MORE than 500 students attending non-traditional high schools islandwide recently got a jumpstart on writing their external papers after a group of examiners provided them with ideas on the type of answers they expect to see when they sit down to mark at the end of June.

The group of mainly teachers, who grade examination papers for the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC), on Friday gave students a number of tips on what examiners look for and how questions should be answered to ensure good grades.

“We have been watching the trends in the CXC examination and saw a need,” explained Nicola Lambert, a member of the Kiwanis Club of New Kingston which organised the CXC rally.

Against this background, she said the rally specifically targeted students attending non-traditional high schools.

“In the non-traditional high schools the opportunities may not be as advantageous as in the traditional high schools, resulting in the subject results not being as great,” explained Lambert, who is also a past director of the rally.

Rally coordinator, Joy Crawford, also agreed that the Kiwanis Club decided to focus on students of non-traditional high schools in recognition of their many problems.

On Friday, students drawn mainly from St Andrew Technical, Kingston Technical, Bridgeport High School, Tivoli High, Denham Town High, Charlie Smith and Hydel High School at Ferry attended the rally at the Girl Guides headquarters on Trafalgar Road in Kingston.

They received valuable tips in eight subjects areas, namely Mathematics, English, Information Technology, History, Accounts, Principles of Business and Social Studies.

Novelette Cooke, a teacher at St Hugh’s High School, and a CXC writer for the Observer, taught the students how to prepare for the Principles of Business (POB) examination.

“I used the rally to pass on valuable tips,” she said, pointing out that weak grammar and comprehension skills placed non-traditional high school students at a disadvantage in the CXC examinations.

Cooke added that Profile 3 of POB (Elements of Economics) was a weak area for many students.

Garfield Murray, a teacher at Tarrant High School, who passed on tips in the subject area of Social Studies, said that some children “find it difficult to express themselves or comprehend information,” and added that “they don’t like to read”.

He added that it was important for the students to know that the examiners required them to be knowledgeable, and that they also assessed how skilled they were at applying that knowledge.

Tyrone Hall, a 16 year-old student from Meadowbrook High School, was among the more than 500 students who attended the rally.

He will be sitting eight subjects this June, and felt it was in his best interest to attend sessions in POB and Maths.

“The tips I received in both POB and Maths were very helpful. Some were reinforcement of what I have already learned, but in Maths, I got ideas for calculating results using the paralellogram and triangular law.

“In POB Profile 3, Introduction to Economics was highlighted, which I have not done at school as yet. What I learned at the rally will help me to better cope with it when we get to it at school,” Hall said.

The companies that participated in the rally included the Jamaica Observer Limited, Sangsters, Cable and Wireless, Versan Educational Services and the Gleaner.