JAMB UTME - Use of English - 1979

Choose the word/expression which best completes each sentence :
You .... to know better than an illiterate farmer

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Choose the expression or word which best complete each sentence:
The hill behind the town was so steep ....

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Choose the expression or word which best complete each sentence:
My little boy is suffering .... jaundice

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Choose the expression or word which best complete each sentences:
It was a long poem but he learnt it ....

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There is one fascinating question that arises out of the contemplation of mud sculpture. Why should anybody use unbaked mud, the most perishable of materials? Is it because no other material is readily available? The question is not easy to answer definitely. Mud, is, of course, the cheapest and most readily available material. Yet there is ample proof that mud is not used merely because it is easy to get hold of and cheap. Many Igbo Mbari houses are the only buildings in the village that have an imported corrugated iron roof – which prove that the people who built them shun no cost to make them look important. In all the areas where I have seen mud sculpture, wood carving and brass casting are also known and practiced. In Yoruba country, stone is also used as a medium for sculpture.
One important thing to realize is that different materials are not necessarily used because they have lasting, durable qualities. In Yoruba country today, brass can only be used by Oshun or Ogboni worshippers. Ivory can only be used by Obatala worshippers, copper by Sonponna, iron by Ogun and so on.
Materials are used for their mystic properties of absorbing or repelling human radiation. The Obatala worshippers used Ivory as protection, in the sense that it is protecting him from the destructive psychic influences of a man whose mentality is basically different or opposed to his. Similarly Oshun worshippers uses brass figure in their shrines – not because brass last longer than wood, but because brass possesses certain magical qualities that are sacred to Oshun.
It is not difficult to understand why mud is considered the appropriate medium for Ala (the Igbo earth goddess). Olokun (the Bini god of the ocean), or Legba (originally an earthgod of the Fon). The fact that the material is perishable and sometimes does not even last five years does not enter into the consideration. One does not interfere with the natural life of a carving. When it perishes, a new one simply has to be made.

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Choose the word/expression which best completes each sentence :
Biliaminu sent the expensive present to one Miss Sanda of the United African Organization and not to .... of the Central Bank of Nigeria

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Choose the option nearest in meaning to the underlined statement or words:
He has a big heart but he inept at following a witty conversion

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Choose the word/expression which best completes each sentence :
The neighbour's children always make ... when she is not at home

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Choose the word/expression which best completes each sentence :
The head of state in his new year broadcast to the nation emphasized the need for Nigerians to regard .... as member of the same family

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The earthly paradises of Bali and of the South Sea Islands, and the gentle, non-acquisitive civilization of Burma, have been aptly described and romanticized. One can add to then the Nicobar Islands, where a small population lived happily on a very low cultural level. But perhaps the most remarkable and the least known of these earthly paradise is the small kingdom of Hunza in the Himalayas, which was recently visited and enthusiastically described by the journalist, Noel Barber (Daily Mail, 5, 6, 8 June 1962). A fair-skinned population of 18,000, they lived in a fertile and almost inaccessible valley not far from the Sinking boarder, 8,000 feet up. A legend has it that they are the descendants of the three deserters from the army of Alexander the Great, who here with Persian wives which makes one inclined to believe that pacifism may be hereditary , because these people had no war in 2,000 years. They have no money, no crime and no diseases, they rarely die before ninety. Their psychosomatic control is almost unbelievable, childbirth is painless, and toothache, a joke; they keep their numbers stationary without contraceptives, and without abortion, but by sheer abstinence, though Noel; Barber saw the newborn son of a chuckling father aged eighty-nine. Their diet which consists of mostly apricot and raw vegetables may have something to do with their unshakable serenity. It makes one gasp with surprise that human nature can be like this. One is reminded of Huxley’s Island, but unlike the Palanese, the Hunza people have no art, only serenity!

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Choose the option nearest in meaning to the underlined statement or words:
One of the stages of the creative process is the incubation period. This refer to the period when

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Choose the expression or word which best complete each sentences:
After our series of quarrels, it would be ....to pretend that i have any more regard for him

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Choose the word/expression which best completes each sentence :
He played the piano .... an hour or two

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Choose the word/expression which best completes each sentence :
The Land Decree does not concern itself with achieving .... in landed property ownership, since those who already own large estates can keep them for good

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Read each passage and answer the question that follow
The learning of a foreign language should be an integral part of every university student’s education. As a discipline, it affords the mind excellent training. It utilizes skills needed in other subjects; the concentration required for memorizing music (not to mention for developing the ear for tone and pitch), the logical thinking for solving mathematical problems, even the deductive reasoning capabilities needed to comprehend philosophical concepts. The mind is stretched through the simple act of learning the grammatical patterns, vocabulary and phonological system of a language. At the same time, the student of a foreign language is acquiring a useful tool. This tool has a double advantage, for while most people (especially teachers) expound on the reward for being able to communicate in a second, third, or fourth language. Perhaps the more promising of the two, is being able to understand and hopefully appreciate another cultural group through their literature, their music and custom – all of which are best assimilated through the medium of their language.

