JAMB Use of English 2019 past questions

Checked by the Skolra question team · Last updated 23 October 2026

Ten questions from the 2019 JAMB Use of English paper, with answers and explanations. We hold 94 questions from this paper, and the Skolra app has all of them.

JAMB Use of English 2019 questions and answers

1. 1.

   Choose the word that has an opposite meaning to the one in bracket for questions below.

   The [prodigious] building was razed to the carpet level yesterday

   1. A
      massive
   2. B
      gigantic
   3. C
      enormous
   4. D
      tiny
      Correct
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   Answer: D

   Prodigious means extraordinarily great in size or extent — huge, immense, enormous. The question asks for the word with the opposite meaning.

   Tiny is correct because it means very small, which is the direct opposite of "prodigious".

2. 2.

   Bridget denied that she wasn't there. This means that

   1. A
      she was not there
   2. B
      she was not sure whether she was there
   3. C
      she refused to say where she was
   4. D
      she was there
      Correct
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   Answer: D

   The sentence contains a double negative: denied + wasn't. When you deny a negative statement, the two negatives cancel out and the result is positive.

   Bridget denied the claim "she wasn't there." To deny that something is not the case is to assert that it is the case. So Bridget is saying, in effect, "It is not true that I wasn't there" — meaning she was there.

3. 3.

   Choose the one opposite in meaning to the word(s) in underlined.

   After the wedding, the wife became anorexic

   1. A
      Obese
      Correct
   2. B
      Skinny
   3. C
      Melancholic
   4. D
      Excited
   Show answerHide answer

   Answer: A

   Anorexic describes someone who has lost an unhealthy amount of weight, usually from an eating disorder that stops them eating enough. The direct opposite of being abnormally thin is being abnormally fat, so obese is correct.

4. 4.

   Choose the correct interpretations of the statement given, for questions below

   America is the Mecca of the world

   1. A
      America is a place that attracts people from all over the world
      Correct
   2. B
      America is the largest country in the world
   3. C
      America is the centre of Islamic pilgrimage
   4. D
      America is the richest country in the world
   Show answerHide answer

   Answer: A

   This is an interpretation question. It does not ask what the sentence says literally; it asks what the sentence means when a word is used figuratively.

5. 5.

   Choose the word that has the same vowel sound as the one in bracket, from questions below

   B[oo]k

   1. A
      Food
   2. B
      Good
      Correct
   3. C
      Blood
   4. D
      Door
   Show answerHide answer

   Answer: B

   The letters "oo" in B[oo]k are pronounced as the short vowel sound /ʊ/, as heard in words like "put", "look" and "good". This is different from the long "oo" sound /uː/ heard in words like "food" or "moon".

   Good has exactly this short /ʊ/ sound, so it matches the vowel sound in "book".

6. 6.

   Choose the most appropriate option for each group for questionsAlice, a small fragile-looking Ugandan mother, is dying of AIDS. She lives with her son and daughter in a tin-roofed shack on the .....1... of Kampala. When her husband died of AIDS in 1987, Alice discovered she was HIV positive. Frequent ...2..... of sickness forced her to give up her embroidery job. She was so depressed that she just wanted to eat. ....3.... by a neighbour, the mobile care unit from Nsambya hospital went to her home. They convinced her to start taking proper ..4....... After three months of ....5.... treatment, she regained her will to live. The AIDS time bomb .....6... on relentlessly. The World Health Organization ....7.... that 1.8 million Ugandans are HIV positive, nearly one in eight of the total population. The Ugandan AIDS Commission set up by President Museveni ..8...... the spread of the disease. However, under-porting and the lack of post-mortem and ...9..... makes it impossible to establish exact figures. No one ....10.... that it is a disaster far worse than the years of civil war.

   No one ....10.... that it is a disaster far worse than the years of civil war.

   1. A
      Rejects
   2. B
      Denies
      Correct
   3. C
      Imagines
   4. D
      Claims
   Show answerHide answer

   Answer: B

   The blank completes: "No one denies that it is a disaster far worse than the years of civil war."

7. 7.

   The prisoner finally ........ that he drank to ........ on the night he committed the murder

   1. A
      eluded/escape
   2. B
      exceeded/extreme
   3. C
      conceded/excess
      Correct
   4. D
      acceded/access
   Show answerHide answer

   Answer: C

   Answer: conceded / excess — "The prisoner finally conceded that he drank to excess on the night he committed the murder."

   The first gap needs a verb meaning "admitted" — a prisoner giving in and confessing something under questioning. Conceded fits exactly: it means to admit, often reluctantly, after resisting.

8. 8.Hadn't it rained, it wouldn't have been so bad
   1. A
      It rained, and that is why the situation was bad
      Correct
   2. B
      It rained, but the situation was not really bad
   3. C
      It did not rain, yet the situation was bad
   4. D
      It did not rain, and the situation was not bad
   Show answerHide answer

   Answer: A

   "Hadn't it rained, it wouldn't have been so bad" is simply an inverted way of saying "If it had not rained, it would not have been so bad." This is a Type 3 (past) conditional, and Type 3 conditionals always describe the opposite of what actually happened.

9. 9.

   Questions below are based on Bolaji Abdullahi's "Sweet Sixteen"

   Mr Bello's best advice to Aliya on dating is that

   1. A
      Dating is sinful in itself and must be avoided completely until marriage
   2. B
      She is not yet mature enough to handle the emotional demands and distractions that dating brings
      Correct
   3. C
      Dating will make her more popular and respected among her peers at school
   4. D
      She should date in secret and keep it hidden from her parents
   Show answerHide answer

   Answer: B

   Source check (Bolaji Abdullahi's "Sweet Sixteen", the "Dating" section): when Aliya assumes that turning sixteen means she is now free to start dating, Mr Bello does not tell her dating is wicked or forbidden. He tells her dating is "not bad in itself," but that at her age it is "mostly ruled by infatuation, which could lead to jealousy" and distraction — and that she cannot afford such distraction at this stage of her life, when her focus should be on her studies and growth.

10. 10.

    In each of the questions, the word in capital letters has the emphatic stress, Choose the option to which the given sentence relates.

    The traditional chief NARRATED the story to the children

    1. A
       Who narrated the story to the children?
    2. B
       What story did the traditional chief narrate to the children?
    3. C
       Did the traditional chief write the story to the children?
    4. D
       What did the traditional chief do to the story?
       Correct
    Show answerHide answer

    Answer: D

    Stem: "The traditional chief NARRATED the story to the children." The word carrying the emphatic stress is NARRATED - the main verb, the action word.

    So the correct match is the question that asks specifically what the chief did to the story.

The questions come from past JAMB, WAEC and NECO papers. We use software to help write the answer options and explanations, and every answer is checked twice before it goes on the site. How we check

Spotted a wrong answer? Tell us from the app or on the contact page and we check it.

Practise all 94 questions we hold from the 2019 paper, on a timed CBT screen

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