FUNCTIONAL ENGLISH

General:

This was an easy-to-score paper and the students should have had no difficulty in getting high scores. However, weak vocabulary and lack of knowledge of basic English rules hampered the students’ score.

Q.1

This was an easy question which required matching the words with their right meaning. Few students could get all 8 correct. It shows that there’s a strong need for the students to build up their vocabulary and learn new words.

Q.2

Many scored more than 50% marks but only few could achieve higher grades. This showed lack of preparation on the part of students.

Q.3

Very disappointing:

Ninety five percent of the candidates were unable to understand the idioms correctly. They wrote sentences using the literal meaning of the expressions which made no sense at all. The sentences also lacked correct structure, grammar and spelling.

Q.4

It seemed that students were uncertain about answers and resorted to guess-work. Knowledge of English phrases can only be improved by developing reading habit which seems lacking in most students. All the phrases asked in the question were easy and are frequently used in English texts. As such, the poor showing was all the more alarming.

Q.5

(a)

This part was generally done satisfactorily.

(b)

Incorrect adverbs were given for such basic words as good and majority of students added ‘ly’ as a rule for changing adjectives to adverbs.

(c)

The candidates showed extremely poor performance. Majority of them lacked knowledge of collective nouns. The only answers which were correctly attempted by most students related to sub-parts (vii) and (x). Frequent errors were seen in the spellings.

(b)

The candidates were unable to demonstrate direct speech through the use of quotation marks. Many students ignored ‘commas’ and ‘quotation marks’.

(c)

This part was well attempted with the exception of sub-part (iv).

Q.7

Titles were mostly inappropriate and in many cases totally ignored. As in the previous attempts summaries were not drafted with regard to word limit. Many copied the text word to word. The most disappointing aspect was the candidates’ lack of understanding of common words such as ‘rural area’, ‘country’, ‘incidence’ etc. Moreover the students were unable to express their opinions with justification as required in parts ‘e’ and ‘f’.

Q.8

Candidates were unable to apply the correct format of the addresses. Other weak points identified were the introduction and conclusion of the letter where the examinees failed to use an appropriate tone. Some of them borrowed words directly from the question which should be avoided. Some candidates did not know the meaning of the word ‘condolences’. Many letters were shockingly addressed to the person who has died!

Q.9

Essay topics were well selected but once again very few showed good writing skills. Most students seemed to have started writing without any planning as the order in which various points were to be communicated and simply kept on adding sentences one by one.