9 Pieces of Advice for Success in 2021 BECE – All Candidates Must Read

Ghana Education News in an attempt to help BECE candidates prepare for their examination is sharing with all candidates and their teachers 9 Pieces of Advice for Success in 2021 BECE.

Being successful as a candidate during the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) is the outcome of hard work, determination, commitment, good preparation among others.

For candidates getting ready for the BECE 2021, the challenge is how to do well and produce outstanding grades and raw scores that will ensure they get placed in one of their preferred school choices.

Success, they say comes to those who position themselves ahead.

9 Pieces of Advice for Success in 2021 BECE

The 9 Pieces of Advice for Success in 2021 BECE for 2021 candidates shared here should be able to help students get ready for the BECE and take the final steps towards achieving their dream results in the exam.

1. The First piece of Advice is: Believe in yourself

For many BECE candidates, self disbelief is a major problem. If you don’t believe in yourself and your ability to do well, you are surely going to perform poorly. Self-belief is the result of good preparation, self-worth among others.

2. Don’t chase after apor (Leaked Examination)

You already know the dangers of looking for any easy way to pass the exam. Cheating or attempting to cheat in the BECE is a serious examination offense.

Avoid the temptations, prepare very well and give your very best in the examination.

3. Choose questions wisely

Question selection during the 2021 BECE will be very important. Read questions very well and make your choices based on which ones you can answer to earn higher marks. For instance, if questions 1 & 2 have marks distributed as follows.

1a. 4 marks

1b. 6 marks

2a. 2 marks

2b. 8 marks

If you can answer 1b easily and 2n easily. Common sense must guide you to choose question 2 over question 1 thus in case you cannot attempt 1a well enough.

Know that you are not required to answer sub-questions as they are arranged under a major question you chose to answer. Using the two questions above, if you decide to answer question 2 and the sub-question you can answer easily and very well is 2b, answer it first and number it well as per the question before your answer question 2a.

4. Don’t have post paper discussions when you have other subjects to write.

Seeing your friends rush to the teachers with the exam papers to determine if they’ve answered the questions correctly is a common occurrence.

Perhaps this habit stems from our natural behaviour as students.

However, what’s done is done.

Curiosity kills the cat.

Don’t waste your time thinking about what you have answered.

Finding out the right answers will only make you more nervous for the upcoming papers, especially if you spot a mistake that could lead you to dwell on it for hours.

Instead, once you’ve completed an exam, stuff the question papers into your bag and keep your mind focused on the next exam.

Keep your mind on the present

5. Don’t put pressure on your hand:

Yes, one must practice writing to improve this speed and to remember things better, but one must not put too much pressure on their fingers or they might get stiff while writing the paper! That would be a pretty bad situation!

6. Don’t compare yourself with others:

Many of us are guilty of comparing our revision progress among our peers.

We tend to be curious about how much they’ve studied and want to know if we’re ahead or behind.

This, however, may not be a healthy habit.

Comparing yourself with others can cause you to feel dissatisfied with yourself, leading to lower levels of confidence.

You also don’t want to be seen gloating about your progress as it may stress your schoolmates.

Therefore, focus on your own studies instead and try to be the light by exuding good vibes.

It’s important that everyone is supportive of each other during this critical time.

7. Don’t cram your brain:

If you don’t already know, cramming is probably the least efficient way to study.

When you cram, you’re only temporarily storing the information as you do not have a deep understanding of the subject.

Additionally, since cramming often occurs at the eleventh hour when you’re short of time, it can increase your stress levels and ultimately have a negative impact on your ability to concentrate.

So if you haven’t covered a subject or topic, don’t stress yourself out by cramming.

Instead, go through chapter summaries to extract key information and work through past year papers to identify topics that you are weak at.

This will be a better use of your time.

8. Don’t waste time:

Don’t spend too much time on one question.

No matter how well you know your stuff, poor time management could end up being your fatal flaw.

Take your time but don’t take too much time. Remember that all questions need to be adequately addressed. If the remaining subquestion to answer is giving you a tough time, start answering another new major question but leave enough space to help you answer the outstanding question later. You are likely to earn more mack by answering a new question than waiting and wasting time over a challenging question.

A good way to ensure this is to get all of the more straightforward questions out of the way before moving on to trickier ones.

This saves you the frustration of not getting those easy marks all because you spent too long addressing a single question.

9. Bonus advice to students preparing for BECE is that, do not panic. 

Panicking will only make things worse and will lead to a mental block that you definitely don’t need at this moment in time.

When your heart starts beating too fast in the examination hall, take a few deep breaths, tell yourself… Eg. Samuel, be calm, relax, you can do this.” Repeat positive sentences and pronouncements about yourself. This works like magic.

READ: 2021 BECE Mock questions and full marking schemes -Download now

Now, when you gain control over yourself, read over the questions and try and recall as many answers and information as you can about it.

If the answers are still not coming, try to answer the question at the tail end of the exam and provide answers that are good enough to earn you some marks.

A good way to ensure this is to get all of the more straightforward questions out of the way before moving on to trickier ones.

This saves you the frustration of not getting those easy marks all because you spent too long addressing a single question.

READ: Likely BECE 2021 Social Studies Questions – Must Solve 

It is your time to shine. Go for gold, write the BECE and pass. Good luck to you all.

We hope this write-up on 9 Pieces of Advice for Success in 2021 BECE would go a long way to help you do the right things.