Insights from My Experience as a NECO SSCE English Language II Examiner: Essential Tips for Students

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

In August and September, I was privileged to be an English Language Examiner (Paper II, which comprises composition, comprehension, and summary) for the National Examinations Council (NECO) in the 2024 Senior School Certificate Examination SSCE (Internal).

While I noticed a generally appalling decline in the use of English by the majority of the students in the 11 schools whose scripts I marked and graded, I also observed a mass failure in the summary aspect, which carried 30 marks.

For context, the total mark for the NECO SSCE English Language Paper II is 100 (Composition, 50 marks; Comprehension 20 marks; and Summary 30 marks).

The majority of the students whose scripts I marked across the eleven centres had zeros in the summary aspect, and this failure was a result of one penalty. NECO has guidelines for all examiners who mark every aspect of the NECO SSCE English Language Paper II and these must be followed to the core.

One of the penalties of which the students were guilty was mindless lifting/verbatim copying of sentences from the passage. According to NECO SSCE (Internal) Summary Guidelines, examiners should award a zero for mindless lifting/verbatim copying of sentences from the passage, which I rightly did.

Now your guess is as good as mine. With 30 whole marks missing from the total 100 marks, the chances of the students getting a credit pass in the English language become slim and slimmer by the time the examiners grade their (poor) composition which carries 50 marks.

I was taken aback at how these students lifted sentences directly from the passage as answers to the summary questions. It makes me wonder what their English language teachers are doing in these eleven secondary schools as their only job is to teach them to dodge this bullet, a bullet that’s as fatal as getting the students a D7 or E8 in the subject.

This problem wasn’t peculiar to the schools I marked and graded; other examiners also complained of this problem, so it appeared to be a general problem.

For almost a decade of teaching the English language across different levels of education in Nigeria, I have taught my students in tutorial centres, secondary schools, and tertiary institutions that mindless lifting/verbatim copying of sentences from the passage is a serious sin for not only NECO SSCE but also WASSCE. That’s always the first thing I apprise them of, letting them know that it’s a sin as serious as earning them a zero in that summary aspect of their English examination.

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For those who might be wondering why this is a serious offense. I will explain why. The summary aspect of English Language II is to test the candidates’ ability to present ideas expressed in the passage as concisely as possible, using their own words or sentences. The goal is not to give the examiners exactly what is presented in the passage but rather what is the main point, the key point; extraneous/irrelevant information should then be avoided.

Not only that, the goal is also to test how the students can gather many pieces of information in the passage and harmonize them into a sentence, as succinctly as possible.

While there are other penalties outlined in the NECO SSCE Summary guidelines, mindless lifting/verbatim copying of sentences from the passage is the most grievous.

For reference, here are the 10 NECO SSCE Summary guidelines:

1. Award 5 for each scoring point.
2. Deduct half a mark once for grammatical/expression error(s) in each scoring point.
3. Deduct 1 mark for inclusion of irrelevant/extraneous material in each scoring point.
4. Award 3 marks for each scoring point not written in a sentence and impose other penalties as appropriate.
5. Award zero for mindless lifting/copying of sentences from the passage.
6. If more than the required number of sentences is given, mark the first required number of sentences only.
7. Where a point, taken with the preamble does not make a complete sentence, award 3 marks and impose other penalties as appropriate.
8. Where a candidate makes two points in a sentence and both are correct, award marks for one and regard the other as irrelevant/extraneous.
9. If a candidate gives two points to a question that demands only one and either is wrong, award zero.
10. Deduct 1 mark for any answer starting with a pronoun

At this junction juncture, I believe that students who are reading this can use these guidelines as a point of reference while preparing for their NECO SSCE English Language Paper II.

Lastly, English language teachers in different schools must do well to acquaint themselves with the board’s marking scheme so they can dispense thorough teaching that can help these students ace their NECO SSCE English Language II in with flying colours.