PASSING WAEC ENGLISH EXAM: HERE IS OUR SIMPLIFIED APPROACH FOR SOLUTION

PASSING WAEC ENGLISH EXAM: HERE IS OUR SIMPLIFIED APPROACH FOR SOLUTION

…waec logo…

EDUPEDIA’S APPROACH TO PASSING WAEC/NECO ENGLISH LANGUAGE EXAMS

1. Our contributions are more of a practical guide with special reference to expectations of WAEC/NECO examiners. As stated earlier in another post our approach is not to begin “with the word slowly working up to the Essay , Sentence and Paragraphs”. Ours is a remedial approach intended to encourage students  identify possible errors under Essays, Comprehension, Summary, Lexis &Structure questions. Thereafter they are also provided with boosters( as recommended by WAEC !) for producing answers with finesse or panache.

2. By using this approach, we have tried to avoid giving the student the impression that essay writing is a mystery that he can penetrate only after a long and painful  journey. Moreover, the idea that an essay is built up word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph misleads students and ultimately leads to exam failure. Sorry to say that most English textbooks engage in this laborious “build up”process that has brought English examinations into some disrepute such that it now occupies a back seat in the minds of Nigerian students.

3. On the other hand, we think It is better for a student to study such finer points of writing techniques as paragraphing, effective openings and endings and the distinctive features of narrative essays, descriptive essays, argumentative essays and so on.Thereafter if a student has  something to say he can approach the composition going directly to the point and expressing himself  in an orderly manner.

4. What most students need is advice on errors to avoid and the finer technical points for boosting their performances. This can be done by giving many examples and exercises and not long discussions.  Edupedia  therefore hopes that it’s write-ups will be used by tutors as basis for discussions and  loosening of students’ mental muscles while preparing for the actual examinations.

5.An examiner reading the answer scripts of many Nigerian students these days is wont to say   English as a second language has definitely been transformed into a foreign language! The reasons for this have been listed on another related write-up.Why the situation is more of a comedy is the unrealistic attitude of existing teachers who handle the subject, as if it were still a second language. In reality, English is now a third language in Nigeria  with “Pidgin English” in a commanding second position. Or at the very best, smart teachers  should now regard English as a foreign language.As a foreign language, old teaching calabashes need to be broken and replaced by basic touch button techniques to make English interesting.Of course there are countless books on “Errors in English” or “Mistakes in English”. These books are however only useful as appendices to techniques which release boosters systematically and identify errors  to be avoided for exam purposes.

6. So we shall continue to release as many boosters as possible for: Essay Writing/ Composition, Comprehension Passages, and Summary Passages. Also we shall continue to list more errors identified from past exams by WAEC and NECO.

7. There are also write-ups on JAMB’s Use of English and English Literature by WAEC/NECO  

8.To benefit from these boosters please  continue  to visit our educational blog at http://lagosbooksclub.wordpress.com

Cheers…

TO PASS JAMB, REMEMBER THE 3 STEPS OF EDUPEDIA.

1. USE EDUPEDIA PTT TO PLAN YOUR STUDIES/TRACK

AND EXTRACT THE MOST IMPORTANT MAIN TOPICS IN THE

PAST THREE YEARS THROUGH Q/A BOOKLETS.

2.USING YOUR EDUPEDIA  PTT STUDY THE MOST FREQUENT

TOPICS AS CONTAINED IN SUMMARY TEXTS OR SHORT NOTES

WHICH YOU CAN GET IN THE MARKET.THEN USE JUST ONE 2A 

EXERCISE BOOK TO PREPARE EDUPEDIA RED NOTES.

REMEMBER IT IS NOT EASY TO STUDY BUT IT WILL BE OVER

IN A FEW WEEKS TIME.

3. KNOW THE EDUPEDIA JAMB TECHNIQUES AND USE FOR

THE THREE TYPES OF JAMB QUESTIONS AS OUTLINED

FOR YOU BY EDUPEDIA.

AND REMEMBER TO PRAY ABOUT IT REGULARLY!  THAT IS ALL.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO CHEAT OR LOOK FOR ANYONE TO HELP

YOU IN THE EXAM HALL.

