Science Tip: Stating What Matters
We look at 3 common question types that appear in both the Science MCQ and open-ended sections and how taking a couple of seconds to make a few notes makes a big difference.
The principle of how annotation works is simple: Your brain does not have to waste energy to remember what you write down. This leaves it to focus on processing and parsing information instead.
This strategy requires the student to only remember 9 simple symbols:
M : melting (gaining heat)
F : freezing (losing heat)
E : evaporation (gaining heat)
C : condensation (losing heat)
+H : gain heat
-H : lose heat
S : solid
L : liquid
G : gas
Gaining or Losing Heat
The first question type requires the student to identify the processes and/or whether each process involves gaining or losing heat. A diagram would usually be provided as shown below:
Common questions that follow are:
- Name the process at A.
- At which point A, B, C or D does condensation take place?
- At which point A, B, C or D is there heat gain/loss?
Most errors that occur here are due to carelessness and can be prevented by simply labelling each process using the symbols above.
For example:
From here, it’s easy to answer any combination of the 3 questions above.
Note that at the Primary level, students are not expected to know the processes of deposition, the change of state from gas to solid, and sublimation, which is solid turning into gas.
The Water Cycle
The next question type also requires the student to identify processes and heat transfer, but within the setting of a water cycle. The picture below already has the annotation done.
Common questions that follow are:
- What is the process at point A/B?
- At which point A, B, or C does condensation/evaporation take place?
- At which point A, B, or C is there heat gain/loss?
Again, after some simple annotation, it’s easy to answer the questions accurately.
Some misconceptions with this question type are that the clouds are in the gaseous state and that process C is a change from a gaseous to liquid state.
Water from the water body evaporates and forms water vapour at A, which comes into contact with the cooler surface of the air at B, lose heat and condense into tiny water droplets, which are clouds. Hence, clouds are actually in the liquid state.
There is no change of state at C. Rain is simply water droplets that have clumped together and become too heavy to stay in the air and fall to the Earth.
It’s not in the Primary School syllabus but some schools do teach and test the processes of precipitation, which is point C, and infiltration, which is the water seeping through the ground and back into the water body. While these aren’t tested at the PSLE, it’s good for the students to have a holistic picture of the whole water cycle.
What is the State
The last question type requires the student to identify the state of a substance at a certain temperature, given its melting and boiling point.
They will usually be provided with a simple table as shown in the example below.
Again, laziness and carelessness are the enemy here. Unlike the first two question types, this one needs a little more processing. Working it out in one’s mind’s eye can be taxing on the brain, especially when this question appears later in the paper.
The student simply has to:
- Draw two vertical lines to separate the table into 3 zones.
- Label the zones. A substance below melting point is a solid, above boiling point is a gas, and exists as a liquid in between.
- Write the given temperature in the appropriate zone.
Now, it is easy to identify the state of any of the substances at any given temperature.
Many students think that annotation, like cancelling non-answers, is a waste of time. It is a gross mistake to underestimate the power of these simple strategies. By taking a few seconds to make a few notes, your child will improve greatly in accuracy and reduce their mental load; and conversely, the nett result is actually time saved.
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