JAMB English Language questions: Comprehension and summary

50 questions with answers and explanations. Tap an option to check yourself.

1. Question 1· Comprehension and summary· JAMB

   Many people assume that intelligence is fixed at birth, that a child is either 'brilliant' or 'dull' and nothing can change it. Research on learning suggests otherwise. When students are praised for effort rather than for being clever, they are more willing to attempt difficult problems, and they recover more quickly from failure. Students told that they are naturally gifted, on the other hand, often avoid challenges, fearing that a poor result will expose them as ordinary after all. This does not mean that all praise for effort is useful. Praising a student for working hard on a method that is clearly not working may simply encourage wasted energy. The most helpful feedback, researchers argue, names the strategy: 'You checked each step, and that is why you found the error.' Such comments teach students what to repeat. Parents and teachers, therefore, should be careful about the words they choose, for a careless label can follow a child for years.

   According to the passage, students praised for being clever often

   • Aavoid challenges for fear of looking ordinary
   • Bwork harder than others
   • Crecover quickly from failure
   • Dbecome teachers

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   Explanation and discussion

2. Question 2· Comprehension and summary· JAMB

   Ngozi had always believed that she was simply bad at mathematics. Her marks in the subject hovered around forty per cent, and she had come to treat each test as a judgement she could not appeal. In her final year, a new teacher, Mr Adeyemi, asked the class to keep a 'mistake diary'. After every exercise, they were to write down not just the wrong answers but the reason behind each one. Ngozi found the task tedious at first. Within a month, however, a pattern emerged: most of her errors came not from failing to understand the topic but from rushing through the first step of each problem. She began to slow down at the start and check her working before moving on. Her next test score was sixty-eight. 'You were never bad at mathematics,' Mr Adeyemi told her. 'You were careless with the beginning of your thinking.' Ngozi still keeps a mistake diary, though she now uses it for every subject.

   The purpose of the 'mistake diary' was to help the students

   • Arecord their scores
   • Bfind out why they made errors
   • Ccopy the correct answers
   • Davoid doing exercises

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   Explanation and discussion

3. Question 3· Comprehension and summary· JAMB

   Read the passage and answer the question. Every August the river reminds the people of Ogbaru that it was here first. It climbs over its banks quietly at night, so that families wake to find the floor of the parlour shining like a mirror. Children treat the first day as a holiday; their parents count the bags of rice already soaked and calculate how many weeks of school fees have floated away. Engineers from the state capital have visited many times. They measure, photograph and promise. The embankment they describe in their reports would be tall and straight, a wall the river could not climb. But the reports, like the river, rise and fall with the seasons, and the wall remains a picture on paper. This year the community decided not to wait. Young men dug channels to guide the water away from the market, and women's groups raised money to lift the clinic onto concrete pillars. It is not the wall of the engineers' dreams, but when the water came, the clinic stayed dry and the market opened on Monday as usual. (An original passage written for AdmitMe practice.)

   The writer's attitude to the community's action is one of

   • Acontempt
   • Bapproval
   • Cindifference
   • Dfear

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   Explanation and discussion

4. Question 4· Comprehension and summary· JAMB

   For years, Mama Tobi kept her savings in a tin buried beneath the floor of her kiosk in Oshodi market. Banks, she said, were for people who wore ties. When a young agent set up a point-of-sale stand beside her stall, she watched him the way one watches a stranger's goat that has wandered into the yard: with curiosity, but ready to chase it away. It was a fire that changed her mind. One night in the dry season, flames swept through three rows of stalls, and although her kiosk survived, two of her neighbours lost everything they had saved. The next morning Mama Tobi asked the agent how an account worked. She still distrusts much of what she calls 'phone money', and she counts every receipt twice. But she now pays her suppliers without carrying cash through the crowded market, and she says she sleeps better. 'The tin was safe from thieves,' she admits, 'but not from fire. Money is like water; you must keep it in a vessel that does not leak.'