FOR MORE INFO CONTACT MR ODUMOSU OF EDUPEDIA ON

08033010872 OR JOIN OUR WEEKEND 3-HR SEMINARS FOR

JUST 4 SATURDAYS OR SUNDAYS. INCLUDES HANDOUTS AND

GROUP DISCUSSIONS. GIVE YOUR MIND SOME PEACE FROM

THE JAMB WAR!

REMEMBER WE ARE ALSO A JAMB REGISTRATION CENTER

To Students, Parents,schools,churches and Mosques…

here Are Reasons/

GOOD LUCK.

JAMB IS PARTLY A “GUESTIMATING” EXAM…HERE ARE 16 INSTANCES FOR IMPROVING YOUR GUESSING ABILITY IF YOU NEED TO

 OR PASSING JAMB WITHOUT EXPECTING, WAITING OR PAYING FOR EXPO BY PHONE! (7)

CONTINUED FROM PART 6

DO  EXAMINERS LEAVE HINTS DELIBERATELY IN QUESTION PAPERS?

a.The following notes came straight out of the notes on the OGBUNIGWE method.It has been separated to improve your ability at choosing  the most likely best answer from a group of options based on hints to be found within the questions provided.They are a bit more technical than most of the notes given so far but they are like leaving the best for the last!

b.Since we don’t expect too many questions to be covered by OGBUNIGWE it might be asked why go into the section at all? The point is that experience has  revealed that students’ successes or failure can depend on 2 or 4 extra marks which can be provided by the OGBUNIGWE method.So  the effort might be worthy after all.

…our dedicated teachers were with our students at the badagry beach…hope our ex-students can still remember each of them!……

c.But the question we need to ask ourselves first is whether examiners do provide hints deliberately in the Jamb exam? We can look at the issue from two different angles:

-JAMB examiners and the system of finalizing their question papers hardly provide deliberate hints.So some of the hints provided below are contrived by close and deliberate observation of past JAMB questions based on the assumption that no human system is totally fail-proof.

– But it has also been observed that some tutors setting internal school exams get to be a bit less careful than JAMB examiners.Therefore many of the hints below are likely to be more observable in school exams than national ones like JAMB,WAEC and NECO.In some schools examiners can mistakenly or deliberately have such hints for smart students to use.

d.Now applying the issue of hints in question papers to the  Ogbunigwe method what to do is to  look for what we call PROMPTERS,that is, if you have the time.  PLEASE NOTE THAT IT  SHOULD COME FROM PRACTICE DURING  PRIVATE STUDIES LONG BEFORE THE EXAM. It is like playing a Hercules Poirot (detective) cool and calm logical game but the exam atmosphere will hardly allow you  such luxury if not well-practiced in advance.

…JAMB group discussion in progress…we hardly allow cameras in the classrooms during studies or academic work…there must have been a good reason for the presence of the  video man and photographer!…

e. Though examples of such prompters  are many don’t get distracted by them because examiners themselves are trained to avoid leaving hints to students all over question papers.But you will notice from these examples that some of the prompters do not arise from mistakes by examiners:

(1) Grammatical inconsistencies:

By matching the question with the answer that most connects e.g. the correct answer to a question which ends in “an___”, would obviously be an option starting with a vowel such as “equator”. The answer cannot be “longitude” or “latitude” because such answers will bring up grammatical inconsistencies. Watch out also for agreement of subjects and verbs. However only very few examiners especially in schools internal exam make mistakes like this.

(2) Vague terminology:

If you run into a terminology that you do not understand in the question you should simplify the question further by rewording it. E.g. where there are double negatives as in “milk is not a non-alcoholic beverage”, it can be turned to “milk is an alcoholic beverage”. If there are no double negatives, just attempt to simplify the sentence into a simpler form by defining them in your own words (in your head of course) that you can answer yes or no to. By reducing the question to a yes or no question, you will be in a better position to reduce the available options. Once you have eliminated one or two options under this method, you should draw a line over the eliminated options on your question paper so that when you are back to it, you don’t let it waste your time rereading those that you have decided are clearly wrong.

(3) Key words in the stem:

In rephrasing questions for simplification, always note that the keywords and phrases hold the aces for appropriate elimination of options.

