English Language JAMB, WAEC, NECO AND NABTEB Official Past Questions

  All too often, there is a difference between what we say and what we think we have said, and between how we feel we have handled people and how they think they have been treated. When such ‘gaps’ occur between the intent and the action, it is often stated that there has been ‘a breakdown in communication ’. Sometimes the breakdown is allowed to become so serious that the gap becomes a chasm, relatives in the family ceasing to speak to one another, management and trade unions refusing to meet, and government recalling ambassadors when relations between states reach a low ebb.

  In fact, sometimes when people communicate, either as individual or within groups, problems inevitably occur; instruction maybe impossible to carry out, offence is taken at a particular remark, a directive is ambiguously phrased or people’s attitudes are colored by jealousy, resentment or frustration.

  During the past fifty years, industrial, commercial and public service organizations have grown prodigiously to meet the needs of advanced technological societies. Sometimes as many as 10,000 people work on one site, or one company employs more than 50,000 people. Clearly, good communication is essential to the efficient operation of any organization and vital to the fulfilment of all those who commit their working lives to it.

  For this reason, management specialists and behavioural scientists have devoted much thought and energy over recent years to analyzing the problems caused by bad communication practices and creating good communication climate and systems.

  As a result of the current structure of societies and economies, most of us spend our working lives in an organization where we become good communicators with social skills.

  All too often, there is a difference between what we say and what we think we have said, and between how we feel we have handled people and how they think they have been treated. When such ‘gaps’ occur between the intent and the action, it is often stated that there has been ‘a breakdown in communication ’. Sometimes the breakdown is allowed to become so serious that the gap becomes a chasm, relatives in the family ceasing to speak to one another, management and trade unions refusing to meet, and government recalling ambassadors when relations between states reach a low ebb.

  In fact, sometimes when people communicate, either as individual or within groups, problems inevitably occur; instruction maybe impossible to carry out, offence is taken at a particular remark, a directive is ambiguously phrased or people’s attitudes are colored by jealousy, resentment or frustration.

  During the past fifty years, industrial, commercial and public service organizations have grown prodigiously to meet the needs of advanced technological societies. Sometimes as many as 10,000 people work on one site, or one company employs more than 50,000 people. Clearly, good communication is essential to the efficient operation of any organization and vital to the fulfilment of all those who commit their working lives to it.

  For this reason, management specialists and behavioural scientists have devoted much thought and energy over recent years to analyzing the problems caused by bad communication practices and creating good communication climate and systems.

  As a result of the current structure of societies and economies, most of us spend our working lives in an organization where we become good communicators with social skills.

  All too often, there is a difference between what we say and what we think we have said, and between how we feel we have handled people and how they think they have been treated. When such ‘gaps’ occur between the intent and the action, it is often stated that there has been ‘a breakdown in communication ’. Sometimes the breakdown is allowed to become so serious that the gap becomes a chasm, relatives in the family ceasing to speak to one another, management and trade unions refusing to meet, and government recalling ambassadors when relations between states reach a low ebb.

  In fact, sometimes when people communicate, either as individual or within groups, problems inevitably occur; instruction maybe impossible to carry out, offence is taken at a particular remark, a directive is ambiguously phrased or people’s attitudes are colored by jealousy, resentment or frustration.

  During the past fifty years, industrial, commercial and public service organizations have grown prodigiously to meet the needs of advanced technological societies. Sometimes as many as 10,000 people work on one site, or one company employs more than 50,000 people. Clearly, good communication is essential to the efficient operation of any organization and vital to the fulfilment of all those who commit their working lives to it.

  For this reason, management specialists and behavioural scientists have devoted much thought and energy over recent years to analyzing the problems caused by bad communication practices and creating good communication climate and systems.

  As a result of the current structure of societies and economies, most of us spend our working lives in an organization where we become good communicators with social skills.

  All too often, there is a difference between what we say and what we think we have said, and between how we feel we have handled people and how they think they have been treated. When such ‘gaps’ occur between the intent and the action, it is often stated that there has been ‘a breakdown in communication ’. Sometimes the breakdown is allowed to become so serious that the gap becomes a chasm, relatives in the family ceasing to speak to one another, management and trade unions refusing to meet, and government recalling ambassadors when relations between states reach a low ebb.

  In fact, sometimes when people communicate, either as individual or within groups, problems inevitably occur; instruction maybe impossible to carry out, offence is taken at a particular remark, a directive is ambiguously phrased or people’s attitudes are colored by jealousy, resentment or frustration.

