Passing the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) and National Examination Council (NECO) SSCE English essay can be a little bit trickery and tough. We’ll look at some secrets on how to pass essay exams in WAEC and NECO SSCE in this write-up.
Besides exam purposes, your essay writing ability can aid your chances of getting a job in any organisation in Nigeria since job seekers are also assessed based on this.
Besides developing good essay writing skills for exam purposes, it is imperative because this skill helps us in developing good writing abilities that are useful in other spheres of life.
Start out with the right mindset towards essays
Positive people are more likely to be successful in essay writing and perhaps in life generally than negative people. The first prerequisite to excel in SSCE essay writing is to love, embrace and be optimistic about the art of writing an essay.
If you are able to imbibe and adopt this positive mindset you’ll notice how easy it is to succeed in what other people may have perceived to be tough or impossible. In the long run, you’ll see essay writing as an act that can be learned and cherished.
Having the right mindset before setting out to write has the effect of opening your mind to boundless ideas. These ideas can be utilized into making your writing superb. Ideas are the seeds upon which the concept of writing an essay blossoms.
Expose yourself to prose writings to scale essay writing in the English language
The number two golden role of passing essay writing in SSCE exams is to expose oneself to prose works. If you lack the mindset to read then you lack the attitude of a writer. Reading prose exposes your brain to more vocabulary, phrases, techniques and styles which your brain tends to subconsciously apply while you’re writing.
According to Laura Moss in his work, How Does What You Read Affect Your Writings, “ If you spend hours skimming the web, poring over academic journals or losing yourself in a good book, your writing will show it.”
There are no cutting corners to this rule, “you become what you keep yourself exposed to.” If you consistently keep reading good articles, journals and other forms of write-ups that belong to the family of prose. Staying abreast with these write-ups will inadvertently improve your prose writing skills.
This will ultimately subconsciously force the brain into picking up the right use of punctuation, vocabulary e.t.c and applying the same in essay writing.
Get your English essay writing points and organise it
Thirdly, in other to pass the SSCE essay exam learn to organize an essay. Don’t jump into writing without getting your points listed out. Start writing statements that make a unique observation of your essay topic.
Then, write down each of the points you want to make that support your topic. Once you have all of your main points, expand them into different paragraphs using the information you have.
Practice, practice and more practice
Experience they say, is the best teacher. Practice makes perfect. You become a good essay writer if you write persistently, review your mistakes and note necessary corrections after a better writer has made some corrections.
Practising essay writing before writing one for an examiner gives you an opportunity to make errors you may have made during exams. Thus, this helps to minimize the number of mistakes you stand at risk of making.
Master the art of point development
Often times developing points can be a lot more challenging than getting these points. There are some really cool methods you can adopt to improve and develop the point you have made in the opening paragraph.
A common method is the use of illustrations and examples. Practically, every concept can be explained by telling a story via example. These examples need not be elaborate, it can be brief, direct and simple.
Another method of expanding points is, through the use of the five, Ws and How questions tag. This method involves answering or asking questions that pertain to the subject matter through the five “Ws” questions tag which is; who, whom why, where, when and most importantly, the How.
You may not have to write or ask these answers literally or rhetorically in your write-ups, but keeping these questions closely in your mind can guide you through your easy writing.
Another way to pass essay writing in SSCE English is to be conscious of the claws of social media
Social media has today become a way of life, hardly a day passes that we don’t access either Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp or any other social media applications.
Just as we noted in the aforementioned paragraphs – “We become what we’re exposed to.” Gradually, due to our constant exposure to social media, we began to learn terms, slang words and abbreviations that are not in line with the standard use of the English language. This eventually makes us unconsciously apply the same in SSCE such as WAEC and NECO exams.
Although, in the recent update of the Oxford English Dictionary more than new 600 words were added to accommodate the new common terms being used by people. Those words range from terms used in the social media world and other slang words.
Unfortunately, these words are limited and don’t cover the terms used by a smaller group of individuals. Besides, those that mark these WAEC and NECO scripts are elderly teachers who are not used to terms in social media.
In conclusion, the basic requirement is the willingness and desire to pass NECO and WAEC essay exams. This will give you the desire to implement these six steps and see significant improvement in your ability to write an essay within the first three months. Good luck.
