How to prepare for WASSCE History

Topic areas to revise

These are the areas candidates in Ghana revise for WASSCE History. 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. Landmarks of African history

   Start with what a source can show. Oral tradition, archaeology and a written record do different jobs, and a source you cannot describe is only a name. North Africa includes ancient Egypt as a civilisation of farming, building and rule. The western Sudan includes ancient Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Kanem Bornu and the Hausa states. The trans Saharan trade moved gold, salt and ideas, and it helped those states. Forest and coastal states such as Asante, Oyo, Dahomey and Benin had their own political and economic life. Ancient Ghana the empire is not the modern country of Ghana.

2. 2. Ghana and the wider world

   Peoples of the northern, forest and coastal zones built states such as Dagomba, Gonja, Denkyira, Akwamu, Asante, Fante and Ga. A centralised state, a non centralised community and a theocratic community are different political forms. Compare them instead of treating every group as a kingdom. Trade in gold, kola and salt sat beside farming and craft. Europeans on the coast changed that trade. The Atlantic slave trade and the later shift toward other exports are not the same event. Christian missions brought churches, schools and writing in local languages. Say what changed, and for whom.

3. 3. Colonial rule and independence

   The scramble and partition of West Africa, including what the Berlin Conference meant for African states, belongs here. Do not invent a clause from a treaty you have not read. Nationalist work runs from early organisations to the later parties. Name a person only when you can say what they did. Independence is a process of pressure, negotiation and political change, not one slogan.

4. 4. Ghana after independence, and Ghana in the world

   Social, economic and political change after independence is part of the syllabus. Describe what a question asks. Do not turn a government into a verdict the question did not ask, and do not invent a speech. Ghana in the United Nations, the Commonwealth, the African Union and ECOWAS is a separate set of points. Say what the body is for. Membership is not the same as founding the body, and a regional body is not a world body.

WASSCE syllabusWASSCE History past questionsWest African kingdomsThe Atlantic slave tradeColonial ruleNationalism and independenceGhana after independenceWASSCE Geography tipsWASSCE Government tips

Definitions, points, and examples

A history mark is for a point a marker can see. A definition opens the answer when the command asks for one. An example shows you can use the idea. A story that never explains has not finished the task.

1. 1. Match the command

   Describe is what happened, in order, with the names the question needs. Explain is that account plus a reason. Account for is the causes. Assess or examine needs a judgement tied to evidence, not a cheer or a condemnation. Compare needs both sides. A definition does not answer a question that asked for effects.

2. 2. One point, a named example, and a reason

   Build each paragraph as a short chain. The point, a person or a state or an event that shows it, and why that example fits. Asante as a forest state is an example. Ancient Ghana as a Sudanese empire is a different example. Do not use one to stand for the other.

3. 3. Keep causes and results apart

   A cause comes before the event and helps to produce it. A result follows. A sentence that mixes them is hard to mark. If the question asks for effects of the slave trade, do not spend the answer on why Europeans came, unless the question asked for both.

4. 4. Use a date only when you know it

   A wrong year does not make a point look learned. If you are not sure, leave the year out and keep the order: what came first, what it led to. Do not invent a casualty figure, a volume of trade, or a clause number.

5. 5. Say what the source can show

   When a question is about sources or methods, name the source and the limit. An oral account can carry memory of migration or a festival. It is weaker for a date nobody witnessed. Archaeology can show how people lived. It does not, by itself, name a king.

6. 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.

WASSCE exam tipsWASSCE History past questionsNationalism and independence

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 and which sections they must come from. Choose questions you can finish. Starting one more than that, and leaving it unfinished, spends time the marked answers needed.

2. 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. Leaving that section until the last minutes is how it gets missed.

3. 3. Split the time across the essays

   Give each essay a fair share, including a few minutes to list the points. A script that is one long essay and several blank answers has not used the rubric.

4. 4. 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.

5. 5. Leave a short reading at the end

   A second look catches a section you skipped, a name you swapped, and a command you did not answer. The exam tips cover the morning of the paper. This page does not copy a duration.

WASSCE exam tipsWASSCE timetable

A short way to revise

Rotate the sections. A week on one kingdom, with no essay from the other sections, leaves most of the paper cold.

1. 1. Give each section a turn

   One session for objective items, one for an essay from landmarks of African history, one from Ghana and the wider world, and one from Ghana in the twentieth century. Do not save the section you dislike for the night before.

2. 2. Close the book and write the chain

   Pick a question stem you have seen, such as causes, effects or a comparison. Write the points from memory, each with one example. Then check which example belonged to a different state.

3. 3. Reject the wrong options

   On an objective item, say why the other options fail. Ancient Ghana offered as the modern republic is a reason to reject an option, not a detail to ignore.

4. 4. Have the answer marked

   Anna marks WASSCE History 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 History inside the wider plan

   The revision plan orders the weeks across every subject you sit. Social Studies and Government 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. Ancient Ghana written as modern Ghana

   The empire in the western Sudan and the country you live in are not the same place in time. A script that slides from one to the other without saying so has mixed two topics.

2. 2. A narrative with no explanation

   A chain of events that never says why, or with what result, has not answered explain, account for, or assess. The story is the evidence. The reason is the mark.

3. 3. An invented date or figure

   A year you are not sure of, a number of people enslaved, or a clause you composed, does not strengthen a point. Leave it out. The order and the example are enough.

4. 4. The slave trade and slavery treated as one event

   The Atlantic trade in enslaved people, the later shift to other exports, and slavery as a condition are related and they are not identical. Say which one the question asked about.

5. 5. Staying in one 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.

6. 6. A regional body treated as a world body

   ECOWAS is West Africa. The African Union is the continent. The United Nations is the wider membership. What a body is for, and who belongs, are easy marks, and they are easy to swap.