Read the passage carefully and answer this question.

May your road be rough. I am not cursing you: I am wishing you what I wish myself every year, I therefore repeat, may you have a hard time this year. May there be troubles for you this year. If you are not sure of what to say back, why not just say "same to you" – I ask for no more.

Our successes are conditioned by the amount of risk we are about to take. Earlier today, I visited a local farmer about five kilometers from where I live. He could not have been 55, but he said he was already too old to farm vigorously. He still suffered, he said, from the energy he displayed as a farmer in his younger days. Around his hut were two pepperbushes. There were cocoyam growing around him. There were snail shells which had given him meat. There must have been more snails around the banana trees than I saw. He hardly ever went to town to buy things. He was self-sufficient. The car, the television or radio and the newspaper were things he could live without. He had no ambition whatsoever, he told me.

I am not sure if you are already envious of him, but were we all to revert to such a life, we would be driven back like aimless sheep to cave dwelling. On the other hand, try to put yourself in the shoes of the Russian or American astronauts. Any moment you are shot into space, you have to be mentally alert, else, if you forget what to do, one of the things that might happen to you is that you could forever become a satellite going round until you die of starvation, and even then, your dead body would continue the gyration.

Naturally, they may have some slight foreboding on the contingency of their non-return. However, it is their courage for going in spite of these apprehensions that makes the world hail them so loudly today.

(Akinyemi, A., Olupe, F., & Adetutu, S. (2012): Rubrics of English Language for Schools and Colleges. Divine Glory Printers, Abeokuta.)

• A. life without risks
• B. life without science and technology
• C. life without ambition
• D. life without hope

As a political ideology, communism seeks to

• A. accumulate capital in the hands of a few
• B. accommodate division of citizens into classes
• C. eliminate all forms of socio-economic inequalities
• D. create economic opportunities for profit making

The printing of catalogs is one of the costs associated with the operation of

• A. tied shops
• B. mobile shops
• C. mail order shops
• D. department stores

(a) Write in full the following abbreviations as used in commerce:

(i) COD (ii) CIF (iii) FOB; (iv) E and O.E.

(b) The sale of consumer goods costing N 100,000 attracts a cash discount of 7½% and a quantity discount of 5%. Calculate the:

(i) value of the quantity discount

(ii) value of the cash discount

(iii) net amount of money payable by the buyer.

The product of the reaction between ethanol and excess acidified K₂Cr₂O₂ is

• A. ethanal
• B. ethylethanoate
• C. ethanoic acid
• D. ethyne

The texture and the mineral composition of soil depend mainly on

• A. topography
• B. light intensity
• C. organic matter
• D. parent material

Inflation in any economy

• A. Has no monetary connection
• B. Implies a sustained decrease in the general price level
• C. Always increase the value of national currency
• D. Tends to redistribute income arbitrarily

The complete Glorious was Quran taken from Lawn al mahfuz to the lowest of the heavens known as

• A. Bait al Izzah
• B. Bait al Maqdis
• C. Bait al Haram
• D. Bait al Hikmah

This question is based on Buchi Emecheta's The Joy of Motherhood

. The medicine man links the lump discovered on the head of Nnu Ego at birth, to the

• A. wound inflicted on the slave woman buried with Agbadi's wife
• B. coming back of the Agunwa to the society to live again
• C. ill-luck and tragic events attributed to a predestined fate
• D. possession of physical admirable qualities that makes her an epitoma of perfection

In Israel, Deborah's court as a prophetess was from

• A. Rahmah to Kishon
• B. Dan to Beersheba
• C. Rahmah to Bethel
• D. Ephraim to Dan