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Choose the option nearest in meaning to the underlined statement or words:
He took a quick look at the poor man, shook his head and took to his heels

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Choose the expression or word which best complete each sentence:
....for the team for six years, he decided to join another

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Choose the expression or word which best complete each sentence:

If he had left home earlier, he .... late

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Mr. Thomas talked .... about the successes of his institute in the past year

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Choose the option nearest in meaning to the underlined words :
I didn't think she could be so easily taken in by his pretences

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Read each passage and answer the question that follow
The learning of a foreign language should be an integral part of every university student’s education. As a discipline, it affords the mind excellent training. It utilizes skills needed in other subjects; the concentration required for memorizing music (not to mention for developing the ear for tone and pitch), the logical thinking for solving mathematical problems, even the deductive reasoning capabilities needed to comprehend philosophical concepts. The mind is stretched through the simple act of learning the grammatical patterns, vocabulary and phonological system of a language. At the same time, the student of a foreign language is acquiring a useful tool. This tool has a double advantage, for while most people (especially teachers) expound on the reward for being able to communicate in a second, third, or fourth language. Perhaps the more promising of the two, is being able to understand and hopefully appreciate another cultural group through their literature, their music and custom – all of which are best assimilated through the medium of their language.

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Choose the word/expression which best completes each sentence :
We ought to stay away .... the robbers come back

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Choose the word/expression which best completes each sentence :
The boycott of classes last year by under-graduates resulted .... the temporary closure of Nigerian Universities

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Choose the option nearest in meaning to the underlined statement or words:
If he were to apologize i would probably forgive him

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They hung around together, the boys from the school up on the hill, School was over. They were expecting the result. One or two got teaching job on St. Alban’s College. It is one of the post-war secondary schools that sprang up in the city because serious people felt the educational need of the country, and possessed a sharp nose for smelling quick money. Boys from up country who were eager to learn, whose parents had a little money, but who could not get into the big school like Achimota and Mfantsipim in Cape Coast, rushed to the new schools, secured lodgings with distance relatives , and bought for a relatively cheap amount some sort of education. His friend Sammy was the history master from Form one to Five and was also put in charge of sports in the distant hope that the school would one day get its own playing field near the mental hospital. There were six hundred students who were all day boys; classes were held in Dr. Dodu’s house. The house was originally built by a man of wealth and a large family. The bedrooms, of which they were eight, were turned into classrooms; toilets were knocked into pantries to provide additional classrooms for the ever growing population of the school. Mr. Anokye, a retired pharmacist, owned the school. He laid great emphasis on science, being a science man himself. He wrote a small-rimmed pair of glasses which made him looks like one of those little black cats on Christmas cards. He had a small voice which squeaked with akpeteshie and a breath a breath like the smell of gun powder. He had spent many years at Kole Bu Hospital where he drank the methylated spirit meant to be supplied to laboratory assistants. He was dedicated to learning, in scholar in many ways. He knew Archimedes’ principle. Whenever he shouted, during terminal examinations, his battle cry of Eureka! Eureka! Then he had caught someone cheating, someone looking over his mate’s answer sheet. Mr. Anokye came from a long line of scholars. He claimed his grandfather went to England with Reverend T.A Barnes, D. D., who was the Anglican Bishop of Cape Coast Diocese from 1896 to 1909. He was dedicated to his work. He interviewed Sammy himself, questioned him about his parentage and religious background, listened to him carefully, and decided to appoint him on a salary or six pounds per month pending the outcome of his Cambridge School Certificate examination. He questioned him closely on history, especially the Glorious Revolution, and Oliver Cromwell.

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Choose the option nearest in meaning to the underlined words :
The story told by the suspect was difficult to believe

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Choose the expression or word which best complete each sentences:
The governor commended the society's .... services to the nation

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Choose the word/expression which best completes each sentence :
The teacher asked if she .... seen her boyfriend recently

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Read each passage and answer the question that follow
The learning of a foreign language should be an integral part of every university student’s education. As a discipline, it affords the mind excellent training. It utilizes skills needed in other subjects; the concentration required for memorizing music (not to mention for developing the ear for tone and pitch), the logical thinking for solving mathematical problems, even the deductive reasoning capabilities needed to comprehend philosophical concepts. The mind is stretched through the simple act of learning the grammatical patterns, vocabulary and phonological system of a language. At the same time, the student of a foreign language is acquiring a useful tool. This tool has a double advantage, for while most people (especially teachers) expound on the reward for being able to communicate in a second, third, or fourth language. Perhaps the more promising of the two, is being able to understand and hopefully appreciate another cultural group through their literature, their music and custom – all of which are best assimilated through the medium of their language.

Answer Details

Choose the expression or word which best complete each sentences:
Many of those who .... the country's educational policy have taught for many years

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Choose the word/expression which best completes each sentence :
The solution to the problem has so far .... the scientist

