Clear, practical guides — exam formats, writing frameworks, study technique — across primary, secondary, JC and IB. Open access.
G3 Chemistry (syllabus K324) is the SEC Pure Chemistry exam, first sat in 2027, replacing the older 6092 code. It has three compulsory papers worth 160 marks in total — a multiple-choice paper, a structured and free-response paper, and a practical — covering 12 topics across three sections.
G1 English (syllabus K100) is the most functional band of the new SEC English exam, first sat in 2027. It has four papers worth 190 marks, and it differs from G2 and G3 in three important ways: there is no argument writing, the language paper uses two cloze tasks instead of a summary, and the oral keeps Reading Aloud.
G2 English (syllabus K200) is the middle band of the new Singapore-Cambridge SEC English exam, first sat in 2027. It has four papers worth 180 marks — Writing, Comprehension, Listening and Oral — and inherits the old Normal (Academic) English format almost unchanged, with one real update: the oral is now computer-delivered around a video clip.
G3 English (syllabus K300) is the most demanding band of the new Singapore-Cambridge SEC English exam, first sat in 2027. It has four papers worth 180 marks — Writing, Comprehension, Listening and Oral — and it inherits the GCE O-Level English format almost unchanged, simply renamed and pitched at the top band.
Under full Subject-Based Banding, English is examined at three levels — G1 (K100), G2 (K200) and G3 (K300) — pitched at different demands. G3 is the most rigorous (it inherits the O-Level paper), G2 sits in the middle (formerly Normal Academic), and G1 is the most functional (formerly Normal Technical). The biggest differences are total marks, whether argument writing appears, and how comprehension and oral are tested.
By the time the PSLE oral comes round in August, most Singapore homes can feel the pressure tighten. A little of that pressure is useful. Past a certain point, it gets in the way of the very thing it is meant to help — clear thinking on the day.
PEEL is the paragraph engine LearnUp uses across English: Point, Evidence, Explain, Link. It structures comprehension answers, the content points in situational writing, and every body paragraph in a FLARE argument essay. The Explain sentence is where most of the marks are won or lost.
PSLE English is a 200-mark exam in four papers — Writing, Language Use & Comprehension, Listening Comprehension and Oral Communication. Together they test how well a child writes, reads, listens and speaks, and the result is reported as an Achievement Level (AL1 to AL8) rather than a raw mark.
Singapore's A-Level subjects come at three levels of depth — H1, H2 and H3. A typical student takes three H2 subjects and one H1 subject, plus compulsory General Paper, Project Work and Mother Tongue. Your University Admission Score is built from this combination, out of 90 rank points.
BLAST is LearnUp's method for writing vivid emotion and description — the raw material of a strong composition. Students master a bank of model paragraphs across four emotion “quadrants,” then personalise them through guided “swap-writing,” turning memorised craft into their own writing.
FLARE is LearnUp's framework for discursive and argumentative writing — the part of the exam where students must take and defend a position. It maps an essay across five moves (Frame, Lead, Alternate, Respond, End), with each body move built as a PEEL paragraph. It is to argument what SPARK is to story.
SPARK is LearnUp's framework for narrative and personal writing. It breaks a composition into five beats — the arc every strong story follows — and builds each beat from the vivid emotion paragraphs students master in BLAST. Plan the beats first, choose an emotion for each, then write.
The International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma is a two-year pre-university qualification taken by many Singapore students. Students study six subjects — three at Higher Level and three at Standard Level — plus a compulsory core of three elements, and the diploma is scored out of 45 points.
From 2027, the GCE O-Level and N-Level certificates are replaced by a single national qualification: the Singapore-Cambridge Secondary Education Certificate (SEC). Instead of being placed in one stream, students take each subject at a G1, G2 or G3 level, and the certificate lists every subject at the level they sat it.
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