Grades Dropped This Exam? Here Are The Most Common Reasons

It can come as a shock when you see the grades on your report book – grades that used to be A’s have suddenly dropped to C’s and borderline passes. Getting 80-plus and 90-plus marks used to be a breeze in primary school, but now you are barely managing to avoid failing.

Sounds like you?

This experience is more common than you might think. At the recent year-end exams, many of our IP Math Tuition students shared stories of their classmates failing their exams – and these are students in top secondary schools in Singapore who scored AL5 and better for PSLE.

We know that the issue is not that these students are not capable. In fact, many of these students eventually pick themselves up and go on to do well in secondary school and JC. So, what went wrong when their grades dropped – and how can you make a comeback if you are in a similar situation?

Being complacent

Everyone praised you for your good grades in primary school. You used to be in the top 10 of your class, and perhaps you even topped your school for PSLE. This taste of success may lead you to forget what it means to work hard. You might take it for granted that you will always do well.

Look back at how you have treated your studies this year. Did you study only minimally because you assumed you would do well? Did you make careless mistakes in your exam papers because you were too confident and didn’t check your answers?

If you have been complacent this year, it’s time to make a mindset change. As you go further in your studies, the difficulty only gets harder. There’s always more to learn, and you need that humility and hard work to keep progressing.

Increased commitments

In primary school, most students only had 4 subjects to study for. But in secondary school, that number increases to 7 to 8 subjects. And that’s not including CCA commitments, other projects like leadership roles or service learning programmes, and more. The same 24 hours a day is now split between more commitments, yet the content and demands have increased as well.

You can’t be using the same strategies that you used in primary school to study in secondary school. You will need to adjust your priorities, be more intentional about planning, and learn better ways to maximise your time. If you haven’t re-evaluated and changed your study strategies since primary school, now’s the time to relook your approach.

A year-end headstart class can be really useful for doing this, as you will learn some topics ahead of time, easing the stress once you start school again. Your tutors will also be able to share tips about what to expect, and strategies that past students have used successfully.

Tougher standards in top schools

If you are studying in an IP school, chances are, you will encounter exam papers that are tougher than those in the O Level track. We don’t know for sure why some schools tend to set remarkably tougher papers than others, but it could be the reason why you find it so difficult to get an A.

One clue that tells you your school’s papers are notoriously difficult is when the entire cohort doesn’t do well. Very few students actually get an A, and sometimes the school has to moderate the marks.

On the one hand, this means that you need to recalibrate your definition of what a good grade is. If everyone else is getting a pass and you get a C – you are actually doing not too bad. On the other hand, it means you need to get used to this level of difficulty and prepare yourself for it if you want to do even better.

Conclusion

Many students experience their grades dropping when they go into a major transition year – such as from P6 to Sec 1, or Sec 2 to Sec 3. While this is normal, there are ways to counter this and bounce back – or pre-empt and prepare for these changes before they happen.

Whether it’s a mindset change or a change in study strategy, the tutors here at Future Academy Singapore are ready to lend a guiding hand in your study journey. Our year-end holiday programmes are designed to help students like you get a headstart on the next year, so you can be prepared for the new challenges that come your way.