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They hung around together, the boys from the school up on the hill, School was over. They were expecting the result. One or two got teaching job on St. Alban’s College. It is one of the post-war secondary schools that sprang up in the city because serious people felt the educational need of the country, and possessed a sharp nose for smelling quick money. Boys from up country who were eager to learn, whose parents had a little money, but who could not get into the big school like Achimota and Mfantsipim in Cape Coast, rushed to the new schools, secured lodgings with distance relatives , and bought for a relatively cheap amount some sort of education. His friend Sammy was the history master from Form one to Five and was also put in charge of sports in the distant hope that the school would one day get its own playing field near the mental hospital. There were six hundred students who were all day boys; classes were held in Dr. Dodu’s house. The house was originally built by a man of wealth and a large family. The bedrooms, of which they were eight, were turned into classrooms; toilets were knocked into pantries to provide additional classrooms for the ever growing population of the school. Mr. Anokye, a retired pharmacist, owned the school. He laid great emphasis on science, being a science man himself. He wrote a small-rimmed pair of glasses which made him looks like one of those little black cats on Christmas cards. He had a small voice which squeaked with akpeteshie and a breath a breath like the smell of gun powder. He had spent many years at Kole Bu Hospital where he drank the methylated spirit meant to be supplied to laboratory assistants. He was dedicated to learning, in scholar in many ways. He knew Archimedes’ principle. Whenever he shouted, during terminal examinations, his battle cry of Eureka! Eureka! Then he had caught someone cheating, someone looking over his mate’s answer sheet. Mr. Anokye came from a long line of scholars. He claimed his grandfather went to England with Reverend T.A Barnes, D. D., who was the Anglican Bishop of Cape Coast Diocese from 1896 to 1909. He was dedicated to his work. He interviewed Sammy himself, questioned him about his parentage and religious background, listened to him carefully, and decided to appoint him on a salary or six pounds per month pending the outcome of his Cambridge School Certificate examination. He questioned him closely on history, especially the Glorious Revolution, and Oliver Cromwell.

Answer Details

Choose the word/expression which best completes each sentence :
The principal will be going away on leave. In his absence, the vice president will .... the school

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Choose the expression or word which best complete each sentence:
The bridge connecting the two cities was .... by the enemy

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  No journey can be quite soothing as a voyage on the Nile from Cairo to Philae. Day after day as you sails upstream nothing in the general pattern changes. Tonight’s incredibly bright stars are the same as last night’s and tomorrow’s. Each new bend in the river discloses the same buffalo circling his waterwheel, the same pigeon-lofts on the houses, the same dark Egyptian faces swathed in white.
The banks are surprisingly green, a patchwork of rice fields and sugarcane, of palms and eucalyptus, and then beyond them, like a frame set around a picture; one sees the desert and the hills. There is always s a movement somewhere, but it is of a gentle, ambulatory, kind and one feels oneself going along in a rhythm with the processions of camels and donkeys on the bank, and the feluccas gliding by, and the buffalo, released at last from his wheel, sliding to the blessed coolness of the water in the evening. Occasionally a whiff of humanity comes out from the mud-hut villages on the shore, and it contains traces of the smoke of cooking forest, of dried cow-dung and of Turkish coffee, of some sweet and heavy scent, jasmine perhaps, and of water sprinkled on the dust. It is not unpleasant.
Lying on deck, one idly observes the flight of birds, one dream one lets the hours go by, and nothing can be more satisfying than the sight of the brown pillars of a ruined temple that has been standing alone on the edge of the desert for the last two thousand years. This is the past joining the present in a comfortably deceptive glow, and the traveller, like a spectator in a theater, remains detached from the both, he would not for the world live in the dust and squalor of these villages he finds so picturesque, and the ancient ruins he has come to see do not really evoke the early civilization of the Egyptians.

Answer Details

There is one fascinating question that arises out of the contemplation of mud sculpture. Why should anybody use unbaked mud, the most perishable of materials? Is it because no other material is readily available? The question is not easy to answer definitely. Mud, is, of course, the cheapest and most readily available material. Yet there is ample proof that mud is not used merely because it is easy to get hold of and cheap. Many Igbo Mbari houses are the only buildings in the village that have an imported corrugated iron roof – which prove that the people who built them shun no cost to make them look important. In all the areas where I have seen mud sculpture, wood carving and brass casting are also known and practiced. In Yoruba country, stone is also used as a medium for sculpture.
One important thing to realize is that different materials are not necessarily used because they have lasting, durable qualities. In Yoruba country today, brass can only be used by Oshun or Ogboni worshippers. Ivory can only be used by Obatala worshippers, copper by Sonponna, iron by Ogun and so on.
Materials are used for their mystic properties of absorbing or repelling human radiation. The Obatala worshippers used Ivory as protection, in the sense that it is protecting him from the destructive psychic influences of a man whose mentality is basically different or opposed to his. Similarly Oshun worshippers uses brass figure in their shrines – not because brass last longer than wood, but because brass possesses certain magical qualities that are sacred to Oshun.
It is not difficult to understand why mud is considered the appropriate medium for Ala (the Igbo earth goddess). Olokun (the Bini god of the ocean), or Legba (originally an earthgod of the Fon). The fact that the material is perishable and sometimes does not even last five years does not enter into the consideration. One does not interfere with the natural life of a carving. When it perishes, a new one simply has to be made.

Answer Details

Choose the expression or word which best complete each sentence:
They went to the market and bought a suitcase and .... bag

Answer Details

The earthly paradises of Bali and of the South Sea Islands, and the gentle, non-acquisitive civilization of Burma, have been aptly described and romanticized. One can add to then the Nicobar Islands, where a small population lived happily on a very low cultural level. But perhaps the most remarkable and the least known of these earthly paradise is the small kingdom of Hunza in the Himalayas, which was recently visited and enthusiastically described by the journalist, Noel Barber (Daily Mail, 5, 6, 8 June 1962). A fair-skinned population of 18,000, they lived in a fertile and almost inaccessible valley not far from the Sinking boarder, 8,000 feet up. A legend has it that they are the descendants of the three deserters from the army of Alexander the Great, who here with Persian wives which makes one inclined to believe that pacifism may be hereditary , because these people had no war in 2,000 years. They have no money, no crime and no diseases, they rarely die before ninety. Their psychosomatic control is almost unbelievable, childbirth is painless, and toothache, a joke; they keep their numbers stationary without contraceptives, and without abortion, but by sheer abstinence, though Noel; Barber saw the newborn son of a chuckling father aged eighty-nine. Their diet which consists of mostly apricot and raw vegetables may have something to do with their unshakable serenity. It makes one gasp with surprise that human nature can be like this. One is reminded of Huxley’s Island, but unlike the Palanese, the Hunza people have no art, only serenity!

