Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions on it.
Most of the discussions in the newspapers today in Nigeria focus on the problem of corruption and its pervasive effects on our national life. It is a phenomenon which appears to have settled comfortably with us, more so that we now regard it, in a rather casual manner as a normal way of life. One may then wish to ask, what exactly is the complexion of corruption in Nigeria? Why is it so pervasive and how can it be minimized. if not completely eradicated?
Corruption takes many forms in the country. Contracts are not awarded on the objective criteria of professional competence and results of good feasibility studies. It is a matter of personal relationships, club affiliations or the expectation of some kick-backs. Loans are not given out by banks on the merit of what you need them for; it is the kick-backs from the loans that decide the manager’s approval. Those who need jobs either have to bribe their way through to get the jobs or they do not get any.
Limited opportunities, the fast declining state of the economy. poor awareness of the rights the state allows. dire needs and a host of others have often been cited as factors responsible for the picture painted above.
Many suggestions have been offered for the alleviation of the problem Some of these suggestions are practical while others appear unrealistic especially in the context of the present orientation in the country. However, the view being held in this write-up is that the problem of corruption can only be tackled by the application of some practical solutions. Thus, we have to start with our leaders. It is being suggested here that our leaders must learn to lead by example. It is not enough for them to condemn corruption, they themselves must not be seen to be involved in any dirty practice. This calls for a great deal of honesty from them coupled with an appreciable degree of integrity and the readiness to help others without expecting to be cheaply rewarded.
Our educational system needs a serious overhaul to achieve some positive results. The teaching programmes must include subjects like Civics and Social Studies which normally expose students to their rights, the limits of such rights and the virtues of good neighbourliness Moral instruction in the schools should be tilted in favour of those imperatives that emphasize justice, fairness and selflessness. In addition, we need a radical reorientation with regard to our value system in the country. There should be less emphasis on the acquisition of material things. Those things that help to uplift the glory and name of the country need to be promoted.
(a) In two short sentences, give the writer’s reasons for the wide-spread corruption in Nigeria.
(b) In one short sentence, explain the common pattern that corruption takes in the country.
(c) In three short sentences, summarize what the writer considers to be the practical solutions to the problem of corruption in the country.
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions on it.
The finest asset any child can have is a happy home. Such environment will enable him to develop strength and stability of character, thereby teaching him to face the future without fear or undue anxiety. It also will give him something worthwhile to live for. If he exhibits good judgement in later years, much of the credit must go to those who trained him. If he fails, it may have been due to troubles in his home. his school or unsympathetic and hostile relatives. A great i percentage of juvenile problems can be traced to faulty home education and unwholesome influences in early childhood. Undoubtedly, there would be fewer juvenile delinquents if there were more homes where children learned to love and respect their fellow men.
Remember this: happy parents create happy homes; happy homes produce happy children happy children make happy communities and happy communities make a happier world.
(a) Give one word that could replace each of the following in the passage: (i) asset (ii) stability; (iii) worthwhile; (iv) exhibits; (v) hostile: (vi) unwholesome
(b) State in three sentences, three reasons given by the writer to support his view that a happy home is the finest asset any child can have (c) What does the writer mean by: (i) undue anxiety, (ii) juvenile delinquents?
(d) Give from the passage. one: (i) abstract noun which means honour or praise;
(ii) adverb which means certainly: (iii) verb which means make or produce
(e) In one sentence, state why you think the author uses the word happy many times in the last paragraph.
Read the following passage carefully and then answer the questions on it.
It was a sunny day in the month of May. The sun took its rightful position very early, lending credence to the general feeling that Andrew’s birthday ceremony was going to be greeted with the blessing of a pleasant climate. The sky looked so bright that Andrew insisted on having an open-air party. The habitual doubting Thomases had no dissenting opinions to express. Andrew had gone to a great length to ensure a hitch-free party; a party which would remain the talk of the town. Although it was not intended to be free for all, a lot had been done to stamp the occasion on the memories of many people long afterwards.
The bright sun continued to smile. Andrew’s face beamed with pleasure with every passing moment. Very few of his conternporaries have so succeeded in reaching the top of the ladder. Andrew in particular had been an orphan of storm. His father’s, death during his third year in the secondary school and that of his mother two years later were only two of this orphan’s ‘storms’. He suffered a physical misfortune when a stockfish machine severed his left middle finger. But Andrew did not despair.
The courage to fail is very cheap. Every fool can afford to fail But it raises one above the herd of cowards and never-do-wells to be up and struggling. The reward of forbearance in the end is resounding success. And so it was for Andrew. Ever since he finished his university education, it had been success galore. He had got a good i job in one of the country’s insurance companies. His pay was good, his promotion had been steady and his prospects seemed bright. At forty, he had a good car and had already bought a house of his own. The world was at his feet!
