Comprehension/Summary - Jamb English Language Past Questions and Answers

Question 511:

• JAMB 2001

  It is possible to have a glimpse of life after death. Man has always believed in an afterlife but only today do we have scientific reports of people who seem to have experienced the sensation of dying but lived to tell about it. On-going research is documenting hundreds of cases each year of the near-death experience (NDE), and scientists think they are finding a clearly identifiable pattern: usually a man is dying and as he reaches the point of greatest physical distress, he hears himself pronounced dead by his doctor. He begins to hear an uncomfortable noise, a loud ringing or buzzing and at the same time feels himself moving very rapidly through a long dark tunnel. After this he suddenly finds himself outside of his own physical body, but still in the immediate physical environment and he sees his own body from a distance as though he is a spectator. He watches the resuscitation attempt from this unusual vantage point and is in a state of emotional upheaval.
  After a while, he collects himself and becomes more accustomed to his odd condition. He notices that he still has a ‘body’, but one of a very different nature and with very different powers from the physical body he has left behind. Soon after, things begin to happen. Others come to meet and to help him. He glimpses the spirits of relatives and friends who have already died, and a loving, warming spirit of a kind he has never encountered before-a being of light- appears before him. This being asks him a question, non-verbally- to make him evaluate his life- and helps him along by showing him a panoramic instantaneous playback of the major events of his life. Then he finds that he must go back to earth that the time for his death has not yet come. At this point he resists, for by now he is taken up with his experiences in the afterlife and does not want to return. He is overwhelmed by intense feelings of joy, love and peace. Despite his attitude, though, he somehow reunites with his physical body and lives.


The expression 'as he reaches the point of greatest physical distress' as used in the passage means when

A. The man's system finally collapses
B. His condition seems to get worse
C. His doctor is ready to pronounce him dead
D. The sick man finally stops breathing

Question 512:

• JAMB 2001

 The emergence of a standard dialect produces the phenomenon known as ‘accent’ which is quite different from dialect. In the process of learning a foreign language, it is normal to transfer the patterns of an indigenous language to those of the foreign language. With time, however those of form and most of orthography and phonology gradually get eliminated. This is because these can easily be identified and corrected. They are easy to correct because they do not involve patterns of muscular movement. It is necessary to correct them because otherwise they could seriously impair intelligibility.
  With phonetic patterns, on the other hand, there is a great deal of intelligibility tolerance because muscular patterns are involved thus making correction difficult when observed. Besides, phonetic patterns do not impair intelligibility much. Hence the transference of phonetic habits from one language to another is both easier to tolerate and more difficult to avoid than transference at the lexico-grammatical level. It follows that a speaker who is learning a second dialect does so with an accent since the muscles of his speech organs would have crystallized in response to the phonetics of his native language which he learnt first. The speaker therefore speaks the second dialect with the phonetic features of his native dialect. The learning of a standard language is simply the learning of a second dialect- that which has been standardized.
  Members of a language community control at least two dialects and use both dialects in different situations. In the rural areas, the native dialect is used in most situations since there is less movement. Therefore, rural dwellers tend to be parochial and maintain the homogeneity of their dialect. In the urban community, on the other hand, there is more demand on the standard dialect than on the rural one. This is because people from different regions converge here. In order to ensure mutual intelligibility resulting from the pressure of communication, a great deal of demand is made on the standard dialect which now becomes the lingua frenca amongst them.


The word 'those' as used in the passage refers to

A. Forms of orthography and phonology
B. Patterns of an indigenous language
C. Foreign languages
D. Indigenous languages

Question 513:

• JAMB 2001

 The emergence of a standard dialect produces the phenomenon known as ‘accent’ which is quite different from dialect. In the process of learning a foreign language, it is normal to transfer the patterns of an indigenous language to those of the foreign language. With time, however those of form and most of orthography and phonology gradually get eliminated. This is because these can easily be identified and corrected. They are easy to correct because they do not involve patterns of muscular movement. It is necessary to correct them because otherwise they could seriously impair intelligibility.
  With phonetic patterns, on the other hand, there is a great deal of intelligibility tolerance because muscular patterns are involved thus making correction difficult when observed. Besides, phonetic patterns do not impair intelligibility much. Hence the transference of phonetic habits from one language to another is both easier to tolerate and more difficult to avoid than transference at the lexico-grammatical level. It follows that a speaker who is learning a second dialect does so with an accent since the muscles of his speech organs would have crystallized in response to the phonetics of his native language which he learnt first. The speaker therefore speaks the second dialect with the phonetic features of his native dialect. The learning of a standard language is simply the learning of a second dialect- that which has been standardized.
  Members of a language community control at least two dialects and use both dialects in different situations. In the rural areas, the native dialect is used in most situations since there is less movement. Therefore, rural dwellers tend to be parochial and maintain the homogeneity of their dialect. In the urban community, on the other hand, there is more demand on the standard dialect than on the rural one. This is because people from different regions converge here. In order to ensure mutual intelligibility resulting from the pressure of communication, a great deal of demand is made on the standard dialect which now becomes the lingua frenca amongst them.