  During the past fifty years, industrial, commercial and public service organizations have grown prodigiously to meet the needs of advanced technological societies. Sometimes as many as 10,000 people work on one site, or one company employs more than 50,000 people. Clearly, good communication is essential to the efficient operation of any organization and vital to the fulfilment of all those who commit their working lives to it.

  For this reason, management specialists and behavioural scientists have devoted much thought and energy over recent years to analyzing the problems caused by bad communication practices and creating good communication climate and systems.

  As a result of the current structure of societies and economies, most of us spend our working lives in an organization where we become good communicators with social skills.

  All too often, there is a difference between what we say and what we think we have said, and between how we feel we have handled people and how they think they have been treated. When such ‘gaps’ occur between the intent and the action, it is often stated that there has been ‘a breakdown in communication ’. Sometimes the breakdown is allowed to become so serious that the gap becomes a chasm, relatives in the family ceasing to speak to one another, management and trade unions refusing to meet, and government recalling ambassadors when relations between states reach a low ebb.

  In fact, sometimes when people communicate, either as individual or within groups, problems inevitably occur; instruction maybe impossible to carry out, offence is taken at a particular remark, a directive is ambiguously phrased or people’s attitudes are colored by jealousy, resentment or frustration.

  During the past fifty years, industrial, commercial and public service organizations have grown prodigiously to meet the needs of advanced technological societies. Sometimes as many as 10,000 people work on one site, or one company employs more than 50,000 people. Clearly, good communication is essential to the efficient operation of any organization and vital to the fulfilment of all those who commit their working lives to it.

  For this reason, management specialists and behavioural scientists have devoted much thought and energy over recent years to analyzing the problems caused by bad communication practices and creating good communication climate and systems.

  As a result of the current structure of societies and economies, most of us spend our working lives in an organization where we become good communicators with social skills.

  Undergraduate students in psychology and education come to their first course in statistics with diverse expectation of and background in mathematics. Some have considerable formal training and quantitative aptitude and look forward to learning statistics. Others – perhaps the majority, including some of those who aspire to postgraduate studies – are less confident in their quantitative skills. They regard a course in statistics as a necessary evil for the understanding or carrying out of research in their chosen fields, but an evil nonetheless.

  The third edition, like the predecessors, is directed primarily at the latter audience it was written with the conviction that statistical concepts can be described simply without loss of accuracy and that understanding statistical techniques as research tools can be effectively promoted by discussing them within the context of their application to concrete data rather than as pure abstraction. Further, its contents are limited to those statistical techniques that are widely used in the literature of psychology and to the principle underlying them.

  The changes that have been made in this edition reflect both the results of our teaching experience and the increasing prominence being given by statisticians to certain topics. Thus our discussion of some procedures, particularly those in the realm of descriptive statistics, which students grasp easily, have being shortened or rearranged. The treatment of other topics has been expanded. Greater emphasis has been placed on sampling theory, hypothesis testing, and the notion at statistical power.

  Undergraduate students in psychology and education come to their first course in statistics with diverse expectation of and background in mathematics. Some have considerable formal training and quantitative aptitude and look forward to learning statistics. Others – perhaps the majority, including some of those who aspire to postgraduate studies – are less confident in their quantitative skills. They regard a course in statistics as a necessary evil for the understanding or carrying out of research in their chosen fields, but an evil nonetheless.

  The third edition, like the predecessors, is directed primarily at the latter audience it was written with the conviction that statistical concepts can be described simply without loss of accuracy and that understanding statistical techniques as research tools can be effectively promoted by discussing them within the context of their application to concrete data rather than as pure abstraction. Further, its contents are limited to those statistical techniques that are widely used in the literature of psychology and to the principle underlying them.

  The changes that have been made in this edition reflect both the results of our teaching experience and the increasing prominence being given by statisticians to certain topics. Thus our discussion of some procedures, particularly those in the realm of descriptive statistics, which students grasp easily, have being shortened or rearranged. The treatment of other topics has been expanded. Greater emphasis has been placed on sampling theory, hypothesis testing, and the notion at statistical power.

  Undergraduate students in psychology and education come to their first course in statistics with diverse expectation of and background in mathematics. Some have considerable formal training and quantitative aptitude and look forward to learning statistics. Others – perhaps the majority, including some of those who aspire to postgraduate studies – are less confident in their quantitative skills. They regard a course in statistics as a necessary evil for the understanding or carrying out of research in their chosen fields, but an evil nonetheless.

  The third edition, like the predecessors, is directed primarily at the latter audience it was written with the conviction that statistical concepts can be described simply without loss of accuracy and that understanding statistical techniques as research tools can be effectively promoted by discussing them within the context of their application to concrete data rather than as pure abstraction. Further, its contents are limited to those statistical techniques that are widely used in the literature of psychology and to the principle underlying them.

