How to Read a Chief Examiner Report Without Revising Everything

The chief examiner's report is WAEC's note on how a whole sitting answered. Teachers love it because it is specific. Students often download it, feel scolded, and go back to reading notes from chapter one. You only need the lines that match your own paper.

A way to read ten pages

• Open the report for one subject. BECE Mathematics is not WASSCE Core Mathematics, and neither of them is Elective Mathematics.
• Underline comments about errors, not comments that praise a question.
• Pick three. Write them in a notebook in your own words. "Show the working" is a real instruction. "Learn everything" is not.
• Find one past question that would catch each comment. Do it with the book closed.

What you still will not know

The report is about candidates in general. Your algebra can be fine while the country's was weak, and your summary can be the thing costing English marks. A diagnostic on that subject is how you check. After you answer, review is the comment on your attempt: the choice you made, and the right one.

Olearna does not repost the official WAEC file. If your teacher has the year's report, use it beside a paper you sat. The fuller note is how to use the examiner's report.