Answer Details

The earthly paradises of Bali and of the South Sea Islands, and the gentle, non-acquisitive civilization of Burma, have been aptly described and romanticized. One can add to then the Nicobar Islands, where a small population lived happily on a very low cultural level. But perhaps the most remarkable and the least known of these earthly paradise is the small kingdom of Hunza in the Himalayas, which was recently visited and enthusiastically described by the journalist, Noel Barber (Daily Mail, 5, 6, 8 June 1962). A fair-skinned population of 18,000, they lived in a fertile and almost inaccessible valley not far from the Sinking boarder, 8,000 feet up. A legend has it that they are the descendants of the three deserters from the army of Alexander the Great, who here with Persian wives which makes one inclined to believe that pacifism may be hereditary , because these people had no war in 2,000 years. They have no money, no crime and no diseases, they rarely die before ninety. Their psychosomatic control is almost unbelievable, childbirth is painless, and toothache, a joke; they keep their numbers stationary without contraceptives, and without abortion, but by sheer abstinence, though Noel; Barber saw the newborn son of a chuckling father aged eighty-nine. Their diet which consists of mostly apricot and raw vegetables may have something to do with their unshakable serenity. It makes one gasp with surprise that human nature can be like this. One is reminded of Huxley’s Island, but unlike the Palanese, the Hunza people have no art, only serenity!

Answer Details

  No journey can be quite soothing as a voyage on the Nile from Cairo to Philae. Day after day as you sails upstream nothing in the general pattern changes. Tonight’s incredibly bright stars are the same as last night’s and tomorrow’s. Each new bend in the river discloses the same buffalo circling his waterwheel, the same pigeon-lofts on the houses, the same dark Egyptian faces swathed in white.
The banks are surprisingly green, a patchwork of rice fields and sugarcane, of palms and eucalyptus, and then beyond them, like a frame set around a picture; one sees the desert and the hills. There is always s a movement somewhere, but it is of a gentle, ambulatory, kind and one feels oneself going along in a rhythm with the processions of camels and donkeys on the bank, and the feluccas gliding by, and the buffalo, released at last from his wheel, sliding to the blessed coolness of the water in the evening. Occasionally a whiff of humanity comes out from the mud-hut villages on the shore, and it contains traces of the smoke of cooking forest, of dried cow-dung and of Turkish coffee, of some sweet and heavy scent, jasmine perhaps, and of water sprinkled on the dust. It is not unpleasant.
Lying on deck, one idly observes the flight of birds, one dream one lets the hours go by, and nothing can be more satisfying than the sight of the brown pillars of a ruined temple that has been standing alone on the edge of the desert for the last two thousand years. This is the past joining the present in a comfortably deceptive glow, and the traveller, like a spectator in a theater, remains detached from the both, he would not for the world live in the dust and squalor of these villages he finds so picturesque, and the ancient ruins he has come to see do not really evoke the early civilization of the Egyptians.

Answer Details

Choose the option nearest in meaning to the underlined words :
Most of his observations were wide of the mark

Answer Details

They hung around together, the boys from the school up on the hill, School was over. They were expecting the result. One or two got teaching job on St. Alban’s College. It is one of the post-war secondary schools that sprang up in the city because serious people felt the educational need of the country, and possessed a sharp nose for smelling quick money. Boys from up country who were eager to learn, whose parents had a little money, but who could not get into the big school like Achimota and Mfantsipim in Cape Coast, rushed to the new schools, secured lodgings with distance relatives , and bought for a relatively cheap amount some sort of education. His friend Sammy was the history master from Form one to Five and was also put in charge of sports in the distant hope that the school would one day get its own playing field near the mental hospital. There were six hundred students who were all day boys; classes were held in Dr. Dodu’s house. The house was originally built by a man of wealth and a large family. The bedrooms, of which they were eight, were turned into classrooms; toilets were knocked into pantries to provide additional classrooms for the ever growing population of the school. Mr. Anokye, a retired pharmacist, owned the school. He laid great emphasis on science, being a science man himself. He wrote a small-rimmed pair of glasses which made him looks like one of those little black cats on Christmas cards. He had a small voice which squeaked with akpeteshie and a breath a breath like the smell of gun powder. He had spent many years at Kole Bu Hospital where he drank the methylated spirit meant to be supplied to laboratory assistants. He was dedicated to learning, in scholar in many ways. He knew Archimedes’ principle. Whenever he shouted, during terminal examinations, his battle cry of Eureka! Eureka! Then he had caught someone cheating, someone looking over his mate’s answer sheet. Mr. Anokye came from a long line of scholars. He claimed his grandfather went to England with Reverend T.A Barnes, D. D., who was the Anglican Bishop of Cape Coast Diocese from 1896 to 1909. He was dedicated to his work. He interviewed Sammy himself, questioned him about his parentage and religious background, listened to him carefully, and decided to appoint him on a salary or six pounds per month pending the outcome of his Cambridge School Certificate examination. He questioned him closely on history, especially the Glorious Revolution, and Oliver Cromwell.

