THE MALAWI NATIONAL EXAMINATIONS BOARD

CHIEF EXAMINER’S REPORT

2021

JCE ENGLISH
PAPER I

GENERAL COMMENTS

This year’s paper was fair. The quality and standard was relevant to the JCE
English Syllabus. Many candidates were able to gasp the meaning of the
questions and they performed fairly well. However, some candidates failed due
to lack of preparation and insufficient coverage of the syllabus by the teachers.

GENERAL COMMENTS ON INDIVIDUAL QUESTIONS SECTION A

(MULTIPLE CHOICE)

Question 1 – 20

 The Multiple Choice questions were relevant and focused on grammar.

Most candidates performed well in this section.
 However, questions 11 to 14, “idiomatic expressions” posed a challenge
to most candidates especially those from CDSS. In question 17, most
candidates indicated ‘found’ as the correct answer instead of “plenty.”

SECTION B

REWRITING SENTENCES

QUESTION 21 – 25

 Candidates were required to re-write sentences using the beginning

given. However, a lot of candidates failed because they did not maintain
the original meaning of the sentence.
 The candidates also included although, but, so, in all the sentences that
they wrote. Most candidates performed poorly in this part.

COMMON MISTAKES IN QUESTIONS 21 – 25

a) Candidates failed to rewrite sentences using the beginning given.

b) Failure by candidates to follow orthographic rules leading to
fragments/ran on sentences led them to lose marks.

For example: “While they were arguing the man picked up his bicycle.

Correct answer: “While they were arguing, the man picked up his bicycle.
 Therefore, a candidate who did not punctuate his/her work was
penalized.
SECTION C

Question 26

 The question demanded that a candidate imagine that he/she went for a
school trip to a game reserve.
 This was a guided question and candidates were supposed to include all
the guidelines in the response.
 Candidates who opted for this question ‘Letter Writing’ performed better
than those who opted for question 27.
 The question was indeed popular. However, most candidates were
confusing friendly letter with formal letter.

A few candidates also failed to understand the meaning of some words in

the stem of the question for example, “game reserve” being understood as
“a football game at a reserve”. Therefore, candidates wrote compositions
that were “on and off” point. Consequently, they suffered greatly on the
content marks.

COMMON MISTAKES MADE IN QUESTION 26

a) Candidates were punctuating the address written in bold style. Teachers
need to teach students how the bold style is written, in terms of
punctuation.
b) Writing the whole paragraph in one sentence without punctuation.
c) Unnecessary use of proverbs that are translated from vernacular
language.
d) Beginning sentences with conjunction, and, so, because etc.
e) Tenses – use of future tense to explain past events i.e. “at the game
reserve we will see animals” instead of “at the game reserve we saw
animals”.
f) Use of contractions and word combination
Don’t for do not
A lot for a lot
In order for in order

QUESTION 27
 The question demanded a candidate imagine that child abuse
cases are increasing in his/her area.
 This question was guided. As such, a candidate was supposed to
follow and include all the guidelines.
  This question came second in terms of popularity to question 26.
However, most candidates wrote about drug and substance abuse
instead of writing about child abuse.

COMMON MISTAKES MADE IN QUESTION 27

a) Spellings
Droup for drop
Strees for Stress
Childrens for Children
Snacks for snakes
Sexual harassmate for sexual harassment

b) Signaling devices

“Finally” followed by “in conclusion”

c) Using a capital letter after a comma e.g. firstly, They ….. instead of
firstly, they………..

RECOMMENDATIONS

TO SCHOOLS

 Students should be encouraged to read widely.

 Teachers of English should adequately assess composition writing.
 Teachers should follow the syllabuses and teach basic grammar.
 Schools should organize language insets to share expertise on teaching of
compositions.
 School terminal tests should be in line with MANEB format for good
practice.
 Teachers should emphasize to learners to ensure that they understand
the question first before attempting it.
 Teachers should advise students to follow instructions stipulated in the
examination paper.

TO THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

 The Ministry of Education should make sure that teachers of English are
qualified and are adequate in schools.
 Should introduce dictation to check on spelling challenges in the
learners.
PAPER II

1: GENERAL COMMENTS ON THE PAPER

The JCE examination came after a four year break hence it is difficult to
compare English paper 2 with any of the papers before it. That said, it is
only fair to describe the candidates’ performance as being “below average”.
The paper has not only laid bare the lack of seriousness amongst the students
in many secondary schools across the country but also exposed some
deficiencies in the teaching – learning processes in the schools.

2: QUALITY OF THE PAPER

i) In general, the paper was of the candidates’ level with everything taken from
the JCE syllabus.
ii) The examination was true measure of the intended skills as demanded
by the syllabus. This is very much commended.

iii) However, going through the paper, there was a serious cause for
concern about the physical aspect of the paper because in various
cases, the following cases were noted;

 Unstapled question papers

 Typos in questions 1(d)
 Papers with duplicated pages
 Papers with missing pages i.e. in some cases, others could have
as less as question 1 only and candidates would not bother ask
for a better question paper.
B. OVERALL PERFORMANCE

i. As stated earlier on, the general performance in this paper was below
average. Approximately, 10% of the candidates were above average,
30% average, while 60% below average.

ii. While there was an excellent performance by national, boarding and

some notable private schools, the same cannot be said about CDSSs
and many private schools where most of the candidates come from.
This is a real cause for concern.

C. PERFORMANCE ON INDIVIDUAL QUESTIONS

Question 1 was a comprehension passage extracted from a form One book.

Candidates were expected to show their understanding of the story by answering
questions. There was a mixed performance and often times, the following could be
noted:

 Candidates simply lifting sentences from the passage.

 Candidates answering outside the context. For example, question 1(h)
expected the candidates to give the role of a father according to Ulemu.
Some candidates were giving responses like “guidance and counseling” or
“advising her to go to school” all of which did not appear in the passage.
In question 1, some candidates were writing different names other than
“Ulemu”. Others misunderstood the passage and thought that the father
wanted to marry his daughter, Ulemu. Others still chose to write the
summary in vernacular.

Question 2

Question 2 was taken from a Life Skills topic. Unlike other questions, this was the
best in terms of candidates’ performance, although some still managed to fail. Still
on this question, others wrote two (2) words instead of one (1) while others often
had spelling problems. For example, instead of writing “believe” others would
write “brief” or “belief”
Questions 3

Question 3 was a poem. The candidates were to show their masterly of poetic
devices by analyzing the poem. From what was noted, this was arguably, the worst
performed task. It was the less performed task. It was the less fancied question.
Most of the candidates failed to meet the specific demands of the poem. For
example, question 3b demanded the candidates to pick out a pair of rhyming words
found in stanza 2. Many candidates were able to identify rhyming words but from
the wrong stanza.

Question 4

Much like question 1, question 4 had a short story from which questions were to be
answered. Unlike in question 1, this time the candidates were expected to use their
knowledge of literary devices to analyse the short story. The following were often
noted:-

 Failure to justify the setting as question 4a (ii) demanded.

 Generalization such as “rich men and doctors are found in the city”.
 In question (b), instead of describing the poor man’s character, many would
simply lift the phrase “Now in that city lived a poor man who was kind
hearted”.

D. RECOMEMNDATIONS

To Schools

 Make sure that the syllabus is fully covered.

 Students should be drilled properly on how to analyse a short story
and a poem.