Sri Lanka Teachers' Service Graduate Open Exam cheat sheet

Sri Lanka's 1978 Constitution (as amended) is the supreme law; the President is both Head of State and Head of Government, and Parliament has 225 members elected for a 5-year term.

The 13th Amendment (1987) created Provincial Councils and made Tamil an official language alongside Sinhala; English is the link language.

Sri Lanka's administrative hierarchy is: Central government, Province (9), District (25), Divisional Secretariat, and Grama Niladhari division.

The 21st Amendment (2022) restored the two-term presidential limit and re-established Constitutional Councils for independent commissions.

Key economic indicators reported by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka include GDP growth, inflation (CCPI), trade balance, and foreign reserves; the currency is the Sri Lankan Rupee (LKR).

Sri Lanka is a member of SAARC, the Commonwealth, the UN, and BIMSTEC; it joined the IMF-supported reform programme in 2023.

Major national observances: Independence Day (4 February), Sinhala and Tamil New Year (April), Vesak (May full moon), and National Teachers' Day (6 October).

Current affairs should be verified against official sources such as the Department of Government Information, the Central Bank, and the Department of Examinations.

Piaget's stages: sensorimotor (0-2), preoperational (2-7), concrete operational (7-11), formal operational (11+); children in primary grades typically operate at the concrete level.

Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development is the gap between what a learner can do alone and with assistance; scaffolding is temporary support within the ZPD.

Erikson's psychosocial stages relevant to schooling: industry vs inferiority (6-12) and identity vs role confusion (adolescence).

Kohlberg's moral development: preconventional (rewards/punishment), conventional (social approval/rules), postconventional (universal principles).

Maslow's hierarchy runs physiological, safety, belonging, esteem, self-actualisation; lower needs must be reasonably met before higher ones motivate.

Classical conditioning (Pavlov) pairs a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned one; operant conditioning (Skinner) uses reinforcement and punishment to shape behaviour.

Positive reinforcement increases behaviour by adding a stimulus; negative reinforcement increases behaviour by removing an aversive one; punishment decreases behaviour.

Memory: sensory register, short-term/working memory (limited capacity), and long-term memory; chunking and rehearsal improve retention.

A curriculum has intended, implemented, and attained dimensions; alignment between objectives, activities, and assessment is called constructive alignment.

Bloom's revised taxonomy orders cognitive objectives: remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate, create.

Aims are long-term societal purposes; goals are intermediate; objectives are specific, measurable, and time-bound (often written with ABCD: audience, behaviour, condition, degree).

Learner-centred pedagogy uses active learning, questioning, group work, and problem-solving rather than passive transmission of content.

Formative assessment supports learning during instruction; summative assessment judges achievement at the end of a unit or course.

The spiral curriculum (Bruner) revisits concepts at increasing levels of complexity across grades.

Differentiation adapts content, process, product, or learning environment to learner readiness, interest, and profile.

The Sri Lankan school curriculum is organised by key stages (primary 1-5, junior secondary 6-9, senior secondary 10-13) and is guided by the National Education Commission and Ministry of Education.

Reliability is consistency of measurement; validity is whether an assessment measures what it claims to measure.

Classical test theory: observed score = true score + error; reliability is the ratio of true-score variance to observed-score variance.

Item difficulty (p) is the proportion answering correctly; item discrimination (D) is the difference in p between high and low scoring groups (0.3 or above is generally acceptable).

A norm-referenced test compares a student to others; a criterion-referenced test compares performance to defined learning outcomes.

Descriptive statistics: mean (average), median (middle value), mode (most frequent); standard deviation measures dispersion around the mean.

A z-score expresses a score in standard deviation units above or below the mean; a T-score has mean 50 and standard deviation 10.

A test blueprint (table of specifications) maps items to content areas and cognitive levels to ensure balanced coverage.

In Sri Lankan schools, continuous assessment marks contribute to term and grade promotion decisions alongside terminal examinations.

The Ministry of Education sets national policy; Provincial Councils administer provincial schools through Provincial Departments of Education; national schools are administered centrally.

Compulsory education covers ages 5 to 14, corresponding to Grades 1 to 9.

The school structure is 1-5 primary, 6-9 junior secondary, 10-11 senior secondary (GCE O-Level), and 12-13 collegiate (GCE A-Level).

The Sri Lanka Teachers' Service is governed by the Teachers' Service Minute; recruitment, promotion, and discipline follow Public Service Commission and Ministry rules.

