How to prepare for WASSCE Food and Nutrition

Topic areas to revise

These are the areas candidates revise for WASSCE Food and Nutrition. 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. Nutrients and health

   Carbohydrate supplies energy. Cereals, roots and sugars are usual sources. Protein is for growth and repair, from animal foods and from legumes. Fat supplies energy and carries the fat soluble vitamins, which are A, D, E and K. The B group and vitamin C are water soluble. Vitamin C is linked with scurvy. Vitamin D is linked with rickets. Iron is linked with anaemia. Calcium is linked with bones and teeth. Iodine is linked with the thyroid. Water and fibre have jobs too. Kwashiorkor is linked to a diet very low in protein. Marasmus is linked to a diet very low in energy. They are not the same condition. Digestion breaks food down so the body can absorb it. A food test names the nutrient you were looking for, the observation, and then the conclusion.

2. 2. Meal planning

   A meal plan starts from the person, not from a favourite dish. Age, health, work, the money available, the season, the equipment and the food habits of the household all change the plan. Pregnant and lactating women, infants, children, adolescents, adults, older people and vegetarians do not all need the same plate. A balanced meal has the nutrients that person needs, in food they can eat, and it is safe. A large portion is not the same as a balanced meal. Do not invent a price or a calorie figure.

3. 3. Food preparation and commodities

   Moist methods include boiling, steaming and stewing. Dry methods include baking, roasting, grilling and frying. Heat moves by conduction, convection and radiation. Protein coagulates. Starch gelatinises. Vitamin C is easily lost in water and in a long cook. Cereals, legumes, vegetables, fruit, meat, fish, eggs, milk, fats and oils are different commodities. Say how you would choose one and how you would store it. Flour mixtures use air, steam, or carbon dioxide from yeast or a chemical raising agent. Name the method the question asked about.

4. 4. The kitchen, hygiene and preservation

   A kitchen answer names the layout only when the question asks for it, and it always names safety. Personal hygiene, kitchen hygiene and food hygiene are three different points. Wash hands, keep raw and cooked food apart, and keep hot food hot and cold food cold. Cross contamination is how microbes move from one food to another, often from raw meat to a food that will not be cooked again. Food spoils when microbes, enzymes, pests or poor storage act on it. Preservation slows that. Drying, salting, smoking, freezing, canning and a high sugar content are examples. Say which one you mean and what it does to the microbes or the water. Do not invent a storage time.

5. 5. Service, the consumer, and a small food business

   Meal service is how the food reaches the eater: the dishes, the order, and a table that is clean. A label tells you the name of the food, the ingredients and the date you should use it by. Read it. A budget is the money you planned to spend, not a price you made up. A small food business needs a product people will buy, a safe place to prepare it, and a record of what you spent and what you sold. Profit is what remains after cost. Management in Living and Clothing and Textiles are still different examination subjects.

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Explanations, meal plans, and the practical

A theory mark is for a point a marker can see. A practical mark is for a meal that matches the brief and was prepared safely. A name with no reason is hard to credit.

1. 1. Match the command

   State is a short fact. Define is the meaning. List is the items, without a story. Explain is the fact plus a reason. Distinguish needs both sides. Describe a method is the steps in the order you would work. A definition does not answer a question that asked for a method.

2. 2. Put both sides of a distinction

   Fat soluble and water soluble vitamins. Boiling and steaming. Kwashiorkor and marasmus. Perishable food and food that keeps. Write one sentence for each side. Stopping after the first side has answered half of the question.

3. 3. Give the reason, not only the name

   Steaming keeps more vitamin C than boiling because the food is not left in the water. Iron is needed to make haemoglobin, which is why a shortage is linked with anaemia. The name of the nutrient or the method is the start. The reason is the mark.

4. 4. On the practical, plan and then cook the brief

   If there is a planning session, write the dishes, the order of work and the equipment. Start the task that takes longest. Keep surfaces clean while you work. Present what the question asked for, not a different dish you prefer. A weight or a temperature you did not measure is not a result.

5. 5. Leave out the invented figure

   A calorie count, a market price, an oven temperature or a storage time is credited when the question supplies it or when you were taught that exact case. Guessing one does not help. The principle is enough.

6. 6. Obey the rubric

   Answer the number of essays the instruction allows. An extra unfinished answer does not replace one you left blank. On the practical, complete the dishes the paper set. Management in Living is not a substitute for a Food and Nutrition question.

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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. The habit is the same on any length of paper.

1. 1. Read the front before you write

   Note how many essays you may answer. On the practical, read the dishes and the order before you light a cooker. School candidates and private candidates follow the paper in front of them.

2. 2. Give each required essay a block

   Start with the question you find hardest while you are still calm. A script that is one long essay and several blank answers has not used the rubric.

3. 3. Treat the practical as its own paper

   Paper 3 is not the last ten minutes of the essay. Use the planning session, if your series has one, to order the work. Start what takes longest. Clean as you go. A dish you invent at the end is not the brief.

4. 4. Plan in points, then write

   List the points for an essay as short lines, each with its reason. Then write them as prose. 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 missing side of a distinction, a nutrient you swapped, and a practical plan that names the wrong dish. 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 papers. A week of definitions with no practical and no meal plan leaves two of the papers cold.

1. 1. Give each paper a turn

   One session for objective items, one for an essay you find hard, and one for planning and cooking a simple brief from memory. Do not save paper 3 for the night before. Write the time plan even when you are not in a kitchen.

2. 2. Close the book and write the distinction

   Fat soluble against water soluble. Boiling against steaming. Protein deficiency against energy deficiency. Write both sides, then check which sentence only renamed the first idea.

3. 3. Reject the wrong options

   On an objective item, say why the other options fail. Vitamin C offered as a fat soluble vitamin is a reason to reject an option, not a detail to ignore.

4. 4. Have the answer marked

   Anna marks WASSCE Food and Nutrition 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 Food and Nutrition inside the wider plan

   The revision plan orders the weeks across every subject you sit. Biology and Integrated Science are different papers. Career Technology at BECE has a food strand, and it is not this paper. Revise them on their own guides. 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 vitamin given the wrong group

   A, D, E and K are fat soluble. The B group and vitamin C are water soluble. Scurvy belongs with vitamin C. Rickets belongs with vitamin D. A script that swaps the groups has lost the distinction.

2. 2. Kwashiorkor swapped with marasmus

   Kwashiorkor is linked to a diet very low in protein. Marasmus is linked to a diet very low in energy. They are related and they are not identical. Say which one the question asked about.

3. 3. A method with no effect on the food

   Naming boiling, or frying, and stopping there has not explained the method. Say what the heat does to the nutrient or to the texture, when the question asks for an effect.

4. 4. A meal plan that ignores the person

   A plan for a teenager, a pregnant woman, an older person or a vegetarian has to say why those foods fit that person. A favourite dish with no reason is not a plan.

5. 5. An invented weight or temperature

   A figure you made up does not earn the mark. State the practice and the reason. If the question gave a figure, use that figure.

6. 6. Hygiene treated as optional

   On the practical, dirty hands, raw food next to cooked food, and a surface you did not clean are lost marks. Name the habit and why it protects the food.