Paper 4 - Faculty Specific Test
Paper 4 is faculty specific: it tests the foundation knowledge your intended programme assumes. Candidates for science and health programmes face mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology items; commerce applicants face accounting, economics and business mathematics; humanities and education applicants meet English, history, geography and social-studies material; agriculture and engineering variants add applied science. The paper is not a trick exam - it asks whether you can start first-year modules without remedial help.
How to prepare by faculty
- Science/Health: SI units and conversions, cell structure and organelles, chemical symbols and balancing simple equations, speed and acceleration, reading graphs, the scientific method.
- Commerce: double-entry rules (debit and credit), the accounting equation, trial balance, supply and demand, simple and compound interest, break-even.
- Humanities/Education: source interpretation, map skills (scale, contour, grid reference), essay planning with a clear thesis, Namibian history since 1990.
Worked example (Science variant)
A car travels 150 m in 12 s at constant speed. What is its speed in km/h? Speed = distance ÷ time = 150 ÷ 12 = 12.5 m/s. Convert: 12.5 × 3.6 = 45 km/h. The factor 3.6 comes from 3600 s per hour ÷ 1000 m per km. Leaving the answer as 12.5 m/s is correct physics but wrong for the question asked.
Traps
- Not converting units before substituting into a formula.
- Ignoring the command word: state, describe and explain earn different marks.
- Writing everything you know instead of answering the question asked.
- In graphs, confusing correlation with cause.
- In accounting, reversing debits and credits.
Practise past-paper-style questions under timed conditions for your faculty.