Question 3
PASSAGE 1
In the days of my childhood, honey did not form any part of our diet. It was not important to us, anyway. Bread was not a thing you would see in our lives unless someone was returning home on leave from abroad. However, as most African medicine were mixed with honey, we all had a chance of tasting honey at one time or the other. We knew that honey is very sweet. Sometimes too, when our fathers were very pleased with themselves, they showed their pleasure by adding honey to their morning meals, usually prepared with milled corn. We children will struggle to do the washing up after such meals. This gave us a chance to taste the honey.
You can therefore imagine our delight when, one day on our way home from school, Dara told us that he had gone with his father to the farm one morning and had discovered a hive of bees. He had called his father’s attention to it. Later, his father told him how to collect the honeycombs.
You go very quietly near the beehive, hold a green leaf in your mouth and murmur certain magic words. Hold a long stick at the end of which a large quantity of tinder is set ablaze. Set the burning tinder on the hive. The bees are disturbed, some are burnt to death, and the other fly about to attack anyone around. But bees only sting you if you move any part of your body. If you remain rigid, they settle on you but do not sting.
In the confusion, you carefully stretch out your hand little and remove the honeycombs into the bag hanging round your neck. If you lick the honey at the spot and in their presence, the bees also attack you.
In the days of my childhood, honey did not form any part of our diet. It was not important to us, anyway. Bread was not a thing you would see in our lives unless someone was returning home on leave from abroad. However, as most African medicine were mixed with honey, we all had a chance of tasting honey at one time or the other. We knew that honey is very sweet. Sometimes too, when our fathers were very pleased with themselves, they showed their pleasure by adding honey to their morning meals, usually prepared with milled corn. We children will struggle to do the washing up after such meals. This gave us a chance to taste the honey.
You can therefore imagine our delight when, one day on our way home from school, Dara told us that he had gone with his father to the farm one morning and had discovered a hive of bees. He had called his father’s attention to it. Later, his father told him how to collect the honeycombs.
You go very quietly near the beehive, hold a green leaf in your mouth and murmur certain magic words. Hold a long stick at the end of which a large quantity of tinder is set ablaze. Set the burning tinder on the hive. The bees are disturbed, some are burnt to death, and the other fly about to attack anyone around. But bees only sting you if you move any part of your body. If you remain rigid, they settle on you but do not sting.
In the confusion, you carefully stretch out your hand little and remove the honeycombs into the bag hanging round your neck. If you lick the honey at the spot and in their presence, the bees also attack you.
The word “they” as used in the third paragraph of the passage refers to
Objective