Jamb English Language Past Questions For Year 1980
Question 86
I began work at the smithy on the Monday morning. My wages were half a crown a week. My hours were from six in the morning till six in the night, with an hour break for launch. My boss, Boeta Dick, was a tall, bent, reedy consumptive. He has a parched yellow skin, brawn tight over his jutting bones. His cheeks were so sunken it was as though he were permanently sucking them in. his eyes were far back in his head. He coughed violently, and beside his seat was a bucket of sand into which he spat. Changing the sand daily was the only part of my job I hated.
The smithy was divided into two parts. At one end were the machines that cut, shaped, and put the tins together. The man who worked on the machines were on a regular weekly wage. At the other end, was a row of small furnaces, each with it own bellows and piles of fuel. Here, at each furnace a man sat soldering the seams of the tins as they came from machines. The solders were on piece work. To average two or three pounds a week they had to do a mountainous amount of soldering. Each solderer had a boy to cart the tins from the machines to him, then to smear the seams of each tin with sulphur powder so that the lead took easily and, after checking, to cart the tins of the yard where the Lorries collected them.
the boss Boeta Dick, can be described as being
- A. skinny
- B. hard working
- C. ambitious
- D. A Chinese
- E. slender
Question 87
Over the years there has been this hue and cry by government and the public policy advisers against the phenomenon of the rural-urban drift. Researches have been conducted on various aspects of this phenomenon which have resulted in the identification of the various causes and consequences of drift. In addition, prescriptions have been given for controlling the rural-urban drift.
Among the causes most often mentioned are population pressures in some rural areas resulting in dwindling farm lands; increase in school enrollment and the resultant rise in education levels which qualify many people for urban employment, higher wages in the urban centres relative to rural centres and the rather naïve one of the ‘bright lights’ in the cities so much touted by early foreign sociologists.
The most often mention consequences of this rural-urban migration includes depopulation of the rural area leading to overcrowding of the cities and the resultant housing and sanitation problems; decline in the agricultural population resulting in less food crops being grown and high food prices in the cities, and increasing urban unemployment. The results of the phenomenon are seen largely as negative
Measures to control the rural-urban drift includes the establishment of essential amenities like water, electricity, hospitals, colleges, and cinema houses; the location of employment generating establishment and the building of good interconnecting roads.
The sum total of these prescriptions in essence, unwittingly or paradoxically, is for the rural areas to be transformed into urban centres. This is so because to industrialize the rural areas would draw many more people out of agriculture than if industries were restricted to urban centres
When industries are located in the rural areas, it involves much less cost for the prospective rural-urban migrant to change to a non-agricultural job, than is involved in his leaving a rural abode for a distance urban centre.
Therefore, rural industrialization holds a higher potential for the de-agriculturalization of the rural population than when industries are concentrated in urban areas.
The phenomenon of rural-urban migration has been intensively and extensively researched and studied, but it would seem that it has largely been misinterpreted and misunderstood. Consequently public policies on the subject have been misdirected.
the consequences of the rural-urban drift are shown in the above passages as being
- A. useful to the cities and not to the rural areas
- B. a national disaster
- C. a natural occurrence and sign of progress
- D. negative
- E. a healthy economic phenomenon
Question 88
Rufus Okeke – Roof, for short – was a very popular man in his village. Although the villagers did not explain it in so many words, Roof’s popularity was a measure of their gratitude to an energetic young man who unlike most of his fellows nowadays, had not abandoned the village in order to seek work, any work, in the towns. Roof was not villages tout either. Everyone knew how he had spent two years as a bicycle repairer’s apprentice in Port-Harcourt and had given up of his own free will a bright future to return to his people and guide them in these political times. Not that Umuofia needed a lot of guidance. The village already belong en masse to the People’s Alliance Party, and its most illustrious son, Chief the Honorable Marcus Ibe, was Minister of Culture in the outgoing government (which was pretty certain to be the incoming one as well). Nobody doubted that the Honorable Minister would be elected in his constituency. Opposition to him was like the proverbial fly trying to move a dung-hill. It would have been ridiculous enough without coming, as it did now, from a complete nonentity.
As was to be expected, Roof was in the service of the Honourable Minister for the coming elections. He had become a real expert in election campaigning at all levels – villages, local government or national. He could tell the mood and temper of the electorate at any given time. For instance, he had warned the Minister months ago about the radical change that had come into the thinking of Umuofia since the last national election
a village tout can be described as being
- A. unemployed
- B. crazy
- C. energetic
- D. lazy
- E. servile
Question 89
Rufus Okeke – Roof, for short – was a very popular man in his village. Although the villagers did not explain it in so many words, Roof’s popularity was a measure of their gratitude to an energetic young man who unlike most of his fellows nowadays, had not abandoned the village in order to seek work, any work, in the towns. Roof was not villages tout either. Everyone knew how he had spent two years as a bicycle repairer’s apprentice in Port-Harcourt and had given up of his own free will a bright future to return to his people and guide them in these political times. Not that Umuofia needed a lot of guidance. The village already belong en masse to the People’s Alliance Party, and its most illustrious son, Chief the Honorable Marcus Ibe, was Minister of Culture in the outgoing government (which was pretty certain to be the incoming one as well). Nobody doubted that the Honorable Minister would be elected in his constituency. Opposition to him was like the proverbial fly trying to move a dung-hill. It would have been ridiculous enough without coming, as it did now, from a complete nonentity.
As was to be expected, Roof was in the service of the Honourable Minister for the coming elections. He had become a real expert in election campaigning at all levels – villages, local government or national. He could tell the mood and temper of the electorate at any given time. For instance, he had warned the Minister months ago about the radical change that had come into the thinking of Umuofia since the last national election
Rufus Okeke was very popular with people because he
- A. was energetic
- B. has decided to pitch his tent with the villagers
- C. did not like town life
- D. could not live without his parents
- E. made more mobey for the villagers
Question 90
I began work at the smithy on the Monday morning. My wages were half a crown a week. My hours were from six in the morning till six in the night, with an hour break for launch. My boss, Boeta Dick, was a tall, bent, reedy consumptive. He has a parched yellow skin, brawn tight over his jutting bones. His cheeks were so sunken it was as though he were permanently sucking them in. his eyes were far back in his head. He coughed violently, and beside his seat was a bucket of sand into which he spat. Changing the sand daily was the only part of my job I hated.
The smithy was divided into two parts. At one end were the machines that cut, shaped, and put the tins together. The man who worked on the machines were on a regular weekly wage. At the other end, was a row of small furnaces, each with it own bellows and piles of fuel. Here, at each furnace a man sat soldering the seams of the tins as they came from machines. The solders were on piece work. To average two or three pounds a week they had to do a mountainous amount of soldering. Each solderer had a boy to cart the tins from the machines to him, then to smear the seams of each tin with sulphur powder so that the lead took easily and, after checking, to cart the tins of the yard where the Lorries collected them.
sulphur powder was added to
- A. beautify the tin
- B. complete the manufacture
- C. strenghten the tin
- D. satisfy the boss
- E. ensure that the tins were not damaged during transportation