   Comparing the agent to 'a stranger's goat that has wandered into the yard' suggests that Mama Tobi regarded him with

   • Acomplete fear
   • Bgreat admiration
   • Ccautious suspicion
   • Dpity

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   Explanation and discussion

5. Question 5· Comprehension and summary· JAMB

   Ngozi had always believed that she was simply bad at mathematics. Her marks in the subject hovered around forty per cent, and she had come to treat each test as a judgement she could not appeal. In her final year, a new teacher, Mr Adeyemi, asked the class to keep a 'mistake diary'. After every exercise, they were to write down not just the wrong answers but the reason behind each one. Ngozi found the task tedious at first. Within a month, however, a pattern emerged: most of her errors came not from failing to understand the topic but from rushing through the first step of each problem. She began to slow down at the start and check her working before moving on. Her next test score was sixty-eight. 'You were never bad at mathematics,' Mr Adeyemi told her. 'You were careless with the beginning of your thinking.' Ngozi still keeps a mistake diary, though she now uses it for every subject.

   According to the passage, most of Ngozi's errors came from

   • Anot understanding the topics
   • Brushing the first step of each problem
   • Cpoor teaching
   • Da lack of textbooks

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   Explanation and discussion

6. Question 6· Comprehension and summary· JAMB

   Social media has changed the way young Nigerians learn. A student in Maiduguri can now watch a chemistry lesson recorded in Lagos, join a study group with classmates across three states, and ask a question at midnight that someone answers before dawn. Critics, however, point to the cost. Notifications interrupt study time, and the endless scroll of entertainment can swallow hours that were meant for revision. Some teachers report that students who once read whole chapters now struggle to concentrate beyond a few paragraphs. The truth probably lies between these positions. Social media is a tool, and like a knife it can prepare a meal or wound the careless hand. Students who set clear limits, turning off notifications during study and following accounts that teach rather than distract, often find it a powerful ally. Those who let the platforms set the terms tend to lose the battle for their own attention. The question, then, is not whether students should use social media, but who is in control when they do.

   Some teachers complain that students who use social media heavily

   • Astop using the internet
   • Bread more chapters than before
   • Cwrite better essays
   • Dstruggle to concentrate on long texts

   Show answer

   Explanation and discussion

7. Question 7· Comprehension and summary· JAMB

   Many people assume that intelligence is fixed at birth, that a child is either 'brilliant' or 'dull' and nothing can change it. Research on learning suggests otherwise. When students are praised for effort rather than for being clever, they are more willing to attempt difficult problems, and they recover more quickly from failure. Students told that they are naturally gifted, on the other hand, often avoid challenges, fearing that a poor result will expose them as ordinary after all. This does not mean that all praise for effort is useful. Praising a student for working hard on a method that is clearly not working may simply encourage wasted energy. The most helpful feedback, researchers argue, names the strategy: 'You checked each step, and that is why you found the error.' Such comments teach students what to repeat. Parents and teachers, therefore, should be careful about the words they choose, for a careless label can follow a child for years.

   As used in the last sentence, the word 'label' most nearly means

   • Aa signature
   • Ba price tag
   • Ca book cover
   • Da description attached to a person

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   Explanation and discussion

8. Question 8· Comprehension and summary· JAMB

   In the crowded streets of Ajegunle, plastic bottles were once nothing but a nuisance. They blocked gutters, floated in floodwater and piled up beside every market stall. Then a group of young graduates, unable to find office jobs, began paying children a few naira for every kilogram of bottles they collected. The bottles were washed, shredded and sold to a factory that turned them into polyester fibre. Within two years the group employed thirty people, and the streets around their depot were noticeably cleaner. Not everyone was convinced. Some residents complained that the depot smelled, and a few landlords worried that the business would attract scavengers. The founders responded by moving the washing area indoors and inviting neighbours to visit. 'People fear what they do not understand,' one of them explained. 'Once they saw that we were cleaning their environment and paying their children, the complaints faded.' Today, the group is helping to start similar projects in other parts of Lagos. Their story suggests that a problem, looked at differently, may contain its own solution.

   'People fear what they do not understand' suggests that the opposition came mainly from

   • Athe factory owners
   • Bjealousy of the founders' wealth
   • Cgovernment officials
   • Da lack of knowledge about the business

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   Explanation and discussion

9. Question 9· Comprehension and summary· JAMB

   Social media has changed the way young Nigerians learn. A student in Maiduguri can now watch a chemistry lesson recorded in Lagos, join a study group with classmates across three states, and ask a question at midnight that someone answers before dawn. Critics, however, point to the cost. Notifications interrupt study time, and the endless scroll of entertainment can swallow hours that were meant for revision. Some teachers report that students who once read whole chapters now struggle to concentrate beyond a few paragraphs. The truth probably lies between these positions. Social media is a tool, and like a knife it can prepare a meal or wound the careless hand. Students who set clear limits, turning off notifications during study and following accounts that teach rather than distract, often find it a powerful ally. Those who let the platforms set the terms tend to lose the battle for their own attention. The question, then, is not whether students should use social media, but who is in control when they do.

   The main idea of the first passage is that social media

   • Ashould be banned for students
   • Bcan help or harm learning depending on how students use it
   • Chas no effect on learning
   • Dis useful only for entertainment

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   Explanation and discussion

10. Question 10· Comprehension and summary· JAMB

    In the crowded streets of Ajegunle, plastic bottles were once nothing but a nuisance. They blocked gutters, floated in floodwater and piled up beside every market stall. Then a group of young graduates, unable to find office jobs, began paying children a few naira for every kilogram of bottles they collected. The bottles were washed, shredded and sold to a factory that turned them into polyester fibre. Within two years the group employed thirty people, and the streets around their depot were noticeably cleaner. Not everyone was convinced. Some residents complained that the depot smelled, and a few landlords worried that the business would attract scavengers. The founders responded by moving the washing area indoors and inviting neighbours to visit. 'People fear what they do not understand,' one of them explained. 'Once they saw that we were cleaning their environment and paying their children, the complaints faded.' Today, the group is helping to start similar projects in other parts of Lagos. Their story suggests that a problem, looked at differently, may contain its own solution.

    Before the recycling project began, plastic bottles in Ajegunle were

    • Aa nuisance that blocked gutters
    • Bsold to factories
    • Ccollected by the government
    • Dused to build houses

    Show answer

    Explanation and discussion

11. Question 11· Comprehension and summary· JAMB

    When the rains failed for the third year running, the farmers of Dambatta did not wait for help from the city. Malam Sani, who had kept bees for twenty years, called a meeting under the neem tree beside the market. He reminded the farmers that the river still flowed in the dry season, though it lay two kilometres from most of their plots. Pumping water that far with diesel engines had always been too costly; the fuel alone swallowed whatever profit the harvest brought. This time the farmers pooled their savings and bought four solar pumps. The first months were difficult. Two pumps broke down because no one had been trained to clean the panels, and some members grumbled that their money had been wasted. Yet by the end of the season, the cooperative had harvested more tomatoes than in any year anyone could remember. Traders from Kano came to buy directly from them, and the farmers no longer had to accept whatever price the middlemen offered. Malam Sani refused to take credit. 'The sun was always here,' he said. 'We only learnt to work with it.'

    Malam Sani's final remark suggests that he believed the success came from

    • Alearning to use a resource that had always been available
    • Bgood luck
    • Chis own leadership
    • Dhelp from the government

    Show answer

    Explanation and discussion

12. Question 12· Comprehension and summary· JAMB

    Read the passage and answer the question. Every August the river reminds the people of Ogbaru that it was here first. It climbs over its banks quietly at night, so that families wake to find the floor of the parlour shining like a mirror. Children treat the first day as a holiday; their parents count the bags of rice already soaked and calculate how many weeks of school fees have floated away. Engineers from the state capital have visited many times. They measure, photograph and promise. The embankment they describe in their reports would be tall and straight, a wall the river could not climb. But the reports, like the river, rise and fall with the seasons, and the wall remains a picture on paper. This year the community decided not to wait. Young men dug channels to guide the water away from the market, and women's groups raised money to lift the clinic onto concrete pillars. It is not the wall of the engineers' dreams, but when the water came, the clinic stayed dry and the market opened on Monday as usual. (An original passage written for AdmitMe practice.)

    What did the community do this year?

