Home ยป Past Questions ยป Literature-in-english ยป Jamb ยป 1984
1

‘My room was the smallest space I’D ever been in on which a door had closed. There was a bed, built in wardrobe, chair and small table, and above in the ceiling was screwed a one-candlepower bulb it really made you feel welcome….’

The last statement in this passage is an example of

  • A. understatement
  • B. overstatement
  • C. hyperbole
  • D. sarcastic humour
  • E. poetic diction
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2

I am not afraid of anything ;, he told them ‘I have done almost everything in this world. I have committed all crimes you can think of and been called for most of them. I have been in prison more hours than I have been out of it within the last five years. In recounting his criminal life, this speaker’s tone is

  • A. repentant
  • B. boastful
  • C. regretful
  • D. subdued
  • E. remorseful
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3

‘The gates of polished reed closes behind them and the west is let in.’The above are the last two lines of David Rubadins ‘ Stanley meets Mutesa’ and they suggest that

  • A. the sun setb after the arrival of Stanley
  • B. Stanley was shut out of Western civilization
  • C. Stanley symbolizes the advert of colonization
  • D. Stanley was very well recieved
  • E. Stanley thought he would be eaten up by the natives.
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4

‘The whole space was walled with dark aromatic bushes and was a bowl of heat and light. A great tree, fallen across one corner, leaned against the trees that still stood and rapid climber flaunted red and yellow sprays right to the top.’

In describing the action of the climber, the writer has used the literary device of

  • A. simile
  • B. hyperbole
  • C. irony
  • D. onomotopoeia
  • E. personification.
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5

‘Political languages is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure minds.’

The writer here suggesting that political language is

  • A. convincing
  • B. deceptive
  • C. interesting
  • D. destructive
  • E. commendable.
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6

‘There was a time when meadow, grove and stream,
The earth and every common sight
To me did seem
Appareled in celestial light
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore:
Turn wheresoever i may,
By night or day
The things which have seen i now can see no more.’
The mood captured in this passage is one of

  • A. nostalgia
  • B. despair
  • C. confidence
  • D. hope
  • E. joy
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7

‘It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours…’
The description of the town in this passage suggests

  • A. peaceful co-existence
  • B. lack of progress
  • C. warmth and friendliness
  • D. organized living
  • E. monotony
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8

‘Contrition twines me like a snake
Each time i come upon the wake
Of your clan,…’
In this passage ‘contrition’ is

  • A. personified
  • B. satirized
  • C. exaggerated
  • D. modified
  • E. emphasized
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9

Which of the following novels was written by a Nigerian?

  • A. The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born
  • B. Weep Not Child
  • C. Mine Boy
  • D. A Man Of The People
  • E. Mission to Kala.
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10

Which of the following was not written by Wole Soyinka?

  • A. The interpreters
  • B. The Lion and the jewel
  • C. The Trials of Brother Jero
  • D. Kongi's Harvest
  • E. The Strong Breed.
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11

To be complete, a play MUST have

  • A. a prologue
  • B. an epilogue
  • C. dramatic irony
  • D. a conflict
  • E. several soliloquies.
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12

‘Assonance’ is the product of a poet’s use of

  • A. masculine ryhme
  • B. many consonant
  • C. regular ryhme
  • D. similar sounding vowels
  • E. imaginative metaphors.
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13

A well known epic in English literature is

  • A. Robinson Crusoe
  • B. The Marchant of Venice
  • C. Sons and Lovers
  • D. Treasure Island
  • E. paradise lost.
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14

What we call ‘tragic flaw’ is the

  • A. element of plot that makes a work dramatic
  • B. typographical error occuring in a work of drama
  • C. pronunciation error made by an actor on stage
  • D. unsuccessful play written by an other wise great dramatist
  • E. weakness in character responsible for the downfall of a dramatic hero.
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15

The protagonist of a story is generally

  • A. the protest made by the principle character against his adversaries
  • B. the principle character of the story
  • C. the theme of the story
  • D. one of the minor characters in the story
  • E. the protest made by a character against the hero
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16

The plot of story generally refers to the

  • A. intrigue made by a character against the hero
  • B. intrigue made by a hero against a character
  • C. way the writer begins the story
  • D. way the writer ends the story
  • E. way in which the events of the story are organised.
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17

A short emphatic, witty saying, often involving antithesis or paradox is an

  • A. epithet
  • B. epigram
  • C. invective
  • D. impression
  • E. analogy
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18

Writing about an abstract object as though it had human qualities is known as

  • A. apostrophe
  • B. personification
  • C. denotation
  • D. allusion
  • E. imitation
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19

A question put, not chiefly to elicit an answer, but to make an emphatic statement is known as

  • A. paradoxial
  • B. metaphysical
  • C. logical
  • D. rhetorical
  • E. leading
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20
From the novel; Things Fall Apart

We can take you where he is, and perhaps your men will help us.
In the above sentence taken from Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the pronoun he refers to

  • A. Obierika
  • B. Okoli
  • C. Odukwe
  • D. Okonkwo
  • E. Ezenwa.
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21
From the novel; Things Fall Apart

‘…A man who calls his kinsmen to feast does not do so to save them from staving. they all have food in their houses. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound.’
In this passage, as in many other parts of Things Fall Apart, Achebe celebrates

  • A. living according to nature
  • B. the spirit of communal living
  • C. the ancestral spirit
  • D. the virtures of self reliance
  • E. traditional festivals
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