Primary 1 English exam paper analysis and topic trends
PaperLah has 246 Primary 1 English exam papers from 27 Singapore primary schools, set between 2011 and 2025, with 9,201 questions in total. The topics carrying the most marks are Vocabulary (26%), Comprehension (22%) and Grammar - verbs and tenses (8.2%); together the top 3 topics account for half of all marks. Vocabulary appears in 90% of the papers. Multiple-choice questions make up 40% of marks, and 0.1% of questions are worth 3 marks or more, which usually means showing working. A typical paper has about 37 questions and 33 marks.
These figures describe the school papers in PaperLah's collection, not official MOE or SEAB weightings. They help with planning revision; they can't predict a particular exam.
Where the marks are
Topics ranked by their share of all marks. The blue ones above the line together make up half.
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| Topic | % of marks | Papers |
|---|---|---|
| Vocabulary | 26.1 | in 222 of 246 papers |
| Comprehension | 21.7 | in 193 of 246 papers |
| Grammar - verbs and tenses | 8.2 | in 173 of 246 papers |
| Grammar - pronouns | 7.7 | in 179 of 246 papers |
| Grammar - prepositions | 5.2 | in 153 of 246 papers |
| Grammar - subject-verb agreement | 4.1 | in 131 of 246 papers |
| Grammar - word order and sentences | 3.9 | in 77 of 246 papers |
| Grammar - articles and quantifiers | 3.7 | in 138 of 246 papers |
| Punctuation | 3.3 | in 77 of 246 papers |
| Vocabulary cloze | 2.7 | in 45 of 246 papers |
| Grammar cloze | 2.1 | in 33 of 246 papers |
| Grammar - conjunctions | 2.1 | in 95 of 246 papers |
| Editing | 1.9 | in 35 of 246 papers |
| Grammar - other | 1.9 | in 81 of 246 papers |
| Listening comprehension | 1.5 | in 24 of 246 papers |
| Synthesis and transformation | 1.1 | in 26 of 246 papers |
| Grammar - adjectives and adverbs | 1 | in 47 of 246 papers |
| Phonics | 0.9 | in 25 of 246 papers |
| Grammar - modals and conditionals | 0.2 | in 16 of 246 papers |
| Comprehension cloze | 0.2 | in 4 of 246 papers |
| Hanyu pinyin | 0.1 | in 1 of 246 papers |
| Following instructions | 0.1 | in 3 of 246 papers |
| Picture sentence writing | 0.1 | in 2 of 246 papers |
| Visual text comprehension | 0 | in 1 of 246 papers |
| Days of the week | 0 | in 3 of 246 papers |
| Picture identification | 0 | in 3 of 246 papers |
| Composition | 0 | in 4 of 246 papers |
| 听力理解 | 0 | in 1 of 246 papers |
| 听力选图 | 0 | in 1 of 246 papers |
| Descriptive words | 0 | in 1 of 246 papers |
What a paper is made of
How children answer, as a share of marks.
- Multiple choice 40%
- Word bank 18%
- Cloze passage 11%
- Short answer 8%
- Other 23%
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| Format | % of marks |
|---|---|
| Multiple choice | 39.9 |
| Word bank | 18.4 |
| Cloze passage | 10.7 |
| Short answer | 8.2 |
| Fill in the blank | 7.5 |
| Rewrite / synthesis | 5.5 |
| Editing (find the error) | 5.1 |
| Listening | 2.4 |
| Open-ended (show working) | 1.8 |
| Other | 0.4 |
| Number answer | 0 |
| Composition | 0 |
Marks per question
Share of questions worth 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5+ marks. 18% have no marks printed. Higher-mark questions usually need working.
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| Marks | % of questions |
|---|---|
| 1 | 75.4 |
| 2 | 6.8 |
| 3 | 0.1 |
| 5+ | 0 |
How topics change over the years
The most-asked topics, as a share of each year's questions. Darker means asked more that year. Use it to spot topics schools are asking more often now.
