Concours ENS Buea cheat sheet

Cameroon's administrative structure: 10 regions (8 francophone, 2 anglophone - North-West and South-West), 58 divisions, subdivided into subdivisions; the Far North is the most populous region and the Centre region hosts Yaoundé, the political capital, while Douala (Wouri division, Littoral region) is the economic capital.

Cameroon constitutional milestones: reunification of French and British Cameroons on 1 October 1961; the 1972 unitary constitution replaced the 1961 federal system; the 1984 decree renamed the United Republic as the Republic of Cameroon; the 1996 constitutional revision created regions and the Senate, which was actually installed only in 2013.

Key Cameroonian institutions: the Presidency and Prime Minister's office (Star Building), the National Assembly and Senate at Ngoa-Ekelle, the Constitutional Council (created 2004, operational 2018), the Supreme Court, and the National Anti-Corruption Commission (CONAC), created by decree in 2006.

Bilingualism policy: Cameroon adopted official bilingualism (English and French) in the 1961 constitution; the 1996 constitution reaffirmed both as official languages of equal status, with the state pledged to guarantee their promotion - a frequent exam point because the two anglophone regions constitute roughly 16–20% of the population.

Central African and continental bodies: Cameroon is a founding member of the CEMAC (1994, replacing the UDEAC) and the African Union (2002, replacing the OAU); it hosts the CEMAC headquarters in Bangui? - no: CEMAC's commission sits in Bangui, while Cameroon hosts the BEAC central bank headquarters in Yaoundé.

International organisations: Cameroon joined the United Nations on 20 September 1960 (as the Republic of Cameroon, before reunification) and the Commonwealth on 13 November 1995 - the Commonwealth accession is a standard exam item because Cameroon is the only CEMAC member in that organisation.

Cameroon's geography superlatives: Mount Cameroon (4,040 m, an active volcano) is the highest peak in West and Central Africa; the Sanaga is the longest river entirely within Cameroon; Lake Chad in the Far North is shrinking and shared with Chad, Niger, and Nigeria; the Benue is the largest tributary of the Niger.

Economic indicators to know: Cameroon is the largest economy in CEMAC, with GDP dominated by services and by cocoa, timber, and oil exports; the CFA franc is pegged to the euro (1 euro = 655.957 CFA francs), a fixed parity that is a routine exam fact.

Current-affairs framing: recurring Cameroonian topics include the anglophone crisis (2016–present), the Boko Haram insurgency in the Far North, the 2019 Major National Dialogue, AFCON 2021 hosting (played in 2022), and the National Development Strategy 2030 (NDS30) - know the year and the actor, not just the headline.

Subject–verb agreement with collective and quantifier nouns: 'the number of' takes a singular verb, 'a number of' takes a plural verb; 'each', 'every', 'either', 'neither' are singular; 'none' may be singular or plural depending on emphasis.

Tense and aspect rules: the present perfect (has/have + past participle) is used for past actions with present relevance and cannot co-occur with a definite past time marker ('yesterday', 'in 1990'); the past perfect marks the earlier of two past events.

Conditionals: Type 1 (if + present, will + base), Type 2 (if + past simple, would + base), Type 3 (if + past perfect, would have + past participle); mixed conditionals combine a past condition with a present result.

Preposition collocations frequently tested: 'comprise' takes no 'of'; 'consist of'; 'depend on'; 'differ from'; 'capable of'; 'interested in'; 'superior to'; 'married to'; 'arrive at' (a place) vs 'arrive in' (a city/country).

Commonly confused pairs: 'affect' (verb) vs 'effect' (noun); 'principal' (main/person) vs 'principle' (rule); 'complement' (complete) vs 'compliment' (praise); 'lie/lay' (intransitive/transitive); 'fewer' (countable) vs 'less' (uncountable).

Punctuation decision rules: a semicolon joins two independent clauses; a colon introduces a list or explanation; the Oxford comma precedes 'and' in a list of three or more; apostrophes mark possession ('teachers' union' vs 'teacher's union') and never form plurals.

Sentence transformation patterns (rewriting tasks): 'It is said that X…' ↔ 'X is said to…'; 'Despite + noun/gerund' ↔ 'Although + clause'; 'too…to' ↔ 'so…that…not'; 'unless' ↔ 'if…not'; passive voice requires a transitive verb.

Register and word choice: formal academic English avoids contractions, phrasal verbs where a single verb exists ('investigate' not 'look into'), and first-person anecdote; 'shall' is largely restricted to offers and legal texts.

Reading-comprehension strategy as a rule set: identify the topic sentence, distinguish stated fact from inference, treat 'EXCEPT' and 'NOT' questions as elimination tasks, and reject options that are true in the passage but do not answer the specific question.

