STANDARD OF THE PAPER The Quantitative Tools in Business, Paper 1.4, written in May was well structured with the paper adequately covering all the Level One Syllabus and the ICAG Manual. The standard of the Paper is a little low compared to the previous Papers (November 2017, May 2017, November 2016, May 2016), and the format and style are different from the aforementioned Papers. There were a few identifiable ambiguities or typing errors in the paper. This error, however, had limited effect on candidates’ ability to solve the sub- question. In general most candidates who tackled the question understood the sub-question, with many candidates scoring very high marks on the question. The marking scheme was well-drawn; every sub-question had marks duly allocated and the marks were adequate for each question. Examiners had access to the Examination Paper before the co-ordination. The marking scheme was straight forward and candidates were rewarded for any meaningful attempts made.

GENERAL PERFORMANCE OF CANDIDATES The general performance of candidates can be described as above average. The majority of the candidates who wrote the paper at centres across the country performed averagely well with many scoring above 45%. Many of the average performers recorded were found in the traditional high performing centers of Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi and Cape Coast. Indeed the best two candidates, who were from the Accra centre scored between 80%-85%. A few candidates scored below 10%. There were no traceable copying by candidates, except that some candidates did not number their answers very well, which made some examiners have some challenges trying to separate answered questions for marking and scoring. A few candidates also wasted their time trying to solve more than the necessary questions instead of the recommended five and ended up scoring very high mark on a few questions and obtained almost zero marks on some questions. Per the scripts submitted for marking in this year’s May Examination diet, one will conclude that candidates’ preparation for the paper was a little better than previous diets and this is reflected in the general performance. In fact, a few candidates scored 20/20 on as many as two questions in this diet.