Narrative Comprehension Passage - Englishlanguage Jamb Past Questions and Answers

Question 6 :

• JAMB 1979

They hung around together, the boys from the school up on the hill, School was over. They were expecting the result. One or two got teaching job on St. College. It is one of the post-war secondary schools that sprang up in the city because serious people felt the educational need of the country, and possessed a sharp nose for smelling quick money. Boys from up country who were eager to learn, whose parents had a little money, but who could not get into the big school like Achimota and Mfantsipim in Cape Coast, rushed to the new schools, secured lodgings with distance relatives , and bought for a relatively cheap amount some sort of education. His friend Sammy was the history master from Form one to Five and was also put in charge of sports in the distant hope that the school would one day get its own playing field near the mental hospital. There were six hundred students who were all day boys; classes were held in Dr. house. The house was originally built by a man of wealth and a large family. The bedrooms, of which they were eight, were turned into classrooms; toilets were knocked into pantries to provide additional classrooms for the ever growing population of the school. Mr. Anokye, a retired pharmacist, owned the school. He laid great emphasis on science, being a science man himself. He wrote a small-rimmed pair of glasses which made him looks like one of those little black cats on Christmas cards. He had a small voice which squeaked with akpeteshie and a breath a breath like the smell of gun powder. He had spent many years at Kole Bu Hospital where he drank the methylated spirit meant to be supplied to laboratory assistants. He was dedicated to learning, in scholar in many ways. He knew principle. Whenever he shouted, during terminal examinations, his battle cry of Eureka! Eureka! Then he had caught someone cheating, someone looking over his answer sheet. Mr. Anokye came from a long line of scholars. He claimed his grandfather went to England with Reverend T.A Barnes, D. D., who was the Anglican Bishop of Cape Coast Diocese from 1896 to 1909. He was dedicated to his work. He interviewed Sammy himself, questioned him about his parentage and religious background, listened to him carefully, and decided to appoint him on a salary or six pounds per month pending the outcome of his Cambridge School Certificate examination. He questioned him closely on history, especially the Glorious Revolution, and Oliver Cromwell.


Mr Anokye would shout Eureka!

A. After he had drunk methylated spirit
B. To show that he Archimedes' principle
C. Whenever he caught a boy cheating during an examination
D. Whenever he wanted to go into battle
E. Inorder to frighten the boys

Question 7 :

• JAMB 1979

No journey can be quite soothing as a voyage on the Nile from Cairo to Philae. Day after day as you sails upstream nothing in the general pattern changes. incredibly bright stars are the same as last and Each new bend in the river discloses the same buffalo circling his waterwheel, the same pigeon-lofts on the houses, the same dark Egyptian faces swathed in white.
The banks are surprisingly green, a patchwork of rice fields and sugarcane, of palms and eucalyptus, and then beyond them, like a frame set around a picture; one sees the desert and the hills. There is always s a movement somewhere, but it is of a gentle, ambulatory, kind and one feels oneself going along in a rhythm with the processions of camels and donkeys on the bank, and the feluccas gliding by, and the buffalo, released at last from his wheel, sliding to the blessed coolness of the water in the evening. Occasionally a whiff of humanity comes out from the mud-hut villages on the shore, and it contains traces of the smoke of cooking forest, of dried cow-dung and of Turkish coffee, of some sweet and heavy scent, jasmine perhaps, and of water sprinkled on the dust. It is not unpleasant.
Lying on deck, one idly observes the flight of birds, one dream one lets the hours go by, and nothing can be more satisfying than the sight of the brown pillars of a ruined temple that has been standing alone on the edge of the desert for the last two thousand years. This is the past joining the present in a comfortably deceptive glow, and the traveller, like a spectator in a theater, remains detached from the both, he would not for the world live in the dust and squalor of these villages he finds so picturesque, and the ancient ruins he has come to see do not really evoke the early civilization of the Egyptians.


the journey up the Nile is very soothing because

A. It is very slow
B. The scenery doesn't change much
C. The general pattern changes from day to day
D. There is not much activity on the banks
E. There are few people to be seen

Question 8 :

