Unpacking the 2025 PSLE Oral & How we can prepare future PSLE English students for this component

The PSLE 2025 Oral is now done and dusted! Our P6 students have completed their very first PSLE English component, and we couldn’t be happier for them. What makes us even prouder is that many walked out of their oral examinations feeling confident.

This year’s Oral component was especially noteworthy. With its significantly higher weightage and recent format changes, parents, students, and teachers alike were eager to see what would be tested — and to get a glimpse of the possible question trends for future PSLE Oral examinations.

Let us take a look at what was tested on Day 1 and Day 2.

Day 1 SBC

Image : Someone selling ice-cream from a cart outdoors and there is a long queue

• Q1: Do you think that this is a good place to sell ice-cream?
• Q2 : Would you queue in a long queue to buy something?
• Q3 : Do you think that Singaporeans are orderly?

Day 2 SBC

Image : A hawker centre

• Q1: Why do you think people chose to eat at this hawker centre?
• Q2: Do you prefer home cooked food or going out to eat?
• Q3: Do you think that children should learn how to cook?

So, what have we learnt from this year’s PSLE Oral?

Students should learn how to interpret and infer meaning from images or photographs.

We wrote about the importance of inference in June this year and gave a few examples of questions that required students to do more than just simply describe the picture. In fact, we taught our students to describe the picture while injecting ideas of why certain things were happening in the picture. And we are so glad that we did! Looking at the two first questions of both Day 1 and Day 2 PSLE Oral, students needed to use their inferential skills in order to answer the questions well.

On Day 1, students were asked to decide whether the location in the image would be a good place to sell ice cream, supporting their answers with observations from the picture. They had to apply inferential skills — for example, noticing that the setting was outdoors and people were dressed casually, which might suggest a hot day when many would crave something cool like ice cream.

On Day 2, the task was similar, but students had to explain why the people in the image chose to eat at a hawker centre.

Inferring from an image is a challenging skill that requires regular practice. While both Day 1 and Day 2 questions involved making inferences, each required a slightly different set of skills and reasoning processes.

To prepare for future PSLE Orals, students should be exposed to a variety of image-based questions that encourage them to practise different aspects of inferencing, enabling them to draw logical conclusions from visual cues with confidence.

Students should also learn to share their opinions clearly on a variety of themes and topics.

From selling ice cream to dining at a hawker centre, students must be able to express their opinions on a wide range of topics — and, just as importantly, explain the reasoning behind their views.

For many years, TF has trained students to handle opinion-based oral questions, knowing that these can catch students off guard and cause them to stumble. Traditionally, out of the three oral questions, at least one would require an opinion, with the others being either a choice-based or simple recount question. While we anticipated a shift towards more opinion-based questions in 2025, we too were surprised when all the questions on both Day 1 and Day 2 required students to give their opinions.

The good news was that our students were prepared — similar or even identical questions had already been covered in TF’s group and individual oral lessons.

To prepare for PSLE Orals, students need to be comfortable speaking on a wide variety of themes and topics. Schools, tutors, and tuition centres that value the oral component can support this by preparing curated notes and practice questions, introducing clear strategies for tackling opinion-based prompts, and giving students regular opportunities to refine these skills through practice.

Students, in turn, should prepare themselves by staying informed about what is happening in society today. For example, ask yourself: Are Singaporeans orderly? Have you come across any news articles showing how Singaporeans demonstrated — or perhaps failed to demonstrate — this trait?

With the lessons learned from the 2025 PSLE Oral, we’re eager to move forward and continue equipping our future PSLE students to excel in this component.

We are incredibly proud of our P6 2025 students — for their dedication, perseverance, and the effort they put into the oral component this year.

We believe in you, and we know you gave your very best in the PSLE Oral!