the same space tolerates whatever its residents want of it, whether that is a nap on a bench, a shared lunch, or nothing at all. And where the old streets were dictated by planners and authorities, laid out once and left unchanged, the new one s keep shifting, shaped from below as residents add potted plants, drag out chairs, and personalise sidewalks and alleyways until the space quietly becomes theirs. Creating an urban living room also requires thoughtful design that encourages people to stay rather than simply pass through. Community features such as book exchange boxes invite residents to linger and interact. Public murals and heritage streetscapes provide a visual language that fosters community ownership, while well -lit, well-maintained parks speak of attention rather than neglect. Investing in these shared spaces sends a message to residents that their neighbourhood is worth caring for, fostering a stronger sense of community in the process. Ultimately, human-centred public spaces force social mixing across class, race, and age groups who might not otherwise interact. Playgrounds serve as unmediated spaces where children from different backgrounds interact freely, while public eating spaces flatten hierarchies through the shared act of eating cheaply alongside strangers. By harmonising the public and private worlds, cit ies transform sterile transit corridors into true common habitats – turning strangers into neighbours, and neighbourhoods into homes. 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

2 Tampines Meridian Junior College 2026 JC2 Preliminary Examination H1 General Paper Passage 2. An author considers how the design of public spaces can work against the people who use them. 1 2 3 4 5 Public spaces were once conceived as shared property – places for rest, encounter, and the small courtesies of communal life. Increasingly, however, we observe benches divided by armrests, studs embedded into ledges, and railings positioned with calculated precision. Urban planners argue that these are necessary to ensure orderliness , but aren’t these just about managing people rather than welcoming them? Design can conceal an underlying social affliction. A district looks more attractive to prospective investors when we eliminate all signs of poverty . Who cares if the suffering is shuffled elsewhere? Equally troubling is the proliferation of privately -owned public spaces. Teenagers seeking a spot to perfect their TikTok moves late at night would inevitably find themselves being escorted off the grounds. But so too would volunteers soliciting for charity if customers are made to feel guilty from their mindless spending. Instead of the state, businesses get to decide who has access, and when. Then there is the pervasive matter of surveillance. Cameras installed for originally sensible reasons multiply until an entire neighbourhood is monitored from end to end. Its character gradually mutates from one where neighbours look out for one another into a space that breeds mutual suspicion. The end result is an estrangement from one’s community in a time that urgently demands more cohesion. Good design nudges people towards good behaviours. However, when designers assume that cooperation will follow naturally, spaces are opened indiscriminately to competing users. Take a public footpath with its myriad users – cyclists, pedestrians and e-scooter riders alike – with no shared understanding of who has the right of way. Nobody can agree upon who goes first: first come, first served? Ladies first? It is a stretch to expect users to suddenly play by the rules when nobody knows what the rules are in the first place. The space thus forces competition when there should be none. Consider, too, any amenity serving an active minority, such as a recreational facility or an entertainment zone, situated adjacent to those who require peace. The gratification of the few supersedes the needs of the many. Such conflicts expose a more fundamental failure of consultation. Often, any response to mediate arrives too late. Ultimately, when bad design is allowed to rule, what is lost is possibility – the prospect of a space appropriated in ways its designers could neither anticipate nor regulate. In the end, a place that permits nothing unplanned is no longer fully public at all. 5 10 15 20 25 30

3 Tampines Meridian Junior College 2026 JC2 Preliminary Examination H1 General Paper Passage 3. An author reflects on her experience of public spaces in the city. 1 2 3 While exploring the city, my friend and I came across a lonesome sight: three stone chess tables, underneath the silhouette of a public parking garage. Presumably, some well-meaning planners had hoped strangers would chance on each other and decide to sit down for a game of chess. But it was empty, with both the unimpressive location and absence of people giving the impression that the space was rarely used for its intended purpose. Why would the city put the chess tables here? Was there a sort of quota, or someone important to im