Pelangi Publishing, RM34.95, ISBN 978-629-498-080-8
Education, 2025

When it comes to Bahasa Melayu revision books for the Malaysian Education Certificate or SPM exam, the publication house Sasbadi has always gained a foothold as the authoritative—or at least, the most authoritative-seeming—source.

Pelangi Publishing, however, has really stepped up to the plate and proven to be a worthy contender to the throne!

Authors

Focus SPM: Bahasa Melayu boasts three authors: Azahar Bahari, who seems to be every Bahasa Melayu workbook put out by this publisher as well as a textbook author, and two new authors to the roster—tuition teacher Travis Shuit and the tuition teacher Joey Tan.

Given that two of the three authors are either making a name or well known in the Bahasa Melayu tuition circuit, perhaps it is unsurprising that this book reads like pages from a tuition class handout note… and that’s a good thing!

Design

Pretty standard design, but the 2025 edition shows a marked improvement from the 2023 edition in that there is more white space. This means the content feels less cluttered.

There are many infographics and images to make things feel less wordy and hence less overwhelming.

However, I am curious as to why the side of the pages have three different tabs, but only the middle tab is used to indicate the chapters of the book. This makes the tabs useless when it comes to getting to a certain chapter quickly, and isn’t that what these tabs are supposed to do in the first place?

Content

Make no mistake, the best part of this book is the composition chapter. The authors delineate many “formulas” and “must-do” tips and advice that come with their own easy-to-remember mnemonics like KFC (kesan, faktor, cadangan).

These tips are laid out in detailed, step-by-step manner complete with annotated examples, which would be very helpful to students with lower to middle proficiency when it comes to writing compositions in Bahasa Melayu. They won’t become natural in writing, but they will hopefully score decent marks from following these tips. That’s all that really matters when it comes to getting that necessary credit in this paper!

The rest of the content is standard Bahasa Melayu reference book stuff, although my eyebrows are raised when I notice a complete lack of simpulan bahasa and peribahasa glossary. The part of the paper asking candidates to drop these proverbs and idioms at the drop of hat is arguably one of the toughest parts of the paper, so this lack is very glaring indeed. Maybe this is a strategy for the publisher to sell complementary books, who knows, but still!

Content Style

The content reminds me a lot of my own Bahasa Melayu tuition days. Those who have been there would know what I am taking about: our tuition teachers drilling us about how many isi penting must be included in this part of the paper, whether we need to arrange the content in a specific manner, et cetera—it’s more about mastering the tricks of the trade than genuinely learning the language, and that’s fair as the main purpose here is to pass the exam with a credit.

Therefore, as I am thumbing through this book, there are times when I can imagine the voice of my teachers saying out loud the things I am reading!

Conclusion

• Presentation and design – average, nothing special.
• Content – very useful for SPM candidates with weak to middling proficiency. Those with higher levels of proficiency may find the tips to perhaps be too exhaustive and mechanical, as they are better able to just jump into things and write it out, so to speak.
• However, the lack of glossary for peribahasa and simpulan bahasa means that Focus SPM: Bahasa Melayu is not the complete be-all and end-all of one’s SPM Bahasa Melayu reference book. They will have to either make their own glossary or buy one of those reference books specializing on Bahasa Melayu idioms and proverbs on top of owning this book.
• Hence, I would say this one is almost highly recommended for students that need more help than usual for this subject, while students with better proficiency would probably find it better for their budget to instead buy a more complete reference book on this subject.