BGCSE BSSE Entrepreneurship (1441) common mistakes
BGCSE BSSE Entrepreneurship (1441) · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
When asked to identify entrepreneurial characteristics from a short case study, the candidate writes a memorised list of traits ("hardworking, risk-taking, creative") without quoting any evidence from the scenario or explaining how the trait helped the business.
Trait lists are easy to memorise and often taught as a list to be recited, so candidates treat the question as a recall test rather than an application task, and they run out of time before linking traits to the case.
What to do instead
Practise a three-column drill on every case study: trait named, exact evidence from the passage that shows it, and the effect on the business. Train candidates to write each characteristic as "X showed Y when she ..., which allowed the business to ..." so the trait can never appear naked.
The candidate answers an opportunity-identification question by naming a product they personally like (for example "open a phone repair shop") and asserts it will succeed, with no reference to an unmet need, target customer, competition or feasibility check.
Candidates conflate a business idea with a business opportunity, and because the idea feels familiar and local they assume the examiner will accept it as obviously viable, so they skip the screening step entirely.
What to do instead
Teach a fixed four-gate screen that must be written out for every idea: is there a demonstrated customer need, can the candidate access the resources and skills, is it legal and ethical, and can it earn a margin at a price customers will pay? Require each gate to be answered in one sentence with a reason before any idea is accepted as an opportunity.
In market research questions the candidate designs a questionnaire containing leading, double-barrelled or ambiguous items ("Don't you agree our prices are cheap and the service is good?") and describes a sample made up only of classmates and relatives.
Candidates copy the conversational way people speak in everyday life and have never been shown how wording and sample choice distort results, so the questionnaire looks normal to them even when the data it produces would be worthless.
What to do instead
Give a checklist to apply to every drafted question: one idea per question, no persuasive wording, no jargon, and a tick-box answer set that the respondent can actually choose from. Pair it with a sampling rule that requires the sample to be described by who they are, how many, and how they were selected, and forbid "friends and family only" without justification.
Asked to recommend a marketing mix, the candidate writes the definitions of product, price, place and promotion in general terms and never states a specific product feature, price figure, outlet or promotional medium for the business in the question.
The four Ps are taught as definitions to be reproduced, and under time pressure candidates write the definition as a safe answer instead of committing to a recommendation that could be marked wrong.
What to do instead
Insist that every element of the mix is written as a decision with a figure or a named choice, for example "price at P15 per unit to sit below the P20 charged by the tuck shop" rather than "use competitive pricing". Set practice tasks where a definition-only answer scores zero, so the habit is broken early.
The business plan produced in the exam reads as generic filler copied across sections ("we will provide excellent customer service"), and the sales forecast in the marketing section bears no relation to the production quantities or the revenue line in the financial section.
Candidates treat the plan as a set of independent headings to be filled rather than one argument, and because each section is written separately the numbers are never carried forward or cross-checked.
What to do instead
Draft the plan as a chain: target customer, then units expected to sell, then units to produce, then revenue, then costs, then profit. Before the plan is accepted, require a one-minute cross-check in which the candidate points to the same number appearing in at least three sections, and delete any sentence that could apply to any business in the country.
The candidate uses profit and cash interchangeably, records a sale as cash received on the same date, and omits owner's drawings, loan repayments or the opening capital when preparing a cash flow statement, so a profitable business is shown as having plenty of cash.
In everyday speech profit and cash are treated as the same thing, and the timing difference between a sale on credit and the money arriving is an abstract idea that is rarely practised with real dates, so it is forgotten under exam pressure.
What to do instead
Run short exercises using dated transactions where a credit sale in March is paid in May, and require two separate statements side by side so the gap is visible. Build the habit of always starting the cash flow with opening balance plus capital injections and always listing drawings, loan instalments and asset purchases as outflows before the closing balance is computed.
Ledger and bookkeeping answers are presented as loose arithmetic with no date, no account name, no Dr and Cr labelling, no currency symbol, and totals that are not ruled or balanced, sometimes with the trial balance forced to agree by inserting a figure.
Candidates focus on getting the number right and treat format as decoration, and because they have practised calculations on blank paper they have never internalised the conventions that make a set of accounts readable and checkable.
What to do instead
Mark format explicitly in every practice exercise, awarding marks for the date column, the correct account titles, the Dr and Cr sides and the balance carried down, separately from the arithmetic marks. Ban plug figures: require any difference to be written up as a suspense account with a note, so errors are investigated rather than hidden.
When asked to plan production or supply for a given level of demand, the candidate ignores machine or staff capacity, lead times for raw materials and stock levels, and simply states that the business will produce whatever is demanded.
Production planning is often revised as definitions of stock control and quality control, so candidates never practise reconciling demand with capacity and do not think of capacity as a constraint that must be calculated.
What to do instead
Give a short scenario with numbers and require a capacity statement before any plan: maximum output per day, days available, and the shortfall or surplus against demand. Then require one sentence on how any shortfall is handled (overtime, second shift, back order, buffer stock) and one on lead time for ordering inputs.
In questions on legal form, the candidate recommends a structure without stating the registration steps, the responsible office, the licences needed for that trade, or the liability and tax consequences, and sometimes describes a sole trader as having limited liability.
The topic is taught as a comparison table of forms, and the procedural detail of registration and licensing is seen as administrative trivia rather than part of the answer, so the candidate reproduces the table and stops.
What to do instead
Practise answers in three compulsory parts: the legal form and why it fits, the registration and licensing steps in order with the office or authority named, and the consequences for liability, tax and continuity. Add a standing correction drill on limited versus unlimited liability using one-line scenarios until the link between the form and who bears the loss is automatic.
Risk and growth questions are answered with a list of risks or a recommendation to expand, with no likelihood or impact assessment, no specific control or contingency, and no evidence that finance, demand or capacity exists to support the growth.
Candidates see risk as a naming exercise and growth as an unambiguously good thing, so they do not look for the conditions that make expansion safe or the trigger that would activate a contingency plan.
What to do instead
Require every risk to be written as a row: risk, likelihood, impact, control, and who acts. Require every growth recommendation to be justified with three named preconditions (funding secured, demand evidenced, capacity available) and one condition under which the business should delay, so resilience is demonstrated rather than asserted.