WASSCE Candidates’ Weaknesses Literature-in-English And Remedies | Extract From Chief Examiners Report Towards WASSCE 2023
Teachers preparing students for any examination are always worried about the potential weaknesses in answers that their students will provide during the examination. Fortunately, the main examining body, the West Africa Examination Council always provide WASSCE candidates’ weaknesses in Literature-in-English during the last held examinations.
WAEC Summary of 2021 WASSCE Literature-in-English Paper Two (2)
A. SUMMARY OF CANDIDATES’ STRENGTHS
(1) A few of the candidates seemed to have a good knowledge of the texts.
(2) Some candidates managed to quote important portions of the texts to support their points.
(3) Remarkably, some candidates engaged more in the discussion of key points in the texts than mere narration.
B. SUMMARY OF CANDIDATES’ WEAKNESSES
(1) Poor grammatical and structural sentences abound in most of the responses.
(2) Most candidates showed little or no knowledge of the texts.
(3) Some candidates over reliance on commentaries of the texts was evident in their responses as they wrote very similar introductions and conclusions.
(4) Ideas were presented haphazardly by some candidates and this marred their work.
C. SUGGESTED REMEDIES
(1) Teachers must adequately involve candidates in class discussions of the novels to help candidates bring out their own ideas and interpretations of the novels.
(2) Teachers need to urge candidates to read the selected texts as required; give candidates reading assignments and have a reading session in class.
(3) Each point/idea presented in their responses must be adequately supported with textual evidence.
WAEC Summary of 2020 WASSCE Literature-in-English Paper Two (2)
A. SUMMARY OF CANDIDATES’ STRENGTHS
(1) A number of candidates showed good understanding of the questions and responded appropriately to them.
(2) Some candidates wrote good introductions devoid of biographies of authors and set out the task ahead.
(3) Good answers spelt out points and discussions clearly, paragraph by paragraph, using inter-paragraph links.
(4) A good number of the candidates displayed in-depth knowledge of the set texts and supported their points with relevant references.
B. SUMMARY OF CANDIDATES’ WEAKNESSES
(1) There were instances of very poor knowledge of the set texts. In some cases, it was apparent that the candidates had not read the texts at all.
(2) A good number of the candidates failed to either state the relevant themes or identify the characters or both.
(3) Some of them only regurgitated notes, commentaries, etc., which were not appropriate to the requirements of the questions.
(4) There were others who only presented sketchy answers; in some cases, only eight lines, or not up to half of a page.
(5) Many of the candidates demonstrated a lack of understanding of the questions as they presented answers that did not actually address the questions they were supposed to be responding to.
(6) A few of the candidates misspelt names of some characters and places, e.g. ‘bigger’ for ‘Bigger’; Oderlay’ for ‘Odarley’; ‘Poision’ for ‘Poison’; ‘Kabira’ for ‘Kabria’ ; and ‘Agboloshi’ for ‘Agbogbloshie’ .
C. SUGGESTED REMEDIES
To overcome the above-mentioned weaknesses, the following measures are recommended:
(1) Candidates should be made to understand that questions are set to elicit specific lines of reasoning and analysis, not mere narration of the entire plot. They should therefore be able to raise points and develop them for good marks.
(2) Students must be encouraged to buy and read set texts.
(3) A lot of assignments should be given, marked and discussed with students
(4) Teachers should read the Chief Examiner’s Report so as to know the weaknesses of students and correct them.
(5) Teachers should guide students to identify the various themes of the set texts and the relation of such themes to some practice/past questions.
(6) Workshops for teachers of Literature-in-English should be organised from time to time.
(7) Students must be taught the techniques of answering questions.
(8) Teachers should encourage students to finish reading the prescribed texts before reading any commentaries on them.
WAEC Summary of 2021 WASSCE Literature-in-English Paper Three (3)
A. SUMMARY OF CANDIDATES’ STRENGTHS
(1) A number of the candidates displayed some level of knowledge and understanding of the texts.
(2) The demands of the various questions appeared to have been generally understood.
(3) Attention was focussed more on attempting to answer questions than on irrelevant introductions on writers’ background and other published work.
(4) Candidates scoring high marks also demonstrated a skilful use of the language, good knowledge of texts and clarity of thought.
B. SUMMARY OF CANDIDATES’ WEAKNESSES
(1) Blind reliance on commentaries without significantly making contact with the texts.
(2) Churning out some wrong or inconsistent answers verbatim.
(3) Some candidates producing answers that were not related to the texts, or producing their own versions of the scene.
(4) Candidates indulged in overgeneralisation where specific references to the texts were required.
(5) Some candidates being unable to identify the genres and referring to them in a mutually inclusive manner.
(6) General unpreparedness, leading to the presentation of answers that could have been memorised and written under loose supervision.
C. SUGGESTED REMEDIES
(1) Candidates should be encouraged to reason and write independently of others in the examination halls.
(2) Candidates could avoid writing profiles of authors that have no bearing on questions asked.
(3) Where texts have film or video versions, candidates should stay off ‘extraneous scenes’ that are not found in the texts.
(4) For all texts studied, candidates should be able to identify themes, characters and literacy terms and briefly elaborate on them.
(5) Where questions on texts have contemporary relevance, candidates should not be over tempted to avoid specific references to the relevant parts of the texts
WAEC Summary of 2020 WASSCE Literature-in-English Paper Three (3)
A. SUMMARY OF CANDIDATES’ STRENGTHS
(1) Several candidates exhibited familiarity with the texts.
(2) Some candidates wrote good essays devoid of mere narrations.
(3) Good answers spelt out points and supported their points with relevant references.
B. SUMMARY OF CANDIDATES’ WEAKNESSES
(1) Generally poor use of English
(2) Inclusion of irrelevant biographical details of authors in candidates’ answers
(3) Relevant textual reference being often ignored
(4) Candidates avoiding reading the set texts and preferring to read commentaries instead.
C. SUGGESTED REMEDIES
To overcome the weaknesses of candidates, the following suggestions are made:
(1) Teachers should ensure that students study the prescribed texts and are given essay type exercises in class.
(2) Students must be taught how to answer questions appropriately.
(3) Students should engage in intensive and extensive reading of relevant novels and other supplementary readers to broaden their knowledge and acquire adequate vocabulary.
(4) There should be effective teaching and learning to ensure that the syllabus is totally covered before examination.
(5) Teachers should also read the Chief Examiner’s Report to be able to guide students.
(6) Teachers should guide students to identify the various themes of the set texts and the relation of such themes to some practice/past questions.
It is the hope of our team that candidates will perform better when teachers and candidates go through this summary of strengths, WASECE candidates’ weaknesses in Literature-in-English and remedies and apply same
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