Primary School Achievement Test, also known as Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (commonly abbreviated as UPSR;

Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...

), was a national examination taken by all students in

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

at the end of their sixth year in

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

before they leave for

secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...

. It is prepared and examined by the Malaysian Examinations Syndicate (Lembaga Peperiksaan Malaysia), an agency that constitutes the Ministry of Education. The UPSR tests were first established in 1988 to replace the Standard Five assessment. Starting from 2016, students in national schools (sekolah kebangsaan) are required to take six subjects. Students in

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

and

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nati ...

national-type schools (sekolah jenis kebangsaan) are required to take two additional language subjects, totalling eight subjects.

Multiple choice question Multiple choice (MC), objective response or MCQ (for multiple choice question) is a form of an objective assessment in which respondents are asked to select only correct answers from the choices offered as a list. The multiple choice format is m ...

s are tested using a standardised

optical answer sheet Optical mark recognition (also called optical mark reading and OMR) is the process of reading information that people mark on surveys, tests and other paper documents. OMR is used to read questionnaires, multiple choice examination papers in the ...

that uses

optical mark recognition Optical mark recognition (also called optical mark reading and OMR) is the process of reading information that people mark on surveys, tests and other paper documents. OMR is used to read questionnaires, multiple choice examination papers in the ...

for detecting answers. This exam is held annually on the first Monday of September. The score is calculated based on a bell curve, thus the passing grade is reflected by the yearly performance. Effective 2021, the UPSR exams were abolished and replaced with school-based assessments, seeing it suffer the same fate as the PMR examinations.

Subjects

The subjects that are taken in this exam include: * Bahasa Malaysia (''Pemahaman'' or Malay Comprehension) * Bahasa Malaysia (''Penulisan'' or Malay Writing) *

Mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

(Comprehension) *

(Writing) *

(''Pemahaman'' or Chinese Comprehension) - Compulsory for Chinese school students only *

(''Penulisan'' or Chinese Writing) - Compulsory for Chinese school students only *

(''Pemahaman'' or Tamil Comprehension) - Compulsory for Tamil school students only *

(''Penulisan'' or Tamil Writing) - Compulsory for Tamil school students only Each of the two Bahasa Malaysia subjects is offered at two different levels: the harder SK level and the easier SJK level, due to the difference in the Bahasa Malaysia syllabus taught in SK and SJK. However, SJK students may opt to sit for the SK paper with permission from their schools.

Mathematics

In 1995, UPSR Mathematics tests were changed to include subjective questions. The mathematics examination is divided into two papers, paper 1 and paper 2. Starting from 2016, the exam is one hour long for each paper. Paper 1 is a multiple choice paper and consists of forty questions, all have a one-point score value. Paper 2 is the subjective area of Maths. There are 15 questions here in total, the first five questions have a three-point score value, questions 6-10 have a four-point score value, and the last five have a five-point score value. Questions that are frequently asked in this exam are fractions,

subtraction Subtraction is an arithmetic operation that represents the operation of removing objects from a collection. Subtraction is signified by the minus sign, . For example, in the adjacent picture, there are peaches—meaning 5 peaches with 2 taken ...

multiplication Multiplication (often denoted by the cross symbol , by the mid-line dot operator , by juxtaposition, or, on computers, by an asterisk ) is one of the four elementary mathematical operations of arithmetic, with the other ones being additi ...

, division,

addition Addition (usually signified by the Plus and minus signs#Plus sign, plus symbol ) is one of the four basic Operation (mathematics), operations of arithmetic, the other three being subtraction, multiplication and Division (mathematics), division. ...

area Area is the quantity that expresses the extent of a region on the plane or on a curved surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape A shape or figure is a graphics, graphical representation of an obje ...

and

volume Volume is a measure of occupied three-dimensional space. It is often quantified numerically using SI derived units (such as the cubic metre and litre) or by various imperial or US customary units (such as the gallon, quart, cubic inch). The de ...

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

, perimeter,

decimal The decimal numeral system (also called the base-ten positional numeral system and denary or decanary) is the standard system for denoting integer and non-integer numbers. It is the extension to non-integer numbers of the Hindu–Arabic numeral ...

points,

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted ...

, digit

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...

percent In mathematics, a percentage (from la, per centum, "by a hundred") is a number or ratio expressed as a fraction of 100. It is often denoted using the percent sign, "%", although the abbreviations "pct.", "pct" and sometimes "pc" are also use ...

age,

money Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are as ...

time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

, date and

duration Duration may refer to: * The amount of time elapsed between two events * Duration (music) – an amount of time or a particular time interval, often cited as one of the fundamental aspects of music * Duration (philosophy) – a theory of time and ...