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| Topic | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vocabulary | 28 | 28 | 31.7 | 28.9 | 23.2 | 23 | 20.2 | 31 |
| Comprehension | 18.9 | 21.2 | 11.1 | 15.1 | 14.2 | 15.3 | 12.9 | 17.2 |
| Grammar - verbs and tenses | 8.1 | 9.2 | 6.3 | 14.5 | 8.5 | 6 | 6.7 | 9.2 |
| Grammar - pronouns | 9.9 | 8 | 3.2 | 5.7 | 5.3 | 7.3 | 12.3 | 9.2 |
| Editing | 1.1 | 0.9 | 0 | 3.1 | 19.3 | 12.5 | 0 | 0 |
| Grammar - prepositions | 6.7 | 6.8 | 9.5 | 4.4 | 2.2 | 7.7 | 4.3 | 1.1 |
| Grammar - word order and sentences | 3.3 | 4.3 | 0 | 3.1 | 3.8 | 4.8 | 12.9 | 10.3 |
| Grammar - subject-verb agreement | 2.7 | 4.6 | 4.8 | 4.4 | 4.7 | 2.4 | 4.3 | 5.7 |
| Grammar - articles and quantifiers | 4.2 | 3.5 | 6.3 | 5 | 1.9 | 2.4 | 4.9 | 8 |
| Vocabulary cloze | 3.8 | 2 | 0 | 8.2 | 2.2 | 3.2 | 7.4 | 4.6 |
How likely a topic comes up
The share of papers with at least one question on the topic.
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| Topic | % of papers |
|---|---|
| Vocabulary | 90.2 |
| Comprehension | 78.5 |
| Grammar - pronouns | 72.8 |
| Grammar - verbs and tenses | 70.3 |
| Grammar - prepositions | 62.2 |
| Grammar - articles and quantifiers | 56.1 |
| Grammar - subject-verb agreement | 53.3 |
| Grammar - conjunctions | 38.6 |
| Grammar - other | 32.9 |
| Grammar - word order and sentences | 31.3 |
| Punctuation | 31.3 |
| Grammar - adjectives and adverbs | 19.1 |
| Vocabulary cloze | 18.3 |
| Editing | 14.2 |
| Grammar cloze | 13.4 |
| Synthesis and transformation | 10.6 |
| Phonics | 10.2 |
| Listening comprehension | 9.8 |
| Grammar - modals and conditionals | 6.5 |
| Comprehension cloze | 1.6 |
| Composition | 1.6 |
| Following instructions | 1.2 |
| Picture identification | 1.2 |
| Days of the week | 1.2 |
| Picture sentence writing | 0.8 |
| 听力理解 | 0.4 |
| Hanyu pinyin | 0.4 |
| 听力选图 | 0.4 |
| Descriptive words | 0.4 |
| Visual text comprehension | 0.4 |
Exam types
Which school exams these papers come from.
Key facts
- 246 papers, 9,201 questions, 8,202 marks, from 27 schools.
- 3 topics carry half of all marks.
- Most-tested topic: Vocabulary, 26% of marks.
- Most common topic across papers: Vocabulary, in 90% of papers.
- 0.1% of questions are worth 3 marks or more.
- Exam types: Quiz / Review / Test, Mid-Year / SA1, End-of-Year / SA2, Weighted Assessment / CA, Other and Practice paper.
Questions parents ask
What topics come up most in Primary 1 English exam papers?
By share of marks, the most-tested topics are Vocabulary (26%), Comprehension (22%), Grammar - verbs and tenses (8.2%), Grammar - pronouns (7.7%) and Grammar - prepositions (5.2%).
How many questions and marks are in a Primary 1 English paper?
A typical paper in this set has about 37 questions and 33 marks. Papers vary by school and by exam (weighted assessments are shorter than mid-year and end-of-year exams).
Which exams and schools are included?
246 papers from 27 schools, from these exam types: Quiz / Review / Test, Mid-Year / SA1, End-of-Year / SA2, Weighted Assessment / CA, Other and Practice paper. The schools are listed further down this page.
Can I download these papers?
No. PaperLah doesn't share the papers as downloads. Children practise them online one question at a time, with instant marking, and parents see which topics need work.
Schools included
ACS (Primary) · Ai Tong · Anglo-Chinese School · CHIJ · CHIJ St Nicholas Girls' · Catholic High · Henry Park · Holy Innocents · Kong Hwa · Maha Bodhi · Maris Stella High · Methodist Girls' · Nan Hua · Nanyang · Pei Chun · Pei Hwa · Raffles Girls' · Red Swastika · River Valley · Rosyth · Rulang · Singapore Chinese Girls' · St Andrew's · St Joseph's · Tanjong Katong · Tao Nan · Temasek
Papers are past school assessments; PaperLah is not affiliated with MOE, SEAB or the schools.
How this analysis is made
Every question in each paper is tagged with its topic, format and marks as printed. The figures above are counts over those questions: a topic's share of marks, the share of papers that include it, and so on. Topic names come from the papers and their answer keys, so similar topics can appear under slightly different names. Only aggregate figures are shown here; the questions themselves are practised inside PaperLah.
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