Penerbit Ilmu Bakti, RM16.90, ISBN 978-629-473-237-7
Education, 2024

Revisi Pemantapan Penulisan SPM Bahasa Melayu is another karangan revision book that helps candidate to get ready for Kertas 1, the composition paper, but it presents a different approach: it teaches candidates how the scoring system works.

In other words, if one is hoping to game the paper, this is the book that would surely intrigue them!

Author

Based on the back cover, Rosman bin Omar has over 34 years of experience teaching Bahasa Melayu and he’s currently a lecturer on the subject.

Design

Clean with plenty of white space, which is good as karangan books are basically walls of text and this design makes it easy to read the book. The font size is pretty big too.

What’s the Content Like?

This book is best suited for candidates with average to above average proficiency in Bahasa Melayu, but it operates on the assumption that the candidate is already well-versed in how to write a decent karangan.

What the author does is to demystify the marking process.

He also covers the basics, such as:

• How to identify the key or focus points in the visual or article stimulus; interestingly enough, for the longer composition question, identifying five key points will be enough to score a “Cemerlang” as long as the essay has also enough ungkapan indah to wow the examiner.
• In other words, this is more of a “spot the isi penting needed” hunting game than having to rack the brain to come up with original talking points!
• What happens if the candidate offers their own isi penting? Well, the author dishes on that.
• What happens if the candidate completely misses all the points but still presents ample, logical key points of their own in a well-written composition? Unfortunately, the most this candidate will get is “Baik” — basically a pass.

The author includes the expected glossaries of ungkapan indah and peribahasa, all of which have Arabic and Islamic bent, which is great.

However, like the authors of Focus SPM: Bahasa Melayu, he also introduces his own system of how to spot the focus points for both sections of Kertas 1, how to write each key point into a composition and back things up with elaboration and examples, et cetera. Each sample composition has annotations referring to his system.

In other words, the author isn’t just introducing tips and tricks; he is actively showing the candidates in a very detailed manner how his karangan system can be put to work. It’s pretty awesome, even if I suspect that some candidates may find the whole thing a bit of an information overload.

Conclusion

• The language used in this book assumes that the candidate already has a proficient grasp of Bahasa Melayu, so candidates that are struggling with the language should still consider getting a tutor first.
• However, candidates that have pretty decent to advanced proficiency that want to figure out the scoring system and the unspoken rules of Kertas 1 will find the author’s “secret tips” most intriguing. If anything, it will help them fine-tune their karangan so that they won’t accidentally run afoul of the marking rubrics and lose marks unnecessarily!
• The author’s meticulously dissection on how every one of the model compositions in this book (even those in the answer section!) conform to his karangan-writing system can also be useful in improving one’s karangan.

All in all, it’s worth a look, especially given that it’s not particularly expensive for the content it offers in return.