Botswana PSLE English common mistakes
Botswana PSLE English · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Writing a full composition answer that ignores the given topic or the picture/prompt, producing a story that could fit any question.
Under time pressure candidates reach for a memorised story they practised in class and try to bend the prompt to fit it, rather than reading what the task actually asks for.
What to do instead
Practise a two-minute planning step: underline the key words in the prompt, write one sentence stating exactly what the composition must be about, and check the finished draft against that sentence before handing in.
Producing compositions well under the required length, ending after three or four short sentences with no development.
Candidates run out of ideas because they have no structure in mind, so they stop when the first idea is exhausted instead of expanding each point.
What to do instead
Teach a fixed paragraph plan (opening, two or three developed events with detail, closing) and rehearse adding one sensory detail and one piece of dialogue to each event so length grows from content, not padding.
Losing marks on punctuation and capitalisation: missing full stops, commas spliced between independent clauses, lower-case sentence openings and proper nouns.
Candidates write the way they speak, in one long run-on sentence, and have never been taught to proofread specifically for sentence boundaries.
What to do instead
Do a dedicated editing pass on every practice piece where the only task is to mark every sentence boundary and capital letter; build a personal checklist of five recurring errors to scan for each time.
Misreading the instruction word in a comprehension or grammar item, for example answering 'why' with a 'what', or writing a full sentence where a single word is required.
Candidates skim the question stem and answer from the general topic of the passage rather than the precise demand of the question word.
What to do instead
Train candidates to circle the question word and the key noun in every stem before reading the passage, and to match the form of their answer to what was asked (reason, name, number, quotation).
Copying a whole sentence from the passage as an answer when only a phrase or single word is needed, or copying inaccurately with changed words.
Candidates believe a longer answer is safer, and they paraphrase carelessly because they are unsure which part of the sentence carries the answer.
What to do instead
Practise locating the answer sentence, then trimming it down to the minimum words that answer the question, checking spelling against the text as they copy.
Choosing a tense or verb form by sound alone, producing errors such as 'she go', 'he don't', 'they was' or 'I have went'.
Spoken Botswana English and the home language interfere, and candidates have not internalised subject-verb agreement and irregular past forms as patterns.
What to do instead
Drill high-frequency irregular verbs and third-person singular endings in short daily oral and written frames, and require candidates to say the subject and verb aloud together before writing.
Confusing parts of speech when filling gaps, for example putting a noun where an adjective is needed or an adjective where an adverb is needed.
Candidates look only at meaning and ignore the grammatical slot created by the words around the gap.
What to do instead
Teach a gap-filling routine: identify the word before and after the gap, decide which word class the slot demands, then choose from the options that fit that class.
Answering vocabulary-in-context items with the most familiar meaning of a word rather than the meaning it carries in the passage.
Candidates rely on a single memorised gloss for each word and do not re-read the surrounding sentence to test the meaning.
What to do instead
Practise the substitution test: insert each candidate meaning into the original sentence and keep only the one that leaves the sentence's sense unchanged.
Leaving answers blank or writing a guess with no attempt at the item when the passage seems difficult.
Candidates fear being wrong and lose confidence early in the paper, so they abandon items they could partially answer.
What to do instead
Build the habit of answering every item, marking uncertain ones with a light pencil mark and returning to them, and rehearse with timed sections so unfamiliar topics do not derail them.
Running out of time because the composition is written first and at excessive length, leaving comprehension and grammar items rushed or unfinished.
Candidates have not practised under timed conditions and do not know how many minutes each section should take.
What to do instead
Rehearse full papers with a visible clock and an agreed split of time per section, including five minutes at the end for checking, so pacing becomes automatic before the exam.