BECE Chief Examiner’s Report for English Language: Candidates Strength, Weakness And Recommendations
Many of the candidates demonstrated a clear understanding of the passage. There was a remarkable improvement in candidates’ use of language. Candidates paid particular attention to the rubrics. Paragraphs were well written and effectively linked.
BECE Chief Examiner’s Report for English Language: SUMMARY OF CANDIDATES’ WEAKNESSES
Some of the candidates seemed to have lost focus on the requirements of the essay questions. Even where relevant points were raised, they were left unexplained.
Again, there were others who displayed a lack of appropriate vocabulary items and this hindered their ability to express themselves clearly and meaningfully.
Grammatical/ syntactical errors marred the quality of the answers of almost all the candidates, thereby significantly diminishing their marks.
It seemed some of the candidates did not read the comprehension passage before proceeding to answer the questions on it, as their answers were completely unrelated to the given passage. There were others who simply copied portions of the passage and passed them off as answers without caring about whether they were appropriate responses to the questions.
Again, some candidates did not number their answers or used a form of numbering different from the one used in the question paper. This practice should be avoided as it makes candidates’ work difficult to mark.
In part C (Literature), many of the candidates displayed very little acquaintance with the set texts from The Cockcrow and obtained appallingly low marks. Questions on figures of speech posed great difficulty to most of the candidates. In addition, some candidates wrote wrong/ meaningless/ irrelevant answers while others wrote no answers at all.
Vocatives were omitted; some candidates did not take sides in debates.
Candidates wrote irrelevant answers for some of the essay questions.
Some candidates showed inadequate knowledge of the Literature texts.
Candidates spent a lot of time on the essays to the detriment of other sections.
In addition, the BECE Chief Examiner’s Report for the English Language explains the strength of students in the previous which must be emulated by those preparing for the next BECE examination.
BECE Chief Examiner’s Report for the English Language: Candidates’ Strengths and Weakness
SUMMARY OF CANDIDATES’ STRENGTHS
According to the report, some candidates did remarkably well in a number of areas.
Under Content, a good number of them answered the descriptive essay very well (Describe your favourite game) and were able to mention the types of games that should be encouraged in their schools while many who answered
In respect of Expression and Organization respectively, many of them made judicious use of the language and displayed a remarkable degree of knowledge of the formal features of the essays they wrote. The paragraphs were well-developed and logically linked.
Some of the candidates seemed to be adept at answering questions on the comprehension and literature aspects of the paper, as their works in these parts were good.
EXAMINER’S SUGGESTED REMEDIES – BECE Chief Examiner’s Report for the English Language
(1) Candidates should pay more attention to the study of the grammar and structure of the English language.
(2) They should be helped to distinguish between the form/format of the various types of essays.
(3) They should read widely and also use the dictionary often so as to improve upon their stock of vocabulary and power of expression.
(4) They should be made to do a lot of exercises on essay writing.
(5) They should be encouraged to diligently read the texts in The Cockcrow.
(6) They should study literary devices in order that they would be able to identify them in texts.
(7) They should read the questions carefully for thorough understanding before proceeding to answer them.
(8) They should be helped to learn the techniques of answering the various types of questions on comprehension passages, especially the wh-questions.
(9) Candidates should read not for pleasure only but to improve upon their usage of the language.
(10) Students should be given more lessons and explanations on every aspect of the syllabus.
(11) Candidates should also pay particular attention to the prescribed texts to be able to answer the questions set.
We have no doubt that this post on BECE Chief Examiner’s Report for the English Language: Candidate’s Strength, Weakness And Recommendations will go a long way to help candidates to prepare for the BECE.
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