English is the study of the English language. The goal is to improve communication skills by practicing listening, speaking, reading, writing, and understanding language rules like pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar.
The word in capital letters has the emphatic stress. Choose the option to which the given sentence relates.
Taiwo SAILED to London.
Options:May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dust green trees. Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst. Dissolute blue bottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun themselves against clear windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun. The nights are clear but suffused with sloth and sullen expectations.
But by early June the southwest monsoon breaks and there are three months of wind and water with short spells of sharp, glittering sunshine that thrilled children snatch to play with. The countryside turns an immodest green. Boundaries blur as tapioca fences take root and bloom. Brick walls turn mossgreen. Pepper vines snake up electric poles. Wild creepers burst through laterite banks and spilt across the flooded roads. Boats ply in the bazaars. And small fish appear in the puddles that fill the PWD potholes on the highways. It was raining when Rahel came
back to Ayemenem.
Slanting silver ropes slammed into loose earth, ploughing it up like gunfire. The old house on the hill wore its steep, gabled roof pulled over its ears like a low hat. The walls, streaked with moss, had grown soft and bulged a little with dampness that seeped up from the ground. The wild, overgrown garden was full of the whisper and scurry of small lives.In the undergrowth, a rat snake rubbed itself against a glistening stone. Hopeful yellow bullfrogs cruised the scummy pond for mates. A drenched mongoose flashed across the leaf-strewn driveway. The house itself looked empty. The doors and windows were locked. The front verandah bare. Unfurnished.
But the sky blue Plymouth with chrome tail fins was still parked outside, and inside, Baby Kochamma was still alive. She was Rahel's baby grand aunt, her grandfather's younger sister. Her name was really Navomi, Navomi Ipe, but everybody called her Baby. She became Baby Kochamma when she was old enough to be an aunt. Rahel hadn't come to see her, though.
Neither niece nor baby grandaunt laboured under any illusions on that account. Rahel had come to see her brother, Estha. They were two-egg twins. "Dizygotic' doctors called them. Born from separate but simultaneously fertilized eggs. Estha Esthappen-was the older by 18 minutes.
What rubbed itself against a glistening stone?
Options:According to Ummi, what is the first noticeable thing in the university?
Options:The coach has asked the Bright Rangers to be paid their --6-- salaries and --7-- so as to --8-- them to victory against Mamelodi Sundowns of South Africa in Saturday'sall-importantCAF Champions League Match. Bright Rangers are the third in group B with four points --9-- many matches and need to --10-- defeat at second-placed Al - Ahly to stay in the --11-- for a place in the semi-final of Africa's most prestigious club competition. The Coach told MTN Football.com that the team would be better motivated if they at leastreceive their August salaries before the Al-Ahly --12--. We have to make sure that they are paid their salaries --13-- so that they can play the game of their lives. The government has done very well, but it will be a big morale --14-- to get paid for them to go out there and play. The Coach informed MTN Football.com that the Bright Rangers plan to employ the counter --15-- to get a result in Cario.
--8--
Options:Choose the option that best completes the gap(s).
The chairman addressed the _______.
Options:The obvious function of a daily paper is to give news to the people, but this, at the moment, may be done in three ways, which are not all equally laudable. First, there is the paper which set out to give a brief resume of the news and backs this up by well-written articles on the current affairs by leading writers and experts. Secondly, there is the ‘daily’ which caters for popular taste, and contains only the most sensational and exciting bits of news, supporting them with comic-strips, pictures children’s corners, women’s sections and readers’ letters on anything but weighty topics. Thirdly, there is the propaganda type of paper, which presents only those versions of the news which agree with its own particular political outlook. All this gives news in different ways; but what deeper function can the ideal daily paper have?
In the case of the Nigerian daily newspaper, the first type gives the thinking reader an unbiased view of the world situation, so that he can judge the importance of recent events for himself, but it does not indicate to him what he ought to think. The drawbacks to this is that semi-literate or uneducated find it dull or difficult and so are discouraged from reading such a paper regularly, because it demands too much thought and effort from them. The main advantage of this type of paper, however, is its soundness, excellent English expression and general effect of widening the readers’ knowledge on a variety of subjects.
The second type interest the majority and give them more striking items of news in an easily comprehensible way, accompanied by lavish photographs and usually with some slight political bias towards the left and the interests of the working class, from which most of its readers come. The drawback of this type is that there is not enough solid thinking mater and the English is often faulty in style – tending towards ‘journalese’. The advantage is that it is quickly and easily read, on the bus or train or over the breakfast table, and gives a superficial knowledge of current affairs to people who would not have the time or inclination to read ‘heavier’ literature. Also, it is a ‘family’ paper, which every member of the household can enjoy, since there is something to please all their tastes.
The third type to some extent, appeals to emotion, not reason. It instruct the reader in exactly what that particular editor believe he ought to think, and does not give him a chance to have a mind of his own by letting him hear the other person’s point of view. The drawback is that it prevents people from thinking for themselves, and causes political hysteria rather than logical thinking. the only advantage is that it does represent the ‘freedom of the press’ to publish whatever it likes, and allows discontented people to air their grievances instead of letting them smoulder underground.
From these examples, it should be clear that the ideal function of a daily paper would be to present the news clearly and simply, and to support it with articles in good English which shows the points of view of various competent people of different outlooks on current problems. The reader could then choose which line of thought appealed to him most. Women’s and children’s sections would be good so long as they did not grow so out of proportion that the paper depended solely upon them for its popularity. Good pictures would add to the paper’s instructive value as well as to its interest; and advertisements, kept in bounds, might be helpful, both as shopping guides and as a financial help to the paper itself. All these points seem to be desirable in a daily paper now that the radio helps in giving news headlines.
The writer seems to suggest that Options:''I want to know you intimately...''
This statement was made to whom _____
This passage sums up the problems peculiar to the book trade make it different from any other trade-the problem of selection and the problem of sticking. How is the bookseller to tell what, in an enormous output, will prove sale-able before the full weight of unsold items affects the balance of his business and how is he at the same time to hold a stock large enough to enable the public to choose freely? He may seek to escape from this dilemma by becoming the passive sales representative of large publishing houses or distribution networks but he is then no longer a book seller. He may take refuge in the sale of items to a restricted circle of customers but he thereby cuts himself of from all that is vital in his trade and dooms himself to mediocrity and stagnation. On the other hand, he may protect his business from the danger of idle stock by speculating on the latest publication but this is a dangerous game in that it implies a constantly changing clientele: readers remain faithful to their own discoveries and failure to follow up a book an author or a type of literature means dismissing the public responsible for their success.
This brings us back to the fact that books are indefinable. The story is told of a certain country with a great many generals where it was decided to present a rare and valuable edition of an old book to a general about to retire. The old soldier looked at the volume and remarked, ‘A book? What’s the point? I’ve already got one!’
The story of the old soldier and a book in the passage is an illustration of the point that Options: