For an entire year, your school bought print exams – glossy, persuasive commercial papers marketed with loud promises and irresistible branding. They came with dramatic names meant to evoke confidence: prediction, predictor, wings, final replica, master prediction, ultimate forecast and many others crafted to convince schools that success in KPSEA and KJSEA could somehow be purchased in bundles. Posters were everywhere. Sales representatives spoke with certainty. Schools fell for the illusion, convinced that drilling learners with these papers would give them an upper hand in the final KNEC examinations.
But now, as you compare those commercial papers with the actual KNEC exams that candidates sat for in October and November, the difference is staggering. They resemble each other in the same way heaven resembles earth – completely different realms. The commercial exams made bold predictions, yet neither the structure nor the tone of the final KNEC exams aligned with what learners had spent the whole year practising. The Exams Hub comparative analysis confirms the painful truth: most of these papers are nothing more than a collection of loosely assembled questions. They are not exams. They are not based on any scientific assessment design. They are simply ‘River Road: concoctions packaged with confidence and sold to schools hungry for shortcuts. Not a single KNEC question resembled them – content or form. Schools were scammed.
Meanwhile, the exam printers who produced them are already enjoying holidays in Mombasa after making a killing. They succeeded in creating fear, urgency, and hope simultaneously. They enticed schools with the idea that national exam success could be rehearsed from photocopied predictions. They understood the psychology of schools, especially those worried about results and parental expectations. They exploited a vulnerability – an overreliance on external materials instead of internal capacity. Now. At the same time, printers relax by the beach, sipping coconut water, while schools agonise over results soon to be released, worried that all the drilling may not translate into performance. *Wakora wote wako Mombasa kwa beach.*
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This overreliance is not a small problem; it is a deep rot in the culture of assessment preparation. Commercial exams create a dangerous and false sense of preparedness. Learners end up repeating the same pattern of questions day after day, building familiarity rather than mastery. The illusion grows: since they can answer these questions easily, they assume they understand the concepts. Teachers assume progress is happening. Heads of schools take their candidates to be now strong. But when the real KNEC exam appears—fresh, contextual, reasoning-based—the learners freeze. The comfort of repetition evaporates. They begin to wonder whether the exam is too hard. In truth, what they practised was misaligned.
These commercial papers also misrepresent exam standards. Real KNEC exams are constructed from competency-based learning outcomes, grade-appropriate progressions, and cognitive levels set by professional exam setters. Commercial exams rarely follow such rigour. Many are made hurriedly by individuals without training in assessment design. They guess the format, imitate old structures, and hope no one questions their validity. This leads to shallow questions, an incorrect distribution of skills, a lack of reasoning tasks, and general inconsistency with what learners will encounter in national exams. The tragedy is that teachers, under pressure to “prepare candidates,” often adopt these papers as the main revision tool. Teaching becomes secondary. Drilling becomes the centre. Learners are fed question after question, reducing education to mechanical practice instead of meaningful understanding.
Money is also lost—huge sums. Schools spend tens or hundreds of thousands each year buying every new paper released into the market. The fear of being left behind pushes them to buy more. Yet the return on investment is minimal. The same money could transform teaching if channelled into teacher training, acquisition of better teaching resources, enrichment activities, remedial support, or development of strong internal continuous assessment systems. Instead, it goes to printers who produce materials that neither predict nor prepare.
Learners’ confidence is often the first casualty. When they walk into a national examination having practised the same question style for months, only to encounter unfamiliar structures and contexts, their minds retreat. Confidence collapses. Anxiety rises. They begin questioning their intelligence. But the problem was never their capability; it was the misleading preparation process. They were rehearsing for the wrong exam.
Behind this mess lies a commercial industry that has mastered the art of academic marketing. Exam printers craft posters with bold claims like “100% prediction,” “latest KNEC format,” “sure bet,” “best performer,” and “final breakthrough.” They know most schools are desperate. They know parents are pressuring teachers. They know school heads want to avoid embarrassment. So they create a mirage—papers that seem technical but are not grounded in curriculum design. Their aim is not educational integrity but sales volume. Their success depends on how well they can appeal to fear and ambition. And year after year, schools fall into the same cycle.
Yet the solution exists – not in banning commercial exams entirely, but in reducing dependence and reclaiming professional judgement. Schools should anchor learning in strong internal assessments created by teachers who understand the curriculum, the competencies, and the expected learning progressions. These internal assessments, when well done, are more accurate indicators of readiness than any external commercial product. Schools may choose to buy a few papers for exposure, but not as the primary engine of preparation. A balanced approach ensures learners meet diverse question styles without relying on unverified materials. Teachers need continuous training in assessment literacy to design papers aligned with KNEC standards. When teachers understand assessment, they create better lessons, set more effective tasks, and interpret learner progress more accurately.
Education cannot be reduced to bundles of predictions. Competence is built over months of teaching, not over piles of purchased papers. Real success comes from conceptual mastery, reasoning, application, and reflection. These cannot be photocopied. As schools anticipate national results, the painful lesson is clear: buying predictions is not preparation. It is wishful thinking packaged in glossy covers.
Let this be the wake-up call. Let schools invest in teaching, not shortcuts. Let real understanding, not recycled questions, guide learners. Let teachers reclaim their professional dignity and trust their capacity more than the allure of commercial exam papers. Only then will schools break free from the yearly cycle of anxiety, disappointment and exploitation.
By Ashford Gikunda
Ashford teaches English and Literature in Gatundu North Sub-county and serves as Dean of Studies.
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