(a) Give, in (iii) word or phrase, the meaning of each of the following words, as used in the passage: (i) dissenting; (ii) stamp; (iii) contemporaries.
(b) What figure of speech is “the bright sun continued to smile?”
(c) (i) What kind of grammatical structure is “the courage to fail?” (ii) What is its function in the sentence?
(d) What two hardships had Andrew gone through in life?
(e) What is implied by the expression The world was at his feet?
Narrate an experience you have had or heard about which illustrates the saying: ‘Honesty is the best policy’
In a letter to your brother who has been studying abroad for the past five years, describe at least three ways in which the current economic situation has affected the way of life of your family.
There has been a violent demonstration in your school in which damage was done to school property. Write a report for the principal stating the causes of the demonstration, and what you think should be done to prevent a recurrence of such an incident.
There has been an outcry in the country against the desire to get rich quickly, bribery and corruption, embezzlement of public funds and other forms of moral decadence. Write an article, suitable for publication in a national magazine, stating the causes of these social evils and suggesting possible solutions.
Write a letter to the Commissioner for Agriculture informing him of the invasion, by certain pests, of farms in your locality and asking for advice and help in controlling them.
Your school has been invited to participate in a debate on the topic: Co-education in secondary schools should be abolished. Write out your speech for or against the motion.
Read the following passage carefully and then answer the questions on it.
A study conducted in Nigeria recently recognized three varieties of spoken English. Speakers of the first variety exhibit characteristics of a very long and difficult process of ‘internal interpretation from the mother-tongue into English. Thinking and expression do not go closely together. A listener would notice this from the way the speaker pauses before expressing himself, apparently deciding which words to use and how to arrange them. Thus, thinking is exclusively through the medium of the mother-tongue and English is thus a poor shadow of the original thoughts of the speakers. Utterances heard invariably have to be translated silently into the mother-tongue to be maximally meaningful, and then responses are translated from the mother-tongue into English. Consequently, the long, indirect routes make statements slow, halting and jerky.
The second variety speakers exhibit features described above but to a much lesser degree. internal translations from the mother-tongue to English still take place during the speaker’s expression of opinions and complex concepts but the process now takes a shorter span of time. With ordinary words or simple ideas, internal interpretations need not intervene between the points at which the thought is conceived and the time it is given verbal expression. Discussions are quicker and smoother though these might not always be entirely free from minor halting gaps.
With the third variety speakers, thought is almost entirely in English and translation is not needed. The speaker has a wealth of linguistic weapons to choose from to express the minute distinctions between similar concepts – and these come quickly and easily. Thus for instance, whereas speakers of the lower varieties have only the word ‘rain’, the speaker of variety III recognizes distinctions between ‘shower’, down-pour’ drizzle’. ‘mist’. ‘deluge’, etc.. and uses each in the appropriate context. Also, his mastery of the sounds and features of the English Language equips him to express the utterances accurately and automatically without having to pause and think of the correct version of a sound since he masters the various distinctions in the pronunciation of each vowel and each consonant.
We need to recognize, however, that most Nigerian learners of English ‘graduate’ from one variety to another, from the lowest stratum of variety Ito the highest stratum of that variety. and then to variety II and so on until they achieve variety III. Length of periods of education. exposure to standard English and a personal conscious effort play major roles in deciding what variety a particular speaker uses.
Finally, we must recognize that most speakers of the higher varieties are still capable of reverting to the lower ones, if they choose. Thus we can find even a Nigerian professor of phonology switching to the lowest stratum of variety I if he feels so inclined when discussing with a house-servant or a porter.
(a) In three sentences. one for each, summarize the distinctive characteristics of the speakers of the three varieties of English described in the passage.
(b) In two sentences, one for each, describe the conditions under which a person can:
(i) move from lower varieties to the upper ones: (ii) switch from a higher variety to a lower one.
Read the following passage carefully and then answer the questions on it.
When neighbours learnt that the Umorus household had been raided by robbers, they were genuinely downcast because the easy-going Umorus minded their own business and had contributed immensely to the development of the area. Visitors early that morning were shocked at the way the doors were vandalized before the robbers forced their way into the living-room to make away with the radio, the television, the wall clock, and the video cassette recorder.
As some sympathizers discussed the perfection with which modern robbers strike nowadays, a few of them drove to the police station and soon arrived with detectives. Quickly, statements were obtained from the couple and a few neighbours, all in an attempt to pin down suspects. From these statements. it was learnt that the bushes and uncom-pleted houses nearby had not been searched. The officer ordered his men to comb the bushes and the unfinished structures. While this lasted, he stood over the culvert near one of the buildings.