Answer Details

Choose the option nearest in meaning to the underlined words : As he was a gullible leader his followers took advantage of him

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Choose the expression or word which best complete each sentences:
The member of the panel were ....

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Choose the word/expression which best completes each sentence :
The executive President honoured the messenger with the Grand Commander of the Niger award .... his industries and meritorious services to the nation

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The earthly paradises of Bali and of the South Sea Islands, and the gentle, non-acquisitive civilization of Burma, have been aptly described and romanticized. One can add to then the Nicobar Islands, where a small population lived happily on a very low cultural level. But perhaps the most remarkable and the least known of these earthly paradise is the small kingdom of Hunza in the Himalayas, which was recently visited and enthusiastically described by the journalist, Noel Barber (Daily Mail, 5, 6, 8 June 1962). A fair-skinned population of 18,000, they lived in a fertile and almost inaccessible valley not far from the Sinking boarder, 8,000 feet up. A legend has it that they are the descendants of the three deserters from the army of Alexander the Great, who here with Persian wives which makes one inclined to believe that pacifism may be hereditary , because these people had no war in 2,000 years. They have no money, no crime and no diseases, they rarely die before ninety. Their psychosomatic control is almost unbelievable, childbirth is painless, and toothache, a joke; they keep their numbers stationary without contraceptives, and without abortion, but by sheer abstinence, though Noel; Barber saw the newborn son of a chuckling father aged eighty-nine. Their diet which consists of mostly apricot and raw vegetables may have something to do with their unshakable serenity. It makes one gasp with surprise that human nature can be like this. One is reminded of Huxley’s Island, but unlike the Palanese, the Hunza people have no art, only serenity!

Answer Details

There is one fascinating question that arises out of the contemplation of mud sculpture. Why should anybody use unbaked mud, the most perishable of materials? Is it because no other material is readily available? The question is not easy to answer definitely. Mud, is, of course, the cheapest and most readily available material. Yet there is ample proof that mud is not used merely because it is easy to get hold of and cheap. Many Igbo Mbari houses are the only buildings in the village that have an imported corrugated iron roof – which prove that the people who built them shun no cost to make them look important. In all the areas where I have seen mud sculpture, wood carving and brass casting are also known and practiced. In Yoruba country, stone is also used as a medium for sculpture.
One important thing to realize is that different materials are not necessarily used because they have lasting, durable qualities. In Yoruba country today, brass can only be used by Oshun or Ogboni worshippers. Ivory can only be used by Obatala worshippers, copper by Sonponna, iron by Ogun and so on.
Materials are used for their mystic properties of absorbing or repelling human radiation. The Obatala worshippers used Ivory as protection, in the sense that it is protecting him from the destructive psychic influences of a man whose mentality is basically different or opposed to his. Similarly Oshun worshippers uses brass figure in their shrines – not because brass last longer than wood, but because brass possesses certain magical qualities that are sacred to Oshun.
It is not difficult to understand why mud is considered the appropriate medium for Ala (the Igbo earth goddess). Olokun (the Bini god of the ocean), or Legba (originally an earthgod of the Fon). The fact that the material is perishable and sometimes does not even last five years does not enter into the consideration. One does not interfere with the natural life of a carving. When it perishes, a new one simply has to be made.

Answer Details

Choose the option nearest in meaning to the underlined words :
The clerk refused to answer for the mistake made by the manager and his assistants

Answer Details

There is one fascinating question that arises out of the contemplation of mud sculpture. Why should anybody use unbaked mud, the most perishable of materials? Is it because no other material is readily available? The question is not easy to answer definitely. Mud, is, of course, the cheapest and most readily available material. Yet there is ample proof that mud is not used merely because it is easy to get hold of and cheap. Many Igbo Mbari houses are the only buildings in the village that have an imported corrugated iron roof – which prove that the people who built them shun no cost to make them look important. In all the areas where I have seen mud sculpture, wood carving and brass casting are also known and practiced. In Yoruba country, stone is also used as a medium for sculpture.
One important thing to realize is that different materials are not necessarily used because they have lasting, durable qualities. In Yoruba country today, brass can only be used by Oshun or Ogboni worshippers. Ivory can only be used by Obatala worshippers, copper by Sonponna, iron by Ogun and so on.
Materials are used for their mystic properties of absorbing or repelling human radiation. The Obatala worshippers used Ivory as protection, in the sense that it is protecting him from the destructive psychic influences of a man whose mentality is basically different or opposed to his. Similarly Oshun worshippers uses brass figure in their shrines – not because brass last longer than wood, but because brass possesses certain magical qualities that are sacred to Oshun.
It is not difficult to understand why mud is considered the appropriate medium for Ala (the Igbo earth goddess). Olokun (the Bini god of the ocean), or Legba (originally an earthgod of the Fon). The fact that the material is perishable and sometimes does not even last five years does not enter into the consideration. One does not interfere with the natural life of a carving. When it perishes, a new one simply has to be made.

Answer Details

Choose the expression or word which best complete each sentences:

If the company had any delay at the customs office, it was .... their own making

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Choose the word/expression which best completes each sentence :
We travelled all night and arrived .... the oyo motor park at six o'clock in the morning

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Choose the word/expression which best completes each sentence :
The benefit one gets from watching plays .... comparable to that found in taking a university course in drama

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Choose the option nearest in meaning to the underlined words :
After completing half of the journey, all the travellers could do was trudge along

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Choose the option nearest in meaning to the underlined words :
Do you have the same aversion as i do for way film?