Science

Science was first made a part of the UPSR in 1997. Starting from 2016, the science examination is divided into two papers, paper 1 and paper 2. Each paper lasts for an hour. For paper 1, students are given 40

multiple choice question Multiple choice (MC), objective response or MCQ (for multiple choice question) is a form of an objective assessment in which respondents are asked to select only correct answers from the choices offered as a list. The multiple choice format is m ...

s with a weight of one mark each. For paper 2, students answer subjective questions. In the subjective paper, there are eight questions and each question has 3 to 5 sub-questions which carry 1 to 3 marks depending on the question. The total weight that can be given here is 40.

Examining and result

After the completion of all exams, the examination papers will be brought to centres across the country to be evaluated. The distribution of papers across all the states can be random or otherwise, according to the wishes of the invigilator. All objective answer sheets are examined by computer, and all subjective answer sheets are marked by professional examiners. After completion the examination of all papers, the marks will be registered into an online system. A council will be called to ascertain the specific marks for the grade of each subject (the standard mark for an 'A' grade is 80 and above, however, should the year's cohort perform badly, the marks may be lowered to 70+ and above for an 'A'). It also may be 85+ for an A.The results are then printed and distributed to the education department of every district. Usually, the results are announced on the last Thursday of the school year (it is the second-last day of school for all states except Terengganu, Kelantan, Kedah and Johor where it is the final day of school for the year), but in some years, it is published during the school holidays. A new grading scheme was introduced in 2016 as below: A: 80-100 B: 65-79 C: 50-64 D: 40-49 E: 0-39 Grade E is the only failing grade for all subjects.

Format change

In 2016, several changes were made to the format of all the important subjects :

Pemahaman

The ''Pemahaman'' paper has 2 sections, A and B. Section A has 20 objective questions for 40 marks and Section B has 5 questions for 60 marks. This exam lasted for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Penulisan

The new format for ''Penulisan'' consists of three sections, namely A, B and C. The time allowed is one hour and fifteen minutes. For section A, a picture will be given. Then, pupils must build five compound sentences based on the picture. The marks allocated for this section is 10. Occasionally, however, pictures might not be provided and to substitute that, candidates might be asked to write sentences about a graph, a mind map, multiple images, or a time table. For section B, candidates must write a review about the stimulus given to be written on the UPSR paper. The marks allocated for this section is 15 marks. For Section C, The student must choose one out of two questions and write an essay of between 80 and 100 words. The marks allocated for this section is 25 marks.

English

English now has Comprehension and Writing papers, unlike the previous single paper. The questions in the Comprehension paper are grouped into two sections: A with 20 multiple choice questions dealing with Grammar, Vocabulary and Comprehension; and B with 5 questions, dealing with Social expressions, Comprehension, and HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills)

2014 paper leak

On 10 September 2014, the Examination Syndicate had made a statement stating that instead of the Science paper(018, 028, 038) being sat the next day, it would be postponed to 30 September. The reason given for the postponement was due to the fact that the question paper was leaked on social media. A few days later, another statement had been made saying that the English paper(014) has also been leaked and will be sat on the same day. About a week later, the Education Ministry announced that the Tamil(036, 037) and Maths (Paper 1(015/1, 025/1, 035/1)) papers were also found to be hacked, and would be sat on 9 October.

2021 abolishment

On 28 April 2021,

Senior Minister Senior Minister is a political title. It may refer to: * Senior Minister of Canada, a political office in the Cabinet of Canada **Senior Minister, a ceremonial position before the title Deputy Prime Minister was introduced in 1977 * Senior Minister ...

of Education and Society and Minister of Education

Mohd Radzi Md Jidin Mohd Radzi bin Md Jidin ( Jawi: محمد راضي بن محمد جيدين‎; born 4 September 1977) is a Malaysian politician and forensic accountant who served as Senior Minister of the Education and Social Cluster and as Minister of Educat ...

announced through a press conference that the UPSR exam will be abolished from 2021 onwards. He also said that students will be evaluated using school-based assessments, a system which had been in effect since 2011. Talk of abolishing the examination had begun in 2016 when the then-Education Minister, Mahdzir Khalid said that a study was being done to evaluate the future of UPSR.

External links

''Malaysian Ministry of Education'' official website

References

{{Reflist Standardized tests Education in Malaysia