H1 General Paper A-Level Syllabus 8881/01 (2024) Paper 1 Essay Questions

The H1 General Paper examination was a little over two months ago. To satisfy your curiosity, here is the list of GCE A-Level 2024 Essay Questions for the new syllabus (8881/01):

1. To what extent are science and technology able to solve the problem of waste disposal?
2. How desirable is it for a country to provide free healthcare for all its citizens?
3. Evaluate the measures taken in your society to deter crime and punish criminals.
4. ‘Education today should involve more than the study of academic subjects.’ How far do you agree?
5. Assess the view that it is always right to challenge injustice.
6. ‘Online advertisements use increasingly sophisticated methods to target consumers.’ To what extent does this bring more harm than good?
7. ‘Humour is essential for an individual’s well-being.’ Discuss.
8. ‘There is a lack of appreciation for the value of music.’ How far is this true in your society?

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As this is the final year for the old syllabus (8807/01), here’s the additional questions:

1. ‘The most important responsibility of parents is to teach their children values.’ Discuss.
2. ‘The problem with social media is that everyone talks but no one listens.’ Evaluate the claim.
3. To what extent are autobiographies a reliable way of learning about well-known historical figures?
4. Consider the view that profitability should be the highest priority of a business.

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Here are some general observations (*more pertaining to 8881 new syllabus):

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1. Essay questions appear to touch on niche topics or sub-themes that students often don’t specially prepare for (e.g. crime and punishment, humour and waste disposal).

• Students need to be calm and discerning when choosing the RIGHT question instead of panicking when they see unfamiliar keywords.
• Students should not immediately choose essay questions that cover familiar themes as there may be hidden traps (*see point 3 below).

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2. There are fewer broad-based questions.

• There are certain years where keywords like ‘happiness’ and ‘success’ appear. They are considered broad-based questions, especially since such keywords can be highly subjective. Thus, students will have to explicitly define these keywords, which may include one’s economic situation and personal aspirations that determine personal happiness and/ or success. Additionally, there is a need to consider societal structures and characteristics that impact the people’s ability to be happy and/ or successful.
• For this year, the question that perhaps bears some links to broad-based questions would be Question 5 where ‘injustice’ can be broadly defined, though it primarily means that there is some societal, governmental and/ or systemic failure that resulted in this.

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3. There are doable essay questions but with caveats.

• Question 1 is a question that appears to greatly disappoint students. It centres on a popular theme of Science & Technology but focuses only on waste disposal. This means students must cover BOTH scientific research and technological innovations that are geared towards managing waste (e.g. incineration, recycling and upcycling processes, and even managing food waste)
• Question 4 is a popular question as it is tied to the theme of Education and is closely tied to students’ lived realities. A common issue is the lack of concrete examples, especially if they are used to including statistics as part of their examples in essays. However, if students are adaptable enough, they should realise that measures and initiatives initiated by schools and governments are the winning examples for this essay. Additionally, apart from Singapore examples, they must include certain initiatives put forth by other countries’ education systems to broaden their scope and increase their content marks. For example, countries like Finland and the Netherlands have started to integrate digital literacy into their curriculum where students are taught to discern inaccurate online information.
• Question 6 is a Comparative Question type where students need to weigh the benefits and demerits of technology, but in a particularly niche topic of advertisements and marketing. Students have to bring in instances of certain advertisements put forth by businesses and the online reception of the masses. This could include the use of Artificial Intelligence (A.I) to create advertisements or using A.I to drive and analyse algorithms to better target customers.

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Final comments:

Overall, GCE 2024 Paper 1 essay questions are manageable but more limited, mainly because instead of 12 questions, the new syllabus has limited the question set to 8. Furthermore, the themes that came out are either less popular topics that students tend to study and prepare for or are too niche. Hence, this may impact students’ level of confidence during the exams. Nonetheless, students who managed to recall writing skills and techniques on the spot when presenting arguments and examples would find the paper somewhat manageable. 

While building content knowledge is important, skills and techniques to make effective and sound arguments are important as well – and perhaps in the most critical period, crucial to scoring well. 

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Relevant Links:

https://data.europa.eu/en/publications/datastories/digital-literacy-eu-overview

Check out the post below regarding updated syllabus for the GCE A-Levels General Paper exam.

Updated A-Level Syllabus 8807 to 8881 (2024 and beyond)