  The changes that have been made in this edition reflect both the results of our teaching experience and the increasing prominence being given by statisticians to certain topics. Thus our discussion of some procedures, particularly those in the realm of descriptive statistics, which students grasp easily, have being shortened or rearranged. The treatment of other topics has been expanded. Greater emphasis has been placed on sampling theory, hypothesis testing, and the notion at statistical power.

  Undergraduate students in psychology and education come to their first course in statistics with diverse expectation of and background in mathematics. Some have considerable formal training and quantitative aptitude and look forward to learning statistics. Others – perhaps the majority, including some of those who aspire to postgraduate studies – are less confident in their quantitative skills. They regard a course in statistics as a necessary evil for the understanding or carrying out of research in their chosen fields, but an evil nonetheless.

  The third edition, like the predecessors, is directed primarily at the latter audience it was written with the conviction that statistical concepts can be described simply without loss of accuracy and that understanding statistical techniques as research tools can be effectively promoted by discussing them within the context of their application to concrete data rather than as pure abstraction. Further, its contents are limited to those statistical techniques that are widely used in the literature of psychology and to the principle underlying them.

  The changes that have been made in this edition reflect both the results of our teaching experience and the increasing prominence being given by statisticians to certain topics. Thus our discussion of some procedures, particularly those in the realm of descriptive statistics, which students grasp easily, have being shortened or rearranged. The treatment of other topics has been expanded. Greater emphasis has been placed on sampling theory, hypothesis testing, and the notion at statistical power.

  Undergraduate students in psychology and education come to their first course in statistics with diverse expectation of and background in mathematics. Some have considerable formal training and quantitative aptitude and look forward to learning statistics. Others – perhaps the majority, including some of those who aspire to postgraduate studies – are less confident in their quantitative skills. They regard a course in statistics as a necessary evil for the understanding or carrying out of research in their chosen fields, but an evil nonetheless.

  The third edition, like the predecessors, is directed primarily at the latter audience it was written with the conviction that statistical concepts can be described simply without loss of accuracy and that understanding statistical techniques as research tools can be effectively promoted by discussing them within the context of their application to concrete data rather than as pure abstraction. Further, its contents are limited to those statistical techniques that are widely used in the literature of psychology and to the principle underlying them.

  The changes that have been made in this edition reflect both the results of our teaching experience and the increasing prominence being given by statisticians to certain topics. Thus our discussion of some procedures, particularly those in the realm of descriptive statistics, which students grasp easily, have being shortened or rearranged. The treatment of other topics has been expanded. Greater emphasis has been placed on sampling theory, hypothesis testing, and the notion at statistical power.

  One fact that we have to complement is that, in our unconscious mind, we cannot distinguish between a wish and a deed. We are all aware of some of our illogical dreams in which two completely opposite statements can exist side by side – very acceptable in our dreams but unthinkable and illogical in our waking state. Just as our unconscious mind cannot differentiate between the wish to kill somebody in anger and the act of having done so, the young child is unable to make this distinction. The child who angrily wishes his mother to drop dead for not having gratified his needs will traumatized greatly by the actual death of his mother – even if this event is not linked closely in the time with his destructive wishes. He will always take part of or the whole of the blames for the loss of his mother. He will always say to himself – rarely to others – I did it. I am responsible. I was bad, therefore mummy left me. ‘It is well to remember that the child will react in the same manner if he loses a parent by divorce, separation or desertion.

  Death is often seen by a child as an impermanent thing and has therefore little distinction from a divorce which he may have an opportunity to see the parent again.

  One fact that we have to complement is that, in our unconscious mind, we cannot distinguish between a wish and a deed. We are all aware of some of our illogical dreams in which two completely opposite statements can exist side by side – very acceptable in our dreams but unthinkable and illogical in our waking state. Just as our unconscious mind cannot differentiate between the wish to kill somebody in anger and the act of having done so, the young child is unable to make this distinction. The child who angrily wishes his mother to drop dead for not having gratified his needs will traumatized greatly by the actual death of his mother – even if this event is not linked closely in the time with his destructive wishes. He will always take part of or the whole of the blames for the loss of his mother. He will always say to himself – rarely to others – I did it. I am responsible. I was bad, therefore mummy left me. ‘It is well to remember that the child will react in the same manner if he loses a parent by divorce, separation or desertion.

  Death is often seen by a child as an impermanent thing and has therefore little distinction from a divorce which he may have an opportunity to see the parent again.

