Bac H Burkina Faso common mistakes
Bac H Burkina Faso · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
In économie générale, candidates reproduce a memorised definition of a notion such as "croissance économique" or "inflation" and then answer the essay question without ever applying it to the document or data supplied, so the copy stays abstract and never answers the actual subject.
Revision in this subject is often done by reciting course definitions and diagrams; students have practised definitions far more than the operation of confronting a notion with a text, a table or a national example, and under exam pressure they fall back on what they can recall verbatim.
What to do instead
Before writing, spend five minutes turning the subject into a question and listing the two or three course notions it mobilises; then for each notion write one sentence that links it explicitly to the document or to a Burkinabè example (for instance the effect of a cotton price fall on rural incomes). Train on past subjects by producing only these linking sentences, without writing the full essay.
In the sociology and institutions part, candidates describe an institution (the family, the school, the state) as a list of functions learned by heart, without using concepts such as socialisation, norm, role, social group or social mobility, and without any reference to observed change in Burkinabè society.
The sociological vocabulary is new and abstract for many candidates, and the course is often reduced in class to a catalogue of institutions; students therefore treat the question as a description exercise rather than an analysis using concepts.
What to do instead
Build a one-page concept sheet where each concept is paired with one concrete, local illustration (socialisation by the village community, the role of the griot, schooling of girls in rural areas). In each answer, force yourself to name at least three concepts explicitly and to attach each to an example, then check the paragraph for the presence of the words socialisation, norm, role or group.
In mathématiques, candidates launch into calculations in the first minute, skip the statement of the hypothesis and the domain of validity, and lose all the marks attached to justification even when the final numerical result happens to be right.
Drilling in class often rewards the final answer, and timed practice encourages speed; students have rarely been trained to write the reasoning chain as a graded object, so they see justification as decoration rather than as part of the answer.
What to do instead
Adopt a fixed written skeleton for every exercise: data and unknowns, property or theorem used, computation, conclusion sentence. Do timed exercises where the mark scheme is applied by a peer, so that the loss of justification marks becomes visible, and rewrite the same exercise until the skeleton appears spontaneously.
In histoire-géographie, candidates answer a document-based question by paraphrasing the document in narrative form, with no reference to its nature, author, date and context, and no confrontation with the course; in geography they describe a map instead of explaining the spatial organisation it shows.
Students confuse "using a document" with "summarising a document"; the method of critical presentation and of confrontation with course knowledge is often taught once and never drilled, and narrative recall is the easiest behaviour under time pressure.
What to do instead
Impose a three-step routine for every document: identify (nature, author, date, context in one sentence), extract (two or three precise elements with quotation or figure), confront (what the course says, where the document agrees or differs). Practise on single documents in fifteen minutes until the three steps are automatic, then extend to the full question.
In philosophie, candidates write a dissertation that juxtaposes two blocks of course knowledge ("thesis" then "antithesis") without ever defining the key term of the subject, without a genuine problem, and without a conclusion that answers the question asked.
The philosophical problem is the hardest thing to produce and cannot be memorised; students therefore reproduce course chapters as a safety strategy, and many have never seen a model of how a problem is constructed from an apparently simple subject.
What to do instead
Spend the first fifteen minutes of preparation on the subject alone: list the possible meanings of the key term, identify what seems obvious and why it becomes doubtful, and write the problem as a single explicit question. Build the plan as an answer to that question, and check that each part announces and then delivers a partial answer, with the conclusion resolving the tension stated in the introduction.
In français, candidates treat the commentaire composé as a linear explanation following the order of the text, or the dissertation as a catalogue of literary works, and in the résumé they copy sentences from the original instead of reformulating them in the imposed word count.
Linear explanation is the natural reading behaviour and is easier than constructing an axis of interpretation; the résumé in particular is rarely practised under strict counting, so candidates underestimate how much reformulation and compression it requires.
What to do instead
For the commentaire, force yourself to formulate two or three interpretive axes before writing anything and to regroup observations under them rather than following the text. For the résumé, practise on 500-word articles with a hard count, doing a first pass that extracts ideas (not sentences) and a second pass that rewrites them, then count and trim to the required proportion.
In anglais, candidates memorise whole essays on generic topics and then paste them onto the subject, answering a different question; in the comprehension part they lift long passages from the text as answers instead of reformulating them.
Essay templates feel like a safe investment when vocabulary is limited, and lifting from the text feels safer than producing original phrasing; the reformulation skill has rarely been assessed separately from comprehension.
What to do instead
Practise answering the exact question in one sentence before writing anything, and learn a small stock of linking phrases and topic vocabulary rather than whole essays. For comprehension, train the rule "same meaning, different words" by rewriting each answer without any three consecutive words from the text, and check this explicitly before moving on.
In the deuxième langue vivante, candidates write a long introduction copied from a model, run out of time, and leave the actual task (a short dialogue, a message, a description) unfinished or reduced to two lines; grammar errors cluster in verb endings and agreements that were never revised.
Candidates allocate time as if the paper were the LV1 paper, and the lower level of mastery makes them slow; the basic morphology of the language is often left unreviewed because attention goes to vocabulary lists.
What to do instead
Rehearse the timing of the paper by task, allocating the bulk of the time to the productive task and writing the introduction last or not at all. Revise a short closed list of high-frequency verb forms and agreement rules, and do five-minute micro-writing drills (a six-line message, a four-exchange dialogue) under a timer.
In éducation physique et sportive and in the oral or practical tests, candidates arrive without knowing the exact format, the evaluation criteria or the equipment expected, and in the oral they read a prepared text word for word instead of presenting and defending an argument.
These tests are perceived as less academic and are therefore under-prepared; information about format circulates orally and unreliably, and reading a written text feels safer than speaking without a script.
What to do instead
Obtain the official format and criteria for each test and write them on a single sheet; rehearse the practical tests under the real conditions at least twice. For the oral, replace the full script with a cue card of keywords, rehearse aloud in front of a listener, and prepare for two likely questions from the jury.
In éducation civique et morale and culture générale, candidates answer with moral exhortation ("we must respect the law", "young people should be civic-minded") instead of defining institutions, rights, duties and procedures, and they ignore current national institutions and texts.
The subject is confused with moralising, and the course is often reduced to slogans; candidates have rarely been asked to distinguish a value, a norm, a right and an institution, or to name the body competent for a given procedure.
What to do instead
Learn a grid of four columns (value, norm, right, institution) and place each course item in it with a concrete example; memorise a short list of national institutions and their competences. In each answer, replace every exhortation with a definition plus an example, and check that no sentence begins with "il faut que les citoyens".