JAMB and WAEC English Language questions

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

All JAMB WAEC

Question 81· Cloze passages· JAMB
Market day in our village is more than an occasion for buying and selling. From early morning, traders ...1... from neighbouring towns, their goods balanced on heads, bicycles and the backs of overloaded vehicles. By mid-morning the square is so ...2... that one can hardly move. Prices are never fixed; every purchase begins a friendly ...3... in which buyer and seller pretend to be offended before they finally ...4... on a price. Old friends meet and exchange news, and many a marriage has been ...5... after a chance meeting beside the yam sellers. For the children, the greatest ...6... is the man who sells roasted groundnuts and tells stories while he works. As the sun begins to ...7... , the traders pack their remaining goods and the crowd slowly ...8... . By nightfall the square is ...9... again, and only the litter on the ground shows that it was ever ...10... .
Choose the option that best fills gap 10 in the market-day passage.
Explanation and discussion
Question 82· Cloze passages· JAMB
Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. A student who reads widely ...1... new words without effort, simply by meeting them again and again in different ...2... . Such a student also learns how good sentences are ...3... , and this knowledge quietly improves his or her own writing. Unfortunately, many young people ...4... reading as a punishment rather than a pleasure. Part of the problem is that they are often given books that are too ...5... for them, and they give up in frustration. The ...6... is to begin with books that are interesting and easy, and then move gradually to more ...7... ones. Libraries, both physical and online, can make this ...8... cheaper. A habit formed in youth often ...9... for a lifetime, and the reader who enjoys books at fifteen is likely to ...10... them at fifty.
Choose the option that best fills gap 2 in the reading passage.
Explanation and discussion
Question 83· Cloze passages· JAMB
Every year, as the rainy season approaches, residents of low-lying parts of the city ...1... for the worst. Drains that should carry away the water are often ...2... with refuse, and a single heavy downpour can turn streets into rivers. The government has ...3... several campaigns urging people not to dump waste in gutters, but old habits die ...4... . Experts argue that awareness alone is not ...5... ; there must also be regular refuse collection, so that people are not ...6... to dispose of waste wherever they can. In some communities, youth groups now ...7... the drains every Saturday, and the results have been ...8... : streets that once flooded after every storm now remain ...9... . Such efforts show that when citizens take ...10... of their environment, much can be achieved.
Choose the option that best fills gap 7 in the flood passage.
Explanation and discussion
Question 84· Cloze passages· JAMB
The harmattan arrived early that year. By November, a fine ...1... of dust covered every surface in the house, and Mother ...2... us to keep the windows shut. The dry wind cracked our lips and made our skin ...3... . Grandfather, however, welcomed the season. He said the cold mornings ...4... him of his youth, when he and his friends would gather around a fire ...5... dawn and tell stories until the sun grew warm. He ...6... that the harmattan also brought good health, because the dry air killed many of the insects that ...7... disease during the rainy season. We listened politely, but secretly we longed for the ...8... of the first rains. Even so, when the dust finally ...9... and the sky turned blue again, we found that we missed the cosy evenings around Grandfather's fire, and the stories that had made the long nights seem ...10... .
Choose the option that best fills gap 10 in the passage.
Explanation and discussion
Question 85· Cloze passages· JAMB
In the passage below, each numbered gap has four options. Choose the option that best fills the gap. Many students complain that they have no time to read. Yet a ___1___ look at their day shows hours spent on social media. Reading, unlike scrolling, ___2___ concentration, and concentration is like a muscle: it grows ___3___ when it is exercised. A student who reads for only twenty minutes a day will, by the end of a term, have ___4___ several books. More importantly, he will have ___5___ his vocabulary and learnt to follow an argument from beginning to ___6___. Teachers can help by ___7___ a short reading period into the timetable, and parents can set an example by reading ___8___ front of their children. Libraries, too, must open at hours that ___9___ working students. If these steps are taken, the complaint about having no time may soon ___10___. (An original passage written for AdmitMe practice.)
Reading-habit passage, gap 10: choose the best option.
Explanation and discussion
Question 86· Cloze passages· JAMB
In the passage below, each numbered gap has four options. Choose the option that best fills the gap. Many students complain that they have no time to read. Yet a ___1___ look at their day shows hours spent on social media. Reading, unlike scrolling, ___2___ concentration, and concentration is like a muscle: it grows ___3___ when it is exercised. A student who reads for only twenty minutes a day will, by the end of a term, have ___4___ several books. More importantly, he will have ___5___ his vocabulary and learnt to follow an argument from beginning to ___6___. Teachers can help by ___7___ a short reading period into the timetable, and parents can set an example by reading ___8___ front of their children. Libraries, too, must open at hours that ___9___ working students. If these steps are taken, the complaint about having no time may soon ___10___. (An original passage written for AdmitMe practice.)
Reading-habit passage, gap 4: choose the best option.
Explanation and discussion
Question 87· Cloze passages· JAMB
Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. A student who reads widely ...1... new words without effort, simply by meeting them again and again in different ...2... . Such a student also learns how good sentences are ...3... , and this knowledge quietly improves his or her own writing. Unfortunately, many young people ...4... reading as a punishment rather than a pleasure. Part of the problem is that they are often given books that are too ...5... for them, and they give up in frustration. The ...6... is to begin with books that are interesting and easy, and then move gradually to more ...7... ones. Libraries, both physical and online, can make this ...8... cheaper. A habit formed in youth often ...9... for a lifetime, and the reader who enjoys books at fifteen is likely to ...10... them at fifty.
Choose the option that best fills gap 8 in the reading passage.
Explanation and discussion
Question 88· 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
Explanation and discussion
Question 89· 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
Explanation and discussion
Question 90· 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
Explanation and discussion
Question 91· 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
Explanation and discussion
Question 92· 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
Explanation and discussion
Question 93· 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
Explanation and discussion
Question 94· 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
Explanation and discussion
Question 95· 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
Explanation and discussion
Question 96· 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
Explanation and discussion
Question 97· 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
Explanation and discussion
Question 98· 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
Explanation and discussion
Question 99· 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?
Explanation and discussion
Question 100· 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?
Explanation and discussion

Practise English Language like the real exam. A timed CBT, your score, and the topics to fix.

Start a English Language test

JAMB and WAEC English Language questions

Choose the option that best fills gap 10 in the market-day passage.

Choose the option that best fills gap 2 in the reading passage.

Choose the option that best fills gap 7 in the flood passage.

Choose the option that best fills gap 10 in the passage.

Reading-habit passage, gap 10: choose the best option.

Reading-habit passage, gap 4: choose the best option.

Choose the option that best fills gap 8 in the reading passage.

According to the passage, students praised for being clever often

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

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

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

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

Some teachers complain that students who use social media heavily

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

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

The main idea of the first passage is that social media

Before the recycling project began, plastic bottles in Ajegunle were

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

What did the community do this year?

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