JAMB and WAEC Literature in English questions: Literary appreciation: unseen prose

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

1. Question 21· Literary appreciation: unseen prose· JAMB

   Read the passage and answer the question. The bus to Jos had been waiting for two hours, and still the conductor shouted, 'One chance! One chance!' as though the seats were not already groaning under three passengers each. Halima pressed her bag of groundnuts against her knees and watched an old man argue with a goat that had climbed onto the luggage rack. Nobody laughed. Laughter, like water, was being saved for the long road ahead. When the engine finally coughed itself awake, a cheer rose from the passengers, the kind of cheer usually reserved for a winning goal. Halima did not cheer. She was thinking of the letter in her pocket, the one she had not yet found the courage to read. (An original passage written for AdmitMe practice.)

   'the engine finally coughed itself awake' is an example of

   • Alitotes
   • Bhyperbole
   • Cparadox
   • Dpersonification

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   Explanation and discussion

2. Question 22· Literary appreciation: unseen prose· WAEC

   Mama Nkechi opened her shop before the first cock had finished crowing. She swept the doorway with short, angry strokes, as though the dust had insulted her personally. Across the road, the new supermarket glowed behind its glass, its shelves as orderly as soldiers on parade. Customers who had bought her groundnut oil for twenty years now walked past with their eyes fixed on their phones. Still, every morning she arranged her tins in a careful pyramid and waited, because waiting, she said, was also a kind of work. (An original passage written for AdmitMe practice.)

   'as orderly as soldiers on parade' is

   • Ahyperbole
   • Ba metaphor
   • Cpersonification
   • Da simile

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3. Question 23· Literary appreciation: unseen prose· JAMB

   Read the passage below and answer the question. Mama Ngozi's shop stood at the corner of Ugbene Street like an old soldier who had refused to retire. Its zinc roof had rusted to the colour of kola nuts, and its door, which had not closed properly since the flood two rainy seasons ago, was held shut at night by a stone and a prayer. Yet every morning the children came, coins warm in their palms, to buy groundnuts and chin-chin, and every morning Mama Ngozi greeted each of them by name, as though each one were the first customer she had ever had. 'Business is not money,' she told her son Emeka, who had come home from Lagos with a phone that never stopped ringing and plans that never stopped growing. 'Business is people.' Emeka laughed and said she was living in the past. She only smiled and wiped the counter again.

   'a phone that never stopped ringing and plans that never stopped growing' is an example of

   • Aapostrophe
   • Bantithesis
   • Cparallelism
   • Dbathos

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   Explanation and discussion

4. Question 24· Literary appreciation: unseen prose· JAMB

   Read the passage below and answer the question. Mama Ngozi's shop stood at the corner of Ugbene Street like an old soldier who had refused to retire. Its zinc roof had rusted to the colour of kola nuts, and its door, which had not closed properly since the flood two rainy seasons ago, was held shut at night by a stone and a prayer. Yet every morning the children came, coins warm in their palms, to buy groundnuts and chin-chin, and every morning Mama Ngozi greeted each of them by name, as though each one were the first customer she had ever had. 'Business is not money,' she told her son Emeka, who had come home from Lagos with a phone that never stopped ringing and plans that never stopped growing. 'Business is people.' Emeka laughed and said she was living in the past. She only smiled and wiped the counter again.

   'held shut at night by a stone and a prayer' is an example of

   • Aeuphemism
   • Bonomatopoeia
   • Czeugma
   • Dlitotes

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   Explanation and discussion

5. Question 25· Literary appreciation: unseen prose· JAMB

   Read the passage and answer the question. The bus to Jos had been waiting for two hours, and still the conductor shouted, 'One chance! One chance!' as though the seats were not already groaning under three passengers each. Halima pressed her bag of groundnuts against her knees and watched an old man argue with a goat that had climbed onto the luggage rack. Nobody laughed. Laughter, like water, was being saved for the long road ahead. When the engine finally coughed itself awake, a cheer rose from the passengers, the kind of cheer usually reserved for a winning goal. Halima did not cheer. She was thinking of the letter in her pocket, the one she had not yet found the courage to read. (An original passage written for AdmitMe practice.)

   The passengers' cheer is compared to the cheer for

   • Aa wedding
   • Ba winning goal
   • Ca funeral
   • Da sermon

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   Explanation and discussion

6. Question 26· Literary appreciation: unseen prose· WAEC

   Mama Nkechi opened her shop before the first cock had finished crowing. She swept the doorway with short, angry strokes, as though the dust had insulted her personally. Across the road, the new supermarket glowed behind its glass, its shelves as orderly as soldiers on parade. Customers who had bought her groundnut oil for twenty years now walked past with their eyes fixed on their phones. Still, every morning she arranged her tins in a careful pyramid and waited, because waiting, she said, was also a kind of work. (An original passage written for AdmitMe practice.)

   The passage is narrated in the

   • Astream of consciousness
   • Bfirst person
   • Csecond person
   • Dthird person

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   Explanation and discussion

7. Question 27· Literary appreciation: unseen prose· JAMB

   Read the passage and answer the question. The bus to Jos had been waiting for two hours, and still the conductor shouted, 'One chance! One chance!' as though the seats were not already groaning under three passengers each. Halima pressed her bag of groundnuts against her knees and watched an old man argue with a goat that had climbed onto the luggage rack. Nobody laughed. Laughter, like water, was being saved for the long road ahead. When the engine finally coughed itself awake, a cheer rose from the passengers, the kind of cheer usually reserved for a winning goal. Halima did not cheer. She was thinking of the letter in her pocket, the one she had not yet found the courage to read. (An original passage written for AdmitMe practice.)

   The final sentence of the passage creates

   • Aresolution
   • Bsuspense
   • Ccomic relief
   • Da flashback

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8. Question 28· Literary appreciation: unseen prose· JAMB

   Read the passage and answer the question. Obinna had promised himself that he would not look back at the bus park. Yet as the bus pulled away from Ninth Mile, groaning like an old man climbing stairs, he turned and saw his mother still standing by the roadside, her wrapper flapping in the dust. He had always thought leaving would feel like flying. Instead it felt like a rope being slowly pulled from his hands, inch by inch, until only the burn remained. (An original passage written for AdmitMe practice.)

   The image of a rope 'being slowly pulled from his hands' expresses

   • Aanger at his mother
   • Bjoy at leaving
   • Ca painful, gradual sense of loss
   • Dfear of the driver

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9. Question 29· Literary appreciation: unseen prose· WAEC

   Mama Nkechi opened her shop before the first cock had finished crowing. She swept the doorway with short, angry strokes, as though the dust had insulted her personally. Across the road, the new supermarket glowed behind its glass, its shelves as orderly as soldiers on parade. Customers who had bought her groundnut oil for twenty years now walked past with their eyes fixed on their phones. Still, every morning she arranged her tins in a careful pyramid and waited, because waiting, she said, was also a kind of work. (An original passage written for AdmitMe practice.)

   The main conflict in the passage is between

   • Asoldiers and traders
   • BMama Nkechi and her children
   • Ctwo customers
   • Dthe small shop and the new supermarket

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   Explanation and discussion