How to prepare for WASSCE General Agriculture

Topic areas to revise

These are the areas candidates revise for WASSCE General Agriculture. 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. Soil uses and management

   Texture is the mix of sand, silt and clay. Structure is how those particles clump. Loam is a mixture, not a particle size. Organic matter improves structure and feeds soil life. Soil pH describes acidity. Lime can raise the pH of an acid soil. Lime is not a nitrogen fertiliser, and it is not the answer on every field. Erosion is the removal of topsoil by water or wind. A control practice needs the agent and how the practice slows it. Cover, mulch, contour ploughing and strips of vegetation are examples. Say which one you mean.

2. 2. Crop production

   Land preparation gives the seed or the seedling a place to root: clearing, ploughing, harrowing, and ridges or mounds where the crop or the drainage needs them. Some crops are sown direct. Maize and groundnut are usual examples. Others, such as tomato, start in a nursery because the seed is small or the seedling needs protection, and because the farmer can select the strong ones. Spacing is about light, water, nutrients and room to weed, not one distance for every crop. Weeds compete. Harvest at the right stage, then dry grain before storage. Do not invent a pesticide dose.

3. 3. Animal production

   Cattle, sheep and goats are ruminants. Microbes in the rumen digest fibre, so they can live on forage. Pigs and poultry are non ruminants. They cannot use grass the way a cow can. Extensive systems let animals range. Intensive systems house them and buy the feed. Semi intensive systems do some of both. A broiler is kept for meat. A layer is kept for eggs. Chicks need brooding heat at the start. Health is clean water, dry litter, space and a vaccination plan agreed with a veterinary officer. Do not invent a dose.

4. 4. Farm tools and mechanisation

   Name a tool by the job it does. A hoe and a cutlass are hand tools. A plough pulled by a tractor is a machine. A machine is not a better hoe. It is a different way of doing the work, with a cost, fuel and a need for space to turn. Mechanisation suits a large open field more readily than small scattered plots full of stumps. Maintenance is washing, drying, sharpening and storing a tool off a damp floor. Safety is part of the answer when the question asks how the tool is used.

5. 5. Agricultural economics, agribusiness and extension

   A farm record shows what was spent, what was harvested and what was sold. Revenue is money from sales. Profit is what remains after cost. A large harvest can still lose money. Opportunity cost is the next best return you give up, not the cash already spent. Marketing is how produce reaches a buyer, including storage and transport. A cooperative is members acting together. An extension officer brings advice. Do not invent a price, a wage or a profit figure.

WASSCE syllabusWASSCE General Agriculture past questionsSoil scienceCrop productionAnimal productionFarm tools and mechanisationAgricultural economics

Explanations, comparisons, and the practical

A theory mark is for a point a marker can see. A practical mark is for what you observed and what it means. A name with no reason is hard to credit.

1. 1. Match the command

   State is a short fact. Define is the meaning. Explain is that fact plus a reason. Distinguish or differentiate needs both sides. Describe a practical is what you did and what you saw. A definition does not answer a question that asked for a practice.

2. 2. Put both sides of a distinction

   Texture and structure, ruminant and non ruminant, broiler and layer, revenue and profit. 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

   Contour ploughing slows water because the furrows run across the slope. A cover crop keeps rain off bare soil. Drying maize before storage reduces mould and makes the grain less attractive to pests. The name of the practice is the start. The reason is the mark.

4. 4. On the practical, name what you see

   Identify the specimen, state the feature you used, and then the use or the conclusion the question asked. A drawing needs a label. Do not add a measurement you did not take, and do not invent a fertiliser rate.

5. 5. Leave out the invented figure

   A spacing in centimetres, a pesticide dose, a lime rate or a market price 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 across the sections the instruction names. An extra unfinished answer from soil, when animal production was required, does not replace the section you left blank. On paper 3, answer the questions the paper says are compulsory.

WASSCE exam tipsWASSCE General Agriculture past questionsSoil science

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 which sections you must answer and how the practical is set for your entry. School candidates and private candidates are not always on the same version of paper 3. Follow the paper in front of you.

2. 2. Give each required section a block

   On the essay paper, start with the section you find hardest while you are still calm. Leaving animal production or the economics section until the last minutes is how it gets missed.

3. 3. Treat the practical as its own paper

   Paper 3 is not the last ten minutes of the essay. Read each specimen question, write what you observe, and label what the question asks you to label. A dose you add at the end is not an observation.

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 label, a section you skipped, and a distinction you wrote from one side only. 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 essay from animal production leaves two of the papers cold.

1. 1. Give each paper a turn

   One session for objective items, one for an essay from a section you find hard, and one for identifying specimens or describing a practice from memory. Do not save paper 3 for the night before.

2. 2. Close the book and write the distinction

   Texture against structure. Ruminant against non ruminant. Revenue against profit. 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. Lime offered as a nitrogen fertiliser is a reason to reject an option, not a detail to ignore.

4. 4. Have the answer marked

   Anna marks WASSCE General Agriculture 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 General Agriculture inside the wider plan

   The revision plan orders the weeks across every subject you sit. Integrated Science and Biology are different papers. 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. Texture and structure swapped

   Texture is particle size. Structure is the arrangement into crumbs or clods. Loam is a mixture, not a single particle size. A script that uses the three words as synonyms has lost the distinction.

2. 2. Lime treated as a fertiliser

   Lime can correct acidity. It does not replace nitrogen. A soil answer that stops at "add lime" has not said which problem lime solves.

3. 3. A ruminant defined as an animal with horns

   A ruminant digests fibre with the help of microbes in the rumen. Horns are irrelevant. Pigs and poultry are the non ruminants this syllabus expects you to contrast with cattle, sheep and goats.

4. 4. An invented dose or rate

   A pesticide dose, a fertiliser rate or a spacing you made up does not earn the mark. State the practice and the reason. If the question gave a figure, use that figure.

5. 5. A practical answer that only names the specimen

   Identification is the first mark. The feature you used, and the use or the conclusion, are the rest. A label you forgot is a mark you left on the table.

6. 6. Staying in one section

   The essay rubric asks for a spread when it names more than one section. Answers from only the section you prefer have not answered the paper.