Phonetic patterns allow for intelligibility tolerance because

A. They are involved and difficult to avoid
B. They involve muscular patterns which later crystalize
C. They give rise to the phenomenon of accent which is easy to tolerate
D. Transference is both difficult to avoid anf easy to tolerate

Question 514:

• JAMB 2001

 The emergence of a standard dialect produces the phenomenon known as ‘accent’ which is quite different from dialect. In the process of learning a foreign language, it is normal to transfer the patterns of an indigenous language to those of the foreign language. With time, however those of form and most of orthography and phonology gradually get eliminated. This is because these can easily be identified and corrected. They are easy to correct because they do not involve patterns of muscular movement. It is necessary to correct them because otherwise they could seriously impair intelligibility.
  With phonetic patterns, on the other hand, there is a great deal of intelligibility tolerance because muscular patterns are involved thus making correction difficult when observed. Besides, phonetic patterns do not impair intelligibility much. Hence the transference of phonetic habits from one language to another is both easier to tolerate and more difficult to avoid than transference at the lexico-grammatical level. It follows that a speaker who is learning a second dialect does so with an accent since the muscles of his speech organs would have crystallized in response to the phonetics of his native language which he learnt first. The speaker therefore speaks the second dialect with the phonetic features of his native dialect. The learning of a standard language is simply the learning of a second dialect- that which has been standardized.
  Members of a language community control at least two dialects and use both dialects in different situations. In the rural areas, the native dialect is used in most situations since there is less movement. Therefore, rural dwellers tend to be parochial and maintain the homogeneity of their dialect. In the urban community, on the other hand, there is more demand on the standard dialect than on the rural one. This is because people from different regions converge here. In order to ensure mutual intelligibility resulting from the pressure of communication, a great deal of demand is made on the standard dialect which now becomes the lingua frenca amongst them.


According to the passage

A. A lingua franca is the consequence of a standard dialect
B. A foreign language produces the transference of the correct patterns of dialect features
C. Mutual intelligibility is the consequence of the presssure of communication
D. Speech organs are shaped by indegenous languages

Question 515:

• JAMB 2001

 The emergence of a standard dialect produces the phenomenon known as ‘accent’ which is quite different from dialect. In the process of learning a foreign language, it is normal to transfer the patterns of an indigenous language to those of the foreign language. With time, however those of form and most of orthography and phonology gradually get eliminated. This is because these can easily be identified and corrected. They are easy to correct because they do not involve patterns of muscular movement. It is necessary to correct them because otherwise they could seriously impair intelligibility.
  With phonetic patterns, on the other hand, there is a great deal of intelligibility tolerance because muscular patterns are involved thus making correction difficult when observed. Besides, phonetic patterns do not impair intelligibility much. Hence the transference of phonetic habits from one language to another is both easier to tolerate and more difficult to avoid than transference at the lexico-grammatical level. It follows that a speaker who is learning a second dialect does so with an accent since the muscles of his speech organs would have crystallized in response to the phonetics of his native language which he learnt first. The speaker therefore speaks the second dialect with the phonetic features of his native dialect. The learning of a standard language is simply the learning of a second dialect- that which has been standardized.
  Members of a language community control at least two dialects and use both dialects in different situations. In the rural areas, the native dialect is used in most situations since there is less movement. Therefore, rural dwellers tend to be parochial and maintain the homogeneity of their dialect. In the urban community, on the other hand, there is more demand on the standard dialect than on the rural one. This is because people from different regions converge here. In order to ensure mutual intelligibility resulting from the pressure of communication, a great deal of demand is made on the standard dialect which now becomes the lingua frenca amongst them.


An appropriate title for this passage is

A. The quest for a lingua franca
B. The emergence of a standard language
C. The phenomenon of accent
D. Members of a language community