I studied in the government school until I was form 2, was then homeschooled for three years and have just recently finished my o levels.

Believe me when I say O levels is harder. Its analytical. There are very few objective papers. Out of the ten papers I sat for five subjects, only one paper was objective and even so, there were two subjective papers to back it up! O levels questions are mostly a test on your understanding, ability to relate what you know in detail without going out of topic or relevance to the question, and then critically explain why so and so won the war against so and so eventhough the other party had stronger weaponary. whats more you have to back it up by both logic and fact.

No you dont have to remember long and tedious spelling of names of enzymes and the length of cat's small intestine. you have to understand how they work, function and then apply it to the question.

also, unless you are extremely confident of your english skills, I would advise against taking O levels. The ammount of essays that have to be wrtitten in such a short period of time is grewsome. I wrote nearly ten pages on five Modern World History questions for two hours and thirty minutes straight and still didnt finish the last question (because the question is never really that straight forward).

so if you are good at memorizing details, stick with SPM. If you want to delve deeper into topics and test how deeply you understand them, by all means take O levels. its a great way to strenghten thinking skills, absorption of relevant info and comprehension.


on a side note the biology CIE O levels is as follows:
Paper 1, 40 objective questions.
Paper 2, Theory.
Paper 3, Pratical test. (as in, you do the experiments then and there)
Paper 6, Alternative to Practical. (as in, you answewr questions based on the experiment given and draw your own hypothesis and conclusion.)

This post has been edited by nickellye: Dec 19 2009, 03:32 AM

i agree wif nickellye
Ol more on understanding and thinkin skill leii, In SPM, bio,chem and phy's experiment can hafal...swt...

GCE O lvls aren't difficult if u have time to study for it/ practising past yr papers.
For pure maths, i suggest you to find an excellent math tutor to guide u through the questions. the other science subjects are pretty easy. For english language exam, reduce your grammatical, punctuation and spelling mistakes, cuz for each mistake 1 mark will be deducted. that means if u make 101 mistakes, ur score will be -1 regardless of how u correctly u answer in comprehension section.

since u already studied for SPM 2 years, just revise it and work hard for it.

its harder to learn something new again compared to something u studied 2 years already

[quote=luckykid,Aug 14 2009, 02:15 PM]
I don't really have any idea about SPM, but I'm going to be doing O levels.
Paper 5 is practical which is not offered for private candidates here, so you do paper 6 which is the alternative to practical.
Paper 1 is objective, paper 2 is short answer, paper 3 is long answer.


[/B]YOur doing it in Malaysia or overseas? ow did you manage to switch?


This post has been edited by Santia Parameswaran: Aug 26 2015, 11:18 PM

im a igcse student.....well i have to say syllabus wise i think spm learn more than igcse. Example in biology spm learn about mitochondria and stuff but in igcse we learn thebasic such as cell wall and stuff.....But i have to say spm have a low passing grade...i heard that 70% is an A in spm..if passing marak was this low i would have got straight As in igcse ....but igcse have standardised marking......hence 80% would be an A....this make it harder to score....plus the more sophisticated english they are using......thats all hopes it help ...cheers

Nope, don't listen to those laymen that do not know anything. O-Levels/IGCSE/GCSE/GCE-O/USA High School Diploma ARE EASIER than SPM. BUT SPM CAN have a lower marking scheme depending on the annual results. Topics and syllabus covered in O-Levels/IGCSE/GCSE/GCE-O/USA High School Diploma are more GENERAL than SPM which is more IN DEPTH. For example Chemistry, O-Levels/IGCSE/GCSE/GCE-O/USA High School Diploma Chemistry only covers up to the General concepts for Organic Compounds chapter whereas in SPM, we learn until Alkene, Alkane, Alkyl etc for Organic Compounds chapter which are MORE IN DEPTH and are equivalent to Matriculation/A-Levels/Diploma. Don't believe me? Take A-Levels, Diploma or Matriculation after your SPM, you will literally re-learn everything that you have learned during SPM because SPM went too deep. My lecturers even told me that SPM was harder than O-Levels/IGCSE/GCSE/GCE-O/USA High School Diploma that he sent his children to do O-Levels/IGCSE/GCSE/GCE-O/USA High School Diploma instead. Then with all the notion that SPM will be fully KBAT/Critical-Thinking by 2020 and the implementation started since 2013, it makes SPM A LOT harder than it is right now.

This post has been edited by worldblues: Dec 8 2017, 01:12 PM

SPM syllabus covers concepts both in depth and in breadth, I studied triple sciences and relied heavily (and primarily) on Oxford Fajar's reference books, I then browsed O levels/GCSEs reference books and have no problem understanding the syllabus which covers everything we covered. The only reason people doubt its legitimacy is due to the weak execution. Example: the SPM exam questions are pretty straight-forward with minimal emphasis on the application of the knowledge. The grades are often lowered (drastically) following the normal distribution graph, where you'd normally need 90 marks to get an A+, the marking grade is most definitely lower than that, don't even get me started on the passing mark.