You may have noticed that UTME candidates perform poorest in English out of the typical four subjects. Here is why: (How JAMB Sets Use of English Questions!)

 

English has 60 questions in JAMB. Not all questions carry the same marks. Questions from comprehension passages usually carry 3 marks each. That makes them the most valuable questions. Questions from the literary texts also carry more marks.

However, the two aspects where questions come out from the most are:

1. Oral English
2. Vocabulary

Out of the 60 questions you will answer, more than 35 of them will come from these two aspects. Let me break it down:

You will answer the right questions from either antonymy, synonymy or both. Then you will answer about seven questions from register. Mind you, register is the same as vocabulary, because your knowledge of words and nuance is tested.

Then a few vocabulary questions will still come in from the cloze test, otherwise known as fill in the gap. You will be required to fill in blank spaces with the most appropriate option. So give or take, you will most likely have 20 questions from vocabulary alone, each of which carries one mark each.

Oral English is the second largest part of JAMB English next to vocabulary. You will be asked about eight questions from sounds, 4 or 6 from stress, 3 from emphatic stress and 4 from rhyme. That’s about 20 to 24 questions from test of oral. Like vocabulary, each question also carries one mark.

So, oral English and Vocabulary carry 42 to 44 marks. Sadly, most students get below 20 in the aggregates of these two parts. And they also perform poorly in comprehension passages, and for every question you get wrong in the passage, you automatically miss three marks. So it’s possible to miss 12 marks just by doing 4 questions the wrong way. That’s a lot.

Even students who get high scores in the other subjects are humbled by English. The highest scorer in JAMB 2024 got far below 75 in English.

The mass failure of students in English Language is proudly sponsored by Oral English, Vocabulary, & Comprehension Passage.