  One fact that we have to complement is that, in our unconscious mind, we cannot distinguish between a wish and a deed. We are all aware of some of our illogical dreams in which two completely opposite statements can exist side by side – very acceptable in our dreams but unthinkable and illogical in our waking state. Just as our unconscious mind cannot differentiate between the wish to kill somebody in anger and the act of having done so, the young child is unable to make this distinction. The child who angrily wishes his mother to drop dead for not having gratified his needs will traumatized greatly by the actual death of his mother – even if this event is not linked closely in the time with his destructive wishes. He will always take part of or the whole of the blames for the loss of his mother. He will always say to himself – rarely to others – I did it. I am responsible. I was bad, therefore mummy left me. ‘It is well to remember that the child will react in the same manner if he loses a parent by divorce, separation or desertion.

  Death is often seen by a child as an impermanent thing and has therefore little distinction from a divorce which he may have an opportunity to see the parent again.

  One fact that we have to complement is that, in our unconscious mind, we cannot distinguish between a wish and a deed. We are all aware of some of our illogical dreams in which two completely opposite statements can exist side by side – very acceptable in our dreams but unthinkable and illogical in our waking state. Just as our unconscious mind cannot differentiate between the wish to kill somebody in anger and the act of having done so, the young child is unable to make this distinction. The child who angrily wishes his mother to drop dead for not having gratified his needs will traumatized greatly by the actual death of his mother – even if this event is not linked closely in the time with his destructive wishes. He will always take part of or the whole of the blames for the loss of his mother. He will always say to himself – rarely to others – I did it. I am responsible. I was bad, therefore mummy left me. ‘It is well to remember that the child will react in the same manner if he loses a parent by divorce, separation or desertion.

  Death is often seen by a child as an impermanent thing and has therefore little distinction from a divorce which he may have an opportunity to see the parent again.

  One fact that we have to complement is that, in our unconscious mind, we cannot distinguish between a wish and a deed. We are all aware of some of our illogical dreams in which two completely opposite statements can exist side by side – very acceptable in our dreams but unthinkable and illogical in our waking state. Just as our unconscious mind cannot differentiate between the wish to kill somebody in anger and the act of having done so, the young child is unable to make this distinction. The child who angrily wishes his mother to drop dead for not having gratified his needs will traumatized greatly by the actual death of his mother – even if this event is not linked closely in the time with his destructive wishes. He will always take part of or the whole of the blames for the loss of his mother. He will always say to himself – rarely to others – I did it. I am responsible. I was bad, therefore mummy left me. ‘It is well to remember that the child will react in the same manner if he loses a parent by divorce, separation or desertion.

  Death is often seen by a child as an impermanent thing and has therefore little distinction from a divorce which he may have an opportunity to see the parent again.

  The preparation which a study of the humanities can provide stems from three observations about education in our world of accelerating social and technological change. First, with the rate of change, we cannot hope to train our student for specific technologies. That kind of vocational education is obsolescent. By the time the specific training will have been completed, the world will have moved on.

  If our education consists of narrow training, we will not be prepared to change. Second and paradoxically, what our student desire from their education is preparation for specific careers – business, engineering, medicine, computer programming and the like, but we will not be able to train them for a life-long career. Their confronting the depressed job market gives our students a certain anxiety, but the solution they seek in vocational training is not sufficient. Third, we sense in our students a narrow materialism, with the good life defined in terms of material comforts. Education then means learning to do a job which will make money. I see in this definition a limiting sense of what education and thus life offer, a definition which excludes joy and meaning. Our narrow approach to the study of the humanities responds to these three related problems. In our changing, yet narrow world, the teaching of the humanities finds one powerful justification – it teaches student how to think.

  The preparation which a study of the humanities can provide stems from three observations about education in our world of accelerating social and technological change. First, with the rate of change, we cannot hope to train our student for specific technologies. That kind of vocational education is obsolescent. By the time the specific training will have been completed, the world will have moved on.

  If our education consists of narrow training, we will not be prepared to change. Second and paradoxically, what our student desire from their education is preparation for specific careers – business, engineering, medicine, computer programming and the like, but we will not be able to train them for a life-long career. Their confronting the depressed job market gives our students a certain anxiety, but the solution they seek in vocational training is not sufficient. Third, we sense in our students a narrow materialism, with the good life defined in terms of material comforts. Education then means learning to do a job which will make money. I see in this definition a limiting sense of what education and thus life offer, a definition which excludes joy and meaning. Our narrow approach to the study of the humanities responds to these three related problems. In our changing, yet narrow world, the teaching of the humanities finds one powerful justification – it teaches student how to think.

