Question Library

Tell a story which ends with the words: .....and I have had to live with this stigma for the rest of my life.

Read the following passage carefully and then answer the questions on it. The death last month of Chief Dende has opened my eyes. Throughout his life, we were very close friends. We grew up together, attended the same primary and secondary schools, and joined the civil service the same day. Although we benefited from different in-service training programmes and at different times during our respective careers, we were never too distant from each other And we were installed chiefs the same day. Above all, his wife, Adanma, and minehave been good friends over the years. All these years, I believed that my friend kept no secret from me. I could, and did occasionally, defend his integrity. Anywhere people discussed him in my hearing, I was ready to take up his case vehemently. Predictably, people stopped discussing him any time I was around. I had assumed, erroneously as it turned out, that people had stopped discussing him because they were sufficiently educated and sincerely convinced about his integrity. Happenings . have since shattered that assumption: The first shock came the day after his death. The major national newspapers carried his obituary, as advertised by 'his wife Ngozi Dende, and her three children.' If the timing of the advertisement, a day after the event was strange, particularly more puzzling was the advertiser. All my life, I had known only Adanma as his wife and her five children. Besides, the names of 'his' three children in the advertisement were entirely different from those of his five children by Adanma. Before I recovered from the first shock, the next bombshell fell. Members of the Apata Fraternity, a most dreaded secret cult, which Dende and I had despised while he lived, announced in the dailies that they had the exclusive right to bury their 'departed colleague'. The announcement warned all uninitiated persons to keep off In their own interest'. And so it was that members of the fraternity, supporting their claim with a hand-written will by Dende, collected his body from the hospital, performed the last rites on him and buried him in their sacred grove. I have learnt, and I am still learning. I have reached the unpleasant conclusion that his critics were most probably right after all. (a) Why was the writer always defending Chief Dende? (b) Why was the writer puzzled about the advertisement by Ngozi Dende? (c) Why was he also surprised about the advertisement by the Apata Fratenity? (d) What lesson can we learn from this passage? (e) the next bombshell fell. (i) What figure of speech is the above expression? (ii) What is its meaning? (f) ……that his critics were most probably right after all (i) What grammatical name is given to the above expression? (ii) What is its function in the sentence? (g) For each of the following words, find another word or phrase that means the same and can replace it as used in the passage. (i) careers; (ii) integrity; (iii) vehemently, (iv) erroneously; (v) shattered; (vi) exclusive.

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions on it. Years after he had left home for the capital, first as a student and later as a struggling businessman, Oliha returned to his village, having been informed of his father's failing health. He was amazed that not much had changed since he left as a youth. Every experience shocked him: the coloured water with a strong taste: the eye-sore of a dung-hill on which everyone excreted; the absence of electricity and so on. As he went to bed late in the evening, after a meeting with his younger brothers,on how he would pay his own share of their father's medical expenses, he prayed for the early arrival of the morning. He decided to leave early and put the trying experience behind him. But morning brought him the greatest shock of his life. Informed by his niece that there was a bucket of water for him in the bath, he hurried down there, half-dressed, holding a towel. The bathroom. located by the side of the building, was an improvised rectangular enclosure made of palm fronds. Hissing to himself. he went in and used his clothes and large towel to cover some openings in the enclosure. He started bathing. Then it happened. With every inch of his body thoroughly covered with soap lather, hardly able to open his eyes, he heard someone removing his clothes and towel. With the corner of his half-opened eyes, he saw a man making away with the clothes and towel. Hardly giving the matter thought, naked except for the covering of soap lather. he ran out and gave the thief a hot chase. As he ran after the thief. he heard everyone shouting. The lunatic has broken loose again! But as soon as the people saw him,, everyone shouted. 'Ah. another mad man has broken loose!' Men. women children all ran away, seeking refuge in their homes. slamming their doors. By the time he realized what was happening daring men were after him. Just as Oliha was about to beat a retreat, he was held by strong muscular men who overpowered him and carried him to the quarters of the village's foremost occult healer who alone knew how to cure lunatics. (a) Why did Oliha return to the village? (b) Mention two basic facilities lacking in the village. (c) What was the subject of the meeting which Oliha held with his younger brothers? (d) Why was it possible for the thief to remove the clothes without Oliha stopping him? (e)(i) Why was Oliha taken to the occult healer rather than to his father's home? (ii) What is the irony of the entire event in the passage? (f) ... who alone knew how to cure lunatics. (i) What is the grammatical name given to the above expression? (ii) What is its function in the sentence? (g) the early arrival of morning. (i) What figure of speech is the above expression? (ii) Why do you consider it so? (h) For each of the following words, find another word or phrase that means the same and can replace it as used in the passage. (i) shocked: (ii) trying; (iii) thoroughly; (iv) refuge; (v) foremost.