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Choose the expression or word which best complete each sentences:
There is an obvious need to ward .... enemy attacks

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Choose the word/expression which best completes each sentence :
the world bank team which visited the land-lock country .... a bleak economic future for it

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Choose the correct option that completes the following sentence:
The young teacher was surprised that is promotion was approved by the old inspector who is generally known to ....

Answer Details

  No journey can be quite soothing as a voyage on the Nile from Cairo to Philae. Day after day as you sails upstream nothing in the general pattern changes. Tonight’s incredibly bright stars are the same as last night’s and tomorrow’s. Each new bend in the river discloses the same buffalo circling his waterwheel, the same pigeon-lofts on the houses, the same dark Egyptian faces swathed in white.
The banks are surprisingly green, a patchwork of rice fields and sugarcane, of palms and eucalyptus, and then beyond them, like a frame set around a picture; one sees the desert and the hills. There is always s a movement somewhere, but it is of a gentle, ambulatory, kind and one feels oneself going along in a rhythm with the processions of camels and donkeys on the bank, and the feluccas gliding by, and the buffalo, released at last from his wheel, sliding to the blessed coolness of the water in the evening. Occasionally a whiff of humanity comes out from the mud-hut villages on the shore, and it contains traces of the smoke of cooking forest, of dried cow-dung and of Turkish coffee, of some sweet and heavy scent, jasmine perhaps, and of water sprinkled on the dust. It is not unpleasant.
Lying on deck, one idly observes the flight of birds, one dream one lets the hours go by, and nothing can be more satisfying than the sight of the brown pillars of a ruined temple that has been standing alone on the edge of the desert for the last two thousand years. This is the past joining the present in a comfortably deceptive glow, and the traveller, like a spectator in a theater, remains detached from the both, he would not for the world live in the dust and squalor of these villages he finds so picturesque, and the ancient ruins he has come to see do not really evoke the early civilization of the Egyptians.

Answer Details

Choose the word/expression which best completes each sentence :
During the inaugural address, the president .... the activities of his government for the past four years

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He sent the children out to play .... he might be alone

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The chairman of the company was very sympathetic .... his staff

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Publishers say that newsprint has become more expensive

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Good citizens should take the part of a good government when it is being attacked by the foreign press

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Jane asked James ....

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There is one fascinating question that arises out of the contemplation of mud sculpture. Why should anybody use unbaked mud, the most perishable of materials? Is it because no other material is readily available? The question is not easy to answer definitely. Mud, is, of course, the cheapest and most readily available material. Yet there is ample proof that mud is not used merely because it is easy to get hold of and cheap. Many Igbo Mbari houses are the only buildings in the village that have an imported corrugated iron roof – which prove that the people who built them shun no cost to make them look important. In all the areas where I have seen mud sculpture, wood carving and brass casting are also known and practiced. In Yoruba country, stone is also used as a medium for sculpture.
One important thing to realize is that different materials are not necessarily used because they have lasting, durable qualities. In Yoruba country today, brass can only be used by Oshun or Ogboni worshippers. Ivory can only be used by Obatala worshippers, copper by Sonponna, iron by Ogun and so on.
Materials are used for their mystic properties of absorbing or repelling human radiation. The Obatala worshippers used Ivory as protection, in the sense that it is protecting him from the destructive psychic influences of a man whose mentality is basically different or opposed to his. Similarly Oshun worshippers uses brass figure in their shrines – not because brass last longer than wood, but because brass possesses certain magical qualities that are sacred to Oshun.
It is not difficult to understand why mud is considered the appropriate medium for Ala (the Igbo earth goddess). Olokun (the Bini god of the ocean), or Legba (originally an earthgod of the Fon). The fact that the material is perishable and sometimes does not even last five years does not enter into the consideration. One does not interfere with the natural life of a carving. When it perishes, a new one simply has to be made.

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A society .... individuals each of whom has his attributes and distinct characteristics

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The earthly paradises of Bali and of the South Sea Islands, and the gentle, non-acquisitive civilization of Burma, have been aptly described and romanticized. One can add to then the Nicobar Islands, where a small population lived happily on a very low cultural level. But perhaps the most remarkable and the least known of these earthly paradise is the small kingdom of Hunza in the Himalayas, which was recently visited and enthusiastically described by the journalist, Noel Barber (Daily Mail, 5, 6, 8 June 1962). A fair-skinned population of 18,000, they lived in a fertile and almost inaccessible valley not far from the Sinking boarder, 8,000 feet up. A legend has it that they are the descendants of the three deserters from the army of Alexander the Great, who here with Persian wives which makes one inclined to believe that pacifism may be hereditary , because these people had no war in 2,000 years. They have no money, no crime and no diseases, they rarely die before ninety. Their psychosomatic control is almost unbelievable, childbirth is painless, and toothache, a joke; they keep their numbers stationary without contraceptives, and without abortion, but by sheer abstinence, though Noel; Barber saw the newborn son of a chuckling father aged eighty-nine. Their diet which consists of mostly apricot and raw vegetables may have something to do with their unshakable serenity. It makes one gasp with surprise that human nature can be like this. One is reminded of Huxley’s Island, but unlike the Palanese, the Hunza people have no art, only serenity!