    • Amoved away from the town
    • Bbuilt the engineers' embankment
    • Ctook practical steps of its own against the flood
    • Dinvited the engineers back

    Show answer

    Explanation and discussion

13. Question 13· Comprehension and summary· JAMB

    When the rains failed for the third year running, the farmers of Dambatta did not wait for help from the city. Malam Sani, who had kept bees for twenty years, called a meeting under the neem tree beside the market. He reminded the farmers that the river still flowed in the dry season, though it lay two kilometres from most of their plots. Pumping water that far with diesel engines had always been too costly; the fuel alone swallowed whatever profit the harvest brought. This time the farmers pooled their savings and bought four solar pumps. The first months were difficult. Two pumps broke down because no one had been trained to clean the panels, and some members grumbled that their money had been wasted. Yet by the end of the season, the cooperative had harvested more tomatoes than in any year anyone could remember. Traders from Kano came to buy directly from them, and the farmers no longer had to accept whatever price the middlemen offered. Malam Sani refused to take credit. 'The sun was always here,' he said. 'We only learnt to work with it.'

    According to the passage, why had the farmers not pumped water from the river before?

    • AThe river dried up in the dry season
    • BRunning diesel pumps cost more than the harvest earned
    • CThe government did not allow it
    • DThey did not have enough land

    Show answer

    Explanation and discussion

14. Question 14· Comprehension and summary· JAMB

    For years, Mama Tobi kept her savings in a tin buried beneath the floor of her kiosk in Oshodi market. Banks, she said, were for people who wore ties. When a young agent set up a point-of-sale stand beside her stall, she watched him the way one watches a stranger's goat that has wandered into the yard: with curiosity, but ready to chase it away. It was a fire that changed her mind. One night in the dry season, flames swept through three rows of stalls, and although her kiosk survived, two of her neighbours lost everything they had saved. The next morning Mama Tobi asked the agent how an account worked. She still distrusts much of what she calls 'phone money', and she counts every receipt twice. But she now pays her suppliers without carrying cash through the crowded market, and she says she sleeps better. 'The tin was safe from thieves,' she admits, 'but not from fire. Money is like water; you must keep it in a vessel that does not leak.'

    Why did Mama Tobi keep her savings in a tin?

    • AShe believed banks were not meant for people like her
    • BThe agent advised her to
    • CThe tin earned her interest
    • DThe market rules required it

    Show answer

    Explanation and discussion

15. Question 15· Comprehension and summary· JAMB

    In the crowded streets of Ajegunle, plastic bottles were once nothing but a nuisance. They blocked gutters, floated in floodwater and piled up beside every market stall. Then a group of young graduates, unable to find office jobs, began paying children a few naira for every kilogram of bottles they collected. The bottles were washed, shredded and sold to a factory that turned them into polyester fibre. Within two years the group employed thirty people, and the streets around their depot were noticeably cleaner. Not everyone was convinced. Some residents complained that the depot smelled, and a few landlords worried that the business would attract scavengers. The founders responded by moving the washing area indoors and inviting neighbours to visit. 'People fear what they do not understand,' one of them explained. 'Once they saw that we were cleaning their environment and paying their children, the complaints faded.' Today, the group is helping to start similar projects in other parts of Lagos. Their story suggests that a problem, looked at differently, may contain its own solution.

    The last sentence of the first passage means that

    • ALagos has no problems
    • Bproblems always solve themselves
    • Cplastic is the solution to every problem
    • Da problem can sometimes be turned into an opportunity

    Show answer

    Explanation and discussion

16. Question 16· Comprehension and summary· JAMB

    Ngozi had always believed that she was simply bad at mathematics. Her marks in the subject hovered around forty per cent, and she had come to treat each test as a judgement she could not appeal. In her final year, a new teacher, Mr Adeyemi, asked the class to keep a 'mistake diary'. After every exercise, they were to write down not just the wrong answers but the reason behind each one. Ngozi found the task tedious at first. Within a month, however, a pattern emerged: most of her errors came not from failing to understand the topic but from rushing through the first step of each problem. She began to slow down at the start and check her working before moving on. Her next test score was sixty-eight. 'You were never bad at mathematics,' Mr Adeyemi told her. 'You were careless with the beginning of your thinking.' Ngozi still keeps a mistake diary, though she now uses it for every subject.

