The following weaknesses were observed among the candidates:
- Inability to properly express themselves in English language;
- Inability to properly compare organisms in a tabular form, in many cases the answers, did not correspond;
- Poor spelling of labels and technical terms;
- Shallow knowledge of many of the tested concepts;
- Drawing of poor diagrams with woolly, thick and broken lines;
- Not conforming to size specifications of diagrams;
- Not giving of titles to diagrams;
- Inability to write balanced equations;
- Poor performance on questions related to Genetics.
The following remedies were proffered to overcome these weaknesses:
- Teachers should ensure that all aspects of the syllabus are covered
before the terminal examinations.
- Teachers should give students a lot of assignments involving drawing of
diagrams and other aspects of biology and endeavour to correct them
so that the candidates’ weaknesses can be discovered and corrected on
time.
- Only qualified Biology teachers should be employed to teach the
subject.