JAMB Literature in English 1991 Past Questions

This question is based on Wole Soyinka's The Lion and the Jewel.
The two characters that symbolize the lion and the jewel respectively are

This question is based on Wole Soyinka's The Lion and the Jewel.
'This is the words of women. At this moment our star sits in the center of the sky
We are supreme.'
These words were spoken by

This question is based on Wole Soyinka's The Lion and the Jewel.
The Bala is symbolically referred to as a fox because of his

This question is based on Wole Soyinka's The Lion and the Jewel.
Which of the following character traits will apply to Lakunle?

This question is based on Wole Soyinka's The Lion and the Jewel.
Which of the following divisions is used as`a technical device to denote the symbolic significance of certain events?

This question is based on George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man.
The main themes in the play are best summed up by the phrase

This question is based on George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man.
What basic character traits are revealed by Bluntschli's description of himself as 'a free citizen' and Raina's reference to him as 'my chocolate cream soldier?

This question is based on George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man.
'You know how to hurt with your tongue with your hands. But I don't care, now I've found out that whatever clay I'm made of you're made of the same...'
What action of the speaker led to the reaction upon which she comments?

This question is based on George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man.
Catherine's natural looks portray her as a

This question is based on selected poems from Wole Soyinka (ed) Poems of Black Africa and D.I. Nwoga (ed) West African Verse.
In J.P. Clark's 'Streamside Exchange', the bird's reply concerns

This question is based on George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man.
In Raina's view, if one is incapable of gratitude, he is incapable of any noble

This question is based on selected poems from Wole Soyinka (ed) Poems of Black Africa and D.I. Nwoga (ed) West African Verse.
The poet's mood in Gabriel Okara's 'The Fisherman's invocation' is characterized by

This question is based on selected poems from Wole Soyinka (ed) Poems of Black Africa and D.I. Nwoga (ed) West African Verse.
The atmosphere of Birago Diop's 'Vanity' is dominated by

This question is based on selected poems from Wole Soyinka (ed) Poems of Black Africa and D.I. Nwoga (ed) West African Verse.
'Idoto' in Okigbo's 'The Passage' is the name of

This question is based on selected poems from Wole Soyinka (ed) Poems of Black Africa and D.I. Nwoga (ed) West African Verse.
'You just wait, I'll tell you more
But let me first sell my tomatoes'.
These two lines from Theo Luzuka's 'The Motoka'
reveal the poet's true state of

This question is based on selected poems from Wole Soyinka (ed) Poems of Black Africa and D.I. Nwoga (ed) West African Verse.
In the poem 'Night' Neto suggests that the oppressed

This question is based on selected poems from Wole Soyinka (ed) Poems of Black Africa and D.I. Nwoga (ed) West African Verse.
'Withering, burn, ghost, a scatter, dusty, half-bare
The above combination of words from Kwesi Brew's
'The Dry Season' thematically suggests

This question is based on selected poems from Wole Soyinka (ed) Poems of Black Africa and D.I. Nwoga (ed) West African Verse.
The technique Kwesi Brew employs to portray the nightmarish image in his poem 'The Executioner's Dream' is the description of the

This question is based on selected poems from Wole Soyinka (ed) Poems of Black Africa and D.I. Nwoga (ed) West African Verse.
In the poem 'The Prodigals' the line 'their heads are claimed by clouds' means that the military leaders

This question is based on Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God
'Thereafter, any yam harvest in the fields was harvested in the name of the son'
The 'son' referred to in the above quotation is

This question is based on Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God
The statement 'the new religion was like a leper' means that

This question is based on Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God
''' It is not bravery for a man to beat his wife.
I know a man and his wife must quarrel; there is no abomination in that... No, you may quarrel; but let it not end in fighting...''
These words concern

This question is based on Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God
'The crisis over the New Yam Feast arose because

This question is based on Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God
''....that no man however great was greater than his people; that no one ever won judgement against his clan.''
Achebe's conclusion was that

This question is based on Mariama Ba's So Long a Letter
'....One is a mother to shield when lightning streaks the night, when thunder shakes the earth, when mud bogs knock one down. One is a mother in order to love without beginning or end.'
On what occasion do these lines occur in the novel?