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions on it . The history of warfare reveals that man has come a long way. In the beginning man contented him self with simple hand-hurled missiles. Man threw the stone at other animals and. in warfare, at his enemies. Destruction was minimal, as this was determined by the size and roughness of the stone and the energy of the thrower. Even when man later invented the catapult, destruction was only slightly higher. The primitive catapult was made out of a tough rope at one end of which was tied a big stone. Its most limiting factor was that such a missile, no matter how strong the force behind it, could kill only one person at a time. Things were relatively easier for the assailant with the invention of the bow and arrow. For the first time, man utilized very little strength to bring down his enemy, even at a fairly distant position. The size of the bow, the elasticity of its string, and the sharpness of the arrow, much more than the crude energy of the thrower, determined how far and fast the arrow traveled. The weapon became even more significant when man later learnt to fix a sharp metal to the tip of the arrow. And when that metal was dyed in highly lethal poison, it became even more effective in killing a man. With the coming of metal, farm implements were developed. But man soon turned some of these, especially the machete. into weapons of combat. The sword is thus a very close cousin of the machete. Used in combat, the sword, especially when carried by a very skillful fighter on a horse, could wreak far more havoc than the bow and arrow. It is hence understandable that the foremost conquerors of the classical period, from Alexander the Great to Julius Caesar, used this simple hand-borne instrument of combat. And this, in its simple turn with the invention of the gun and the bullet. The arrival of the gun introduced destruction of human lives at an unprecedented rate with even the most elementary gun. In the hands of foot soldiers, it became possible to count casualties in hundreds in a single encounter. With practically no physical effort, apart from the moving of a finger on the trigger, the highly lethal bullet is sent through the barrel at a speed much faster than that of sound. The enemy, at a considerable distance, may thus be brought down without even hearing the sound of the shooting or seeing his assailant. The development of grenades, bombs, missiles, nuclear and chemical war-heads have made all previous weapons appear little more than toys. With bombs delivered by fast-flying airplanes, and nuclear or chemical war-heads borne to their distant destinations by unnamed missiles, destruction of cities and, in fact, of whole countries within a matter of hours is now a great possibility. Today, man doesn't need to be physically present to haul the stone, or throw the spear, or send the arrow. The missile has now replaced all these, and it does not need to be physically sent by an individual. Electronics and computers do the launching, and men die in hundreds of thousands. In six sentences, one for each, summarize the six different types of weapons of warfare and their relative effectiveness.

Secondary thickening in dicotyledonous stem is controlled by the

2H2 → 2H2 + O2(g). The equation above represents a part of the light stage of photosynthesis. Which of the following must be presents for this reaction to occur?

In an experiment to investigate the effect of nitrogen on the growth of plants, the substrate should be a medium of

Which vitamin plays an important role in blood clotting?

The mammalian organ which acts both as a digestive and as an endocrine organ is the

Which of the following does a virus have in common with animal cells?

Which of the following organelles are likely to be present in cells that are actively respiring and photosynthesizing?

One common characteristic of fungi, algae, mosses and ferns is that they

Protein-like bodies are borne on the part labelled

The sexual reproductive function is performed by the part labelled

Which of the following is transmitted through mosquito bite?