Tips on How to Pass English in WASSCE & NECO Examinations – Summary

 Tips on How to Pass English in WASSCE & NECO Examinations  –  Summary

 SUMMARY

Instructions:  Read the instruction(s) before any other thing.  This section usually carries 40 marks, and you will be required to spend 40 minutes on it.  You will be required to read a given prose passage (of about 500 words) chosen from a wide variety of sources, from any part of the world, but within the level of your understanding, as a candidate of WASSCE or NECO.  You will then be asked to answer all the questions that will be propounded. 

          In this section, your examiner will be testing your ability in the areas of:

(a)  Summarising of the essential points, in concise but clear English, with avoidance of repetition and superfluity (too many words);

(b) Extraction or filtering of relevant information from the passage; and

(c)  Summing up of specific aspects or parts of the passage.

What You Need To Know Beforehand:

Often times, candidates are given a passage which highlights a problem in the society, or a situation which needs serious attention, a contemporary issue or something of interest to people. 

You will be asked to provide six (6) answers, each in a sentence.  You may be asked two (2) questions, each requiring three (3) answers or four answers for the first question and two (2) answers for the 2nd question (to make up the total of six questions); or you may be asked three (3) questions, each requiring two (2) answers. 

The first question may require that you mention problems or trends highlighted in the passage, and the second may require that you mention the solutions as enumerated in the passage.

Be confident that with good preparation, you can get almost all the 30 marks allotted for summary, if you abide by the given instructions.

What You Should Do To Ensure Success

Just like in the case of Comprehension, first, read through the passage once, with deep concentration.  Go through the questions.  Then read the passage a second time, taking note of the key or topic sentence and other pertinent points as you read.  Please endeavour to read fast and have a good grasp of the content of the passage to enable you answer the questions well.

          Please be guided as follows: 

-         Ensure that you write all your answers in short sentences; doing otherwise will make you to lose half of the marks.

-         Ensure that your answers are grammatically correct.  Even though you may write an answer correctly, you will still lose half of the mark if the answer is grammatically wrong.

-         Do not lift or copy the exact words used in the passage, as your answers.  You will score nothing if you copy answers from the passage.  So, please use your own words to provide your answers, but with the right points in the passage, implied in your sentences.

-         Avoid the usage of conjunctions or linking words like: however, moreover, also, furthermore, finally, as a matter of fact, conclusively etc.  Such words are considered to unnecessary in summary, as brevity is what your examiner is after, here.

-         Avoid using examples and illustrations in your answers even though they may be in the passage given to you.   Examples and illustrations are only used to drive points home or to make them clearer; they are not the main points.  So, as a summarist, your examination duty is to bring out only the main points; going beyond that, will cause you loss of some marks.

-         Do not use figures of speech or superfluous or flowery words in your answers.  Summary is not composition where you are free to express yourself in order to earn more marks.  What is needed from you in summary, is short answers based on the given passage, to be written in short sentences.

-         In line with the instructions given to you, do not make more than one point in a sentence.  Each of your sentences should carry one point.

-         Do not write more than the required number of sentences.  Your six (6) answers should be in six (6) sentences, and not more.

-         Do not give any answer based on your experience or on external source(s). 

-         Restrict yourself to only what you have in the passage.

-         Do not repeat any point in your answers.

When you have finished writing, please take few minutes to read through your work before moving to the next paper.

 

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