Accord du participe passé: avec 'avoir', le participe s'accorde avec le complément d'objet direct antéposé ('les lettres que j'ai écrites'); avec 'être', il s'accorde avec le sujet ('elles sont parties'); les verbes pronominaux suivent des règles spécifiques ('elles se sont lavées' vs 'elles se sont lavé les mains').

Emploi des modes: l'indicatif pour le réel et la certitude; le subjonctif après 'il faut que', 'bien que', 'pour que', 'avant que', et après les verbes de volonté, de doute ou d'émotion ('je doute qu'il vienne'); l'infinitif après 'après' + infinitif passé ('après avoir mangé').

Concordance des temps: dans un récit au passé, le futur devient conditionnel, le passé composé devient plus-que-parfait, et le présent du subjonctif devient subjonctif imparfait dans un registre soutenu ('il fallait qu'il vînt').

Homophones grammaticaux: 'a' (verbe avoir) vs 'à' (préposition); 'ou' (choix) vs 'où' (lieu); 'ce' (démonstratif) vs 'se' (pronom réfléchi); 'leur' (pronom, invariable) vs 'leurs' (déterminant, variable); 'quel que' en deux mots devant 'être'.

Accord des adjectifs: règle du masculin pluriel pour les noms de genres différents ('un homme et une femme intelligents'); adjectifs de couleur invariables quand ils viennent d'un nom ('des robes marron') ou sont composés ('bleu clair'); 'demi' invariable devant le nom.

Typologie textuelle: le texte argumentatif (thèse, arguments, exemples, concession, réfutation), le texte explicatif (cause, conséquence, définition), le texte narratif (schéma narratif : situation initiale, élément perturbateur, péripéties, dénouement, situation finale) - distinguer ces types est une question classique.

Figures de style à reconnaître: métaphore (sans outil de comparaison), comparaison (avec 'comme'), métonymie (le contenant pour le contenu), hyperbole (exagération), oxymore (alliance de mots contraires), anaphore (répétition en début de phrase), personnification.

Registres de langue: soutenu, courant, familier; le registre soutenu privilégie 'nous' de modestie, le passé simple et l'inversion du sujet ('peut-être viendra-t-il'); éviter les anglicismes et les pléonasmes ('monter en haut', 'collaborer ensemble').

Ponctuation et typographie françaises: espace insécable avant ':' ';' '!' '?' et à l'intérieur des guillemets « »; le point-virgule sépare des propositions de même niveau; l'accord du verbe avec le sujet inversé ('Que disent les élèves ?').

Taxonomies: Bloom's revised taxonomy orders objectives as Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, Create; the affective domain uses Krathwohl's five levels (receiving, responding, valuing, organising, characterising); psychomotor objectives use Simpson's or Dave's levels.

Lesson-plan structure required in Cameroonian schools: identification (class, subject, date, duration), prerequisites, specific objectives stated as observable behaviours, teaching aids, stages (introduction/warm-up, presentation, practice, application, evaluation), and a board plan.

Competency-Based Approach (APC/CBA), official in Cameroon since the 2013–2014 reform: lessons start from a real-life situation ('situation d'apprentissage'), integrate resources (knowledge, know-how, attitudes), and end with an evaluation situation; assessment is criterion-referenced, not norm-referenced.

Assessment types and functions: diagnostic (before instruction, to identify gaps), formative (during instruction, feedback, not graded for ranking), summative (end of unit/term, certification), and ipsative (self-comparison over time); validity, reliability, and practicality are the three classic test-quality criteria.

Item-writing rules: stems should pose a single clear problem, avoid negatives and 'all of the above', keep options grammatically parallel and equal in length, and place distractors on plausible misconceptions rather than absurd statements.

Classroom management principles: establish routines in the first weeks, use proximity and non-verbal cues before verbal reprimands, apply sanctions consistently and immediately, and prefer positive reinforcement; Kounin's concepts of 'withitness' and 'overlapping' describe teacher awareness of simultaneous events.

Learning theories and their classroom implications: behaviourism (Skinner - reinforcement, programmed instruction), cognitivism (Piaget - stages; Ausubel - meaningful learning and advance organisers), constructivism (Vygotsky - ZPD and scaffolding; Bruner - discovery and spiral curriculum), and social learning (Bandura - modelling).

Language-teaching methods: Grammar-Translation, Direct Method, Audio-Lingual (drills, habit formation), Communicative Language Teaching (authentic tasks, fluency over accuracy), and Task-Based Learning (pre-task, task cycle, language focus); the competency-based syllabus in Cameroon aligns with the communicative approach.

Differentiation and inclusion: adapt content, process, and product; use tiered tasks and flexible grouping; support learners with disabilities through seating, enlarged materials, and extended time, in line with inclusive-education policy; error correction should target the lesson objective, not every mistake.