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.
The emergence of a standard dialect produces the phenomenon known as ‘accent’ which is quite different from dialect. In the process of learning a foreign language, it is normal to transfer the patterns of an indigenous language to those of the foreign language. With time, however those of form and most of orthography and phonology gradually get eliminated. This is because these can easily be identified and corrected. They are easy to correct because they do not involve patterns of muscular movement. It is necessary to correct them because otherwise they could seriously impair intelligibility.
With phonetic patterns, on the other hand, there is a great deal of intelligibility tolerance because muscular patterns are involved thus making correction difficult when observed. Besides, phonetic patterns do not impair intelligibility much. Hence the transference of phonetic habits from one language to another is both easier to tolerate and more difficult to avoid than transference at the lexico-grammatical level. It follows that a speaker who is learning a second dialect does so with an accent since the muscles of his speech organs would have crystallized in response to the phonetics of his native language which he learnt first. The speaker therefore speaks the second dialect with the phonetic features of his native dialect. The learning of a standard language is simply the learning of a second dialect- that which has been standardized.
Members of a language community control at least two dialects and use both dialects in different situations. In the rural areas, the native dialect is used in most situations since there is less movement. Therefore, rural dwellers tend to be parochial and maintain the homogeneity of their dialect. In the urban community, on the other hand, there is more demand on the standard dialect than on the rural one. This is because people from different regions converge here. In order to ensure mutual intelligibility resulting from the pressure of communication, a great deal of demand is made on the standard dialect which now becomes the lingua frenca amongst them.
In the question below choose the word or phrase which best fills the gap in each sentence:
James _____ reminding that not all that glitters is gold.
Options:choose the most appropriate option nearest in meaning to the word(s) underlined.
Almost everyone she had worked with took advantage of her meekness
Choose the option nearest in meaning to the underlined word(s).
The prosecutor was accused of obstructing justice?
Options:Lets begin with a picture.
He must not have been more than thirty years old. The oval face, devoid of those wrinkles of age, the well-turfed and black hair, and his still complete though brown set of teeth supported this assessment. All he had for clothing was a piece of cloth with some words written on it. It must have been one of those cloth-posters used but now abandon by ‘show-biz’ promoters. Across his neck was yet another cloth which bore our national colors of green and white. His feet were naked – just as they came from their creator. In one hand he had an empty tin. He talked ceaselessly and in a disordered fashion. The other free hand emphasized his spoken words and gesture. As he talked, he gazed at you as if you were responsible for his pathetic condition. He looked redeemable, though. There are many of his type in various urban centers.
Beggars! They are in every conceivable place. At the bank, the supermarket, the church, the mosque, the post office – there you will meet them. Before you know it, the more healthy ones besiege you for alms almost to the point of assault. Surely, there is no rationale in giving alms to someone who is physically stronger than you are and who, from all indication, can and should work and fend for himself. Some others are feeble and unfortunately handicapped. Women and young girls constitute a sizeable number of these healthy beggars. Some are nursing mothers and one wonders who their husbands are. Conception by Mr Nobody, perhaps. The young girls in this category are the mother-beggars of tomorrow. But tell me; can’t the society be spared the human waste?
