General Knowledge in Art is the written examination for Visual Arts candidates. It is its own subject on the Ghana timetable. Picture making, graphic design, textiles, ceramics, sculpture, jewellery, basketry and leatherwork are separate practical papers. This page is the written paper. The Visual Arts tips guide covers those studio papers. WAEC sets the papers. Glearn Technologies writes this guide. Glearn does not set the papers, and glearn does not publish a pass rate. Read the timetable for your own series. Anna marks WASSCE answers. Kevin is the coach on BECE practice.
Objective paper and essay paper
General Knowledge in Art has an objective paper and an essay paper. On many series the two are taken at one sitting, with the essay before the objective paper. The timetable for your series names each paper and gives the time. This page does not copy those times or the marks, because a later file can change them. If the timetable and this page disagree, follow the timetable.
Paper 1 is the objective paper. The items come from the syllabus, and you answer the items the paper asks you to answer. A term used for the wrong thing is the usual trap. Shape is not form. An element is not a principle. Colour is an element. Emphasis is a principle.
The essay paper tests general knowledge in art and art history. Expect the elements and principles, colour, lettering, tools and materials, the art of West Africa including Ghana, and other art the syllabus names, such as prehistoric art, ancient Egyptian art and Western art. Where the paper is divided into sections, the front says how many essays to answer and that they come from more than one section. This page does not copy that number. A script that stays in the section you prefer has not answered the paper. If the question paper and this page disagree, follow the question paper.
The studio papers are not this subject. You sit the practical papers on your entry, and you revise them on the Visual Arts guide. A week of drawing does not prepare the essay, and a week of definitions does not prepare the studio.
Topic areas to revise
These are the areas candidates revise for the written paper. 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. Elements and principles
The elements are the parts you can point at: line, colour, space, shape, form and texture. Shape is flat. Form has depth. Texture can be a surface you can feel, or only the look of a surface. Space is the area around and between the parts. The principles are how those parts are arranged: balance, rhythm, proportion, harmony, emphasis and variety. Balance can be symmetrical, like a mirror, or asymmetrical, with different parts that still feel even. Harmony is how the parts belong together. Emphasis is the part the eye reaches first. A list that mixes colour with emphasis has not answered a question that asked for one of the two.
2. Colour
Red, yellow and blue are the primary colours. They are not mixed from other colours. A secondary colour is mixed from two primaries: red and yellow make orange, yellow and blue make green, and blue and red make violet. A tertiary colour is mixed from a primary and a neighbouring secondary. A tint is a colour plus white. A shade is a colour plus black. Hue is the name of the colour itself. Complementary colours sit opposite each other on the wheel, such as red and green. Analogous colours sit next to each other. Warm colours, red, orange and yellow, tend to come forward. Cool colours, blue, green and violet, tend to recede. That is not the same as linear perspective. A Ghanaian cloth can tie a colour to a people and an occasion. State that meaning only when you know it. If you are not sure, describe what the colour does in the work.
3. Lettering
Lettering is drawn, not only written. Block or gothic letters have an even stroke and no serif. Roman letters have a thick stroke and a thin stroke, and a serif. Italic or script letters slope, and they are often joined. Draw between guidelines, at one height, with even spacing, so each word can be read. A question that asks for a style wants those features. A slogan with no features has not answered it. Do not invent a proverb to decorate the letters.
4. Art history
A history answer names the culture, what the work was for, and one feature you could still see. Prehistoric art is tied to a place and a use, such as an animal on a cave wall. Do not invent a date. Ancient Egyptian art often shows the head in profile and the eye from the front, and much of it was made for a tomb or a temple. Hieroglyphs are writing, not a pattern you made up. Western art is used so you can compare it. Describe a feature you can explain, and leave out a year or a museum you are not sure of. A comparison needs both sides.
5. Ghanaian and African art
Traditional art has a people, a material, a use and a belief behind it. Asante, Fante and Ewe work are not interchangeable. Kente is a woven cloth. Adinkra is a printed symbol cloth, and each symbol has a name and a meaning. Write both only when you know them. A stool, a linguist staff, pottery, wood carving and brass casting by the lost wax method are different objects. Say what the object is for. A mask used in a performance is not the same answer as a brass weight. Name a living artist only when you can say what they made or what they taught.
WASSCE syllabusPast questions with answersWASSCE General Knowledge in Art past questionsElements and principlesColourLetteringArt historyGhanaian and African artWASSCE Visual Arts tipsBECE Creative Arts and Design tips
Points, terms, and the essay
A theory mark is for a point a marker can see. A name with no reason is hard to credit. The studio brief is a different paper.
1. Match the command
Define is the meaning. State is a short fact. Explain is that fact plus a reason. Describe is what you can see, in order. Compare needs both sides. Discuss or examine needs a judgement tied to the work, not a cheer. A definition does not answer a question that asked you to compare two cultures.
2. One point, a named example, and a reason
Build each paragraph as a short chain. The point, a work or a people or a material that shows it, and why that example fits. Kente as woven cloth is one example. Adinkra as printed symbols is a different example. Do not use one to stand for the other. Then start the next point on its own.
3. Use the art term for the thing it means
Shape is not form. Balance is not emphasis. A silhouette is the outline seen as a flat shape. Relief is not a free standing sculpture. A tint is not a shade. If you are not sure of the term, describe the thing in plain words rather than guess the term.
4. Put both sides of a comparison
A question that names two cultures, two cloths, or an element and a principle wants both. Write one sentence for each side, then one sentence on the difference. Stopping after the African example, or after the definition, has answered half of the question.
5. Leave out the invented fact
A year you are not sure of, an artist you cannot connect to a work, or a meaning you composed for an Adinkra symbol does not strengthen a point. The feature you can see, and the use you can explain, are enough.
6. Obey the rubric
Spread the essays across the sections the instruction names. An extra unfinished essay from your favourite section does not replace a required section you left blank. On the objective paper, answer the items you were told to answer. The practical brief belongs to the studio paper, not to this one.
WASSCE exam tipsPast questions with answersWASSCE General Knowledge in Art past questions
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. Read the front before you write
Note how many essays you may answer and which sections they must come from. Starting one more essay than that, and leaving it unfinished, spends time the marked answers needed.
2. Pick the spread first
Choose the section you find hardest while you are still calm, and give it a question you can actually answer. For many candidates that section is art history. Leaving it until the last minutes is how it gets missed.
3. Plan in points, then write
List the points for an essay as short lines, each with its example. Then write them as prose. If two lines say the same thing, replace one before you fair copy. A lettering question still needs the features of the style, not only a neat word.
4. Keep the objective paper moving
Read every option. Reject the one that swaps an element for a principle, or a tint for a shade. If two options both look possible, mark the item and return to it. Do not spend the essay time on one objective item.
5. Leave a short reading at the end
A second look catches a section you skipped, a term you swapped, and a comparison that has only one side. The exam tips cover the morning of the paper. This page does not copy a duration.
A short way to revise
Rotate the written work. A week of colour with no art history, or a week of history with no lettering, leaves part of this paper cold. The studio still needs its own sessions, on the Visual Arts guide.
1. Give each part of the written paper a turn
One session for objective items, one for an essay from a section you find hard, and one for drawing a short piece of lettering from memory. Do not save art history for the night before. If you also sit a studio paper, that paper needs its own session. This page does not replace it.
2. Close the book and write the chain
Pick a question stem you have seen, such as a comparison or a definition. Write the points from memory, each with one example. Then check which example belonged to a different people, a different cloth, or a different period.
3. Draw the colour wheel from memory
Place the primaries, mix the secondaries, and mark one complementary pair and one analogous set. Then say which colours are warm and which are cool. An option that calls green a primary is a reason to reject it.
4. Have the answer marked
Anna marks WASSCE answers 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. Keep this paper inside the wider plan
The revision plan orders the weeks across every subject you sit. Creative Arts and Design at BECE is a different paper. Technical Drawing is a different paper again. The programme guide says what Visual Arts is for after the BECE. This page does not copy a date.
WASSCE revision planHow to pass the WASSCEWASSCE Visual Arts tipsTry WASSCE practice free
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. An element written as a principle
Line, colour, space, shape, form and texture are elements. Balance, rhythm, proportion, harmony, emphasis and variety are principles. A list that mixes them has not answered a question that asked for one of the two.
2. Shape and form treated as one word
Shape is flat. Form has depth. A circle is a shape. A pot is a form. A script that uses the two words as synonyms has lost the distinction.
3. A guessed Adinkra meaning
The symbol, its name and its meaning are three facts. If you know only the look of the symbol, describe that. Do not invent the proverb.
4. Kente and Adinkra treated as the same cloth
Kente is woven. Adinkra symbols are printed. A question about one is not answered by a description of the other.
5. A comparison with one side
Prehistoric and Egyptian, or Ghanaian and another culture the question named, both have to appear. A date you invented does not replace the missing side.
6. Staying in one essay section
The rubric asks for a spread when it names more than one section. Essays from only the section you prefer have not answered the paper. Lettering described as nice handwriting, with no style, has the same problem: the features are missing.
Keep these open while you revise
WASSCE practiceWASSCE syllabusPast questions with answersWASSCE General Knowledge in Art past questionsElements and principlesColourLetteringArt historyGhanaian and African artWASSCE Visual Arts past questionsColour and paintingBECE Creative Arts and Design tipsChoosing an SHS programmeWASSCE Visual Arts tipsWASSCE revision planHow to pass the WASSCEWASSCE exam tipsWASSCE timetableWASSCE grade calculatorWASSCE for private candidatesWASSCE Technical Drawing tipsCreate a free accountWAEC Ghana WASSCE for schoolsWAEC Ghana timetableWAEC Ghana
Practise with Kevin and Anna