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 option that has the same stress as the given word.
dovetail?
Options:His eyes widened as they fell upon something strange. Something was moving slowly and cautiously along the gutter. The pale yellow and brown of the snake’s body glistened like a stream of flowing metal. By what mistake had the creature strayed into this unlikely place? Impossible to say. Yet there it was and its slow movements betrayed uneasiness and confusion.
As he watched it, his instinctive antipathy melted away. He could understand so well what the snake was feeling. He entered into the cold, narrow intelligence and shared its angry perplexity. Its movement were cramped, its advance difficulty and it was in constant danger of slipping over the edge. Now and then it lay still in dull reflection, nursing a cold anger that could find no vent.
Meanwhile the little plant bent downward by every puff of wind was beating its thin twings against the gutter like a birch. The snake seemed not to see the plant. It moved forward until a light touch from the twings fell upon its head. At this, it stopped and lifted its neck; the plant was now doing no more than lightly sway and dip. The snake, its head still reared, waited, flickering tongue. One could feel the angry heaving and straining in the sluggish brain-the dull red anger waiting to explode. Then came a strong gust sweeping along the wall and at once the twings thrashed down upon the furious head-thrashed down and beat it with a movement that seemed to osun both comic and dreadful. In a flash, the head reared itself higher, the neck drew back and there was a lunge at the twings and the empty air. O fatal act! To strike, the snake had been obliged to coil and its coiled body could not support itself upon the narrow ledge. No recovery was possible; it overbalanced and fell with a thud upon a small flat roof fifty feet below. There, osun saw the creature begin to writhe in agony. It could do no more than twist and turn upon the same spot
Osun was trembling but beneath his agitation there was a deep trouble wonder. Here was the little plants now waving with kind of jaunty cynicism and here was the snake writhing in agony. The world unquestionably was a place of mystery and horror. This was revealed in the writhing of the crippled snake in the jaunty waving of the innocent plant in the wind.
As the narrator watched the snake, his feelings changed to those of Options:Choose the option that best completes the gap(s).
By the end of this month, _____ for years in this school?
Options:The root of problem which bedevil rural dwellers in Nigeria can be traced to the sad fact that work opportunities are so restricted that they cannot work their way out of poverty and misery. Though a great number of Nigerians still live in the villages and small towns, work opportunities exist mainly in the big cities where development efforts are concentrated. The reason usually given for his obvious lapse is that it is easier to establish industries and to find finance and markets to keep them going in the big cities and towns than in the rural areas where productivity is low because of mass illiteracy and poverty.
As capital is the product of human work, rural dwellers who are desperate enough to overcome poverty often leave the villages in search of some kind of existence in the big cities and towns. Therefore, rural unemployment in Nigeria produces mass migration into the cities, leading to a rate of urban growth which seriously taxes the resources of even the biggest cities like Ibadan, Lagos, Abuja and Kano. Form the sad experience of these cities; it is easy to see how rural unemployment can become urban unemployment with the attendant social problems like robbery, overcrowding and the growth of shanties or slums.
Such problems cannot be wished away but will remain with us until deliberate efforts are made to bring health to economic life outside the big cities in order to check the migration of destitute rural dwellers into town and cities that cannot absorb them.
It is necessary; therefore, that at least an important part of the development effort should bypass the bid cities and be concerned with the provision of viable infrastructure in the small town s and villages. In this connection, it is necessary to emphasize that the primary need is workplaces. The task should be to bring into existence thousands or millions of new workplaces in the rural areas and small towns in order to maximize work opportunities for rural dwellers.
For this proposition to make sense, first, the work opportunities should be created in the rural areas where the majority of the people live, not where they tend to migrate for lack of opportunities. Second, the production method employed must be relatively simple, so that the demands for high skills are minimized not only in the production process itself but also in matters of organization, raw material supply, financing, marketing and so forth. Third, production should be mainly from local materials and for local use. Lastly, rural workplaces should be cheap enough so that they can be created in large numbers. These four requirements together meet the description of what is usually called ‘cottage industry’. Millions of them are needed for rural transformation in Nigeria and to check the dangerous process of mutual poisoning between urban and rural areas in the country.
In the first sentence of the passage, the word work, used differently can be explained as Options:Fill in the gap with the most appropriate option from the list following the gap.
The president of the union _____ for the airport by the time the riot started?