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We ought to stay away .... the robbers come back

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The giant hydro-electric project is among the .... colonial rule in Southern Africa.

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They hung around together, the boys from the school up on the hill, School was over. They were expecting the result. One or two got teaching job on St. Alban’s College. It is one of the post-war secondary schools that sprang up in the city because serious people felt the educational need of the country, and possessed a sharp nose for smelling quick money. Boys from up country who were eager to learn, whose parents had a little money, but who could not get into the big school like Achimota and Mfantsipim in Cape Coast, rushed to the new schools, secured lodgings with distance relatives , and bought for a relatively cheap amount some sort of education. His friend Sammy was the history master from Form one to Five and was also put in charge of sports in the distant hope that the school would one day get its own playing field near the mental hospital. There were six hundred students who were all day boys; classes were held in Dr. Dodu’s house. The house was originally built by a man of wealth and a large family. The bedrooms, of which they were eight, were turned into classrooms; toilets were knocked into pantries to provide additional classrooms for the ever growing population of the school. Mr. Anokye, a retired pharmacist, owned the school. He laid great emphasis on science, being a science man himself. He wrote a small-rimmed pair of glasses which made him looks like one of those little black cats on Christmas cards. He had a small voice which squeaked with akpeteshie and a breath a breath like the smell of gun powder. He had spent many years at Kole Bu Hospital where he drank the methylated spirit meant to be supplied to laboratory assistants. He was dedicated to learning, in scholar in many ways. He knew Archimedes’ principle. Whenever he shouted, during terminal examinations, his battle cry of Eureka! Eureka! Then he had caught someone cheating, someone looking over his mate’s answer sheet. Mr. Anokye came from a long line of scholars. He claimed his grandfather went to England with Reverend T.A Barnes, D. D., who was the Anglican Bishop of Cape Coast Diocese from 1896 to 1909. He was dedicated to his work. He interviewed Sammy himself, questioned him about his parentage and religious background, listened to him carefully, and decided to appoint him on a salary or six pounds per month pending the outcome of his Cambridge School Certificate examination. He questioned him closely on history, especially the Glorious Revolution, and Oliver Cromwell.

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Complete the following with the appropriate answer to the question:

John would you mind lifting this box?

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The Nigerian society of Engineers has set up .... to study the nation's problems

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  No journey can be quite soothing as a voyage on the Nile from Cairo to Philae. Day after day as you sails upstream nothing in the general pattern changes. Tonight’s incredibly bright stars are the same as last night’s and tomorrow’s. Each new bend in the river discloses the same buffalo circling his waterwheel, the same pigeon-lofts on the houses, the same dark Egyptian faces swathed in white.
The banks are surprisingly green, a patchwork of rice fields and sugarcane, of palms and eucalyptus, and then beyond them, like a frame set around a picture; one sees the desert and the hills. There is always s a movement somewhere, but it is of a gentle, ambulatory, kind and one feels oneself going along in a rhythm with the processions of camels and donkeys on the bank, and the feluccas gliding by, and the buffalo, released at last from his wheel, sliding to the blessed coolness of the water in the evening. Occasionally a whiff of humanity comes out from the mud-hut villages on the shore, and it contains traces of the smoke of cooking forest, of dried cow-dung and of Turkish coffee, of some sweet and heavy scent, jasmine perhaps, and of water sprinkled on the dust. It is not unpleasant.
Lying on deck, one idly observes the flight of birds, one dream one lets the hours go by, and nothing can be more satisfying than the sight of the brown pillars of a ruined temple that has been standing alone on the edge of the desert for the last two thousand years. This is the past joining the present in a comfortably deceptive glow, and the traveller, like a spectator in a theater, remains detached from the both, he would not for the world live in the dust and squalor of these villages he finds so picturesque, and the ancient ruins he has come to see do not really evoke the early civilization of the Egyptians.

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Do you know if the new teacher .... yet?

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The politicians have a number of peculiarities. The most conspicuous is the way he gesticulates when making a serious point

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  No journey can be quite soothing as a voyage on the Nile from Cairo to Philae. Day after day as you sails upstream nothing in the general pattern changes. Tonight’s incredibly bright stars are the same as last night’s and tomorrow’s. Each new bend in the river discloses the same buffalo circling his waterwheel, the same pigeon-lofts on the houses, the same dark Egyptian faces swathed in white.
The banks are surprisingly green, a patchwork of rice fields and sugarcane, of palms and eucalyptus, and then beyond them, like a frame set around a picture; one sees the desert and the hills. There is always s a movement somewhere, but it is of a gentle, ambulatory, kind and one feels oneself going along in a rhythm with the processions of camels and donkeys on the bank, and the feluccas gliding by, and the buffalo, released at last from his wheel, sliding to the blessed coolness of the water in the evening. Occasionally a whiff of humanity comes out from the mud-hut villages on the shore, and it contains traces of the smoke of cooking forest, of dried cow-dung and of Turkish coffee, of some sweet and heavy scent, jasmine perhaps, and of water sprinkled on the dust. It is not unpleasant.
Lying on deck, one idly observes the flight of birds, one dream one lets the hours go by, and nothing can be more satisfying than the sight of the brown pillars of a ruined temple that has been standing alone on the edge of the desert for the last two thousand years. This is the past joining the present in a comfortably deceptive glow, and the traveller, like a spectator in a theater, remains detached from the both, he would not for the world live in the dust and squalor of these villages he finds so picturesque, and the ancient ruins he has come to see do not really evoke the early civilization of the Egyptians.

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This writer analyses the evil society ....

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The project which seemed very near realization .... because of lack of funds

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Walking down the street ....

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Ikorodu is not far from here, it is only an ....

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By the end of this year, .... in this town for eleven years

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In 1966, the Military .... because of the tragic failure of the civilian politicians

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The crux of the matter is that the president has just become aware of the mismanagement

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It is time we ....

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How will the committee's decision .... you?

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Read each passage and answer the question that follow
The learning of a foreign language should be an integral part of every university student’s education. As a discipline, it affords the mind excellent training. It utilizes skills needed in other subjects; the concentration required for memorizing music (not to mention for developing the ear for tone and pitch), the logical thinking for solving mathematical problems, even the deductive reasoning capabilities needed to comprehend philosophical concepts. The mind is stretched through the simple act of learning the grammatical patterns, vocabulary and phonological system of a language. At the same time, the student of a foreign language is acquiring a useful tool. This tool has a double advantage, for while most people (especially teachers) expound on the reward for being able to communicate in a second, third, or fourth language. Perhaps the more promising of the two, is being able to understand and hopefully appreciate another cultural group through their literature, their music and custom – all of which are best assimilated through the medium of their language.

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His summary of the meeting was brief and to the point

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I saw you walking in that direction but i did not know exactly ....

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The earthly paradises of Bali and of the South Sea Islands, and the gentle, non-acquisitive civilization of Burma, have been aptly described and romanticized. One can add to then the Nicobar Islands, where a small population lived happily on a very low cultural level. But perhaps the most remarkable and the least known of these earthly paradise is the small kingdom of Hunza in the Himalayas, which was recently visited and enthusiastically described by the journalist, Noel Barber (Daily Mail, 5, 6, 8 June 1962). A fair-skinned population of 18,000, they lived in a fertile and almost inaccessible valley not far from the Sinking boarder, 8,000 feet up. A legend has it that they are the descendants of the three deserters from the army of Alexander the Great, who here with Persian wives which makes one inclined to believe that pacifism may be hereditary , because these people had no war in 2,000 years. They have no money, no crime and no diseases, they rarely die before ninety. Their psychosomatic control is almost unbelievable, childbirth is painless, and toothache, a joke; they keep their numbers stationary without contraceptives, and without abortion, but by sheer abstinence, though Noel; Barber saw the newborn son of a chuckling father aged eighty-nine. Their diet which consists of mostly apricot and raw vegetables may have something to do with their unshakable serenity. It makes one gasp with surprise that human nature can be like this. One is reminded of Huxley’s Island, but unlike the Palanese, the Hunza people have no art, only serenity!

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Choose the option nearest in meaning to the underlined statement or words:
Had she asked me earlier, i might have been able to employ him

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Choose the word/expression which best completes each sentence :The candidate looked .... after finishing the examination

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They hung around together, the boys from the school up on the hill, School was over. They were expecting the result. One or two got teaching job on St. Alban’s College. It is one of the post-war secondary schools that sprang up in the city because serious people felt the educational need of the country, and possessed a sharp nose for smelling quick money. Boys from up country who were eager to learn, whose parents had a little money, but who could not get into the big school like Achimota and Mfantsipim in Cape Coast, rushed to the new schools, secured lodgings with distance relatives , and bought for a relatively cheap amount some sort of education. His friend Sammy was the history master from Form one to Five and was also put in charge of sports in the distant hope that the school would one day get its own playing field near the mental hospital. There were six hundred students who were all day boys; classes were held in Dr. Dodu’s house. The house was originally built by a man of wealth and a large family. The bedrooms, of which they were eight, were turned into classrooms; toilets were knocked into pantries to provide additional classrooms for the ever growing population of the school. Mr. Anokye, a retired pharmacist, owned the school. He laid great emphasis on science, being a science man himself. He wrote a small-rimmed pair of glasses which made him looks like one of those little black cats on Christmas cards. He had a small voice which squeaked with akpeteshie and a breath a breath like the smell of gun powder. He had spent many years at Kole Bu Hospital where he drank the methylated spirit meant to be supplied to laboratory assistants. He was dedicated to learning, in scholar in many ways. He knew Archimedes’ principle. Whenever he shouted, during terminal examinations, his battle cry of Eureka! Eureka! Then he had caught someone cheating, someone looking over his mate’s answer sheet. Mr. Anokye came from a long line of scholars. He claimed his grandfather went to England with Reverend T.A Barnes, D. D., who was the Anglican Bishop of Cape Coast Diocese from 1896 to 1909. He was dedicated to his work. He interviewed Sammy himself, questioned him about his parentage and religious background, listened to him carefully, and decided to appoint him on a salary or six pounds per month pending the outcome of his Cambridge School Certificate examination. He questioned him closely on history, especially the Glorious Revolution, and Oliver Cromwell.

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Choose the option nearest in meaning to the underlined words :
In spite of the loud music, John soon managed to fall asleep

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David can only become more mature through .... to life outside his home

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Had he known he .... away

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The new leader has a good intentions, but he is unable to ....

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The witness was guilty of swearing to a statement he knew to be false

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Choose the option nearest in meaning to the underline statement or word. My Headmaster is getting old. His mates have been retired. But because of his zeal for work, he has been retained.

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He got a standing ovation for his speech

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He heard the loud noise of the huge air-raid siren

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