You may be at the fourth or fifth year of your secondary school education, about to take the O-levels at the end of the year and thinking: How can I can Deduct the maximum marks for my L1R5? To deduct the maximum number of marks off your L1R5, here are five key areas you can look at:

CCA Points
CCA points is the category that many students will tap on. Depending on their CCA grade, students can get a maximum of 2 bonus points. Getting an excellent grade will allow the deduction of 2 points, and a good grade will allow students to deduct 1 point off their L1R5. Do refer to our previous post on How to tackle MOE's LEAP system with the right activities to learn how get the maximum score for this category.

Taking Higher Mother Tongue (HMT)
Taking the Higher Mother Tongue (HMT) at the O-levels and getting a pass grade will allow students to be eligible to deduct 2 points off their L1R5 score.

Malay/Chinese Special Programme (MSP/CSP)
Students who took up MSP/CSP in their secondary school and obtained a pass grade can also deduct 2 points off their L1R5 score. Alternatively, they are allowed to use their MSP/CSP grade in replacement of a Humanities subject grade.

School Affiliation
This may not be applicable to all, but certain schools are affiliated to some junior colleges. Applying for schools that are affiliated will allow students to deduct up to 2 points as well.

For more information on the affiliated schools, do refer to the Joint Admission Exercise (JAE) booklet.

Opting to take Language Elective Programmes (LEPs) at JC
Students who opt to take up the Chinese Language Elective Programme (CLEP) or Malay Language Elective Programme (MLEP) at the junior colleges will be eligible to deduct another 2 points.

Conclusion
The above are the five key areas where students can look at to deduct the maximum number of points off their L1R5. All in all, students can only deduct a maximum number of 6 points off their L1R5 from any of the categories above. For more information, do refer to the MOE website.