EPH Publishing, RM38.90, ISBN 978-967-254-737-2
Education, 2025

In my review of Focus SPM: Sejarah, I mentioned that that reference book has plenty of good stuff, but paradoxically it is very stingy when it comes to doling out the good stuff. One gets plenty of relevant, up to date tips about the Sejarah—History in Bahasa Melayu—paper, but the book offers so few practice questions that there are inadequate opportunities to put what one has learned into practice.

What happens should there be one more that has all the good things about Focus SPM: Sejarah, only to have all of these good things in greater numbers?

That’s Success Plus SPM: Sejarah. Seriously, EPH Publishing is really showing the other publishers in town how things are done around here—great job!

The Authors

Two of the six authors, Ridzuan Hasan and Muslimin Fadzil, are mentioned on the cover as textbook authors. Encik Ridzuan is one of the co-authors of the Form Five Sejarah textbook, while Encik Muslimin is one of the co-authors of the Form Four Sejarah textbook. Both men have really long illustrious careers in teaching, writing, and evaluating reference materials as far as Sejarah goes, and had this book been published by, say, Sasbadi, there would a long list of credentials next to these men’s names on the cover!

The other authors have a list of Sejarah reference books and workbooks to their names, some dating back almost up to a decade ago.

Design

• This book has no gimmicks like “15 extra pages of secret tips to scoring”. It goes straight to the reference notes and practice exercises without getting too loud or flashy about it.
• A few pages are colored, but for the most part, the bulk of this book boasts two to three colors per page.
• Not that this is a bad thing, because the book makes use of the real estate in every page to pack lots of information in the form of points, charts, diagrams, and more while still retaining enough white space to keep things from appearing too cluttered.
• Unlike other Sejarah reference books, this one is surprisingly generous with the images, especially photos of various Sejarah “celebrities”. The publisher has found a sneaky way to circumvent paying royalties to various copyright holders, it seems, by using illustrations of these “celebrities” that seem suspiciously like pics having some AI filters applied, haha. Not that I am complaining, as the presence of these images add some flavor to the text and helps to keep the act of revising a particular chapter from being dry and dull.

Sure, this book may appear old school and basic, but its usability is off the room. Sometimes, going back to basics is the way!

Once Again, an EPH Publishing Reference Book Assumes that KBAT Means Kicks Butt

KBAT (Kemahiran Berfikir Aras Tinggi; High Order Thinking Skills or HOTS) is designed to test a candidate’s ability to evaluate, analyze, and justify, so about 40% of Kertas 2 is made up of KBAT questions.

The whole “analyze and justify” thing is a smokescreen, however, as there is no way a candidate will score full marks by advocating, say, the joys of communism or the abolishment of the monarchy in their responses. What the candidate is expected to do is to regurgitate a set of acceptable narratives—everything the government does is awesome, the status quo is the way to go, et cetera—which puts Sejarah in line with other similarly inclined subjects such as Bahasa Melayu and, for non-Muslims, Pendidikan Moral.

If you have a decent mastery of those two subjects, therefore, the KBAT questions of the SPM Sejarah paper shouldn’t be that hard as long as one also has a decent understanding of the historical events referenced in these questions.

When it comes to KBAT, Success Plus SPM: Sejarah offers the most ROI: it has plenty of KBAT stuff here, including mini-quizzes, Q&As, and a generous amount of practice questions at the each of each chapter. Therefore, candidates using this book as their main Sejarah reference would also be getting hands-on “it’s just like the actual paper” practice. Awesome!

Also, the questions, KBAT or not, can be challenging. The KBAT questions, in particular, don’t just ask candidates about moral values; they also ask the candidates to analyze the visual stimulus, elaborate on their analysis, and so forth. It’s all very similar to the karangan respons terhad stuff in the SPM Bahasa Melayu paper, yes, and candidates using this book will be getting plenty of practice and getting a good idea of what the actual SPM Sejarah paper would be like.

As for the rest of the book, the content is pretty standard, but it is presented in a nice balance of words and images or diagrams. It’s very readable, like a novel, which I always say is an underrated aspect of learning history: the best history reference books make you feel like you’re reading an exciting novel, and the more engaged you are in the story, the more you will remember when it comes to the details such as names, places, dates, events, and so forth.

Conclusion

• Easily one of the best, if not the best, SPM Sejarah reference books in the market at the moment. It has everything great about Focus SPM: Sejarah (KBAT focus, presentation of charts and diagrams) and Masterclass SPM: Sejarah (readability, compact and detailed notes, generous number of practice questions) in one package and improves on these great things.
• Also, the practice questions can be tough, giving candidates plenty of challenge, and the KBAT questions are scarily close in terms of presentation and style in the actual SPM Sejarah paper. Using this book would make it unlikely for the candidate to expect nasty surprises in the exam hall.
• The only thing keeping it from being absolutely perfect is the lack of audio notes, which Masterclass SPM: Sejarah offers, but hey, nothing is perfect!