The writer is describing a 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 15 above, choose the best option from letters A - D that best completes the gap. Options:A wolf, seeing a lamb drinking from a river, wanted to find a pretext for devouring him, He stood higher up the stream and accused the lamb of muddying the water so that he could not drink. The lamb said that he drank only the tip of his tongue and that in any case he was standing lower down the river, and could not possible disturb the water higher When this excuse failed him, the wolf said: 'Well, last year you insulted my father.' "I wasn't even born then replied the lamb. 'You are good at finding answer' said the wolf, 'but what do you mean by taking up so much of the path where I am walking?' The lamb, frightened at the wolf's angry tone and terrible aspect, told him, with all due submission, that he could not conceive how his walking on such a wide path could occasion him any inconvenience. 'What!' exclaimed the wolf, seemingly in great anger and indignation. 'You are as impudent as your father who seized me by the throat last year and caused me to be kept in a cage for three months'. 'If you will believe me,' said the lamb, 'my parents are poor simple creatures who live entirely by green stuff, we are none of us hunters of your species.' Ah! I see it's no use talking to you,' said the wolf, drawing up close to him. 'it runs in the blood of your family to hate us wolves, and therefore,as we have come so conveniently together, I'll just pay off a few of your forefathers scores before we part.' So saying, he leapt at the lamb from behind and garotted him. Adapted from Bennet. C.H(1978)
From the way the story ended, it can be concluded that the
Options:I began work at the smithy on the Monday morning. My wages were half a crown a week. My hours were from six in the morning till six in the night, with an hour break for launch. My boss, Boeta Dick, was a tall, bent, reedy consumptive. He has a parched yellow skin, brawn tight over his jutting bones. His cheeks were so sunken it was as though he were permanently sucking them in. his eyes were far back in his head. He coughed violently, and beside his seat was a bucket of sand into which he spat. Changing the sand daily was the only part of my job I hated.
The smithy was divided into two parts. At one end were the machines that cut, shaped, and put the tins together. The man who worked on the machines were on a regular weekly wage. At the other end, was a row of small furnaces, each with it own bellows and piles of fuel. Here, at each furnace a man sat soldering the seams of the tins as they came from machines. The solders were on piece work. To average two or three pounds a week they had to do a mountainous amount of soldering. Each solderer had a boy to cart the tins from the machines to him, then to smear the seams of each tin with sulphur powder so that the lead took easily and, after checking, to cart the tins of the yard where the Lorries collected them.
The solderers received Options:These two factors the altitude and the weather, tend separately and together to defeat the climber. The height weakens, slows him down; it forces him to spend days and nights in the courses of his assault on the summit; the weather, besides adding to the demand of his energy and moral fortitude, conspires to deny him the time he needs to complete his mission. Whereas in lower mountains and on easy ground the weather may be no more than a handicap, in the high Himalayas it is decisive, regardless of terrain.
The deduction to be drawn from these two factors is was clear enough. We must either so fortify ourselves that we could continue, without detriment, to live and have our being above the limit of natural acclimatization, or, better still, we must solve the problem of speed. It was desirable; in fact, that we must meet both these requirements and thus give to those chosen to attempt the summit and to their supporting teams some measures of insurance against the vagaries of the weather, for safety in mountain climbing is as much a matter of swiftness as of sureness of foot. Either or both could be achieved only by the administration of oxygen in sufficient quantities to make up for the deficiency in the air, and for the duration of the upward journey above the limit of successful acclimatization
'regardless of terrain' (line 5) Options:Young men have strong passions, and tend to gratify them indiscriminately. Of the bodily desires, it is the sexual by which they are most swayed and in which they show absence of self-control. They are changeable and fickle in their desires, which are violent while they last but quickly over; their impulse are keen bot not deep-rooted and are like sick people’s attacks of hunger and thirst. They are hot-tempered and quick-tempered and apt to give way to their anger; bad temper often gets the better of them, for owing to their love of honour they cannot bear slighted and are indignant if they imagine themselves unfairly treated. While they love honour, they love victory still more, for youth is eager for superiority over other and victory is one form of this. They love both more than they love money which indeed they love very little not having yet learnt what it means to be without it. They look at the good side rather than the bad, not having yet witnessed many instances of wickedness. They trust others readily because they have not yet been cheated. They are sanguine; nature warms their blood as though with excess of wine and besides that, they have as yet met with few dis appointments. Their lives are mainly spent not in memory but in expectation for youth has a long future before it and a short past behind it: on the first day of one’s life, one has nothing at all to remember and can only look forward. They are easily cheated owing to the sanguine disposition just mentioned. Their hot tempers and hopeful dispositions make them more courageous than older men are; the hot temper prevents fear and the hopeful disposition creates confidence. We cannot feel fear so long as we are feeling angry and any expectation of good makes us confident.