[Review] SG Primary App

 UPDATE: It seems like they are no longer in operation. But I have found another platform that works better and faster -- Pitaya Check out my review on the platform, or head over to sign up a free account. Yes they are totally FREE!

Let's talk about SG Primary app!!

Do note that this sgprimaryschool.com is not affiliated to SG Primary.  😊

I am referring to...

It's an app that provides top primary schools exam paper questions, in a quiz format -- automarking the MCQ and fill in the blank questions. Some of the questions comes with explanations too (pretty sure they are working on that to provide more explanations and solutions).

They have 3 types of plans, Basic Plan, Plus Plan, and Pro Plan, ranging from $29.98/year to $89.98/year.

You can also play (with limitations) as Guest without having to sign up or login.

It used to be a free app, and I had been using it for 1-2 years prior. When they rolled out the paid plans, being a Kiasu mum, I signed up for the Pro Plan. And here's my review:

(Although it is an app, it actually has a web version, and I am taking the screenshots for this post using the web version. Weirdly, they don't link to their web version on their homepage, but here it is, the link to the web version: https://sgprimary.org/convert-account)

What I like about the app

It's an app! I travel with J on public transport quite a bit (to go to enrichment classes), when she request for some screen time, I will ask her to do some questions on SG Primary. If I bring extra phone with me, we will do the questions separately and challenge our scores.

All the questions done and the results are tracked, so you can revisit them again, especially the wrong ones.

It also provides performance tracking reports

Honestly, I have never really looked at the reports. Because all I wanted is for J to do the questions. Depending on your needs, it may or may not be a useful feature. But I like it because it's a visual representation of what has been done. 

What I don't like about the app

It crashes pretty often. It gets very frustrating when you are half way through the questions and then it crashes. The app just closes by itself and you lost whatever you were doing. So I will not encourage you to set your number of questions more than 10 per session. In fact, 5 questions will be a safer bet.

Another thing that I hope they can improve on is the errors. I don't fault them because it is really a lot of questions and options to work on. 

Minor typos are ok as we can figure it out. But there was one questions that made us scratch our heads recently. 

It says correct answer is "hammers". J asked me why and I couldn't answer her because I don't know what "hammers more energy from the sun" means.

My English is not exactly good, so I thought it was my problem. I googled for the definition of "hammer" and still didn't understand why "hammers" would be an answer for this question.

Finally, I went to download the actual past year paper, and realised that the word was not "hammers" but "harness". 😂 I have reported the error a week ago but it's still not updated. We shall see.

Apart from that, I think it's a pretty helpful app, especially for people like us who are on the go. It saves the hassle of marking the physical paper. 

[Review] Koobits Science Review and Walkthrough (Part 2)

Before you proceed, check out the Part 1 of the walkthrough if you havent!

 KooClass

KooClass consists of 21 topics, but you will see 42 "topics" here because there are 2 types of classes, 1 is Misconception, and the other is Keywords.

When you clicked into a Class, there will be a few Lessons under the class. The first is free to join, and the subsequent one requires 20 KoKo Credits.

Within a lesson, there are 5 segments. 

1) Fun with Science is an animated lesson explaining the concept.

2) Do and Learn will be a 4 questions quiz that will earn you scrolls upon completion.

3) Watch and Learn are videos on questions that teaches you how to answer.

4) Do and Learn, once again, another Do and Learn that serves as a checkpoint to see if you remember what you just learned.

5) Self Check is just a question to check if you have learned.

KooFun

KooFun has 3 sections, My KoKo Monster, BrainGames, and StoryScience. This section is not academic.

The first one is My KoKo Monster, which is just a customizable monster according to your preference. 

2nd section is BrainGame. What I like about it is that the games are only accessible during 8am to 6 or 8pm, and there is a limit of 25 minutes per day for games. The games are also required to be unlocked, using the KoKo Credits earned.

There are 3-4 games under each broad topic - Energy, System, Life Science, Problem-solving, Interaction.

Third section is the StoryScience. You have to unlock the story books with KoKo Credits. 

Friends

This is shared between Koobits Math and Koobits Science. Each account has a friend code that they can give to their friend to add the friend into the list. 

Report

You can access both Koobits Math and Koobits Science from here, if you have access for both. The reports show you your progress.

Leaderboard

Leaderboards are what J loves checking out. It introduces some competition to the children and make them push themselves a little more. You can also access both Math and Science Leaderboards from here. There are more challenges at Koobits Math, so there are more types of leaderboards. 

For Science, there are currently only 2 types of leaderboards -- Hero of The Day and Top Brain

I think I have covered most, if not all, of the features available currently. 

Actually, a while back I was thinking of not renew-ing, because J hardly access it. 

However, as I was playing around with it, I really see the value Koobits Science can provide. What I especially like is the OEQs under KooTraining.  I like it that it has fill in the blanks for online OEQ, and that I can print the worksheets for offline practice. 

As I mentioned in Part 1, I think it's a good idea to first do the online practice to fill in the blank. At the same time, I think I will let J read and familiarise with the OEQ answer. And then make her do the offline practice, to write out the entire answer.

*

Ok that's all for now. 

If you are keen, go check them out! https://www.koobits.com/sg/science Sign up for their free trial to get a feel of it. 

And if you are thinking of getting both Math and Science, they do have bundle discount too! 

Hope this helps!

[Review] Koobits Science Review and Walkthrough (Part 1)

Here's the first part of a detailed Koobits Science review and walkthrough, covering KooChallenge and KooTraining.

