WAEC SSCE WASSCE 1993 Comprehension passages
COMPREHENSION PASSAGE I
Read the passage below carefully and answer the questions on it.
One afternoon after Ama had laid the table, Kofi Barbon sneaked to the dining room, open a bowl of rice, and sprinkled some powdered substance on it. He was doing the same thing to the soup when Ama who had returned to place a dish of salt on the table caught him red handed. Naturally, she became suspicious.
“Kofi, what are you doing?” She asked, surprised. He shook with fright but turned boldly to face her, his face betraying his guilt, his mood spelling out his wicked act.
“Nothing, I was just trying to find out the kind of meal you’ve served, I wanted to….” That's a big lie, Kofi. why do you want to know?’ “Nothing…..” ‘Hey girl, keep out of this if you desire to live!’
She noticed a small glass bottle in his left hand, which he was trying to hide from view.
“What's in that bottle, Kofi?”
“Nothing…. oh it’s snuff.”
“Let me see it.”
“No.”
“I want to see it.”
“You dare not… if you don't leave me alone, I'll beat you. Even kill you.” Kofi Babon’s manner intensified Ama’s suspicion. “Give me the bottle or I……”
He pushed her violently with his right hand, while the left held the bottle. She launched forward and struck the left hand. The bottle fell on the hard floor and broke in many pieces, with their powder stuff sprinkled on the floor. There he stood like a charging bull, simmering with hate ready for another attack.
‘When will you stop being wicked Babon?’, Kweku ask when with his three friends he burst upon the scene.
‘Dare you call me wicked, you naughty child!’ If you have man get ready to fight. Come on!’ He threatened and stood ready, spoiling for a fight to the finish. ‘Don't mind him, Kweku. He is all out to kill you. Don't give him the chance!’ Ama warned.
‘Kweku, you leave him to me. If he’s a bull, I'm a lion. Come on, if you’ve got some blood still left in your wicked veins’, Ebo challenge team. Without giving Babon any time to decide on my bull rushed on him and a fierce struggle for life began.
The bull and the lion fought furiously, fiercely. How many three friends looked on helplessly but anxiously. All they could do was to shout warnings to Ebo whenever he seemed to be in danger.
Babon charged with the ferocity of a desperate bull. He bent low, got hold of Ebo’s legs and pushing him back with his big head fell him to the floor.
Ama cried for fear Ebo will be killed, for baboon had held his enemy’s neck, trying to strangle him. “Throw him off you, or else he will certainly kill you!” She cried. ‘You're dealing with a desperate bull, Ebo. Give him no chance at all.’ Kweku urged his friend. ‘For goodness sake, push him off you!’
But, fortunately, Ebo heeded the advice. He pulled in his free legs, dug his knees into his enemy’s loins, bit one of his fingers hard and tossed him into the air. The bull fell on the floor with a thud, grabbed his head and knocked it repeatedly against the hard floor, which rendered him almost unconscious. The fighting was over, Ebo had won.
Questions
a) Why did Ama suspect Kofi Babon?
b) What brought about the struggle between Kofi Babon and Ama?
c) Ebo decided to take on Babon. Why?
d) What figure of speech is in this line? “If he is a bull, I am a lion?”
e) For each of the following words underlined in the passage give another word or phrase that means the same and can replace it in the passage:
(i) Sneaked
(ii) betraying
(iii) intensified
(iv) ferocity
(v) thud
(vi) grabbed
f) (i) what is the grammatical name given to the underlined word in the expression
“bit one of his fingers hard”?
(ii) what is its function?
COMPREHENSION PASSAGE II
Read the passage below carefully and answer the questions on it.
Six years later, it was the image of the thread that still appealed most to Gikonyo’s imagination as he walked along a dusty road back to Thabai. He pulled down his heart (he picked up from the side of the road) to hide the tufts of hair over the otherwise bare convict’s head, an impotent gesture, since the hat itself was so badly torn. His heavily patched coat, once white, daily use had turned it yellow and brown, hung loosely from his slouching shoulders. His face which six years before glowed with youth, had developed tiny lines creating, around the mouth when shut, the effect of a permanent scowl as if Gikonyo flared up into violence at the slightest provocation.
The bumpy buttered land sloped on either side. Sickly crops just recovering from a recent drought, dry and cracked, with scattered on the strips of Shamba on either side of the road. Gikonyo, however did not notice the sickliness around as he pressed on with the image of Mumbi he had left behind leading the way. The image beckoned him, awakening in him emotions almost cracked by physical hardships and pains of waiting. Bare, disillusioned in his hope for early independence, he clung to Mumbi and Wangari as the only unchanging reality.
Soon he will meet them. Their thoughts seem to give strength to his tired limbs noticeable in the way he tried to walk faster, the hurrying steps, leaving a thin train of dust behind him. Gikonyo has longed for this moment with increasing despair as each day came and went. The longing was bearable in the first few months of detention. Then the detainees had agreed not to confess the oath or give any details about Mau Mau. How could anybody reveal the binding force of Agikuyu in their call for African freedom? The bore all the ill of the white man believing somehow that he would endure unto the end would receive leaves of victory.
For Gikonyo, these would be given to them by Mumbi, whose trembling hands held the green leaves he could so clearly picture. His reunion with Mumbi would see the birth of a new Kenya.
Questions
(i) From the first paragraph command list any four features that show that the man is not in the best of circumstances.
(ii) Why were the mothers anxious?
(iii) In two sentences state the theme of the passage.
(iv) How does Gikonyo regard Mumbi?
(v) Give four points that describe the setting of the passage.
(vi) State the grammatical name and function of the expression “six years later”.
(vii) For each of the following words, find another word, or phrase that means the same and can replace it in the passage:
i. sprouting
ii. glowed
iii. sickly
iv. pressed,
v. noticeable
vi. endure
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