How to prepare for WASSCE Business Management

Topic areas to revise

These are the areas candidates revise for WASSCE Business Management. A heading is not a promise that every unit appears on your paper. Glearn does not host the WAEC file. If the file your school gives you uses a different name, follow the file.

1. 1. The business and its forms

   A business exists to provide goods or services. A sole proprietorship is owned by one person, who takes the profit and the losses. A partnership is owned by two or more people under an agreement. A limited company is a separate legal person, and the liability of the owners is limited to what they agreed to put in. A cooperative is owned by its members for their common benefit. A public corporation is set up by the state to provide a service. Keep the forms apart. Limited liability belongs to the company, not to the sole trader.

2. 2. Management, structure, and leadership

   Management is getting work done through people, towards an aim. Planning sets the aim and the steps. Organising arranges people and resources. Directing leads the work as it happens. Controlling compares results with the plan and corrects the gap. Levels run from top management, which sets direction, to middle management, to supervisors. A structure such as line, functional or committee says who reports to whom. Span of control is how many people one person supervises directly. Delegation passes a task and the authority to do it, and the manager keeps the responsibility for the result. Leadership is how a person influences others. It is not the same word as management.

3. 3. People and communication

   Human resource work covers recruiting, selecting, training, paying and looking after people. Recruitment is attracting candidates. Selection is choosing among them. Training builds the skill the job needs. Motivation is what moves a person to do the work. A theory you name has to be tied to a practice, such as pay, praise, or a chance to take responsibility. Communication is sending a message so the other person understands it. Say who sends it, which channel is used, and what can block it. A notice nobody reads has not communicated.

4. 4. Marketing and production

   Marketing finds out what buyers need and offers it at a price, in a place, and with a message. Those four are the marketing mix: product, price, place and promotion. Market research is how the business learns what buyers want, before it guesses. Production turns inputs into goods or services. The method, the layout and the check on quality belong here. Do not use the word product when the question asked about production, or the other way round.

5. 5. Finance and the surroundings of the business

   A business raises money from the owner, from profit kept in the business, from a loan, or from shares, depending on its form. A budget is a plan for income and spending. It is not the final accounts, which record what happened. The surroundings include customers, suppliers, competitors, and rules made by the state. A change in any of those can help or hurt the business. Describe the effect. Do not invent a sales total or a profit figure.

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Definitions, essay structure, and examples

A Business Management essay is a set of points a marker can see. The definition opens the answer when the command asks for one. Each later point has a reason and an example. An example earns its place only when it fits the question.

1. 1. Match the command

   Define is the meaning. State or list is a short set of points. Explain is a point plus a reason. Distinguish needs both sides, kept apart. Discuss needs more than one side. A definition does not answer a question that asked for four functions or two advantages.

2. 2. Define in the first line

   When the question asks what management is, or what delegation is, the meaning is the first sentence. The next sentence can add the example. Do not spend the opening restating the question.

3. 3. Build the essay as point, reason, and example

   Give each point its own short chain. Planning is setting the aim and the steps before the work starts, so people are not guessing. A trader who decides the market day goods before buying stock is a brief example. The next point, such as controlling, needs a different function. Stop when you have the number of points the question asked for.

4. 4. Use the case the paper gave you

   If a section is a short case, answer from the names, the form of business, and the problem in that passage. A general essay that could fit any firm has missed the case. Quote the situation in your own words. Do not invent a profit, a wage, or a market share the passage did not state.

5. 5. Keep the pairs distinct

   Recruitment is not selection. Leadership is not management. A budget is not a set of final accounts. A sole trader does not have limited liability. Product is what you offer. Production is how you make it. Name the one the question asked for.

6. 6. Stay inside the sections the rubric names

   Read the front of the paper before you choose. If the instruction asks for the case and a set of essays, a script that stays in the essays has missed the case, even when the essays are strong.

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How to use the time

The clock is on the timetable and on the front of the paper. This page does not copy a duration. Choosing well is part of using the time.

1. 1. Read the front before you choose

   Note how many questions to answer and which section each one sits in. Choose only that many. An extra unfinished essay does not replace a section you left blank.

2. 2. Give the case its own block

   If the paper requires a case, read it twice and answer it before you settle into the longest essay. The facts are already on the paper. Leaving them until the last minutes is how the case gets missed.

3. 3. Give each essay a fair share

   Plan the points for a minute or two, then write. Do not spend the sitting on the first essay and leave the later ones as headings.

4. 4. Plan in points, then write

   List the number of points the question asks for, each as a short line with its reason and its example. If two lines say the same thing, replace one before you fair copy.

5. 5. Leave a short reading at the end

   A second look catches a part you skipped, a pair of terms you swapped, and a section the rubric still needs. The exam tips cover the morning of the paper. This page does not copy a duration.

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A short way to revise

Rotate the forms of business, the functions of management, and a case. A week of definitions with no example leaves the essay paper cold.

1. 1. Give each area a turn

   One session for forms of business, one for management and people, one for marketing and finance. Inside each session, mix a few objective items with one written point.

2. 2. Write the definition, then an example

   Say the meaning in one sentence, then one example, from memory. A term you can only recognise on an objective item is not a term you can open an essay with.

3. 3. Reject the wrong options

   On an objective item, say why the other options fail. Limited liability given to a sole trader, or selection described as the advert that attracts candidates, is a reason to reject an option.

4. 4. Have the answer marked

   Anna marks WASSCE Business Management on glearn. Kevin is the coach on BECE practice. A written answer is marked point by point. Practise with Kevin and Anna on glearn.now. The first questions need no account.

5. 5. Keep Business Management inside the wider plan

   The revision plan orders the weeks across every subject you sit. Financial Accounting prepares the accounts. Economics explains markets. Both are different papers. This page does not copy a date.

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Mistakes chief examiners keep returning to

WAEC chief examiners write a report after a sitting. This page describes the habits in general. It does not quote a report, and it does not give a figure.

1. 1. A list of functions with no meaning

   Reports often describe a script that writes planning, organising, directing and controlling, and stops. Each function needs a sentence on what it does. Planning sets the aim. Controlling compares the result with that aim.

2. 2. Limited liability given to a sole trader

   A sole trader and the business are the same person for debt. A limited company is a separate legal person, and the liability of the owners is limited. Partnership liability is not the same as company liability unless the question describes a limited partner. Name the form the question asked for.

3. 3. Recruitment confused with selection

   Recruitment attracts people to apply. Selection chooses among those who applied. An advertisement is recruitment. An interview used to choose is selection. One word does not answer a question about the other.

4. 4. The marketing mix named and not used

   Listing product, price, place and promotion, with no link to the firm in the question, leaves the application mark behind. Say what that firm should change, and why.

5. 5. The case ignored

   A general essay that never mentions the business in the passage has not answered a case. Use the form of business and the problem the passage already gave you.

6. 6. An invented figure

   A profit, a wage, or a share of the market you made up does not strengthen a point. The function, the advantage, or the effect is the mark. This page does not give a figure, and your script should not invent one.