WASSCE Liberia common mistakes
WASSCE Liberia · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
In the comprehension and summary sections, the candidate copies whole sentences verbatim from the passage, or restates the question stem as the answer (e.g. 'The reasons why the writer was unhappy were...') and then stops.
Under time pressure, lifting text feels safer than reformulating it, and many candidates have never been shown that summary answers are scored on compressed content words, not on quotation.
What to do instead
Practise the 'own words' drill: after reading a question, cover the passage, write the answer from memory in your own phrasing, then reopen the passage only to check accuracy. For summary, fix a word budget per point (about 15-20 words) and count it.
The candidate ignores the instruction line in the composition question - writing an informal letter ('Dear Joe, how are you?') when the task asks for a letter to the editor or a formal application, and closing with 'Yours sincerely' in a letter to a friend.
Candidates read the topic in bold and skip the bracketed instruction about format, audience and purpose, then fall back on the one letter layout they memorised.
What to do instead
Before writing, underline the instruction words and answer three questions on the margin: Who am I writing to? Why? What format (letter, speech, article, debate)? Write the salutation and closing first so the register is locked in before the body.
In lexis and structure items, the candidate picks the option that sounds right or repeats a word from the stem, instead of testing subject-verb agreement across an interrupting phrase (e.g. 'The list of items ___ on the desk' answered as 'are').
Spoken habit and proximity to the nearest noun override grammar rules; candidates have not been taught to strip the sentence to its skeleton.
What to do instead
Apply the bracket test: cross out all prepositional phrases and relative clauses, then check that the bare subject and verb agree. Drill ten such items a day aloud, naming the rule each time (concord, tense sequence, pronoun case).
The candidate writes only the final answer on the script - no formula, no substitution, no unit - and answers part (a) of a multi-part question while leaving (b) and (c) blank.
Candidates believe mathematics is about the answer only, and they run out of time because they spend 25 minutes on one question worth 8 marks.
What to do instead
Adopt the four-line format for every item: formula, substitution, working, answer with unit. Allocate minutes by marks (roughly one minute per mark) and leave a gap, not a blank, where a part is unfinished so markers can see the attempt.
The candidate chooses the wrong triangle rule - using the sine rule when two sides and the included angle are given, or using Pythagoras in a non-right-angled triangle - and loses the entire method mark as well as the answer.
Rules are memorised as a list without the trigger conditions attached, and no diagram is drawn, so the candidate cannot see which sides and angles are actually known.
What to do instead
Sketch and label every triangle before calculating, then run a three-question check: Is there a right angle? Do I know a side and its opposite angle? Do I know two sides and the angle between them? Build a one-page decision table linking each 'yes' to sine rule, cosine rule, Pythagoras or SOHCAHTOA.
The candidate rounds at every intermediate step (e.g. writing 3.14 for pi or 1.41 for a root and reusing it), so the final answer falls outside the accepted accuracy range even though the method is correct.
Candidates try to keep the script tidy and do not know that accuracy is marked separately, so early rounding silently destroys the answer.
What to do instead
Carry the full calculator value or the fraction through every step and round only on the final line, stating the degree of accuracy ('= 12.7 cm, to 1 d.p.'). Do a reasonableness check: an answer larger than the triangle's longest side, or a probability above 1, signals an error.
In diagram questions the candidate produces a small unlabelled pencil sketch with no title and no direction arrows - for example a food web without arrows showing energy flow, or a circuit without showing conventional current direction.
Diagrams are treated as decoration rather than as an answer in their own right; candidates have often never been given a labelled specimen diagram to copy and compare against.
What to do instead
Use a fixed checklist before moving on: title, size (at least half a page), sharp pencil, straight label lines that touch the structure, and arrows with the correct direction. Practise redrawing five standard diagrams from memory per week and self-mark against the checklist.
The candidate names a process and stops - writing 'osmosis' or 'photosynthesis' as the whole answer to an 'explain' question - without stating the mechanism, the direction of movement or the condition required.
Naming feels like answering, and the candidate has memorised definitions as single words rather than as cause-and-effect chains.
What to do instead
Answer 'explain' questions with a because-therefore chain: state the process, then 'this happens because...', then 'as a result...'. For each core process, memorise a three-link chain (what moves, from where to where, why it moves) and rehearse it aloud.
The candidate confuses the roles of the three branches of government and the levels of administration - for example saying the president makes laws, or that the legislature interprets the constitution - or mixes up key national dates and documents.
These facts were learned as a list of names without a structure, so recall collapses in the exam hall and the candidate substitutes a plausible-sounding guess.
What to do instead
Draw a three-column table (branch, main function, who holds it) plus a timeline of national events, and rebuild both from memory weekly. Link each fact to a news example you can name, which makes it retrievable under pressure.
The candidate turns 'explain four functions of the family' or 'discuss three causes of rural-urban migration' into a personal narrative or a one-line list, giving no point-by-point development and ignoring the number of points demanded.
Command words (state, explain, discuss, examine) are not distinguished, and candidates underestimate how many separate points the mark allocation requires.
What to do instead
Number the points on the margin before writing, one paragraph per point, and use the point-explain-example shape for each. Circle the command word and the number in the question, and check at the end that the count of paragraphs matches the count demanded.