JAMB Use of English 2004 past questions and answers

98 questions. Try each one, then open the answer to check yourself and read the explanation.

Question 1

Comprehension

JAMB 2004 Passage I: An uncommon father

We knew early in our life that the atmosphere in our home was different from that in many other homes, where husbands and wives quarrel and where there was drunkenness, laziness or indifference — things we never saw in our family. We chafed and grumbled at the strictness of my father's regime. We went to hide whenever we broke the rules too visibly. We knew, nevertheless, that our parents wanted good things for us. Some of these, such as the insistence on our going to school and never missing a day, we accepted readily enough, although, like most other children, we occasionally yielded to the temptation to play truant. However, in other cases such as their effort to keep us out of contact with the difficult life — the drinking and fighting and beer-brewing and gambling — their failure was inevitable. They could not keep us insulated. By the time we moved about, we were already seeing things with their eyes and judging things by the standards we had absorbed from them.

It was borne in on me and my brothers at a very early age that our father was an uncommon man. For one thing, in most African families, work around the home was women's work. So we were vastly impressed by the fact that whenever my mother was away, my father could and did do all her jobs — cooking, cleaning and looking after us. We lived in this way in a community in which housework was regarded as being beneath male dignity. Even in families which, like ours, produced boy after boy — our sister came fifth — it simply meant that the mother carried a greater and greater burden of work. In our family, nevertheless, the boys did girls' work and my father did it with us.

One of the prime chores of life in the family was fetching water from the pump down the street, some two hundred metres from our door. Since the pump was not unlocked until six in the morning and there was always crowding, a system had developed whereby you got out before dawn, placed your twenty-litre tin in line, and then went home, returning latter to take your place. Often, of course, tins would be moved back in line and others moved ahead. This could be corrected if none of those in front were too big a challenge.

When taps were substituted for the pumps, the first one installed was nearly a kilometre away from our house and we had to make the trek with the water tins balanced on our heads — an indignity because this was the way girls, not proud males, carried their burdens. All the children in the neighbourhood knew we did women's work and I can still hear their derisive laughter. We did our jobs doggedly, that notwithstanding, because our father and mother expected it of us. Out of choice, our father did everything we did, including fetching water on occasion, and commanded us by sheer force of his example.

Which of the following describes the father's role in the family?

A.being too hard on the children.
B.serving the children.
C.leading by example.
D.usurping his wife's role in the family.

Show the answer and explanation

Answer: C (leading by example.)

Explanation

The father did the housework and fetched water with his sons, and 'commanded us by sheer force of his example'. He led by example.

JAMB Use of English 2004 past questions and answers

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Question 4

Question 6

Question 7

Question 8

Question 9

Question 10

Question 11

Question 12

Question 13

Question 14

Question 15

Question 16

Question 17

Question 18

Question 19

Question 20

Question 21

Question 22

Question 23

Question 24

Question 25

Question 26

Question 27

Question 28

Question 29

Question 30

Question 31

Question 32

Question 33

Question 34

Question 35

Question 36

Question 37

Question 38

Question 39

Question 40

Question 41

Question 42

Question 43

Question 44

Question 45

Question 46

Question 47

Question 48

Question 49

Question 50

Question 52

Question 53

Question 54

Question 55

Question 56

Question 57

Question 58

Question 59

Question 60

Question 61

Question 62

Question 63

Question 64

Question 65

Question 66

Question 67

Question 68

Question 69

Question 70

Question 71

Question 72

Question 73

Question 74

Question 75

Question 76

Question 77

Question 78

Question 79

Question 80

Question 81