Thoroughly, from room to room, from tree to tree, the searchers toiled. But it was a fruitless exercise. The help rendered by neighbours did not yield clues. At last, the police boss concluded that the robbers were beyond their reach, and so called off their chase. He blew his whistle and ordered his men into the jeep. Reassuring Mr. Umoru that the search would continue, he instructed the driver to move.
All the while, in the culvert, their booty by their side, the two robbers snored on. Had a stray dog not given them away, later in the afternoon, they would have escaped with their booty.
(a) Why were the neighbours concerned about the robbery in the house of the Umorus?
(b) Identify the two types of sympathizers mentioned in the passage.
(c) (i) Were the Police careful enough in their search? (ii) Why do you think so?
(d) What finally happened to the robbers?
(e) ‘Had a stray dog not given them away’
(i) What is the grammatical term used to describe the above expression, as used in the passage?
(ii) What is its function?
(f) Give one word that could replace each of the following as used in the passage: (i) immensely; (ii) vandalized; (iii) pin down (iv) comb; (v) structures; (vi) chase.
Read the following passage carefully and then answer the questions which follow.
Though Hitler is dead, many mysteries about him remain unravelled. especially the mystery of how he was able to rise to supreme power. The source of his strength, the nature of his ultimate beliefs, and the workings of his fatal weaknesses, all these would be debated for many years to come. No final assessment could be made at the time, nor can we reasonably expect to reach a final assessment in our generation. Hitler’s verdict on himself was given in the testament he drew up the day before his suicide. It is an astonishing and revealing document. Having sacrificed millions of Germans to his own glory, he claimed that all his actions had proceeded out of love and loyalty to his people. With perfect detachment and single-mindedness, he claimed that he had shown the German people the way which destiny had pointed out to them, and it was not his fault that they had proved unworthy of the task. He urged the Germans to continue the struggle.
While he was dictating these words. the Russians had encircled Berlin and the Chancellery was being bombarded by Russian guns at close range. Hitler wrote that he chose to die by his own hand rather than submit to cowardly abdication or capitulation. But the most revealing paragraph of his testament referred to his possessions, which he bequeathed to the party, or if the party was no longer in existence to the state. ‘Should the state too be destroyed, no further decision on my part is necessary’.
(a) From the passage. what type of ruler was Hitler during his life?
(b) (i) How did Hitler die? (ii) Why?
(c) What was the last thing Hitler did before his death?
(d) At the time of his death, how was Germany performing in the war?
(e) What two options did Hitler give for disposing of his possessions?
(f) For each of the following words, find another word or phrase that means the same and which can replace it in the passage:
(i) mystery; (ii) verdict; (iii) astonishing, (iv) detachment; (v) submit; (vi) bequeathed.
(g) ‘While he was dictating these words (i) What is the grammatical term used to describe the above expression, as used in the passage? (ii) What is the function of the expression in the sentence?
As the Senior Prefect in your school, write out the speech you would give on the occasion of your school’s end-of-year ceremony. Mention some of the problems you faced and give suggestions on how they could be solved.
Write an article, for publication in a national newspaper, on the dangers of drug abuse among youths.
A friend of yours has been absent from the school for about a month due to illness. Write a letter to the friend describing some interesting things that have happened in the school during the period and expressing your wish for a quick recovery.
You have just spent your holiday in another part of the country with a friend. Narrate your experience to other friend: describing what you found interesting about the customs, food. dress and way of life of your hosts.
Write a letter to the newly-elected chairman of your local government council congratulating him on his election an stating the priority needs of the people of your community.
You have been invited by a youth organization to speak on ‘Indiscipline among youths’. Write your speech.
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions on it.
It is now fashionable to hear discussions centering on the disproportionate representation of males and females in the population. it is indeed not uncommon to hear people say that for every man there are about two or three women; so, every man can marry more than one woman. This theory is, of course, more popular among adherents who favour the seeming glamour of the polygamous way of life. The big question is: ‘How correct is this theory?’ And what are the facts?
The stark reality is that in any normal population out of every one hundred conceptions, about fifty-three to fifty-five are for boys, and about forty-five to forty-seven are for girls. So, there are potentially more boys than girls in any normal population. However, because of many factors, some of which are not fully clear, the foetus of a boy is far more fragile than that of a girl. So, there are more miscarriages of male children than of female ones. So, by the time the children are born, the ratio between boys and girls has been reduced to about fifty-two boys to forty-eight girls.
As infants, boys are more delicate than girls. Boys are less resistant to certain killer diseases and girls thus have a higher chance of survival. The result is that before adolescence, at about the age of between nine and eleven years, boys and girls are virtually at par in the population.
