The performance of candidates in this year’s CAPE® examinations have shown declines in some subjects and gains in others. However, overall, the movement from last year’s performance has been minimal.
Among the ‘new generation subjects’ some have shown a decline in the percentage of students who have achieved acceptable grades, though the performance, generally, remains above average, with 80% to 100% of candidates achieving acceptable grades.
In Agricultural Science, there was a 5% decline in acceptable grades in Unit 1. Unit 2 recorded an increase of 7% in acceptable grades.
In the discipline of Animation and Game Design, there was also an increase in the number of candidates achieving acceptable grades. The Unit 1 rate of 91% in 2018 increased to 100% in 2019, while the Unit 2 rate of 98% increased to 100%. Positive increases also occurred in other disciplines like Logistics and Supply Chain Operations, while the performance in Tourism was consistent with last year.
In both Units of the discipline of Financial Studies there were significant improvements in performance in 2019. Seventy-three per cent of candidates achieved acceptable Grades, I – V, in Unit 1 compared with 55% in 2018. In Unit 2, 100% of candidates achieved acceptable Grades I – V compared to 35% in 2018.
In the Performing Arts, candidates’ performance in 2019 was consistent with that of 2018. In Business for the Arts, 97% of the candidates achieved Grades I – V compared with 98% in 2018. There was also a 1400% increase in the number of students who wrote Cinematic Arts, from 1 in 2018 to 15 in 2019. One hundred per cent of the candidates in each year earned acceptable grades. Fourteen candidates completed the Music option in 2019. One hundred per cent of the candidates achieved acceptable grades.
The performance in Green Engineering was mixed. There was a small decrease in the number of persons achieving acceptable grades in Unit 1 but an increase in this number for unit 2. Digital Media meanwhile, showed a slight decrease in both papers.
Mathematics and Sciences
There was a decline in performance in Applied Mathematics in Unit 1 in 2019 compared with 2018. The percentage of candidates achieving acceptable Grades, I – V, was 84% compared with 92% in 2018. There was a decline in candidates’ performance across all modules in 2019 compared with 2018. In Unit 2, the percentage of candidates achieving acceptable Grades, I – V, was 93% in 2019 compared with 92% in 2018.
Performances in the Natural Sciences held steady with little deviation. For Biology, candidates’ performance in 2019 was consistent with the performance in 2018, in both Unit 1 and Unit 2. The percentage of candidates achieving acceptable Grades, I – V, in Unit 1, was 89% in both years. In Unit 2, this performance statistic was 95%. This was the first year that Paper 02 was examined using a new format; there was an improvement in candidates’ performance on this paper compared with 2018.
There was a minor decrease in the performance in both units of Chemistry and a decrease in the number of students who achieved Grade I in Unit 1. However, for Unit 2 there was an increase in this number.
Student performance in Physics also held steady, compared with 2018. It should be noted that this was the first examination of the revised syllabus.
Consistency in performances was also maintained in the discipline of Environmental Science while overall performance in the preparation of SBA’s continued to show improvement in 2019 over the previous year.
Technology
Performance in Unit 1 of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Technology was consistent with the performance in 2018. Performance improved across all modules of this Unit. In Unit 2A, the percentage of candidates achieving acceptable Grades, I-V, in 2019, improved from 50% to 71% while the performance in Unit 2B declined 5% from 97% of candidates in 2018, to 92% in 2019.
Overall, as in 2018, 93% of candidates achieved acceptable Grades, I – V in Computer Science. The performance of candidates on Unit 2 improved marginally compared with 2018, with 95% of the candidates achieving Grades I-V in 2019, compared with 94% in 2018.
In Information Technology, performance in Unit 1 experienced a minor decline while performance in Unit 2 held steady.
Foreign Languages
In French and Spanish the performance in the 2019 examination was consistent with the 2018 performance, with approximately 99% of the candidates achieving Grades I – V in both years.
Core Subjects
Candidates’ performance in Caribbean Studies for 2019 was consistent with that of 2018, as 97% achieved Grades I – V. There was a noticeable increase in the number of candidates who achieved Grade I: 27% in 2019 compared with 17% in 2018. The overall results for Communications Studies in 2019 were consistent with 2018, with 96% of the candidates achieving Grades I – V. There was a decline in the performance in Integrated Mathematics as 68% of the candidates achieved Grades I – V, compared with 75 % in 2018.
Business Studies
Candidates’ performance in Unit 1 of Accounting showed a 5% increase in those who achieved acceptable Grades I – V, from 83% in 2018 to 88% in 2019. In Unit 2, there was a marginal decline of 2% from 82% last year to 80% this year. There was a decline in the overall performance for Law Candidates, on Unit 1 in 2019 compared with 2018. Eighty-nine per cent of the candidates achieved Grades I – V compared with 92% in 2018. For Unit 2, the overall performance showed an increase over 2018 as 91% of candidates achieved Grades I – V compared with 86% in 2018.
The percentage of candidates achieving acceptable Grades, I – V, in Unit 1 of Management of Business was 89%, a decline in performance compared with 2018 when 94% of candidates achieved Grades I – V. In Unit 2, the percentage of candidates achieving acceptable Grades, I – V, was 94%. This reflects a moderate improvement over the performance of 2018, where 92% achieved acceptable grades.
Candidates’ performance in Economics Unit 1 was consistent with 84% of candidates achieving acceptable Grades, I – V, in 2019. In Unit 2, the candidates achieving acceptable Grades, I – V, increased from 86 per cent in 2018 to 93 per cent in 2019.
Reprinted from the Caribbean Examiner
Vol. 18 #2
October 2019
