The common weaknesses manifested in the candidates’ scripts were;

(1) Poor grammatical expression

Most of the candidates lacked adequate language to express themselves. This made it difficult for them to articulate their ideas intelligently on paper. Candidates scored poor marks for this reason.

(2) Poor knowledge of drawing graphs

A good number of candidates could not draw good graphs for questions  1 and 2. The proper labelling and scaling of axis appeared to be a major problem for them. Consequently candidates lost good marks.

(3) Failure to expatiate points

Many candidates only listed points without discussing them. This also affected their scores as they were unable to earn the full marks for the questions attempted.

(4) Wasting of time on unnecessary preambles

Some candidates spent most of their time and used most of the spaces in the answer booklet to write down unnecessary preambles that earned them no marks. As a result of this, they were unable to answer the required number of questions expected of them at the end of the paper. 

Suggested remedies for these weaknesses are as follows:

• Students should read textbooks, novels, newspapers, relevant journals etc to help improve on their grammatical skills.
• Teachers should teach their students to use the right terms required in answering questions on basic concepts.
• Students should avoid one word answers and mere listing of points;
• Students should avoid wasting of time by answering the questions asked and not going into unnecessary preambles.
• Students should practice the drawing of graphs and charts before the examination.