  The preparation which a study of the humanities can provide stems from three observations about education in our world of accelerating social and technological change. First, with the rate of change, we cannot hope to train our student for specific technologies. That kind of vocational education is obsolescent. By the time the specific training will have been completed, the world will have moved on.

  If our education consists of narrow training, we will not be prepared to change. Second and paradoxically, what our student desire from their education is preparation for specific careers – business, engineering, medicine, computer programming and the like, but we will not be able to train them for a life-long career. Their confronting the depressed job market gives our students a certain anxiety, but the solution they seek in vocational training is not sufficient. Third, we sense in our students a narrow materialism, with the good life defined in terms of material comforts. Education then means learning to do a job which will make money. I see in this definition a limiting sense of what education and thus life offer, a definition which excludes joy and meaning. Our narrow approach to the study of the humanities responds to these three related problems. In our changing, yet narrow world, the teaching of the humanities finds one powerful justification – it teaches student how to think.

  The preparation which a study of the humanities can provide stems from three observations about education in our world of accelerating social and technological change. First, with the rate of change, we cannot hope to train our student for specific technologies. That kind of vocational education is obsolescent. By the time the specific training will have been completed, the world will have moved on.

  If our education consists of narrow training, we will not be prepared to change. Second and paradoxically, what our student desire from their education is preparation for specific careers – business, engineering, medicine, computer programming and the like, but we will not be able to train them for a life-long career. Their confronting the depressed job market gives our students a certain anxiety, but the solution they seek in vocational training is not sufficient. Third, we sense in our students a narrow materialism, with the good life defined in terms of material comforts. Education then means learning to do a job which will make money. I see in this definition a limiting sense of what education and thus life offer, a definition which excludes joy and meaning. Our narrow approach to the study of the humanities responds to these three related problems. In our changing, yet narrow world, the teaching of the humanities finds one powerful justification – it teaches student how to think.

 The young are not listening to their elders, and perhaps they never have. But now it happens that, with many of them, the reason may be medical. The young aren’t listening because they can’t hear. Just as nagging parents have long suspected, otologists (hearing specialist) now report that youngsters are going deaf as a result of blasting their eardrums with electronically amplified rock ‘n’ roll.

  The hearing specialists used to worry about loud noise as a cause of deafness only in industrial and military situations. They knew that eight hours of daily exposure, year in and year out, to the din of the proverbial boiler factory, would eventually result in permanent hearing loss. Riveters were particularly susceptible. Then they learned that the same thing happened to aviators. After the advent of jets, the hazard applied to the ground crews at airport and flight-deck personnel aboard aircrafts – hence the introduction of insulated noise absorbing plastic earmuffs.

  In discotheques and rock ‘n’ roll joints, the trouble is not so much in the instrument themselves, or the close quarters. The blame goes to the electronic amplifiers. An old-fashion military ban, playing a march in Ramat Park, generated as much sound. But the sound was not amplified and was dissipated in the open air. A trombonist sitting in front of a tuba player might be a bit deaf for an hour or so after a concert, and then his hearing returns to normal. A microphone hooked up to a public address system did not appreciably increase the hearing hazard. What he did was multiple microphones and speakers, and the installation of internal microphones in such instruments as guitars and bouzoukis.

 The young are not listening to their elders, and perhaps they never have. But now it happens that, with many of them, the reason may be medical. The young aren’t listening because they can’t hear. Just as nagging parents have long suspected, otologists (hearing specialist) now report that youngsters are going deaf as a result of blasting their eardrums with electronically amplified rock ‘n’ roll.

  The hearing specialists used to worry about loud noise as a cause of deafness only in industrial and military situations. They knew that eight hours of daily exposure, year in and year out, to the din of the proverbial boiler factory, would eventually result in permanent hearing loss. Riveters were particularly susceptible. Then they learned that the same thing happened to aviators. After the advent of jets, the hazard applied to the ground crews at airport and flight-deck personnel aboard aircrafts – hence the introduction of insulated noise absorbing plastic earmuffs.

  In discotheques and rock ‘n’ roll joints, the trouble is not so much in the instrument themselves, or the close quarters. The blame goes to the electronic amplifiers. An old-fashion military ban, playing a march in Ramat Park, generated as much sound. But the sound was not amplified and was dissipated in the open air. A trombonist sitting in front of a tuba player might be a bit deaf for an hour or so after a concert, and then his hearing returns to normal. A microphone hooked up to a public address system did not appreciably increase the hearing hazard. What he did was multiple microphones and speakers, and the installation of internal microphones in such instruments as guitars and bouzoukis.