KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 24 ― The Education Ministry denied today that it had set this year’s UPSR Chinese examination for primary schoolers to the same level as SPM, which are taken by Form Five students before they leave secondary school.

The ministry said the Examination Syndicate based the test questions on each year's academic syllabus.

“The accusation that UPSR Chinese test questions were based on SPM Chinese is untrue. The questions were based on the Chinese Language syllabus,” the ministry said in a written reply to Sibu MP Oscar Ling who yesterday asked for an explanation to claims there were SPM-level questions in the 2015 UPSR Chinese tests.

“The Examination Syndicate has a standard procedure to set the criteria in choosing the text excerpts such as text length, text context (scope and dimension) and readability, socio-cultural and the vocabulary used,” it added.

The ministry added that any published material, even those from China, can be used as long as they fulfilled the syndicate's criteria.

In September, Standard Six pupils taking the UPSR Chinese examination were reported to have left their examination hall in tears.

Local daily The Star reported later reported some of the UPSR students claiming some of their Chinese test questions to be copied from an SPM-level book.