Teacher transfers, appointments, and promotions are handled through established procedures including the Teachers' Service provisions and circulars issued by the Ministry of Education.

The National Institute of Education develops curriculum, textbooks, and teacher guides; the Department of Examinations conducts national examinations.

The Code of Conduct for teachers is enforced through disciplinary procedures; professional development and in-service training (e.g., NIE programmes) support promotion.

Education is a fundamental right under the Constitution; the state is obliged to provide free education from primary through university level.

A lesson plan typically contains objectives, prior knowledge, introduction, development (teacher and student activities), application, and evaluation or closure.

The 5E model sequences instruction as Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate.

Subject-specific methodology should align with the nature of the discipline: experimentation in science, source analysis in history, problem-solving in mathematics, and communicative tasks in languages.

Assessment items must match the cognitive level of the objective; a recall objective should not be assessed with an application-level task.

Teaching aids and resources (charts, models, digital simulations) should support the stated objective, not merely decorate the lesson.

Concept mapping and graphic organisers help learners see relationships among ideas within a subject.

Feedback should be specific, timely, and actionable; descriptive feedback outperforms grades alone for improving learning.

Reflective practice: teachers review lesson outcomes against objectives and adjust future planning accordingly.

ICT in education includes computer-assisted learning, learning management systems, and digital content delivery; the aim is pedagogical improvement, not technology for its own sake.

TPACK describes the integration of Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge for effective teaching with technology.

SAMR (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition) describes levels of technology integration, from replacing tools to transforming tasks.

Digital literacy includes safe and responsible use of the internet, data privacy, and awareness of cyberbullying.

Blended learning combines face-to-face instruction with online components; flipped learning delivers content before class and uses class time for active work.

Open Educational Resources (OER) are freely licensed materials that can be reused and adapted with attribution.

The school computer laboratory and ICT curriculum are supported by the Ministry of Education and NIE resources; ICT is a subject in the school curriculum and a cross-cutting tool.

When using digital tools, teachers should check accessibility, age-appropriateness, and alignment with learning objectives.

Tenses: present simple for habits and general truths, present continuous for ongoing actions, past simple for completed past actions, and present perfect for past actions with present relevance.

Articles: 'a/an' for indefinite reference and 'the' for specific or previously mentioned nouns; countable singular nouns need an article.

Subject-verb agreement: singular subjects take singular verbs; collective nouns may take singular or plural verbs depending on emphasis.

Prepositions of time: 'in' for months/years, 'on' for days/dates, 'at' for clock times.

Passive voice: object becomes subject; form is auxiliary 'be' plus past participle.

Reported speech shifts tense back one step and adjusts pronouns and time expressions.

Conditionals: zero (general truths), first (real future), second (unreal present), third (unreal past).

Punctuation and cohesion: commas separate clauses, semicolons join related independent clauses, and cohesive devices (however, therefore, moreover) link ideas.

Sinhala script is derived from Brahmi; it has 18 vowels (including 10 short/long pairs), 41 consonants, and a set of dependent vowel signs (pili).

Tamil script has 12 vowels, 18 consonants, and one special character (aytham); combined letters are formed by adding vowel signs to consonants.

Sinhala and Tamil are both official languages under the 13th Amendment; English is the link language.

Sandhi and word formation rules differ between the two languages; accurate spelling and agreement are assessed in language papers.

In Sinhala, verb forms agree with person and number; in Tamil, verbs inflect for person, number, and gender.

Language papers typically test comprehension, grammar, vocabulary, and composition (essay or letter writing).

Formal writing conventions: correct salutation, paragraphing, and register appropriate to the context.

Reading comprehension requires identifying main idea, supporting detail, inference, and the writer's purpose.

Number series: check differences, ratios, squares, cubes, and alternating patterns before concluding a rule.

Analogies: identify the relationship type (part-whole, cause-effect, function, category) and apply it consistently.

Syllogisms: use Venn diagrams to check whether a conclusion necessarily follows from the premises; 'some' statements do not imply 'all'.

Coding-decoding: map letters to numbers or shifted alphabets (e.g., A=1) and test the rule against all given examples.

Direction sense: draw a diagram and track net displacement using north-south and east-west components.

Blood relations: draw a family tree and mark gender and generation levels explicitly.

Data interpretation: compute averages, percentages, and ratios from tables or charts, checking units carefully.

Time and work: if a person completes work in n days, the rate is 1/n per day; combine rates by addition for workers acting together.