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.
Choose the most appropriate option nearest in meaning to the underlined word.
She was taken aback by his altitude?
Options:Read the passage carefully and answer this question.
May your road be rough. I am not cursing you: I am wishing you what I wish myself every year, I therefore repeat, may you have a hard time this year. May there be troubles for you this year. If you are not sure of what to say back, why not just say "same to you" I ask for no more.
Our successes are conditioned by the amount of risk we are about to take. Earlier today, I visited a local farmer about five kilometers from where I live. He could not have been 55, but he said he was already too old to farm vigorously. He still suffered, he said, from the energy he displayed as a farmer in his younger days. Around his hut were two pepperbushes. There were cocoyam growing around him. There were snail shells which had given him meat. There must have been more snails around the banana trees than I saw. He hardly ever went to town to buy things. He was self-sufficient. The car, the television or radio and the newspaper were things he could live without. He had no ambition whatsoever, he told me.
I am not sure if you are already envious of him, but were we all to revert to such a life, we would be driven back like aimless sheep to cave dwelling. On the other hand, try to put yourself in the shoes of the Russian or American astronauts. Any moment you are shot into space, you have to be mentally alert, else, if you forget what to do, one of the things that might happen to you is that you could forever become a satellite going round until you die of starvation, and even then, your dead body would continue the gyration.
Naturally, they may have some slight foreboding on the contingency of their non-return. However, it is their courage for going in spite of these apprehensions that makes the world hail them so loudly today.
(Akinyemi, A., Olupe, F., & Adetutu, S. (2012): Rubrics of English Language for Schools and Colleges. Divine Glory Printers, Abeokuta.)
"Rough" in the first sentence of the passage means ......
Options:Answer the following question below and choose the option opposite in meaning to the underlined word or phrase in.
His gift to the poor was always infinitesimal
Options:Choosing the word or phrase from A to E which has the same meaning as the underlined word or words in each sentence:
I listened with rapt attention as he never suspected that i knew he was telling me a cock and bull story
Options:In the question below, choose the word(s) or phrase(s) which best fills the gap(s).
My wife and I were to celebrate our silver anniversary last Sunday. Unfortunately on that ______ day.
Options:In the question below choose the word(s) or phrase(s) which best fills the gap(s):
When i have an appointment with someone, i hate _____ waiting
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.
Aderonke STATED she had a right to her privacy.
Options:In 1973, Japanese sericulturists arrived in Malawi with a batch of 40000 silkworm eggs. They were taken to the Bvumbwe Agricultural Research Station in Thyolo District. In this station, work is being done to determine the favourable silkworm rearing conditions and areas where Mulberry trees whose leaves the worms feed on, could grow well. According to researchers, the silkworms which eventually develop into cocoons from which raw silk is produced do well in areas with warm climatic conditions.
Silk is one of the strongest of the fibres. In fact, for thousands of years, silk fabrics have been regarded as the most beautiful and durable materials woven by man. Many people call silk “the cloth of kings and queens”.
The weaving of silk originated in China. An old Chinese book, believed to be written by Confucius, tells us the wife of Emperor Huangi-ti was the first person to make fabrics of silk. Around 2640 B.C, Emperor Huangi-ti asked his wife His Ling-shih to study the worms that were destroying the mulberry trees in his garden. The Empress took some of the cocoons. She picked up the gauzy mass and found that one of the threads could be unwound almost without end from the cocoon. His Ling-shih had discovered silk! She was delighted with the discovery and even wove a ceremonial robe for the Emperor out of the cocoon threads. After that, the officials in the Emperor’s court wore brightly dyed robes on important occasions.
People in other countries regarded the new fibres as something rare and beautiful. A few traders went to China to learn about making cloth from silk, but the Chinese kept their Silk worms a closely guarded secret.
According to sericulturists, silkworms
Options:Life is often difficult to describe. Men of wisdom in every society often find time to discuss life in order to explain it to the younger generation. I had been present in some meeting s a number of times. One topic that was discussed in one of them was beginning of life. ‘When did life begin?’ asked one of the men of wisdom. It was such an open-ended question. None of us could say precisely what happened when he was born. If he was born poor, he hardly would be very rich, particularly, if he was born honest in a corrupt society. If he was born rich, he might lose all his riches in one day. So, we often gather to tell one another about life. Recently, a statement was introduced into the vocabulary of English-Language – ‘The rich also cry’. The statement demonstrates, to a large extent, that even the rich people have their own period of time when life may prove very difficult and even meaningless to them. Have you not heard the experience of a very rich family whose vast business empire crumbled, in just one day? I have heard of a very rich man who lost his wife and three children in just one accident. Another rich man lost his thriving manufacturing company in an inferno. The compensation from his insurer could not solve half his financial problem. When one is poverty-stricken, that is a difficult dimension to the story of life. The poor person may prefer to die. Imagine when members of a family eat once a day! The quality of food becomes a different kettle of fish in such a circumstance. The dietician’s prayer that every normal human being must have a balance diet is cock and bull story to the poor. It is either that the poor do not have any opportunity that serves as recourse for them to be rich or that they are lazy people. Provisions must be made to create opportunities for self-development and self-realization. A lazy person cannot have his cake and eat it. People like him are not just only a problem to themselves but also to others in society.
At times, such people are dangerous to their communities.
Finally, what can one say about people who are terminally ill or insane? Perhaps silence becomes golden in that respect.
which of the following explains the writer’s conception Options: