JAMB Use of English 2020 past questions and answers
24 questions. Try each one, then open the answer to check yourself and read the explanation.
Question 7
Comprehension
JAMB 2020 Passage II: 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 later 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 statements captures the family approach to housework?
A.the boys were not allowed to do girls’ work
B.the mother did the cooking and cleaning willingly
C.no job was reserved for anyone on the basis of gender
D.the water needed was provided by everyone.
Show the answer and explanation
Answer: C (no job was reserved for anyone on the basis of gender)
Explanation
In this family the boys did 'girls' work' and the father did the mother's jobs, so no task belonged to one sex.
Choose the option that best completes the gap(s): I would not have condescended to appease the traffic policeman but I happened ________ traffic regulations.
A.to have broken
B.to be breaking
C.to break
D.to break in
Show the answer and explanation
Answer: A (to have broken)
Explanation
The breaking of the rules happened before the appeasing, so the perfect infinitive 'to have broken' is needed.
Choose the option that best completes the gap(s): Your brigade would be the better for it, if you desisted ________ rumour-mongering, observed the Chief of Staff.