Throughout adolescence, from the age of twelve to nineteen years, boys continue to fall victim of many ailments at a much higher degree than girls do, Besides, boys’ tendency to be more adventurous, more daring and more risk-taking, expose them far more to mishaps. Some of these do reduce their representation in the population. So, by the end of the age of adolescence, there are slightly more girls than boys. The reduction, thereafter, in the number of males continues progressively. Men are the breadwinners, the soldiers and the travellers. It is during their middle age that very many men die tragically, as soldiers in their boots, so to say. The net result of this is that by the time they are in the mind-thirties and forties, there are more women than men.
Finally, in their late forties and fifties, far more men than women die of cardiac diseases like hypertension. heart-attack and anxiety. This is the period when there are clearly more widows than widowers.
On the whole, therefore, there are more females than males but certainly not in the proportion claimed by adherents of polygamy. During their marriageable years, there are about eleven wives to ten husbands-that is husbands and wives of the same age. That in some communities one man could marry as many as fifteen wives is a result of the fact that men normally marry from among the ladies younger than they are. This, more than any other factor. allows some men who are inclined to polygamy to have their way.
(a) In five sentences, one for each factor, summarize the factors responsible for the progressive reduction in the number o’ f males as against females from conception to adulthood.
(b) In one sentence, state why some form of polygamy is possible in a normal population.
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions on it.
With some ten hours’ journey before them, the professor and his men at first thought of heeding Pa Chukwuka’s advice that they should stay till Monday morning. But the professor knew that his department would almost be paralysed for a whole day if he and his colleagues should stay on. That he did not like. So, the journey commenced and, a little later, the heavens were let loose.
Stubbornly, the five cars ploughed through. The Niger was crossed a little after 4p.m., and Asaba was soon behind the travellers. In front was the departmental car with the professor, his two kinsmen, and his bride. Their mission was the formal traditional marriage ceremony. At the rear was the secretary’s car. Stealthily, against all odds, the convoy crept on. Yet, for hundreds of kilometres, the rain persisted: lighter in some places. heavier in others but present in one form or the other throughout.
Darkness descended with a gentle suddenness over the landscape. The dark arrow of finality nearly struck Dr Stephen Dimgba a few kilometres outside Aba. The on-coming heavy truck dazzled him with its powerful headlights. As it roared towards him, his bespectacled eyes were momentarily blinded. He swerved off the road for the devil of the long lorry. The muddy, side gutter help turn the swerve into an exaggerated skid. By the time the monster roared past, Stephen and his four fellow travellers were struggling to get off the inferno that started after the accident.
(a) What had the travellers been told before the journey?
(b) Why did the professor and his colleagues decide to travel all the same?
(c) (i) What was the mission of the travellers? (ii) Quote the sentence that tells you this.
(d)(i) Where did the accident occur? (ii) Give two reasons why the accident occurred.
(e) (i) What figure of speech is the expression, “the heavens were let loose.”
(ii) Give the meaning of the expression as used in the passage.
(f) Give another word or phrase that can replace each of the following words as used in the passage:
(i) heeding; (ii) kinsmen (iii) odds; (iv) roared; (v) monster; (vi) inferno.
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions on it.
It has been found by researchers in education that the odds are stacked high against the learner from a deprived socio-economic background. A learner, whose parents are illiterate, whose. parents earn poor income, who has no access to the electronic media of information, and who has no educated siblings or peers to learn from, faces an uphill task in his educational career. The task is even more difficult if the learner lives in an obscure rural area for he is then cut off from modern civilization.
The learner from an academically enriched background, whose parents are highly learned and financially stable, and who has constant access to the electronic media, has a head start over his deprived counterparts from the village. Therefore, it is unfair that learners from different backgounds should face the same competition for admission into higher institutions or for employment opportunities since nobody determines their background.
Unfair as the practice may be, it is not easy to work out an alternative system. n e first place, distinguishing between students from academically enriched and those from educationally deprived backgrounds and reserving some places for the latter, would amount to double standard. Indeed, such a policy would inevitably engender a number of malpractices on the part of candidates. Moreover, formulating a policy by which learners from educationally deprived background are given special employment opportunities would tend to play down the practice of selection on the basis of merit.
It does appear that the way out is to minimize the odds against which the less advantaged learners have to struggle. If rural communities are improved, and if conscious efforts are made to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor, much would have been done to help the socio-economically disadvantaged learners overcome some of the odds against them.
(a) Mention three factors that distinguish the two classes of learners described in the passage.
(b) Which word in the first paragraph shows that the writer based the article on facts and not on speculation?
(c) Why does the writer say that the present practice is unfair?
(d) Give two reasons why the writer thinks that there is no alternative to the present practice.
(e) Whose parents are highly learned and financially stable?
(i) What grammatical name is given to the expression?
(ii) What is its function as used in the sentence?
(f) Give one word or phrase which can replace each of the following words as used in the passage:
(i) deprived; (ii) career; (iii) counterpart; (iv) practice (vii) distinguishing.