Best Approaches to Answering Lit-in-English Questions in WAEC and NECO
- Make sure you read the real texts and poems very well to have in-depth knowledge of all the texts and poems. Do not rely on the summary or short notes.
- Make sure you understand the poems stanza by stanza.
- Literature-in-English is not to be answered like History where you are expected to narrate stories.
In Literature-in-English, you go straight to the points, with reference to the texts or poems.
4. Make sure you know the number of questions you are to answer from each section and paper.
5. If you are asked to compare, e.g. Compare the characters of Lakunle and Baroka in The Lion and the Jewel, you are expected to write about the differences and the similarities in the characters of Lakunle and Baroka.
A candidate that writes on only the differences or similarities shall be under-marked because it is a two-in-one question.
6. If you are asked to bring out the Contrast or explain the use of contrast, e.g. Explain the use of Contrast in Caged Bird. You are expected to write on the differences only.
7. On poems; any question on the Language of a poem is asking you to write on the figures of speech and other literary devices used in the poem to bring out the subject matter.
It is not enough to say that the language used in a poem is simple or complex, what makes it simple or complex is the usage of figurative expression that you are expected to identify.
8. On Character sketch or writing on characters in Literature-in-English, you have to bear three things in mind.
What the writer says about the character, what other characters say about the character you are writing about, and what you feel personally about that character while reading the text.
9. It is necessary to quote from the texts to prove to the examiner that you have a deep knowledge of the text. Meanwhile, your quotation should be right because you shall be penalized for the wrong quotation.
It is better not to quote than to quote something wrongly.
10. In answering questions that require points, make sure you write at least 4 well-developed points to earn credit marks.
11. If you cannot interpret a question or understand it, don’t attempt to answer the question, that is where failure starts.
12. Create time to read over your work before you submit it.
N.B– There is a new dimension in answering WAEC questions now; any question asked is expected to be related to at least two themes of the text; you’ll need to discuss at least two themes and write at least three points from the question asked.
This makes it imperative to write up to five points in WAEC.