Students in Basic 9 this year will be candidates for the WAEC-administered BECE in 2025, and these students need to be educated on the simple things they must do to pass the BECE in about a year. Education-News Consult does not believe in forcing learners to acquire these basic exam-passing skills at the last hour.
Teachers, parents, schools, and heads of schools must ensure that their learners in Basic 7-9 are introduced to these tips and skills now so that it becomes part of the learners early.
What Are The Top 6 Essential Exam Skills Basic 9 Students Must Learn Now to Pass 2025 BECE?
No. 1: Question reading and comprehension
Mastering the Top 6 Essential Exam Skills Basic 9 Students Need to Pass 2025 BECE starts with mastering question comprehension.
You might have heard countless times that “understanding the question is part of the examination.”. This is a fact, but sadly, our learners sometimes rush into answering questions without carefully taking time to understand the question and what is expected of them as answers. Learners must be taught to read and understand questions before attempting them.
This will ensure that the answers are not only directed to the questions but also that the answers are really what the examiner is expecting.
Teachers must start observing their learners way of answering class exercise questions, test questions, and quiz questions to be able to tell if their learners are really understanding questions and keywords used in them. This way, they can also come up with strategies to help their learners.
No. 2: Question Selection
The quality of a learner’s performance can be negatively affected by the selection of the wrong questions in a class exercise or in an exam or a class test. Some learners who fail to read and answer the questions will end up choosing questions they may not be able to answer well when there are other questions they can answer better.
Students must always be advised to select questions they can answer confidently when given the option to choose. The way learners are taught respective topics and subjects can influence their choices in the exam hall.
If a teacher gives learners alternatives to choose from.
The teacher must pay attention to the questions the learners did not choose or answer.
This trend could mean learners have not understood the topic from which the question they are not choosing or not answering well was picked.
This way, the teacher needs to help the learners comprehend the facts of the topic in question. This way, the learners can answer similar questions better in the future.
No. 3. How to answer questions
While every teacher wants to teach the topics selected for each term or week, teacher must be ready to guide learners on how to answer questions. When teaching learners, provide them with sample questions and teach them how to answer them.
Let them know the vocabulary to use in answering such questions. Learners should be encouraged to explain and support answers with examples where necessary.
If you do not teach your learners in basic 9 how to answer questions now, you may have a big challenge helping them do that a few months to the 2025 BECE.
Be a proactive teacher with a conscious strategy to guide the learners now to make your work easy in the next two terms. Remember that your strategy must include how to teach learners to write informative answers. In many instances, the answers students write as BECE answers lack the kind of information the examiner is looking for.
No. 4: Not writing in the margin
The sad reality is that, in Ghana, we teach learners to write question numbers in the margins until they get to Basic and start preparing for BECE or until they are getting ready for an end-of-term exam.
They have been trained to write in the margins since KG, or Basic 1. Winning them from this practice becomes a headache.
Since your learners are in junior high school and getting ready for the BECE in about a year, start teaching how to write answers by enforcing the “Do not write in the margin” rule found on BECE answersheets.
Teach them how to space answers for subquestions and enforce it through exercises, homework, and class exercises. You can set 1 or 2 marks aside for students who are applying the basics to encourage them to learn it the right way and apply it. This must also go with teachers teaching learners how to write question numbers correctly.
No. 5: The act of reading through answers
Failure to read through your answers at the BECE can lead to loss of marks. Teachers, please, this is the time to encourage the act of reading through answers before submitting them among your basic 9 students.
When learners acquire these skills in addition to others explained above, they save themselves from losing precious marks. When they read through, it helps them to correct their spellings, grammar, punctuation, and even introduce missing facts.
No. 6: Numbering answers and answering subquestions
Teach learners to number answers correctly to help them score higher. If the questions are numbers 1, 2, 3, etc., teach learners to use roman numerals, for instance, i, ii, iii, etc.
If the question or subquestion is numbered with roman numerals, use a letter such as a, b, or c to number answers.
Now that we have given you all the Top 6 Essential Exam Skills Basic 9 Students Must Learn Now to Pass 2025 BECE, teachers, learners, and parents have their work cut out.
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