    Before Mr Adeyemi came, Ngozi regarded her mathematics tests as

    • Aeasy exercises
    • Bunimportant
    • Cchances to learn
    • Dverdicts she could not change

    Show answer

    Explanation and discussion

17. Question 17· Comprehension and summary· JAMB

    Social media has changed the way young Nigerians learn. A student in Maiduguri can now watch a chemistry lesson recorded in Lagos, join a study group with classmates across three states, and ask a question at midnight that someone answers before dawn. Critics, however, point to the cost. Notifications interrupt study time, and the endless scroll of entertainment can swallow hours that were meant for revision. Some teachers report that students who once read whole chapters now struggle to concentrate beyond a few paragraphs. The truth probably lies between these positions. Social media is a tool, and like a knife it can prepare a meal or wound the careless hand. Students who set clear limits, turning off notifications during study and following accounts that teach rather than distract, often find it a powerful ally. Those who let the platforms set the terms tend to lose the battle for their own attention. The question, then, is not whether students should use social media, but who is in control when they do.

    The comparison of social media with a knife suggests that social media

    • Ais neither good nor bad in itself; its effect depends on use
    • Bis always dangerous
    • Cshould be used only in the kitchen
    • Dis mainly useful for cooking lessons

    Show answer

    Explanation and discussion

18. Question 18· Comprehension and summary· JAMB

    When the rains failed for the third year running, the farmers of Dambatta did not wait for help from the city. Malam Sani, who had kept bees for twenty years, called a meeting under the neem tree beside the market. He reminded the farmers that the river still flowed in the dry season, though it lay two kilometres from most of their plots. Pumping water that far with diesel engines had always been too costly; the fuel alone swallowed whatever profit the harvest brought. This time the farmers pooled their savings and bought four solar pumps. The first months were difficult. Two pumps broke down because no one had been trained to clean the panels, and some members grumbled that their money had been wasted. Yet by the end of the season, the cooperative had harvested more tomatoes than in any year anyone could remember. Traders from Kano came to buy directly from them, and the farmers no longer had to accept whatever price the middlemen offered. Malam Sani refused to take credit. 'The sun was always here,' he said. 'We only learnt to work with it.'

    'The fuel alone swallowed whatever profit the harvest brought' means that the fuel

    • Awas stolen from the farm
    • Bmade the harvest bigger
    • Cwas cheaper than the farmers expected
    • Dcost as much as, or more than, the profit

    Show answer

    Explanation and discussion

19. Question 19· Comprehension and summary· JAMB

    Read the passage and answer the question. When Mallam Sani first heard that he could send money to his son in Lagos with a few presses on a phone, he laughed. For forty years he had trusted only two things: the cattle in his pen and the bag of notes hidden under his mat. Money, he said, should be heavy enough to feel. His son, however, was patient. On his next visit he showed his father how a small agent's kiosk in the village could turn cash into a message and a message back into cash. The first transfer was only two thousand naira, sent to buy medicine for an aunt in Kano. When the aunt called to say the money had arrived before the bus that would have carried it could even leave the motor park, the old man was silent for a long time. Today the kiosk is the busiest place in the village after the mosque. Farmers receive payment for their grain before the lorry is out of sight; traders no longer travel with bundles of notes that tempt robbers on the highway. Yet Mallam Sani has not completely changed. He still keeps a few notes under his mat. 'A phone can lose its battery,' he explains with a smile, 'but paper does not need charging.' (An original passage written for AdmitMe practice.)

    Mallam Sani laughed at first because he

    • Abelieved money should be something he could physically hold
    • Bdid not own a phone
    • Cwas angry with his son
    • Dthought Lagos was too far away

    Show answer

    Explanation and discussion

20. Question 20· Comprehension and summary· JAMB

    Examination malpractice is often described as a problem of dishonest students, but the truth is more uncomfortable. In many cases, the cheating is organised by adults: parents who pay for 'special centres', teachers who dictate answers to protect their school's reputation, and officials who look away for a fee. A student who grows up in such a system learns a dangerous lesson: that certificates can be bought and that effort is for fools. The consequences reach far beyond the examination hall. Employers soon discover that a graduate's result tells them little about what he or she can actually do, and the value of every certificate, including those earned honestly, falls. Computer-based testing has reduced some forms of cheating, but technology alone cannot restore trust. That requires adults who model honesty, schools that are rewarded for genuine learning rather than inflated results, and penalties that fall on organisers as heavily as on candidates.

    According to the passage, a student raised in such a system learns that

    • Aeffort is pointless because certificates can be bought
    • Bhonesty always pays
    • Cteachers are always right
    • Dexaminations are easy

    Show answer

    Explanation and discussion