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 earthly paradises of Bali and of the South Sea Islands, and the gentle, non-acquisitive civilization of Burma, have been aptly described and romanticized. One can add to then the Nicobar Islands, where a small population lived happily on a very low cultural level. But perhaps the most remarkable and the least known of these earthly paradise is the small kingdom of Hunza in the Himalayas, which was recently visited and enthusiastically described by the journalist, Noel Barber (Daily Mail, 5, 6, 8 June 1962). A fair-skinned population of 18,000, they lived in a fertile and almost inaccessible valley not far from the Sinking boarder, 8,000 feet up. A legend has it that they are the descendants of the three deserters from the army of Alexander the Great, who here with Persian wives which makes one inclined to believe that pacifism may be hereditary , because these people had no war in 2,000 years. They have no money, no crime and no diseases, they rarely die before ninety. Their psychosomatic control is almost unbelievable, childbirth is painless, and toothache, a joke; they keep their numbers stationary without contraceptives, and without abortion, but by sheer abstinence, though Noel; Barber saw the newborn son of a chuckling father aged eighty-nine. Their diet which consists of mostly apricot and raw vegetables may have something to do with their unshakable serenity. It makes one gasp with surprise that human nature can be like this. One is reminded of Huxley’s Island, but unlike the Palanese, the Hunza people have no art, only serenity!
It is said in the passage that Noel Barber has Options:The passage below has gaps numbered 16 to 25. Immediately following each gap, four options are provided. Choose the most appropriate option for each gap. Each question carries 2 marks .
One of the most difficult and confusing aspect of English language is its spelling system. There is often ….16…. [A. discrepancy B. discord C. a similarity D. concord] between the punctuation of a word and its spelling. One cannot always tell how to spell a word ….17…. [A. throughout B. by C. as to D. as from] its pronunciation.
In order to understand the peculiarity of English spelling ….18….[A. difficulty B. confusion C. system D. code], it is good to know something about the history of the language. First, it is helpful to realize that English was originally spoken by people who could neither read nor write. While the ….19…. [A. middle-class B. educated C. less enlightened D. uneducated] people spoke English, the literate upper classes spoke French and wrote in Latin, later when English became a ….20…. [A. literary B. romantic C. written D. coded] language, there was no system for spelling its words. Moreover, the first writers of English were French speaking ….21… [A. newscasters B. scribes C. orators D. interpreters] who knew English only slightly: therefore, they carried many French spelling ….22…. [A. habits B. attitudes C. idiosyncrasies D. mannerisms] into English. In addition, these first writers of English, who were used to writing in Latin, often ….23…. [A. inserted B. interjected C. interpolated D. juxtaposed] letters into words even when they were not pronounced because the ….24…. [A. antecedent B. opposing C. corresponding D. synonymous] word in Latin was spelled that way. Finally, the confusion increased when the ….25…. [A. diction B.morphology C. orthography D. pronunciation] of certain words changed while the spelling remained the same.
In question number 19 choose the best option from the letters A-D that best completes the gap Options:In the question below choose the word(s) or phrase(s) which best fills(s) the gap(s):
I have only three tubers of yam _____ in the store, i cannot afford to give you any more
Options:In each of the following sentences, the word that receives the emphatic stress is written in capital letters . From the options lettered A to D, choose the one which the sentence is the appropriate answer.
Lambusa TOOK OFF the wig.
Manager: Mr.Mbu, I would not describe you as an inefficient worker; I therefore find it difficult to understand why the conference room is so untidy, in spite of the fact that I had reminded you of the meeting scheduled to take place there this afternoon.
Secretary: Sir, I did instruct the cleaner to tidy up the place before meeting
Manager: Are you trying to hold the cleaner responsible for the untidy condition of the room?
Secretary: Partly, sir, I gave him an instruction which he failed to carry out. It is certainly my intention to make a formal complaint against him for dereliction of duty.
Manager: And would you wash your hands off any blame after that? Do you think that just making a formal complaint against the cleaner absolves you of all blame? When do you consider an assignment as properly executed; when the execution is properly supervised or not? Was it sufficient for you to give instruction to the cleaner with out ensuring that he actually carried them out?
Secretary: Sir, I do not see what else I could have done, short of doing the job myself. The cleaner Is a six-footer and I could not have intimidated him physically.
Manager: I see, I await your complaints against the cleaner, but I shall not forget that you allowed a board meeting to take place in an untidy conference room.
The secretary's attitude seems to be Options:Choose the option that best completes the gap(s).
The bombs was _____ .
Options:Time was when boys used to point toy guns and say ‘Bang’. Now, they aim real guns and shoot one another. Nearly 4,200 teenagers were killed by firearms in 1990. Only motor vehicle accidents kill most teenagers than firearms and the firearms figures are rising. The chance that a black male between the ages of 15 and 19 will be killed by a gun has almost tripled since 1985 and almost double for white males, according to the National Centre for Health Statistics.
Who could disagree with Health and Human services secretary, Donna Shalala, when she pronounced these statistics ‘frightening and intolerable?’. In the shameful light of this ‘waste of young lives’ in Ms Shalala’s words, an often-asked question seems urgently due to be raised again. Would less violence on television, the surrounding environment for most children and young adults make violence in actual life less normal, less accepted, less horrifying?
It may be difficult to prove an exact correlation between the viewer of fantasized violence and the criminal who acts out violence after turning off the set. But if the premise of education is granted-that good models can influence the young-then it follows that bad models can have an equivalent harmful effects. This is the reasonable hypothesis held, by 80 per cent of the respondents to a recent Time Mirror [poll who think that violent entertainment is ‘harmful’ to the society. Witness enough mimed shootouts; see enough ‘corpses’ fall across the screen and the taking of a human life seems no big deal. Even if a simple causal relationship cannot be established between watching violence and acting it out, is not this numbed sensitivity reason enough for cutting back on the overkill in films and TV?
In 1968 Nigeria was the world biggest producer of groundnuts (averaging 712,600 tonnes a year), the second producer of cocoa (203, 600 tonnes) after Ghana, the fourth producer of tin (13,264 tonnes) and the biggest producer of columbite. Oil palm, growing wild and in plantation in the south, supplied half the world’s export of palm kernels (407, 200 tonnes) and seventy per cent of the world’s export of palm oil (152, 700tonnes). Nigeria forests covered some 310, 800 square kilometres and produced about 1.132 million cubic metres of timber a year, for export as logs, sawn timber or plywood sheets. Rubber was grown by peasant farmers and, increasingly in plantation; and was partially processed in local factories. The ancient livestock industry of the north still supplies the whole country. About a million cattle are slaughtered annually, and the trade is now being modernized and expanded. As a by-product of the type of skin inaccurately called ‘Moroccan leather’ comes from Nigeria.
Select the statement supported by the passage Options: