No 2024 WASSCE student attempted English Essay Question 2 — WAEC Chief Examiner’s Report

• No 2024 WASSCE student attempted English Essay Question 2 as WAEC Chief Examiner’s Report reveals shocking trend
• Poor grammar, weak paragraph transitions, and students not answering all required parts of essay questions were some of the major issues raised by WAEC in its latest chief examiner’s report for English Language.

WAEC has highlighted a disturbing trend in the 2024 WASSCE chief examiner’s report. Out of the five essay questions provided, candidates were required to answer only one. Shockingly, out of the 460,611 candidates who wrote the 2024 WASSCE in Ghana, not a single student attempted Question 2, which required candidates to write a speech.

According to the 2024 WASSCE chief examiner’s report, students generally failed to impress regardless of which question they chose. This is not entirely surprising, as WASSCE candidates are given five questions to choose from, unlike the three options provided to BECE candidates. When students are presented with more options, they tend to avoid the seemingly difficult ones, and thus they cannot be completely blamed for not choosing Question 2.

However, students’ failure to choose Question 2 also suggests weaknesses in speech writing or inadequate teaching of that essay type across many schools in Ghana. It is noteworthy that none of the 460,611 candidates attempted the speech writing question in 2024.

Caution to 2025 WASSCE candidates

All candidates preparing for the Ghana-only WASSCE in 2025 should thoroughly revise speech writing and other essay types, as WAEC is likely to repeat similar questions, including articles for publication.

2024 WASSCE English Essay questions and WAEC’s report on performance

Question 1: Write a letter to your friend in another school describing the end-of-year activities in your school.
WAEC reported that most candidates merely outlined activities instead of describing them vividly. The lack of descriptive detail meant candidates did not fully meet the requirements of the question.

Question 2: A youth club is organizing a series of talks meant to inspire members to prepare adequately for the future. As a youth leader, you have been invited to give a talk on “My dream for the future.” Write your speech.
According to the report, none of the candidates attempted this question. WAEC urges English teachers in senior high schools to intensify the teaching of speech writing.

Question 3: There is a public outcry against electoral malpractice in your country. Write an article to be published in one of your national newspapers discussing at least three ways to stop this trend.
Few candidates attempted this question, but those who did generally performed well and followed the appropriate article-writing conventions.

Question 4: There has been a drastic fall in the quality of social amenities in your community. Write a letter to the Commissioner for Public Utilities, stating the inconveniences your people have suffered.
WAEC noted that the formal use of English was weak in many responses. Candidates struggled to address the topic appropriately using formal language.

Question 5: Write a story that ends with the expression: It was indeed my lucky day.
This narrative essay was the most popular, and candidates generally did well. They used the past tense appropriately, but WAEC recommends more extensive reading to improve creativity and flexibility.

Unless WAEC reduces the number of essay options from five to three, these trends are likely to persist.

1. GENERAL COMMENTS

The year’s paper (2024 WASSCE) has met the standard in terms of quality and substance. All the sections put together touched on the important areas of the English Language that are required to bring candidates up to international standards so that their understanding of English and their flexibility in the use of the language will not be in jeopardy.

There is no drop in the quality of the questions even though there was no question on debate or speech writing. That does not affect the standard of the paper.

2. SUMMARY OF CANDIDATES’ STRENGTHS

(a) There is improvement in the writing of essays especially friendly letters. The candidates know all the required features and their exact positions in the essays.
Almost all of them know that in the subscription it is only the writer’s first name that is accepted and not the full name. They also know that a signature is not
required in friendly letters.

(b) The candidates are equally comfortable in the writing of articles to the press. They are at home with the use of all the formalities.
(c) The formal features of official letters no longer pose a problem to candidates.
(d) There is equally great improvement in the writing of narrative essays. Candidates are able to talk about the past by using the past tense of verbs consistently.

3. SUMMARY OF CANDIDATES’ WEAKNESSES
1. Poor Management of paragraphs in essay writing especially the use of transitional words to show the difference in the paragraphs:
Candidates end up writing boring and redundant paragraphs by using substandard structures such as “Firstly”, “Secondly”, “Thirdly”, “Fourthly” and
others such as “To start with”, “To move on with”, “To go on with”, “Last of all”, etc. They are also fond of using structures such as “Furthermore”, and
“Moreover”, whether such structures fit in appropriately or not. There is also the influence of social media when candidates use “I was like……” in their essays.

4. SUGGESTED REMEDIES
(1) In the classrooms, teachers should write sample essays and read to them.
(2) The teaching of grammar should be intensified.
(3) Students should be encouraged to do extensive reading in school and at home.

Other issues raised by the report (Comprehension and Summary)

The Comprehension passage was interesting to read but the candidates did not take time to understand the passage. A lot of them reproduced some portions of the passage which were wrong.

For Question (6j) where the candidates were supposed to give the meaning of the underlined items/words as they are used in the passage. Those who performed poorly were those who gave two meanings to replace one word. In such instances, one meaning is likely to negate the other and that was what brought such candidates down.

The Summary passage was on the effects of illegal mining in Mbebe. Candidates are already familiar with “galamsey” in Ghana and their application of that knowledge made them perform poorly in the summary since they added a lot of extraneous ideas. It is important that WASSCE candidates answer summary questions by limiting their information to what is provided in the text and not what they know about the text or topic of the passage provided. 

READ: 2025 WASSCE Timetable for Ghana Out: Download Here

The use of a preamble in the writing of summary answers is a lazy way of tackling the summary. It requires a great skill to marry the preamble to the individual items adequately and so the candidates who used preambles did not meet the standard.

Students need to be taught the appropriate skills of summary writing. Going forward, students must read beyond the curriculum to become versatile in the use of English.