Just like the scramble for Africa, the scramble for GCE past questions is inevitable for students preparing for Ordinary and Advance Level of Cameroon General Certificate Of Education. This scramble for GCE past questions begins at the end of every session of the GCE examination, and this is mostly done by students going to form five and upper sixth who need to prepare for the next session of this exam. Same as students scramble for GCE past question papers, teachers are not left out.
To students, past GCE questions are like part of their educational tools that is difficult to study successfully without. These papers act like a guideline on question interpretation, and answer approach to students who have little or no orientation on how to approach a standardize question setting such as the different parts of a question, format of a question and above all, the question requirement. To students who are slow learners or lazy to study, past GCE questions pushes them to carry out research there by studying indirectly with a guideline and not just reading note books ore text books without any sense of direction. There are students who are very smart when it comes to anticipating, looking at these questions, they try to anticipate how the upcoming question setting will look like. At times, it pushes the students to study ahead of their teachers, thereby making it easier for the teachers to quickly cover the syllabus.
To teachers, GCE past questions help them to set exams for their students, especially the mock examination which has to be of GCE standard, and it also guide teachers when while setting the GCE questions to avoid repetition. Though some students see these past questions as a necessity in their educational career, to others, it is of lesser importance. To this category of student, past GCE questions are confusing in the cause of studying and prefer sticking to their note books and text books while waiting for the crucial revision period before diming it necessary to use GCE past questions.
10years ago, students faced a lot of challenges in getting these GCE past questions. Some even went as far as buying these questions from candidates who sat for the exams or even from teachers. The coming and continuous improvement of technology has simplified everything and made life easier and cheaper, the by exposing students to many platforms were they can access not just past questions but also answers to the question. With platforms such as goggle, chromes and other search engines, students can get bother questions and answers from different writers with different approaches. Past questions can also be gotten from websites on a daily bases and apps have been created just for this purpose. Students must not necessarily go to the cyber to access this past questions; they can access it using their android phones which are a necessity nowadays.
Teachers have also made it very easy for students to have past GCE questions at their disposal. They have been compiling these questions in the form of pamphlets and handouts in the different subjects, which is sold to students at a very low cost price. Good examples of these pamphlets are History PARTHFINDER, literature INVICTUS, Economics SHUTANG and many more. The normal traditional method of getting past questions from students who already sat for the exam also help students a lot. Statistics have proven that more than 50 percent of successful candidates of the GCE examination testify that their success won’t have been possible without past GCE questions.