JC General Paper Syllabus

Singapore-Cambridge GCE A-Level H1 (Syllabus Code: 8807 / 8006)

From the year 2019, JC GP pupils will be taking this compulsory Higher 1 (H1) subject.

Scheme of Assessment
How will the students from SG junior college (JC) be tested? Two papers. Paper 1 (GP Essay) and Paper 2 (GP Comprehension) will be taken at separate sittings within the same day.

GP Essay Paper (Paper 1)

Paper 1 forms 50% of the total marks, to be completed within 1 hour 30 minutes (or 90 mins). From of list of 12 questions, candidates of General Paper must choose ONE, and write a response of between 500–800 words.

How to do well in GP Essay exams?
CONTENT TOPICS:
The content knowledge required are almost limitless, with issues drawn
from across disciplines, as well as issues of local interest and
global concern.

EXAM SKILLS:
The marking standard of a combination of Content: 30 marks and the Use of English: 20 marks, for a total of 50 marks, indicate your mastery of the English language, plus the exam techniques of application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

TIME MANAGEMENT:
To produce a decent essay response of merely 500-800 words (the limited word count is very tight!) in 90mins imply one must have the ability to express your ideas clearly and concisely. This, you can conquer with practice.

PRO-TIP:
From the observation of the GP essays exam trends, the essay questions of JC General Paper are now crafted to be cross-themed, thus students no longer are able to spot the topics that they prefer to address and tackle. Instead, the students these days are expected to understand all the issues and learn how to interlink the factors affecting each issue, which means that GP pupils must be able to tackle the relevant questions from various perspectives and provide holistic answers.

Moreover, the examiners from Cambridge are professionals in exam question setting! Being so well versed in setting General Certificate of Education (GCE) exams, the design of GP essay question have become more opinion-based discussions. So, the JC student must be able to craft and articulate their opinions. In other words, the ability to demonstrate the skill of evaluation is a must. The mere memorisation of facts and regurgitating them in the GP essay answers will no longer be enough.

While it is impossible to be able to learn so many topics that you can link and offer your opinions with, our experience with students who obtain their GP distinction grade imply that, within the tight exam time limit, a strong knowledge of 4 to 5 topics will suffice to get you that elusive grade ‘A’ for Advanced Level GP.

GP Comprehension Paper (Paper 2)

Paper 2 forms 50% of the total marks, to be completed within 1 hour 30 minutes (or 90 mins). From a comprehension paper of mostly 2 passages (rarely one may get only a single passage), exam candidates of JC General Paper must answer ALL the given questions, typically about 9 to 11 questions.