Expositive Comprehension passage - Jamb English Language Past Questions and Answers

Question 146:

• JAMB 2000

  You would think that common cold should be easy enough to study, but it is not as easy as it looks. Colds often seem to spread from one person to another, so it is often assumed that the cold must be infectious but there are some puzzling observations which do not fit with this theory. An investigator in Holland examined some eight thousand volunteers from different areas and came to the conclusion that in each group the colds all appeared at the same time-transfer of infection from case to case not account for that. Yet at the common cold research unit in Salisbury the infection theory has been tested out, two series of about two hundred people each were inoculated, one with salt water and the other with secretion from known cold victims. Only one of the sail-water group got a cold compared with seventy-three in the other group.
  In the British Medical Journal the other day, there was a report of a meeting. ‘The common cold-fact and fancy’, at which one of the speakers reported a study of colds made in Cirencester over the last five years. Three hundred and fifty volunteers had kept diary records of their colds and on an average each had seven every year with an annual morbidity of seventy days. So nearly one-fifth of our lives are spent in more or less misery, coughing and sneezing. Some widely held beliefs about the common cold have turned out to be true. It seems that old people are just as liable to cold as the young. Sailors in isolated weather ships have just as many colds while on board and not in contact with the outside world as when on shore. It is truism that common illnesses pose more problems than the rare. The rare disease is by comparison much easier to handle. There are not so many cases and all of them have been intensively studied. Someone has read up all the literature about the disease and published a digest of it. There will be more facts and fewer fancies.


According to the writer, some widely held beliefs about the common colds are

A. Inevitable
B. Irreconcilable
C. Fallacious
D. Societal

Question 147:

• JAMB 2000

  You would think that common cold should be easy enough to study, but it is not as easy as it looks. Colds often seem to spread from one person to another, so it is often assumed that the cold must be infectious but there are some puzzling observations which do not fit with this theory. An investigator in Holland examined some eight thousand volunteers from different areas and came to the conclusion that in each group the colds all appeared at the same time-transfer of infection from case to case not account for that. Yet at the common cold research unit in Salisbury the infection theory has been tested out, two series of about two hundred people each were inoculated, one with salt water and the other with secretion from known cold victims. Only one of the sail-water group got a cold compared with seventy-three in the other group.
  In the British Medical Journal the other day, there was a report of a meeting. ‘The common cold-fact and fancy’, at which one of the speakers reported a study of colds made in Cirencester over the last five years. Three hundred and fifty volunteers had kept diary records of their colds and on an average each had seven every year with an annual morbidity of seventy days. So nearly one-fifth of our lives are spent in more or less misery, coughing and sneezing. Some widely held beliefs about the common cold have turned out to be true. It seems that old people are just as liable to cold as the young. Sailors in isolated weather ships have just as many colds while on board and not in contact with the outside world as when on shore. It is truism that common illnesses pose more problems than the rare. The rare disease is by comparison much easier to handle. There are not so many cases and all of them have been intensively studied. Someone has read up all the literature about the disease and published a digest of it. There will be more facts and fewer fancies.


From the information in the passage, there is evidence

A. Against the theory that the common cold is indded infetious
B. For the theory that the common cold is indded infectious
C. That old people are immune against the common cold
D. That medical reports are silent on facts about common colds

Question 148:

• JAMB 2000

  You would think that common cold should be easy enough to study, but it is not as easy as it looks. Colds often seem to spread from one person to another, so it is often assumed that the cold must be infectious but there are some puzzling observations which do not fit with this theory. An investigator in Holland examined some eight thousand volunteers from different areas and came to the conclusion that in each group the colds all appeared at the same time-transfer of infection from case to case not account for that. Yet at the common cold research unit in Salisbury the infection theory has been tested out, two series of about two hundred people each were inoculated, one with salt water and the other with secretion from known cold victims. Only one of the sail-water group got a cold compared with seventy-three in the other group.
  In the British Medical Journal the other day, there was a report of a meeting. ‘The common cold-fact and fancy’, at which one of the speakers reported a study of colds made in Cirencester over the last five years. Three hundred and fifty volunteers had kept diary records of their colds and on an average each had seven every year with an annual morbidity of seventy days. So nearly one-fifth of our lives are spent in more or less misery, coughing and sneezing. Some widely held beliefs about the common cold have turned out to be true. It seems that old people are just as liable to cold as the young. Sailors in isolated weather ships have just as many colds while on board and not in contact with the outside world as when on shore. It is truism that common illnesses pose more problems than the rare. The rare disease is by comparison much easier to handle. There are not so many cases and all of them have been intensively studied. Someone has read up all the literature about the disease and published a digest of it. There will be more facts and fewer fancies.