(4) Equal answers (or over-lapping answers):

If the examiner includes two equally reasonable and seemingly correct answers (if two alternatives say exactly the same thing when interpreted or simplified, both of them are wrong), don’t be misled that two answers which are the same can be correct e.g. if 6 and ½ dozen are among the options, they are obvious signs that they are not the answer. Of course, distractions also appear in other ways, please note that options that are not viable are such as these are called FILLERS (for filling the space for options).

… late mrs mbonu school principal, Mrs Adeniran a director of the Lagos State Ministry of Education andv mr odumosu on the high table…

(5.) Silly or suspicious words among the options suggesting illogicality:

These are to be eliminated outright without wasting time

(6) Opposite answers (partner choices):

If two answers are exactly opposite, one of them is likely to be the answer for example arctic and antarctic

(7) Longest and most complicated answer: 

This is likely to be the answer because it usually reveals the effort by an examiner to make the answer complete or precise. However please note that some extra long or jargon options can however be used as decoys away from the best answers. You must check all the options before making a choice.

(8) Similar answers (similar pairs):

If there are two similar answers, the correct one would be between the two e.g. if the options are 4, 52, 65 and 506. The answer is likely to be either 52 or 65 (see further notes below)

mrs iyeye using bamboos on the beach to draw a line beyond which students were not allowed to go….all jamb students must draw similar lines in the sand today by starting their studies for the next jamb well in advance…the earlier they can the more the likelihood of mastering the techniques…

(9) Qualifying words (qualifiers):

Where the option contain words such as “some”, “few”, ‘more”, “seldom”, ‘often”, “least likely”, “most likely”, “sometimes”, “usually”, “perhaps”, “may”, “generally”, such answers are likely to be correct.

(10) Superlative words:

Where the options contain words such as “always”, “never”, “all”, “every”, “in no case”, “in every case”, “completely”, “totally”, “only”, “none”, which are usually restrictive, they are usually  difficult to defend and are rarely correct.

(11) “All of the above” option:

If this is one of the options and two other alternatives are correct it is likely that “all the above” will be the correct option even if the remaining option is not clear to you. If only one other alternative is correct it is not likely to be a good choice.

(12) “None of the above” option:

If two alternatives are incorrect it is likely that the correct answer will be “none of the above” even if the remaining option is not so clear to you.

Time wasters:Always remember that “all the above” or “none of the above” questions can turn out to be time wasters especially for science students. Keep this in mind for your time management to decide whether you want to answer them under elimination technique or just under the guessing game technique

part of mason college choral essemble… miss irieguna the shell choral champion on the left…i saw the U.S. pics of our student second from right as a choir member of one of the Redeemed Churches…now its clear he was already at it from school!…he also got married recently over there…congrats to  LAKESON and wife!…

(13) Similar sounding options (similar parts):

If two alternatives contain similar sounding words such as “subordination” or “subjugation” either of these like 52 or 65 under (8) above will be correct. It does not matter whether they are both A and D or A and B or B and D or C and D. the answer should be picked from one of the two.

(14) Prefixes/ suffixes/ root words:

Use your knowledge of common prefixes and suffixes and word roots to make intelligent guesses about terminology that you don’t know e.g. knowledge of the prefix “hyper” for instance would show that hypertension refers to high and not low blood pressure in the options.

(15) Network hints: 

Answers to one question may sometimes be given in another question (common in internal school exams). JAMB exams may also contain some of such hints in a way.

(16) Except/ Not/Least:

As a follow up to what was written on vague terminology, watch out for the use of words like except, not and least in the stem. You will also need to simplify the statement before you answer. These words are seen as negative words and are usually PRINTED in capital letters,italics or underlined in the stem.

REMINDER:For some students most questions in JAMB can be solved using the first two techniques (operation sweep and bafana bafana)

 

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MILE2HERALD…ASSOCIATED TO LAGOS BOOKS CLUB…WELCOME TO OUR NEW WORLD!…

 MILE2HERALD is an associate of the LAGOS BOOKS CLUB. It started as  a community newspaper and was operated briefly in the early 90’s just before  Mason College came on stream.But it died a natural, albeit temporary death because there was no time  to nurture it as we should have done

This MILE2HERALD blog will focus on disseminating news and opinions to readers ans followers of LAGOS BOOKS CLUB  as it did during its first but brief existence. There might be preference for omg! news above all others, however.These may be posted  through our own twists and short commentary/titles.

Its major aim is to cover most of the content of LAGOBOOKSCLUB.COM AND MILE2HERALD (http://lagosbooksclub.com/) which might go into oblivion soon because of that blog”s intractable comments and SEO issues.Just for record purposes LAGOSBOOKSCLUB.COM has an Alexa ranking of about 146,000  by middle December 2013 and almost 300 other sites are linked to it.But  it also has other operational issues which are not in existence on other WordPress.com blogs such as http://lagosbooksclub.wordpress.com and http://edupedianigeria.wordpress.com.

LAGOSBOOKSCLUB.COM is hosted by Hostgator which gave us excellent back-up services to a great extent over the past 12 months.But we never really felt secure with the blog.We intend ,however, to decide early next month whether to continue with using and paying for its hosting under new goals and objectives.

The write-up below serves as a reminder of what we are about and its re-blogged from http://lagosbooksclub.wordpress.com.Welcome to our new world!

1. INTRODUCTION OF LAGOS BOOKS CLUB (LBC):

Since 1994, LBC was known as CELIA’S…but as it grew    providing reading services to more students and parents it changed its name to BOOKENDS. It is a departmental venture under EDUPEDIA ASSOCIATES.

 2. ONE OF THE LARGEST PRIVATE COLLECTIONS OF NOVELS IN THE COUNTRY:

With over 7000      multimedia  assets (BOOKS/DVDS/CDS/VHS/AUDIO CDS) we are probably one of the largest private media libraries in  Lagos if not in the country…our genres cover entertainment, education, motivational/inspirational, health mind and body/spiritual/religion, fiction, nonfiction, science, nature, technology, business, investing, adventure, mystery, romance, crime, drama, comedy, thriller, historical, sports, children, cartoon and family…even there are autobiographies like Hitler’s MEIN KAMPF, dictionaries of SHAKESPEARE and of IDIOMS and UNUSUAL ENGLISH WORDS and PHRASE.For those wanting to win WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE there are books on MASTERMIND and similar PUZZLES. It is a collection of great titles and great authors for great minds and cultured souls…

3. EISH!!!.READING FOR PLEASURE WITHOUT PRESSURE!:

Our major objective is to encourage book-reading in Lagos  particularly  and Nigeria generally. No registration fees are involved. Simply rent, buy or swap your old books with ours! Read easy and return at leisure. No pressure, no due dates and no late fees. Unlimited collections subject to   category chosen. Read as many authors as u desire at your pace and choosing! Plans are at bargain prices and there are great savings to be made! Effortless collection is our watchword as we deliver at and collect from your doorsteps-home     or office! Above all you can pay monthly subscriptions by cash or by monthly debits.

4. BUT ARE WE JUST A BOOK CLUB?:

No, far from it!.We have spent about 30 yrs in school administration and EDUPEDIA definitely has other goals related to the main objectives of a book club. One of them is LAGOSBOOKSCLUB.WORDPRESS.COM which to the glory of God is the first web-based remedial school in Nigeria. For this both  (LBC and EDUPEDIAWEB)  have struck up a partnership at http://lagosbooksclub.wordpress.com.  Many  other write-ups on maths, study and examination techniques, motivational, life and leisure skills as well as staff improvement techniques shall be published for students, tutors, educational administrators, and parents!.We have a personal conviction that it needs be done.

5. HOW IT WORKS & HOW TO JOIN

Three simple steps actually.

Firstly, collect our list of books/plans and charges from our place at 5TH AVENUE M CLOSE, HOUSE 27 FESTAC TOWN LAGOS  or from the LBC site http://lagosbooksclub.wordpress.com.

Secondly, select a plan and create your account on the spot  or send          an e-mail by text to any of the following  addresses /telephones: e-mails:lagosbooksclub@yahoo.com or  edupedianigeria@yahoo.com . tel:08033010872 ,08027853025.

Thirdly, select all the books/assets u want in a month based on  plan  chosen  and collect at our place or have it delivered to your doorstep anywhere in Lagos metropolis.…more info shall  be provided by more write-ups and  listing of FAQs  subsequently…we look forward to your regular custom in future.

Kindly whisper kind words about us to others or visit our Twitter or Facebook pages to follow or like us.

Thanks.

Kayode Odumosu

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