Jamb English Language Past Questions For Year 1989
Question 81
I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill among nations and that if only the common people of the world could meet one another at football or squash, they would have no inclination to meet on the battle field. Even if one didn’t know from concrete example (the 1936 Olympic games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principals.
Nearly all the sports practiced nowadays are competitive. You play to win, and the game has little meaning. Unless you do your utmost to win. On the village green, where you pick up sides and not feeling of local patriotism is involved, it is possible to play simple for fun of it and exercise, but as soon as the question of prestige arises, as soon as you feel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose, the most savage combative instincts are aroused. Anyone who has played even in a school football match knows this. At the international level, sport is frankly a mimic warfare. But the significant thing is not the behaviour of the players but the attitude of the spectators and behind the spectators are the nations who work themselves into furies over these absurd contests and seriously believe at any rate for short period that running, jumping and kicking a ball are tests of national virtue.
Even a leisurely game demanding grace rather than strength can cause much ill-will. Football, a game in which everyone gets hurt and every nation has its own style or play is far worse. Worst of all is boxing. One of the most horrible sights in the world is a fight between white and coloured boxers before a mixed audience
The 1936 Olympic games was cited in the passage to show that sport can
- A. lead to excessive hatred
- B. create goodwill among nations
- C. generate feelings of national prestige
- D. make people meet on the battle feild
Question 82
As the stranger approached, shola noticed that he was handsome and her excitement increased. It was of such a man she had dreamt. He had fine, arrogant carriage, like a soldier or someone in authority. When he reached the end of the pier, he addressed them in a rich, deep voice that disturbed her as the voluptuous rising of the tide had gone.
‘You’re Tunde Onu, I’m told’, he said to her father.
‘That’s right, said her father.
‘The bus conductor told me you take people to the islands’, the man continued. I’d like to go there if you can take me.
Her father examined the man from head to foot, shrewdly measuring his capacity to pay. Then he said:
‘When were you thinking of going?’
‘Right away’.
‘That’s different story, for my boatman is gone to Badagry and he won’t be back before nightfall.
‘Oh!’ said the stranger. That’s too bad. You couldn’t get someone else instead of him?
‘I would have to think hard’, he said gloomily, for its not everyone would do for the job of going with me beyond the bay to the islands at this time of the year.
Shola understood her father’s manoeuvre and felt ashamed.
Which of the following is true of the passage?
- A. the stranger was in a bad mood
- B. the stranger came by bus
- C. shola and her father were idle when the stranger came
- D. shola's father measured the stranger from head to foot
Question 83
His eyes widened as they fell upon something strange. Something was moving slowly and cautiously along the gutter. The pale yellow and brown of the snake’s body glistened like a stream of flowing metal. By what mistake had the creature strayed into this unlikely place? Impossible to say. Yet there it was and its slow movements betrayed uneasiness and confusion.
As he watched it, his instinctive antipathy melted away. He could understand so well what the snake was feeling. He entered into the cold, narrow intelligence and shared its angry perplexity. Its movement were cramped, its advance difficulty and it was in constant danger of slipping over the edge. Now and then it lay still in dull reflection, nursing a cold anger that could find no vent.
Meanwhile the little plant bent downward by every puff of wind was beating its thin twings against the gutter like a birch. The snake seemed not to see the plant. It moved forward until a light touch from the twings fell upon its head. At this, it stopped and lifted its neck; the plant was now doing no more than lightly sway and dip. The snake, its head still reared, waited, flickering tongue. One could feel the angry heaving and straining in the sluggish brain-the dull red anger waiting to explode. Then came a strong gust sweeping along the wall and at once the twings thrashed down upon the furious head-thrashed down and beat it with a movement that seemed to osun both comic and dreadful. In a flash, the head reared itself higher, the neck drew back and there was a lunge at the twings and the empty air. O fatal act! To strike, the snake had been obliged to coil and its coiled body could not support itself upon the narrow ledge. No recovery was possible; it overbalanced and fell with a thud upon a small flat roof fifty feet below. There, osun saw the creature begin to writhe in agony. It could do no more than twist and turn upon the same spot
Osun was trembling but beneath his agitation there was a deep trouble wonder. Here was the little plants now waving with kind of jaunty cynicism and here was the snake writhing in agony. The world unquestionably was a place of mystery and horror. This was revealed in the writhing of the crippled snake in the jaunty waving of the innocent plant in the wind.
As the narrator watched the snake, his feelings changed to those of
- A. anger and apathy
- B. antipathy and perplexity
- C. perplexity
- D. angry bewildement
Question 84
His eyes widened as they fell upon something strange. Something was moving slowly and cautiously along the gutter. The pale yellow and brown of the snake’s body glistened like a stream of flowing metal. By what mistake had the creature strayed into this unlikely place? Impossible to say. Yet there it was and its slow movements betrayed uneasiness and confusion.
As he watched it, his instinctive antipathy melted away. He could understand so well what the snake was feeling. He entered into the cold, narrow intelligence and shared its angry perplexity. Its movement were cramped, its advance difficulty and it was in constant danger of slipping over the edge. Now and then it lay still in dull reflection, nursing a cold anger that could find no vent.
Meanwhile the little plant bent downward by every puff of wind was beating its thin twings against the gutter like a birch. The snake seemed not to see the plant. It moved forward until a light touch from the twings fell upon its head. At this, it stopped and lifted its neck; the plant was now doing no more than lightly sway and dip. The snake, its head still reared, waited, flickering tongue. One could feel the angry heaving and straining in the sluggish brain-the dull red anger waiting to explode. Then came a strong gust sweeping along the wall and at once the twings thrashed down upon the furious head-thrashed down and beat it with a movement that seemed to osun both comic and dreadful. In a flash, the head reared itself higher, the neck drew back and there was a lunge at the twings and the empty air. O fatal act! To strike, the snake had been obliged to coil and its coiled body could not support itself upon the narrow ledge. No recovery was possible; it overbalanced and fell with a thud upon a small flat roof fifty feet below. There, osun saw the creature begin to writhe in agony. It could do no more than twist and turn upon the same spot
Osun was trembling but beneath his agitation there was a deep trouble wonder. Here was the little plants now waving with kind of jaunty cynicism and here was the snake writhing in agony. The world unquestionably was a place of mystery and horror. This was revealed in the writhing of the crippled snake in the jaunty waving of the innocent plant in the wind.
The snake was referred to as 'something strange' because the
- A. movement of the snake along the gutter was slow and caustious
- B. movement of the snake betrayed strange uneasiness and confusion
- C. colour of the snake's body was an unusual stream of flowing metal
- D. environment in which the snake was found was unusual
Question 85
I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill among nations and that if only the common people of the world could meet one another at football or squash, they would have no inclination to meet on the battle field. Even if one didn’t know from concrete example (the 1936 Olympic games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principals.
Nearly all the sports practiced nowadays are competitive. You play to win, and the game has little meaning. Unless you do your utmost to win. On the village green, where you pick up sides and not feeling of local patriotism is involved, it is possible to play simple for fun of it and exercise, but as soon as the question of prestige arises, as soon as you feel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose, the most savage combative instincts are aroused. Anyone who has played even in a school football match knows this. At the international level, sport is frankly a mimic warfare. But the significant thing is not the behaviour of the players but the attitude of the spectators and behind the spectators are the nations who work themselves into furies over these absurd contests and seriously believe at any rate for short period that running, jumping and kicking a ball are tests of national virtue.
Even a leisurely game demanding grace rather than strength can cause much ill-will. Football, a game in which everyone gets hurt and every nation has its own style or play is far worse. Worst of all is boxing. One of the most horrible sights in the world is a fight between white and coloured boxers before a mixed audience
'Mimic' as used in the passage means
- A. comic
- B. silent
- C. imitated
- D. practised
