Lebanese Brevet - Certificat d'Études Moyennes (الشهادة المتوسطة) common mistakes
Lebanese Brevet - Certificat d'Études Moyennes (الشهادة المتوسطة) · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
On the reading-comprehension section (فهم النص), the candidate copies a whole sentence from the text, or writes a memorised general sentence about the topic, instead of answering the question actually asked, and does not go back to the paragraph the question points to.
Classroom drilling on recycled question sets turns the text into a theme to be recited rather than a document to be mined; fear of making a language error makes verbatim copying feel safer than reformulating.
What to do instead
Train on the question verb before writing: «استخرج» means quote exactly with the line number; «فسّر / علّل» means produce your own sentence and then support it with a short quotation in quotes. Before answering, annotate the text - underline the key sentence, circle connectors (لكن، لذلك، إذن), and number the lines so the justification can be located.
In written expression (التعبير الكتابي), the candidate opens with a memorised formula («في عصرنا الحاضر حيث التكنولوجيا…»), closes with a vague general sentence, and starts writing without any plan, so ideas repeat, are not linked, and hamza / tā' marbūṭa / tanwīn errors pile up.
Storing ready-made introductions and conclusions feels like a time-saver under exam pressure, and candidates are rarely drilled on building a three-point plan in five minutes.
What to do instead
Impose a five-minute plan: three ideas, each with one piece of evidence from the text or from real life. Open with a sentence that hooks directly onto the wording of the prompt, not a generic formula. Use explicit connectors (أولاً، في المقابل، لذلك، خلاصةً). Keep two minutes at the end to proofread only the high-frequency spelling traps: همزة القطع/الوصل، التاء المربوطة/المفتوحة، الألف المقصورة.
In geometry, the candidate jumps from the given data to the conclusion («إذن الرباعي متوازي أضلاع») without naming the property or theorem used, and sometimes uses a fact read off the figure that was never given.
The paper is timed and corrected-model answers circulate in abbreviated form, so the justification line looks optional; the drawn figure also looks 'obvious', so unstated properties get assumed.
What to do instead
Use a fixed three-line template for every deduction: «لدينا … (المعطى) / وبما أن … (اسم الخاصية أو النظرية) / فإن … (النتيجة)». Start by listing the data and tick each item as you use it. Never invoke a criterion whose conditions you have not checked - e.g. do not claim a quadrilateral is a parallelogram from bisecting diagonals unless both diagonals are shown to bisect each other.
In algebra and numerical work: sign errors when moving terms across, reversing an inequality without flipping its direction, ignoring the domain of validity of a fraction or a square root, and handing in a rounded value when the question asks for an exact one.
Working mentally instead of writing intermediate lines, plus a superficial reading of the instruction ('calculate' vs 'give an exact value'), and habit from physics where rounding is normal.
What to do instead
One step per line. Before solving, write the condition of existence (denominator ≠ 0, expression under the root ≥ 0). Check the answer by substituting it back into the original equation, not the simplified one. Keep exact forms (surds, π, fractions) until the final line, then round only if asked and to the stated precision.
In the first foreign language, comprehension answers are lifted verbatim from the text even when the question says 'in your own words' / «avec vos propres mots», True/False items are answered without the required justification, and pronouns (il, elle, they) are left unresolved so the wrong person or object is named.
Copying feels linguistically safe, and pronoun reference and justification format are rarely practised as separate skills, so the candidate does not know what the marker is looking for.
What to do instead
Adopt a personal rule: your own sentence first, then a short quotation in quotation marks with the line number. For True/False write the verdict, then «Justification: line 4: “…”». Practise reference-tracking by underlining every pronoun in a paragraph and drawing an arrow to the noun it replaces before answering.
In the writing task of the first foreign language, the candidate pours a memorised essay about environment or technology into whatever prompt appears, ignores the required text type (letter, article, advert, speech) and the word limit, and so loses the organisation and communication marks even when the language is correct.
Topics are predictable and pre-learned paragraphs feel like insurance; candidates are not trained to decompose the prompt into its required elements.
What to do instead
Underline and number every element in the prompt (audience, purpose, format, word count, tense). Plan for five minutes as three bullet points. Reuse vocabulary from the support document rather than stock phrases. Count the words physically, and check the format markers: greeting and sign-off for a letter, headline for an article, imperative and contact details for an advert.
In the second foreign language, the candidate writes only two sentences in the production task, translates word-for-word from Arabic or French producing false friends and ungrammatical structures, and slips into the other language mid-answer.
A thinner vocabulary base and almost no practice in producing extended writing in the second language; fear of error pushes towards minimal output, which caps the mark regardless of accuracy.
What to do instead
Memorise eight to ten reusable sentence frames (opinion, reason, example, contrast, conclusion) and rehearse them on unrelated topics. Commit to a minimum of five connected sentences. Use simple connectors (first, because, however / d'abord, car, pourtant). Keep a personal list of interlingual traps where the look-alike word means something else (actually ≠ actuellement; assister ≠ to assist).
In history and geography essays, the candidate narrates everything remembered about the topic instead of answering the instruction verb (قارن، حلّل، اشرح الأسباب), omits precise dates or muddles them, and answers map or document questions without reading the title, legend or scale.
Revision is built on memorising content rather than on decoding exam instructions, and the candidate has no practised essay skeleton to hang facts on; BC/AD and Gregorian/Hijri dating in the regional and Lebanese material is a known confusion point.
What to do instead
Rewrite the instruction in your own words and set the required time span before writing. Build a two- or three-part plan with headings. Place four to six key dates, each attached to its event, not as a list. For geography, read title, legend and scale before anything else, and name the phenomenon rather than describing it vaguely ('coastal population concentration', not 'people live by the sea').
In life sciences, the candidate describes an experiment without naming the control (témoin) or the controlled variable, mixes observation with interpretation and conclusion, and interprets a graph or table without reading both axes and their units.
The experimental method is memorised as a story to be retold, and under time pressure the document itself is skimmed rather than decoded.
What to do instead
Write three labelled blocks for every question: «ألاحظ» (what the document shows, with numbers and units), «أفسّر» (the biological mechanism), «أستنتج» (the answer to the problem posed). For each experiment state the control and the single variable tested. Before any conclusion, write down the title of each axis and its unit.
In physics and chemistry, the candidate substitutes numbers into a formula without converting units (mL, g, cm, min), writes the final result with no unit, and balances a chemical equation by eye or forgets state symbols.
Data are given in mixed units to test conversion, but attention is absorbed by the arithmetic; equation balancing is treated as cosmetic rather than as conservation of atoms.
What to do instead
Start every exercise with a two-column table: data (converted to SI immediately) and unknown. Write the unit on every line, including intermediate ones. For balancing, count each element on both sides after every coefficient you change and restart the count; finish with the state symbols (s), (l), (g), (aq).