Options:Millons of people today are in serious ‘debt’. This can be a major factor in wrecking their cars, damaging their careers and even ruining their marriages. It can adversely affect their health and lifespan. It is a deficit that contributes to immune suppression, creating susceptibility to various infections. Conditions as different as diabetes, heart diseases, and extreme obesity, as well as other health problems have been linked to it. Yet, most victims are oblivious of this debt. The debtor is the one who does not have enough sleep needed for well-being. This can be caused by voluntary sleep deprivation resulting from a person’s life-style or by involuntary sleep deprivation because of illness and other causes. Medical researchers estimate that the earth’s population is now getting on the average an hour less sleep per into both the variety of sleep-related illnesses and their impact on the quality of life.
The medical world once viewed the chronic inability to sleep as just one disorder, commonly called insomnia. However, a commission created by the U.S. Congress recognized 17 distinct sleep disorders. At any rate, insomnia has so many causes that it is often considered to be a sympt5om of other problems, much as fever suggests some sort of infection. Even occasional deprivation of sleep can be disastrous. Consider the case of Tom, although an experienced truck driver, he plunged his 18-wheel vehicle over an embankment, spilling 400 litres of sulphuric acid onto a major highway. Tom admits: ‘I fell asleep.’ Students of two U.S. highways estimated that drowsy drivers caused some 50 per cent of the fatal crashes.
With hundreds of thousands of sleep-related auto and other accidents happening annually, the worldwide coast to productivity and family is enormous. What factors may contribute to lack of sleep? ‘One is the social phenomenon often called 24/7- operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The newspaper, USA Today, described this as a cultural earthquake that is changing the way we live, noting that a new wave of round-the-clock retailers and services is profiting by mocking the clock. In many lands, people watch all-night television programmes and access the internet when they should be sleeping. Then there is the toll taken by emotional disorders, often involving anxieties heightened by stress occasioned by the pace of life. Also, there are a variety of physical diseases that can contribute to lack of sleep.
Many doctors note how difficult it is to get their patients to take sleep seriously. One doctor complained that chronic fatigue is even considered ‘a status symbol’ by some. And because their condition often worsens very gradually, victims of sleep deprivation may not recognize that they suffer from a serious sleep disorder. Many of them reason, ‘I’m just getting old’ or I’ can’t cope with life, so I tend to shut down’ or ‘I’m tired all the time because I can never get the long rest I need.’ Reversing this sleep debt is a complex challenge. But understanding how a healthful sleep cycle works and learning to identify the signs of sleep debt can provide the motivation to change. Recognizing the symptoms of a serious sleep disorder can save lives and this should be a warning to many Nigerians, particularly those who engage in long night journeys.
From the passage, doctors find it hard to convince their patients of the gravity of lack of sleep because Options:Choose the options to which the given sentence relate.
Spain won their last friendly FOOTBALL match
Options:Choose the most appropriate option nearest in meaning to the underlined words.
The rally was attended only by people who were apolitical?
Options:The passage below has gaps numbered 11 to 20. Immediately following each gap, four options are provided. Choose the most appropriate option for each gap.
A prepared speech is not easy to deliver, especially if it is not written by the presenter. -11- [A. Quantum B. document C. free D. manuscript] delivery is one in which the speech has been written out word from word and is read to -12- [A. an audience B. a congregation C. a conference D. a gathering]. this kind of delivery is usually reserved for very -13-[A. genuine B. impromptu C. guaranteed D. formal] occasions when exact wording is -14-[A. reportive B. conclusive C. speculative D. critical] such as the State of the Union Address or speeches before the United Nations General -15-[A. Assembly B. Audience C. Organisation D. Negotiation]. The primary advantage is that the speech may be highly-16-[A. advanced B. analogous C. discreet D. polished] in terms of word choice, turns of phrase, and development of ideals. The main disadvantage is that this type of delivery is difficult to do well. Reading aloud with meaningful -17-[A. vocal B. bifocal C. anticipatory D. profuse] inflection requires the speaker to be very familiar with the text. If not, the words will come out in a choppy, expressionless way. Such poor delivery could destroy any -18-[A. decisive B. positive C. interactive D. restrictive] effects created by the carefully chosen -19-[A. dialect B. rhetoric C. slang D. language] . Lack of familiarity with the -20-[A. text B. context C. exchange D. note] could also prevent the speaker from maintaining eye contact with the people being addressed.
In question number 11 above, choose the best option from letters A - D that best completes the gap. Options: