Geography is an elective for school candidates and for private candidates. WAEC sets the paper. Glearn Technologies writes this guide. Glearn does not set the paper, and glearn does not publish a pass rate. Read the timetable for your own series. Anna marks WASSCE Geography. Kevin marks BECE Social Studies.
Human geography, then the map and physical paper
WAEC Ghana publishes a chief examiners report for school candidates. The report linked on this page covers Geography Paper 2 and Paper 3. The timetable for your series names every 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 names a paper this page does not describe, follow the timetable.
Paper 2 is human and regional geography. The questions ask you to explain a process or a pattern, often in Ghana or in Africa. Some of them ask you to draw an outline map and to locate and name a feature on it. Population, settlement, manufacturing, farming, migration and climate regions are the kinds of topic that paper uses. A heading on this page is not a promise that it appears on your paper.
Paper 3 is practical and physical geography. It includes a map extract. The report describes that map question as compulsory: you redraw an outline to a new scale, you insert and name features, and you describe the drainage. The rest of the paper asks for physical geography, including climate figures you calculate from a table the paper gives you, the solar system, landforms you draw and explain, and the atmosphere. If the question paper in your hall and this page disagree, follow the question paper.
This page does not copy a scale, a rainfall total, or a mark from one sitting. Use the figures the question gives you. Do not replace them with numbers you remember from a different paper.
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Topic areas to revise
These are the areas candidates revise for WASSCE Geography, and the areas the chief examiners report discusses. A heading is not a promise that every unit appears on your paper. If the file your school gives you uses a different name, follow the file.
1. Map work
Scale, direction, contours and drainage. A representative fraction tells you what one unit on the map stands for on the ground. Contours that sit close together are a steep slope. A V in the contours, pointing upstream, marks a valley.
2. Landforms
How a feature is made, and what it looks like. Wind erosion, rivers, and volcanoes are the kinds of work the physical paper asks you to draw. The diagram has to be the landform named in the question.
3. Climate and the atmosphere
Seasons in West Africa follow the rain belt, the intertropical convergence zone. The harmattan is a dry, dusty wind in the dry season. It does not bring the rains. Atmospheric pressure is the weight of air. Say what changes it.
4. Settlement and population
Where people live, and why the number changes. Site is the land under a settlement. Situation is where that site sits among roads, rivers and other towns. Natural increase is births minus deaths. It does not include migration.
5. Work, farming and regions
Manufacturing, mining and farming, in Ghana and in the wider region the question names. An outline map of Ghana or of Africa is there so you can place a climate region, a river, a lake, or a town. Locate it. Then name it.
WASSCE syllabusWASSCE Geography past questionsMap readingClimateSettlementPopulationRivers
Map work, diagrams and fieldwork style answers
A Geography mark is for a point a marker can see: a located feature, a step in a calculation, a label on a diagram, or an observation tied to a reason.
1. Read the scale and show the conversion
The extract prints a scale. Say what one unit on the map stands for on the ground, in the unit the question asks for, and show the multiplication. A straight line distance and a distance along a road are different. The question says which one.
2. Redraw, insert and name
When the map question asks for a new outline, draw that outline to the new scale, then put each named feature in its place and write the name. A feature with no name, or a name in the wrong place, has not finished the task. Add an arrow when the question asks for a direction of flow.
3. Draw the landform that was asked
Use a pencil and a large outline. Label the parts. Then describe how it forms, in the order the processes happen. A memorised diagram of a different landform does not answer the question. A title is a short name, not a paragraph.
4. Write a fieldwork style answer in three lines
Some questions ask you to write as if you were looking at the land or at the extract. Name what you observe, how you know (the scale, the contour spacing, the direction of flow), and what it means. A story with no observation is not a result. Do not invent a height the interval does not support.
5. Calculate only with the figures given
Population density is the population divided by the area, when the question gives both. An annual temperature range is the highest figure minus the lowest, when a table gives the months. Show the working. Do not swap in a total you remember from class.
6. Match the command on the essay
State is a name. Explain is a name plus a reason. Outline is the shape of the point, not a second essay. On an outline map, the location and the name are separate. Describe a climate with its pattern, not with a slogan.
A short way to revise
Rotate the two papers. A week of notes with no map and no diagram leaves the practical paper cold.
1. Give each paper a turn
One session for a human or regional explanation, one for an outline map of Ghana or of Africa, one for a map extract task, and one for a landform you draw from memory. Do not save the map question for the night before.
2. Draw, then check
Close the book, draw the outline or the landform, then check the labels and the places. A feature you can only recognise on a finished map is not a feature you can place.
3. Use a table the way the paper does
Take a climate table you already understand. Find the range, the wet months and the dry months, and say which hemisphere and which climate those patterns fit. Then check. Do not invent a rainfall total the table does not show.
4. Have the answer marked
Anna marks WASSCE Geography on glearn. Kevin marks BECE Social Studies. A written answer is marked point by point. Practise with Kevin and Anna on glearn.now. The first questions need no account.
5. Keep Geography inside the wider plan
The revision plan orders the weeks across every subject you sit. Social Studies is a different paper. Revise it on its own guide. 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. An outline with nothing located
The map is the answer, not a decoration. Draw the outline, place the feature, and name it. A feature in the wrong part of the country does not score the location.
2. A map extract question left thin
The report describes that question as compulsory. A blank scale, a missing name, or no drainage description is a large gap. Start it before you start a favourite essay.
3. The wrong diagram
A shield volcano is not a composite cone, and a yardang is not a dune you half remember. Draw the feature the question names, then say how it forms.
4. A calculation with no working
A final number with no division, or a range with no subtraction, hides the method. Write the figures the question gave you, then the step.
5. The harmattan treated as rain
The harmattan is dry and dusty. The rains follow the rain belt. Swapping them answers a different question.
6. An invented figure
A rainfall total, a population, or a height you were not given does not strengthen a point. The pattern is enough: close contours, a steep slope. This page does not give a figure, and your script should not invent one.
Keep these open while you revise
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Practise with Kevin and Anna