JAMB Literature in English 1997 Past Questions

This question is based on Wole Soyinka's
The Trials of Brother Jero.
Which of the following qualities best describes Jero's ability to keep his followers?

This question is based on Wole Soyinka's
The Trials of Brother Jero.
JERO: In that case, since, Brother Chume,
your wife seems such a wicked, willful sinner,
I think ....
CHUME: Yes, Holy One...?
JERO: You must take her home tonight...
Jero concedes to Chume taking his wife home and beating her in order to

This question is based on Wole Soyinka's
The Trials of Brother Jero.
CHUME: Who said you were? Does the prophet live here?
SAME MAN: Yes. Over there. That house
CHUME: So...so..so...s...
Chume's reaction in the exchange above reflects

This question is based on Wole Soyinka's
The Trials of Brother Jero.
Jero's opening speech in the is a

This question is based on Wole Soyinka's
The Trials of Brother Jero.
The most sensitive of Jero's disciples is

This question is based on Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops To Conquer.
One of the enriching factors of the comedy is the

This question is based on Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops To Conquer.
The comic in the play is found in the

This question is based on Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops To Conquer.
Mr. Hardcastle asks Young Marlow to leave his house because

This question is based on Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops To Conquer.
'...My son is not to live by his learning. I don't think a boy wants much learning to spend fifteen hundred a year.'
What provokes this response from the speaker is the accusation that

This question is based on Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops To Conquer.
Mrs. Hard: ..Anybody that looks in his face may
see he's consumptive.
Hard: Ay, if growing too fat be one of
the symptoms.
Mrs. Hard: He coughs sometimes,
Hard: Yes, when his liquor goes the wrong way
Mrs. Hard: I'm actually afraid of his lungs.
Hard: And truly so am I;...
What takes place immediately after this brief exchange?

This question is based on selected poems from D. Ker, C. Maduka et al (eds.): New poetry from Africa, Wole Soyinka (ed.): Poems of Black Africa, K.E. Senanu and T. Vincent (eds.): A Selection of African poetry and E.W. Parker (ed.): A Pageant of Longer Poems.
What is the dominant poetic device used in Christopher Okigbo's 'Hurrah for Thunder?

This question is based on selected poems from D. Ker, C. Maduka et al (eds.): New poetry from Africa, Wole Soyinka (ed.): Poems of Black Africa, K.E. Senanu and T. Vincent (eds.): A Selection of African poetry and E.W. Parker (ed.): A Pageant of Longer Poems.
The tone of 'They Too are the Earth' by Osundara is

This question is based on selected poems from D. Ker, C. Maduka et al (eds.): New poetry from Africa, Wole Soyinka (ed.): Poems of Black Africa, K.E. Senanu and T. Vincent (eds.): A Selection of African poetry and E.W. Parker (ed.): A Pageant of Longer Poems.
The disenchantment in Kofi Awoonor's 'Songs of Sorrow' is best explained by the

This question is based on selected poems from D. Ker, C. Maduka et al (eds.): New poetry from Africa, Wole Soyinka (ed.): Poems of Black Africa, K.E. Senanu and T. Vincent (eds.): A Selection of African poetry and E.W. Parker (ed.): A Pageant of Longer Poems.
The phrase, 'pressurized good-breeding' from Wole Soyinka's 'Telephone Conversation', refers to the

This question is based on selected poems from D. Ker, C. Maduka et al (eds.): New poetry from Africa, Wole Soyinka (ed.): Poems of Black Africa, K.E. Senanu and T. Vincent (eds.): A Selection of African poetry and E.W. Parker (ed.): A Pageant of Longer Poems.
The recurrence of the first person pronoun 'I' in Gabriel Okara's 'The callof the River Nun' creates the feeling of

This question is based on selected poems from D. Ker, C. Maduka et al (eds.): New poetry from Africa, Wole Soyinka (ed.): Poems of Black Africa, K.E. Senanu and T. Vincent (eds.): A Selection of African poetry and E.W. Parker (ed.): A Pageant of Longer Poems.
What notion dominates Oswald Mtshali's 'The washerwoman's Prayer'?

This question is based on selected poems from D. Ker, C. Maduka et al (eds.): New poetry from Africa, Wole Soyinka (ed.): Poems of Black Africa, K.E. Senanu and T. Vincent (eds.): A Selection of African poetry and E.W. Parker (ed.): A Pageant of Longer Poems.
'BEHOLD her, single in the field,
You solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;...
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.'
The lines above from William Wordsworth's 'The Solitary Reaper' constitute

This question is based on selected poems from D. Ker, C. Maduka et al (eds.): New poetry from Africa, Wole Soyinka (ed.): Poems of Black Africa, K.E. Senanu and T. Vincent (eds.): A Selection of African poetry and E.W. Parker (ed.): A Pageant of Longer Poems.
In my last Duchess', the poet complains about the Duchess'

This question is based on Zaynab Alkali's The Stillborn.
The two major pervasive sources of social problems in the community of the stillborn are

This question is based on Zaynab Alkali's The Stillborn.
The dialogue at the end of the novel reveals

This question is based on Zaynab Alkali's The Stillborn.
What is the most striking feature of the setting in the novel?