Pricing for  Koobits Science is:

• Premium - $16.50/month - $198 billed Yearly
• Standard: $14/month - $168 billed Yearly

They also provide bundle discount if you are keen to get Koobits Math. 

I have signed J up for Koobits Math premium account for 2 years, and Koobits Science premium account for almost 1 year. Honestly, I have never sit down and try out. Actually I felt quite confused by it because there are many sections of questions and games. 

I asked J if she knows where she's navigating and if she understands what she's doing. She said yes and I let it be because I'm too lazy to figure things out.

Today, with some time on hand, I finally sat down to have a good look at Koobits Science -- also because I have friends asking me for feedback but I don't know what to tell them.

The first thing I did was to figure out what XP, CP, KoKo Credits are all about. See, this Koobits thingy is a gamified learning platform. And the last time I really sat down to play (and enjoy) games was before getting married and playing Maple Story. So this game thing is already quite foreign to me.

Took me a while, but here's what I found.

Here's some information I extracted under Help section in Koobits. 

About XP (For Leveling Up)

XP (experience point) is a cumulative point system across the lifetime of a student/child account. Users can level up and unlock badges by earning more XP.

Note: There is no option to reset XP level.

How to earn more XP?

Users can earn more XP by getting correct answers in Daily Challenge questions:

Daily Challenge difficulty levels 1 star to 3 stars: 1 XP per correct answer

Daily Challenge difficulty level 4 stars: 2 XP per correct answer

About CPs (Challenge Points) (For Leaderboards)

KooBits platform is essentially driven by 2 main reward systems - Challenge Points (CPs) & KoKo Credits.

Challenge Points (CPs) are earned by completing a variety of unique and exciting challenges that you can find all across the KooBits platform.

Earn Challenge Points by completing Daily Challenge, Peer Challenge or Sunday Mini Challenge

Challenge Points accumulated will be used in the computation of your ranking in the various Leaderboards (Hero of the Day, Top Brain etc)

About KoKo Credits -- For Unlocking

KoKo Credits is the virtual credit system in KooBits. It can be used to exchange for rewards, such as:

Unlocking latest StoryMath chapters

Unlocking past stickers in album

Unlocking any brain games

Unlocking KooClass lessons

About Scrolls (No use yet)

The scrolls are like credits. They represent mastery and they can be used when we launch more cool features in the future. Do stay tuned!

With that in mind, let's explore the features of Koobits Science.

KooChallenge

KooChallenge comprises of 3 sections -- Daily Challenge, Peer Challenge, Super Hero Challenge:

Daily Challenge

It has 5 questions of different level of difficulty. Each question will earn you 2 XP and between 1-3 CPs depending on difficulty. After completing 5 questions, you can open a Koko Gift Box containing certain amount of Koko Credits.

Peer Challenge

Peer Challenge is to challenge another user on a set of questions. The winner gets 3 CPs. Challenger can be randomly assigned, or click on the Recent list to send challenge to the specific user. I am unable to find how we can send challenge to friends in friend list though.

Super Hero Challenge

Super Hero Challenges are not really science-related. There are 2 challenges under this section, 1 is Super Vision Challenge, the other is Super Speed Challenge.  

Super Vision Challenge is more commonly known as "Spot The Difference". You are given 2 pictures, and will have to spot 5 differences within the given time limit. It can only be played once a day.

Super Speed Challenge is solving math equations as quick as possible. There's a practise mode to get some warm up before the actual challenge. It is really, erm, not easy.

KooTraining

Under KooTraining, there are 3 sections -- Mission, KooQuiz, and Assignment

Mission

Topics are broken down into sub-topics, and each sub-topics have questions to practise with. Other than your own level, you can also navigate to any levels P3 to P6 to do the questions.

After clicking into a sub-topic, there are 10 questions to answer, and completing the mission will earn you some KoKo Credits.

KooQuiz

Under KooQuiz, you can choose to work on Top School papers, or Open-Ended Questions, any level between P3 - P6. 

Top School papers (as shown below)-- Each paper contains MCQ questions, and completing a paper will earn you 20 KoKo Credits. KoKo Credits will only be rewarded once a week. 

There is also a Print button for you to print out the questions if you prefer to do it offline.

You can complete more papers but there will not be KoKo Credits given upon completing more papers.  

Open-Ended Questions (as shown below) -- There are 2 options under Open-Ended Questions, you can choose to do it online, or offline by printing out the questions.

For online practice, the questions are in the form of fill in the blanks, and not exactly EOQs. However, I think it is good because we can learn how to answer the EOQ from what is given. For best of both worlds, I think we can first let our kids do the online practice, read and learn how to answer the EOQ, and then do the offline version -- let them write out the answers according to what they have learnt at online practice.

Upon completion, 20 KoKo Credits will be awarded.

Assignment
For this section, you can find 2 options -- Create Personalised Assignment, and My Assignment. Create Personalised Assignment allows parents or children themselves to create assignments (homework), and My Assignment is the list of assignments they have.

If you click on "My Assignment" you will see a list of assignments that you have, past or present. It is share between Koobits Math and Koobits Science, as you can see, the Math homework is appearing in the list.

If you click on "Create Personalised Assignment" you can select the year/topic/number of questions that you can assign to yourself.

Stay tuned for the 2nd part. Here's part 2 of the walkthrough. Have to separate them because the post is getting a little too long. Next part, I'll be covering KooClass, KooFun, Friends, Report and Leaderboard.