Every one of the 500 O/L Buddhism Paper I questions on Wizder (13 papers, 2013 to 2025) was rated easy, medium or hard by our curators when it was checked against the marking scheme. Put those ratings next to the topic tags and a clear picture comes out: the marks are not lost evenly across the paper.
The overall split
33% of the questions are rated easy, 51% medium and 16% hard. A student who gets every easy and medium question right already has about 84% of Paper I; the hard questions decide whether that becomes an A.
The topics where marks are lost
"Hard" is hard questions out of the topic's total; "Years" is the sittings it was asked in. Ranked by the share of each topic's questions rated hard (topics with at least six questions, so one odd question cannot top the list).
| # | Topic | Hard | Years |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ධම්මපදය | 8/15 | 13/13 |
| 2 | සූත්‍ර දේශනා | 10/22 | 9/13 |
| 3 | ධර්ම සංගායනා | 8/24 | 11/13 |
| 4 | බෞද්ධ සෞඛ්‍ය චින්තනය | 3/11 | 7/13 |
| 5 | ශාසන ඉතිහාසය | 3/12 | 7/13 |
| 6 | බෞද්ධ සාහිත්‍යය | 3/14 | 9/13 |
| 7 | පටිච්ච සමුප්පාදය | 4/22 | 12/13 |
| 8 | බුදු ගුණ | 2/12 | 7/13 |
| 9 | කර්මය | 5/31 | 13/13 |
| 10 | පාරමිතා හා ජාතක කථා | 4/25 | 12/13 |
| 11 | බෞද්ධ කලාව | 5/32 | 13/13 |
| 12 | ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ බුදුසමය | 2/13 | 8/13 |
Why these are hard
- Dhammapada and sutta questions ask for exact wording or the exact occasion. The distractors are real verses and real suttas, just not the one asked about.
- Council questions mix up four details (place, king, presiding monk, reason) across three councils. A table learnt by heart turns them from hard to quick.
What to do about it
- Do the hard topics after the core, not before. A week on them once the frequent topics are solid (week 5 of the 8-week plan) moves the score more than starting with them.
- Read why the wrong options are wrong. On these topics the distractors are built from the exact mistake students make, so the explanation is where the learning is.
- Mix years. The same hard idea appears in different wording across sittings; recognising it is the skill.
Two from the top of the list, worked
“දූරංගමං ඒකචරං - අසරීරං ගුහාසයං” යන ධම්මපද ගාථාවෙන් දැක්වෙන්නේ,
- Aසිතෙහි ස්වභාවයයි.
- Bකයෙහි ස්වභාවයයි.
- Cසංස්කාර ධර්මවල ස්වභාවයයි.
- Dරූප ධර්මවල ස්වභාවයයි.
දානය හා ධර්මානුකූල හැසිරීම යන මඟුල් කරුණු දැක්වෙන මංගල සූත්‍ර දේශනා පාඨය ඇතුළත් වරණය කුමක් ද?
- A“දානං සීල පරිච්චාගං”
- B“දානං සීල ච භාවනා”
- C“දානං සඤ්ඤස්ස සෝපාණං”
- D“දානං ච ධම්මචරියාවං”
How the ratings were made
The ratings are ours, not the Department of Examinations'. Each question was rated once, when it was transcribed and checked against the published marking scheme, on how much a typical student has to know and how close the distractors sit to the answer. Treat them as a guide to where to spend a week, not as a statistic about candidates.
One more, to try yourself
බුදුරජාණන් වහන්සේ මහා මොග්ගල්ලාන සූත්‍රය දේශනා කළේ කුමන ස්ථානයේදී ද?
- Aවිශාලා මහනුවර වන පියසකදී
- Bගග්ගරා පොකුණ සමීපයේදී
- Cකලන්දක නිවාප නම් ස්ථානයේදී
- Dමහී ගංගා තීරය අසලදී