This question is based on Zaynab Alkali's The Stillborn.
What is the author's final message in the novel?

This question is based on Zaynab Alkali's The Stillborn.
Habu Adams ends up in the novel as a

This question is based on Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge.
Susan concealed the true parentage of Elizabeth Jane in order to

This question is based on Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge.
The novel is about growth because

This question is based on Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge.
'Come, 'said Donald quietly, 'a man o'your position should ken better, sir!It is tyrannical and no worthy of you.'
Which of Henchard's actions is tyrannical?

This question is based on Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge.
A major irony in the Henchard-Farfrae relationship is that

This question is based on Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge.
Which of the following events marks the climax of the novel ?

This question is based on General Literary Principles.
Which of the following are literary genres?

This question is based on General Literary Principles.
What is an epic?

This question is based on General Literary Principles.
Point of view is a technique that is commonly associated with

This question is based on General Literary Principles.
The technique found in drama in which the audience knows what the actor does not know is called

This question is based on General Literary Principles.
'From Debbie's room comes the sound of the typewriter. It is an old mechanical typewriter, its noises are metallic and clicking. It chitters onto the end of a line musical, or almost musical 'cling' of the little bell.'
A.S Byatt, 'Artwork'
A striking figure of speech used in the passage above is

This question is based on General Literary Principles.
'When to the Sessions of sweet silent thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past,...
Shakespeare, 'Sonnet XXX'
The lines above contain the predominant use of

This question is based on General Literary Principles.
Hyperbole refers specifically to

This question is based on General Literary Principles.
The term assonance refers of

This question is based on General Literary Principles.
A story which explains the origin of a natural phenomenon is a

This question is based on General Literary Principles.
I have received your letter. By way of a reply, I am beginning this diary, my prop is my distress. Our long association has taught me that confiding in others allays pain.
Mariama Ba, 'So Long a Letter'
By employing the first person narrator, the author of the passage above achieves

This question is based on General Literary Principles.
'There was something very disturbing about his features today, there was something which suggested an untidiness of a sort rather like a cotton dress washed in salty water and worn until it reeks of human sweet. There was something very vulnerable about his looks, something quite restless.
Nuruddin Farah, 'Sweet and Sour Milk'
The passage above illustrates the use of

This question is based on General Literary Principles.
Sound effects in the theater are realizable through the use of

This question is based on General Literary Principles.
When a protagonist is purged of the dominant emotions of pity and fear at the end of a tragedy, it is called

This question is based on General Literary Principles.
When a statement is made on stage to the hearing of only the audience, it is called

This question is based on General Literary Principles.
A playwright who solves the dilemma of his characters by rescuing them from impossible circumstances using extra human device has employed

This question is based on General Literary Principles.
The Christs
are still in performing miracles
in the market places
heroding the masses with imperatives
feeding the hungry
with 21-gun salutes
for victories that are yet to be won.'
Odia Ofeimun, 'The Messiahs'
The attitude of the poet to his subject in the lines above is

This question is based on Literary Principles.
'Otto's wife was a potter. Nessa remembered Sandra Davis telling her this. Not just a wife, not just a mother - as Nessa's own mother had been, as all the women in her childhood were and were expected to be; cooks and floor scrubbers, fanatical table polishers and chairback starchers, nest builders.
Georgina Hammick, 'Habits'
In the passage above, it can be inferred that Otto's wife

This question is based on Literary Principles.

'The reception for this third marriage was being held at the home of the young girl's parents. In this, ancient custom was being more tan just respected, it was revived. The house had been invaded since early morning.
Male female griots welcomed guests'.
Sembene Ousmane, 'Xala'
The atmosphere captured in the passage above is

This question is based on Literary Principles.
'Ocol rejects the old type.
He is in love with a modern woman
He is in love with a beautiful girl
Who speaks English.'
Okot p'Bitek, 'Song of Lawino'
The writer of the lines above

This question is based on Literary Principles.
'SINCE I am coming to that Holy roome,
Where, with thy Quire of Saints for evermore
I shall be made thy Musique; As I come
I tune the Instrument here at the dore,
And what I must doe then, thinke here before.'
John Donne, 'hymn to God my God'
In the stanza above, the poet recognizes that

This question is based on Literary Principles.
'In the arena
They began to sing my song,
We could hear it faintly
Passing through the air'
Okot p'Bitek, 'Song of Lawino'
What is the figure of speech used in the passage above?

This question is based on selected poems from D. Ker, C. Maduka et al (eds.): New poetry from Africa, Wole Soyinka (ed.): Poems of Black Africa, K.E. Senanu and T. Vincent (eds.): A Selection of African poetry and E.W. Parker (ed.): A Pageant of Longer Poems.


In 'Hurrah for Thunder' , Christopher Okigbo recommends