Jamb Literature in English Past Questions and Answers

Question 336:

• JAMB 1978

Your hand is heavy,upon my brow
I bear no heart mercuric like the clouds,to dare
Exacerbation from your subtle plough.
Woman as a clam,on the sea's crescent
I saw your jealous eye quench the sea's
Fluorescence,dance on the pulse incessant
Of the waves.And i stood,drained
Submitting like the sands,blood and brine
coursing to the roots.Night,you rained
Serrated shadows through dank leaves
Till,bathed in warm suffusion of your dappled calls
Sensations pained me,faceless,silent as night thieves.
Hide me now,when night children haunt the earth
i must hear none!These misted calls will yet
Undo me;naked,unbidden,at night's muted birth
('Night' by Wole Soyinka)
in the poem above,Soyinka,

A. Describes nightfall and its effect on him
B. Does not wish to surrender to night
C. Rejects the night's presence
D. Says that night has no progress
E. Does not need protection from the dangers of the night

Question 337:

• JAMB 1978

'The seas eats our lands' by Kwesi Brew
Here stood our ancestral home:
The crumbling wall marks the spot.
Here a sheep was led to the slaughter
To appease the gods and atone
For faults which our destiny
Has blossomed into crimes
There my cursed father once stood
And shouted to us,his children,
To come back from our play
To our evening meal and sleep
The clouds were thickening in the red sky
And night had charmed
A black power into the pounding waves.
Here once lay Keta
Now her golden girls
Erode into the arms
of strange towns.
In this poem,

A. The gods are being abused for their causing a natural disaster
B. The poet's father is being' cursed' for stopping the children's play
C. A natural disaster is linked to the moral and religious life if a people
D. The'golden girls' are praised for leaving home to go to the city
E. Nature is seen as an enemy

Question 338:

• JAMB 1978

From the West
Clouds come hurrying with the wind
Turning
Sharply
Here and there
Like a plague of locusts
Whirling
Tossing up things on its tail
Like a madman chasing nothing
Pregnant clouds
Ride stately on its back
Gathering to perch on hills
Like dark sinister wings:
The wind whistles by
And trees bend to let it pass
In the village
Screams of delighted children
Toss and turn
In the dim of whirling wind
Women-
Babies clinging to their backs-
Dart about
In and out
Madly
The wind whistles by
Whilst trees bend to let it pass.
(From 'An African Thunderstorm' by David Rubadiri)
The poet varies the lengths of the lines skillfully

A. To show the speed,power and destructiveness of the storm
B. To create pleasant sounds
C. To conform to normal poetic practice
D. To create a mood of fear
E. To show his cleverness

Question 339:

• JAMB 1978

Gabriel Okara's 'The Call of the River Nun',treats

A. A personal problem that is of no significance to humanity in general
B. A situation that has universal significance
C. The River Nun as symbolizing decline
D. The River Nun as a ghost
E. The River Nun as a symbol of adulthood

Question 340:

• JAMB 1978

The Concubine by Elechi Amadi
The title of this novel is justified because

A. Ihuoma the heroine,is everyone's concubine
B. Ihuoma having once been married to Emenike has vowed never to marry again
C. Everyone who married Ihuoma or expressed a wish to do so came to harm
D. Ihuoma prefers to be mistress rather than a wife
E. Being the spirit-wife of the jealous sea-king,any marriage subsequently contracted cannot be valid;she is condemned to the status of a concubine.