This question is based on Mariama Ba's So Long a Letter
'You forget that I have a heart, a mind, that I am not an object to be passed from hand to hand.
You don't know what marriage means to me....'These words by Ramatoulaye are addressed to

This question is based on Mariama Ba's So Long a Letter
''A wife must understand once and for all, and must forgive; she must not worry herself about 'betrayals of the flesh. The important thing is what there is in the heart.''
These words are spoken by

This question is based on Mariama Ba's So Long a Letter
'If you can procreate without loving, merely to satisfy the pride of your declining mother, then I' find you despicable...'
Whose words are these?

This question is based on Mariama Ba's So Long a Letter
''...The sugar-daddy of the boutique dresses wants to marry Binetou. Just imagine...'''
What is ironical about this statement ?

This question is based on General Literary Principles and Appreciation.
In which of the following genres is the term 'soliloquy' generally used?

This question is based on General Literary Principles and Appreciation.
Blank verse

This question is based on General Literary Principles and Appreciation.
A burlesque is

This question is based on General Literary Principles and Appreciation.
'The dum, dum of the drum' is a good example of

This question is based on General Literary Principles and Appreciation.
One major narrative technique a novel shares with drama is

This question is based on General Literary Principles and Appreciation.
A speech made at the end of a dramatic performance is generally called

This question is based on General Literary Principles and Appreciation.
Assonance occurs when

This question is based on General Literary Principles and Appreciation.
A stanza of three lines linked by rhyme is generally called a

This question is based on General Literary Principles and Appreciation.
A motif is

This question is based on General Literary Principles and Appreciation.
In what type of play would the playwright introduce a comic to relieve tension already built up?

This question is based on General Literary Principles and Appreciation.
'His round cheeks, his round nose, his round chin were a cool, healthy red. In the globe of his face and neatly circular as if drawn in bright crayon, his narrow long, tip tilted eyes, clear a pale blue water, seemed out of place, as if two incompatible strains had collided in making him.'
The picture presented above of a particular individual has

This question is based on General Literary Principles and Appreciation.
'Here lies a great and mighty king
Whose promise none relies on
He never said a foolish thing
Not ever did a wise one'.
The lines above could best from an

This question is based on General Literary Principles and Appreciation.
'See! how she leans her cheek upon her hand;
O! that I wore a glove upon that hand
That predominant figure of speech in these lines is

This question is based on General Literary Principles and Appreciation.
''From here the island of Fogo is a presence
At Sunset
The palm trees are slow singers of farewell
The sail on the sea
Writes in geometry of spume
- departure of he who remains
And the clouds carried by incessant soft breezes
-journey of he who never left!''
Which of the following figures of speech is used prominently in the poem?

This question is based on General Literary Principles and Appreciation.
Though we knew that something was wrong with our society, we made no attempt to assess it.
Trinidad was too unimportant and we could never be convinced of the value of reading the history of a place which was, as everyone said, only a dot on the map of the world.
The Middle Passage by V.S. Naipaul
The writer here maintains that Trinidad

This question is based on General Literary Principles and Appreciation.
'I thank you God for creating me black
For making of me
Porter of all sorrows
Sitting on my head
The World
I wear the Centaur's hide
And I have carried the World since the first morning'.
'I Thank You God' by Benard Dadie
The poet's attitude here is being

This question is based on General Literary Principles and Appreciation.
'...Akosua Nowa has touched my manhood;
Tell her, red ant upon the tree;
If she passes this way, I am gone,
I am gone to load my gun
No matter how hidden deep her treasure,
By my father's coffin I swear
I'll shoot my way to it this day;
Son of the hunter King
There is liquid fire in my gun!
' Akosua Nowa' by Joe de Graft
The beauty of this poem is built upon its

This question is based on General Literary Principles and Appreciation.
'A great city is a battlefield...You need to be a fighter to live in it, not exist, mark you, live. Anybody can exist, dragging his soul around behind him like a worn-out coat; but living is different'
'To Sir with Love' by E.R. Braithwaite
The literary device predominantly used in this passage is

This question is based on General Literary Principles and Appreciation.
The leaves are withered. Roses fold and shrink
Dog, the panting athlete shows his tongue A dwarled shadow flees. Hides under legs. Nuts
wrinkle and crack
'Poems in Four Parts' by W.Kamera
One dominant image presented in the poem above is that of

This question is based on General Literary Principles and Appreciation.

'If it is true that the world talks too much
then let's all keep quiet
and hear the eloquence
of silence'
If it is True' by Richard Ntini
One striking device used by the poet above is

This question is based on selected poems from Wole Soyinka (ed) Poems of Black Africa and D.I. Nwoga (ed) West African Verse.

The Fulani Creation Story' suggests that the basic problem of man is