PT3 results won't bar students from entering science or arts stream

The Pentaksiran Tingkatan 3 (PT3) or Form 3 Assessment results will not hinder the admission of pupils to fully residential schools nor to the science or arts stream, said Education director-general Datuk Dr Khair Mohamad Yusof.

Students who took the PT3 starting this year were assessed through four components of the School-Based Assessment (SBA), namely: 1. School Assessment, 2. Assessment of Physical Activities, and Sports Co-Curriculum, 3. Psychometric Assessment, and 4. PT3.

"The selection to fully residential schools and to the science or arts stream is made not only based on the PT3 results but also by taking into account the reports of the four SBA components," he said in a statement.

"The structure of the PT3 questions require students to master the skills to think critically and to thoroughly understand the syllabus when answering the questions, whereas objective questions only require students to memorise the syllabus to obtain excellent results.

"The ratio of the level of difficulty of questions is also different, namely for PT3 it is: 3:4:3 (low: medium: hard), while for PMR: 5:3:2 (low: medium: hard).

He advised that results of PT3 should not be compared with last year's PMR as the new format uses different scoring guidelines and emphasises on high order thinking skills.