Understanding PSLE Scoring: What Your Child's AL Score Actually Means
"AL3 for Maths, AL2 for Science" — most parents can recite their child's PSLE results within seconds of getting them, but a surprising number aren't fully sure what those numbers actually mean, or how they turn into a school place. Here's the scoring system laid out plainly, plus a calculator so you can see it work with real numbers.
HOW A RAW MARK BECOMES AN ACHIEVEMENT LEVEL
Each of the four PSLE subjects (English, Mother Tongue, Mathematics, Science) is graded on an 8-band Achievement Level scale, where AL1 is the strongest and AL8 the weakest. The bands are fixed nationally — they don't shift based on how the cohort performs that year, unlike the old T-score system, which graded students relative to everyone else who sat the exam. The published bands are:
AL1: 90 and above
AL2: 85 to 89
AL3: 80 to 84
AL4: 75 to 79
AL5: 65 to 74
AL6: 45 to 64
AL7: 20 to 44
AL8: Below 20
Notice how wide AL6 and AL7 are compared to the bands at the top. That's deliberate: MOE has explained that because slightly less than half of the PSLE cohort is expected to score AL1 to AL4 in a Standard-level subject, keeping the top bands narrow preserves meaningful differentiation among the students who cluster there — while the wider bands further down don't need that same precision.
FROM FOUR BANDS TO ONE NUMBER
Add up the AL for all four subjects and you get the PSLE Score — a single number between 4 (four AL1s, the best possible result) and 32 (four AL8s, the weakest). This is the number schools actually use for posting, not the individual subject grades. Try it yourself below:
Try it: what's the PSLE score?
Pick an Achievement Level for each subject and watch the total update.
English
Mother Tongue
Mathematics
Science
13
Total PSLE score
4 (best)32 (weakest)
Each subject scores AL1 (best) to AL8 (weakest); the four scores add up to a total between 4 and 32 — lower is better.
Meets the cut-offPosting Group 3 · 2025 cut-off AL22
Based on each school's own published PSLE Score Range from the 2025 Secondary 1 Posting Exercise, sourced directly from MOE SchoolFinder — a reference only. Cut-off points shift year to year with each cohort, meeting a score doesn't guarantee a place (tie-breaking can still apply), and this list covers a handful of schools, not all 141. Check SchoolFinder directly for the full, current picture.
WHEN TWO STUDENTS HAVE THE SAME SCORE
Because the bands are wide, especially lower down, it's common for many students to land on the exact same PSLE Score. When a school has fewer remaining places than there are students with that tied score, MOE breaks the tie in a fixed order: citizenship (Singapore Citizens first, then Permanent Residents, then international students), then the order in which the student ranked that school among their choices, and if it's still tied after that, computerised balloting. It's worth knowing this exists — a student can meet a school's cut-off point and still not get in, purely on the ballot.
WHAT THE SCORE ISN'T
A PSLE Score is a snapshot of one exam sat over a few days in one particular year. It says nothing about a subject a student didn't sit for, and — worth remembering on the harder weeks — it says nothing about the kind of learner, worker, or person your child is going to become. It's simply the number the posting system runs on.
If a subject's AL band is landing lower than your child (or you) would like, that's usually a sign of a specific, fixable gap — not a verdict. GrandMaster connects families with verified tutors across every PSLE subject, so there's support in exactly the areas that need it, however far out from the exam you're starting.