The cirencester volunteers kept record of their colds through

A. The british medical journal
B. Morbility rates
C. Temperature recordings
D. Personal disries

Question 149:

• JAMB 2001

  By 1910, the motor car was plainly conquering the highway. The private car was now part of every rich man’s establishment, although its price made it as yet an impossible luxury for most of the middle class. But for the adventuresome youth, there was the motor cycle, a fearsome invention producing accidents and ear-splitting noises. Already the dignified carriages and smart pony-traps were beginning to disappear from the roads and coachmen and grooms unless mechanically minded, were finding it more difficult to make a living.
  The roads which had gone to sleep since the coming of the railway now awoke to feverish activity. Cars and motor cycles dashed along them at speeds which rivalled those of the express trains and the lorry began to appear. Therefore, the road system was compelled to adapt itself to a volume and speed of traffic for which it had never intended. Its complete adaptation was impossible, but the road surface was easily transformed and during the early years of the century, the dustiness and greasiness of the highways were lessened by tar-spraying. To widen and straighten the roads and get rid of blind corners and every steep gradient were tasks which had scarcely been tackled before 1914. the Situation was worst of all in towns where not only was any large scheme of road widening usually out of the question, but also where crowding and danger were all too frequently increased by the short-sighted eagerness of town authorities in laying down tramlines.
  Yet, it was not only the road system that was in need of readjustment; the nervous system who used and dwelt by the road suffered. The noises caused by the conversion of the roads into speedways called for a corresponding lightening up of the nerves and especially I the towns, the pedestrian who wished to preserve life and limb was compelled to keep his attention continually on the stretch to practise himself in estimates of the speed of approaching vehicles and to run or jump for his life if he ventured off the pavement.


One of the following statements can be deduced from the passage

A. People no longer used trains with the advant of cars and lorries
B. Significant improvement occured in road trandport since the advent of cars, lorries and motor cycles
C. Human society was ststic without the express spees of cars and motorcycles
D. Society would be better without the chaotic volumes and speed of motor cars, lorries and motor cycles

Question 150:

• JAMB 2001

  By 1910, the motor car was plainly conquering the highway. The private car was now part of every rich man’s establishment, although its price made it as yet an impossible luxury for most of the middle class. But for the adventuresome youth, there was the motor cycle, a fearsome invention producing accidents and ear-splitting noises. Already the dignified carriages and smart pony-traps were beginning to disappear from the roads and coachmen and grooms unless mechanically minded, were finding it more difficult to make a living.
  The roads which had gone to sleep since the coming of the railway now awoke to feverish activity. Cars and motor cycles dashed along them at speeds which rivalled those of the express trains and the lorry began to appear. Therefore, the road system was compelled to adapt itself to a volume and speed of traffic for which it had never intended. Its complete adaptation was impossible, but the road surface was easily transformed and during the early years of the century, the dustiness and greasiness of the highways were lessened by tar-spraying. To widen and straighten the roads and get rid of blind corners and every steep gradient were tasks which had scarcely been tackled before 1914. the Situation was worst of all in towns where not only was any large scheme of road widening usually out of the question, but also where crowding and danger were all too frequently increased by the short-sighted eagerness of town authorities in laying down tramlines.
  Yet, it was not only the road system that was in need of readjustment; the nervous system who used and dwelt by the road suffered. The noises caused by the conversion of the roads into speedways called for a corresponding lightening up of the nerves and especially I the towns, the pedestrian who wished to preserve life and limb was compelled to keep his attention continually on the stretch to practise himself in estimates of the speed of approaching vehicles and to run or jump for his life if he ventured off the pavement.


From the passage, it is obvious the

A. Motor cars were mere luxuries which many peopls tried desperately to acquire
B. The motor car was invented before the express trains.
C. The train was the fastest means of transport before the motor car and the lorry
D. The motor car and the lorry came to displace the train trafic