Findings · Published 11 September 2026
What children actually do when they answer a PSLE oral question.
We read 12,459 first answers given by children practising PSLE English oral and PSLE Chinese oral on PSLEPrep between June and September 2026, and counted what each one contained. This page is the record: the numbers, how they were measured, and what they do not show.
12,459
first answers read
2,000+
children practising
55,066
practice sessions in the period
120
labels checked by hand
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The short version
- Asked “tell me about a time…”, four in ten English answers never describe one.
- Children have learned “because”: 96 per cent of English opinion answers give a reason. Three in four give no example from the child’s own life.
- Chinese answers carry a real story far more often than English ones on the same kind of question: 78 per cent against 59.
- 8pm is the busiest practice hour. One in three sessions starts between 7pm and 10pm; the median child practised ten times.
- By a child’s third session, first answers are a fifth longer and more of them contain a real example, 51 to 62 per cent.
- Answers are not short: a typical first answer runs to about 100 words, roughly a minute of speech.
Finding 1
The missing example
The PSLE oral conversation asks children about themselves. The commonest gap in the answers is that they leave themselves out.
41%
of English answers to “have you ever…” and “tell me about a time…” contained no specific occasion.
77%
of English opinion answers contained nothing from the child’s own life.
Share of first answers, before any follow-up question. Children practising on PSLEPrep, June to September 2026.
Gave a real example when asked “have you ever…”
Gave a reason when asked for an opinion
The numbers behind this chart
| Feature | English | n | Chinese | n |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gave a real example when asked “have you ever…” | 59% | 1,999 | 78.4% | 1,497 |
| Gave a reason when asked for an opinion | 96.3% | 1,956 | 89.9% | 795 |
Finding 2
They have learned “because”
The gap is not effort, and it is not reasoning. A typical first answer ran to about 100 words, roughly a minute of speech; only one answer in seventy was a one-liner. Asked for an opinion, 96 per cent of English answers and 90 per cent of Chinese answers gave a reason. The habit that preparation guides drill hardest, point, then because, has taken. The habit they drill least, a true story from the child’s own life, has not.
Finding 3
English and Chinese answers are built differently
On the same kind of question, “have you ever…”, 78 per cent of Chinese answers described a real occasion, against 59 per cent of English answers. English answers were more likely to carry a reason. We compare the two languages only within a question type, because the questions themselves differ: the Chinese picture question says “describe what happened”, while the English one asks “what do you think is happening, and why”. A Chinese answer that only describes is doing what it was asked.
Finding 4
When families practise
Practice happens after dinner, on school nights, and it happens repeatedly.
55,066 sessions by hour of the day, Singapore time, June to September 2026.
The numbers behind this chart
| Hour (SGT) | Sessions | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00 | 189 | 0.3% |
| 01:00 | 59 | 0.1% |
| 02:00 | 17 | 0.0% |
| 03:00 | 13 | 0.0% |
| 04:00 | 4 | 0.0% |
| 05:00 | 14 | 0.0% |
| 06:00 | 106 | 0.2% |
| 07:00 | 202 | 0.4% |
| 08:00 | 768 | 1.4% |
| 09:00 | 1,216 | 2.2% |
| 10:00 | 1,437 | 2.6% |
| 11:00 | 1,740 | 3.2% |
| 12:00 | 1,744 | 3.2% |
| 13:00 | 1,764 | 3.2% |
| 14:00 | 3,211 | 5.8% |
| 15:00 | 4,698 | 8.5% |
| 16:00 | 5,184 | 9.4% |
| 17:00 | 4,925 | 8.9% |
| 18:00 | 4,168 | 7.6% |
| 19:00 | 4,755 | 8.6% |
| 20:00 | 7,784 | 14.1% |
| 21:00 | 6,775 | 12.3% |
| 22:00 | 3,445 | 6.3% |
| 23:00 | 848 | 1.5% |
35%
of sessions start between 7pm and 10pm.
10
sessions is the median per child.
83%
of conversation sessions answered all three questions.
Finding 5
Three sessions later
For children with at least three conversation sessions in the period, we compared the first session with the third. English first answers were a fifth longer by the third session, for two children in three. The share of “tell me about a time” answers that contained a real example rose from 51 to 62 per cent, measured within the same children. The share giving a reason for an opinion barely moved, because it was already at 96 per cent.
One number moved the other way and we do not yet understand it: Chinese answers to “have you ever…” contained a real example less often by the third session. It may be which questions later sessions ask. We are not drawing a conclusion from it.
For a child preparing now
What to do with this
- Prepare three true stories from the child’s own life and practise telling them aloud: a time they helped someone, a time something went wrong, a time they tried something new. Most “have you ever” questions can be answered with one of them.
- Say when it happened. “Last year”, “in Primary 4”, “one Saturday”. It is the difference between a habit and an example.
- Keep “because”, it is working. Add “for example” after it.
- On the picture question, answer the second half. One English answer in six described the photograph and never reached “why do you think…”.
The stimulus-based conversation guide covers the answer moves, and picture conversation practice runs the real question sequence with an AI oral examiner.
Method
How we measured it, and what it does not show
Data. 55,066 practice sessions started on PSLEPrep between 1 June and 10 September 2026 by 2,641 children, of which 19,127 were conversation practice. From those we sampled 6,000 conversation sessions, half English and half Chinese, and read the 12,459 first answers they contained. A first answer is what the child said to each examiner question before any follow-up.
Labels. Each answer was read against its question and labelled on three features anyone can check in a transcript: did it describe a specific personal example, did it give a reason, and did it address the question asked. A language model applied the labels; a person then checked 120 of them by hand, 60 in each language, with agreement of 93 to 100 per cent depending on the feature. Answers the transcription could not capture, about 2 per cent, were excluded.
What is not here. Nothing about pronunciation, marks, or how a child would score in the real examination: the AI examiner’s scoring was not used. The families are self-selected, so these are findings about children practising on PSLEPrep, not about Singapore children as a whole. The period includes the run-up to the 2026 oral, when practice is heaviest, so the time-of-day shares describe that period.
For journalists and teachers
Use this data
The figures and the chart on this page may be reproduced free of charge with attribution to PSLEPrep and a link to this page. Please keep the wording “children practising on PSLEPrep”.
Download the chart as a PNG (about 1,800 pixels wide). Suggested citation: PSLEPrep, “What children actually do when they answer a PSLE oral question”, 11 September 2026, psleprep.sg/findings.
Questions about the method, or a cut of the data we have not published: paul@psleprep.sg.
FAQ
Questions people ask about these numbers
Is this a national sample of Singapore children?View answerHide
No. Every number describes children practising on PSLEPrep between 1 June and 10 September 2026, which is a self-selected group of families who chose to practise. It is a large sample of that group, not a survey of all Primary 5 and 6 pupils, and we do not present it as one.
How were the answers labelled?View answerHide
Each first answer was read against the question it answered and labelled on features anyone can check in a transcript: whether it described a specific personal example, whether it gave a reason, and whether it addressed the question asked. A language model did the labelling and a person checked 120 of the labels by hand, with agreement of 93 to 100 per cent depending on the feature. The AI examiner’s marks were not used anywhere.
What counts as a personal example?View answerHide
A specific occasion from the child’s own life, or their family’s or friends’: “last year my brother…”, “there was a time when…”. Habitual statements such as “we usually go to the park” do not count, and neither does a story about the people in the photograph.
Why only first answers?View answerHide
The examiner asks follow-up questions, and those are designed to draw out an example or a reason. Counting only the first answer to each question shows what children do unprompted, which is what happens in the examination room.
Can I reuse the chart or the numbers?View answerHide
Yes. The chart and the figures on this page may be reproduced free of charge with attribution to PSLEPrep and a link to this page. Please keep the wording “children practising on PSLEPrep” rather than “Singapore children”.
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