Candidates' weaknesses, are listed in this section of the Chief Examiners report every year, but there is no evidence that those concerned are taking steps to overcome them.
In the letter to a friend (Section A Question I) some candidates devoted the whole of the first paragraph to inquiring about the health of their friends: “How are you" "How is your studies" " how is your mummy and daddy" "hope everything is going well. - if so Glory be to God." This inquiry is overdone. Within that paragraph, these candidates recorded. many punctuation and grammar errors as can cost them all the ten marks allowed for mechanical accuracy. How can they do well?  
After six years in secondary school, many candidates do not know difference between a noun and an adjective, and cannot spell correctly..
such common terms in the language as "adverbial", "clause", "phrase , 'and "metaphor” .

For many candidates, the words "no", "know" and "now" mean  one and the same thing and are used interchangeably.

Many candidates assign unimaginable meanings to words. In column 1 below are words set for synonyms in Questions6(i) and 7(h) . Typical examples of answers given by some candidates are in column 2.

Question 6(i)
Column 1	Column 2
Reprimanded	Suspect
Evident	Daily
Prompted	Totally
Immersed	Assignment
Interminable	Sequence
Subdued	Unstopped
Immersed	Were

Question 7(h)
Column 1	Column 2
For good	To succeed
Slogan	Person
Foolhardy	Lazy
Commitment	To talk
Absconding	To regret
For good	Fantastics
Slogan	Country
Foolhardy	difficult

These are unthinkable answers, as they have no relationship with the; words set. A candidate cannot understand the content of a passage unless he understands the meanings of the words used. It is no wonder, therefore, that many of the candidates failed to answer correctly the simple content questions on the comprehension passages: they did not understand the passage.

Many of the candidates have not yet learnt how to answer questions onsummary. They copied portions of the passage verbatim. It is suggested that candidates should be taught by teachers who know the demands of the English Language examination as specified in the syllabus.