• JAMB 1979

No journey can be quite soothing as a voyage on the Nile from Cairo to Philae. Day after day as you sails upstream nothing in the general pattern changes. incredibly bright stars are the same as last and Each new bend in the river discloses the same buffalo circling his waterwheel, the same pigeon-lofts on the houses, the same dark Egyptian faces swathed in white.
The banks are surprisingly green, a patchwork of rice fields and sugarcane, of palms and eucalyptus, and then beyond them, like a frame set around a picture; one sees the desert and the hills. There is always s a movement somewhere, but it is of a gentle, ambulatory, kind and one feels oneself going along in a rhythm with the processions of camels and donkeys on the bank, and the feluccas gliding by, and the buffalo, released at last from his wheel, sliding to the blessed coolness of the water in the evening. Occasionally a whiff of humanity comes out from the mud-hut villages on the shore, and it contains traces of the smoke of cooking forest, of dried cow-dung and of Turkish coffee, of some sweet and heavy scent, jasmine perhaps, and of water sprinkled on the dust. It is not unpleasant.
Lying on deck, one idly observes the flight of birds, one dream one lets the hours go by, and nothing can be more satisfying than the sight of the brown pillars of a ruined temple that has been standing alone on the edge of the desert for the last two thousand years. This is the past joining the present in a comfortably deceptive glow, and the traveller, like a spectator in a theater, remains detached from the both, he would not for the world live in the dust and squalor of these villages he finds so picturesque, and the ancient ruins he has come to see do not really evoke the early civilization of the Egyptians.


which of the following statement is true of the buffaloes?

A. They are all exactly the same
B. They are to be seen on the bends of the river
C. They sometimes get drowned in the river
D. They are allowed to rest during the heat of the day
E. They drive the waterwheels in the daytime

Question 9 :

• JAMB 1979

No journey can be quite soothing as a voyage on the Nile from Cairo to Philae. Day after day as you sails upstream nothing in the general pattern changes. incredibly bright stars are the same as last and Each new bend in the river discloses the same buffalo circling his waterwheel, the same pigeon-lofts on the houses, the same dark Egyptian faces swathed in white.
The banks are surprisingly green, a patchwork of rice fields and sugarcane, of palms and eucalyptus, and then beyond them, like a frame set around a picture; one sees the desert and the hills. There is always s a movement somewhere, but it is of a gentle, ambulatory, kind and one feels oneself going along in a rhythm with the processions of camels and donkeys on the bank, and the feluccas gliding by, and the buffalo, released at last from his wheel, sliding to the blessed coolness of the water in the evening. Occasionally a whiff of humanity comes out from the mud-hut villages on the shore, and it contains traces of the smoke of cooking forest, of dried cow-dung and of Turkish coffee, of some sweet and heavy scent, jasmine perhaps, and of water sprinkled on the dust. It is not unpleasant.
Lying on deck, one idly observes the flight of birds, one dream one lets the hours go by, and nothing can be more satisfying than the sight of the brown pillars of a ruined temple that has been standing alone on the edge of the desert for the last two thousand years. This is the past joining the present in a comfortably deceptive glow, and the traveller, like a spectator in a theater, remains detached from the both, he would not for the world live in the dust and squalor of these villages he finds so picturesque, and the ancient ruins he has come to see do not really evoke the early civilization of the Egyptians.


the presence of the people on the shore

A. Is often apparent
B. Becomes apparent when they come out of their hut
C. Reminds the traveller of their humanity
D. Is indicated by the smells from the villages
E. Prevents the traveller from feeling lonely

Question 10 :

• JAMB 1979

No journey can be quite soothing as a voyage on the Nile from Cairo to Philae. Day after day as you sails upstream nothing in the general pattern changes. incredibly bright stars are the same as last and Each new bend in the river discloses the same buffalo circling his waterwheel, the same pigeon-lofts on the houses, the same dark Egyptian faces swathed in white.
The banks are surprisingly green, a patchwork of rice fields and sugarcane, of palms and eucalyptus, and then beyond them, like a frame set around a picture; one sees the desert and the hills. There is always s a movement somewhere, but it is of a gentle, ambulatory, kind and one feels oneself going along in a rhythm with the processions of camels and donkeys on the bank, and the feluccas gliding by, and the buffalo, released at last from his wheel, sliding to the blessed coolness of the water in the evening. Occasionally a whiff of humanity comes out from the mud-hut villages on the shore, and it contains traces of the smoke of cooking forest, of dried cow-dung and of Turkish coffee, of some sweet and heavy scent, jasmine perhaps, and of water sprinkled on the dust. It is not unpleasant.
Lying on deck, one idly observes the flight of birds, one dream one lets the hours go by, and nothing can be more satisfying than the sight of the brown pillars of a ruined temple that has been standing alone on the edge of the desert for the last two thousand years. This is the past joining the present in a comfortably deceptive glow, and the traveller, like a spectator in a theater, remains detached from the both, he would not for the world live in the dust and squalor of these villages he finds so picturesque, and the ancient ruins he has come to see do not really evoke the early civilization of the Egyptians.


which of the following suggests that the country is a land of ancient civilization

A. Egyptian faces swathed in white
B. The palms and eucalyptus
C. The mud-hut villages
D. The patch work of ricefields
E. The brown pillars