JAMB Literature in English 2025 past questions

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

Ten questions from the 2025 JAMB Literature in English paper, with answers and explanations. We hold 99 questions from this paper, and the Skolra app has all of them.

JAMB Literature in English 2025 questions and answers

1. 1.From the novel;

   This question is based on REDEMPTION ROAD.

   What literary technique does Shaw use to contrast public peace with private suffering?

   1. A
      Juxtaposition
      Correct
   2. B
      Dramatic irony
   3. C
      Flashback
   4. D
      Symbolism
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   Answer: A

   Juxtaposition is the technique Shaw relies on to hold Liberia's public, official peace against the private, unhealed suffering of her characters. Bendu Lewis works publicly as a peace advocate and counsellor helping other war survivors process their trauma, while privately she is still carrying her own unresolved wartime guilt and grief. By placing the outward calm of a "post-war," reconciled nation directly beside the inward turmoil of the people living in it, the novel exposes the gap between official narratives of peace and the lived, private reality of trauma.

2. 2.From the novel;

   Decked with dances by baobabs over balances

   The above line in Neto's The Grieved Lands is an example of

   1. A
      Personification
   2. B
      Consonance
   3. C
      Alliteration
      Correct
   4. D
      Assonance
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   Answer: C

   Alliteration is correct. In "Decked with dances by baobabs over balances", the poet repeats the "d" sound at the start of "Decked" and "dances", and the "b" sound at the start of "by", "baobabs" and "balances". This deliberate stacking of matching initial consonant sounds across neighbouring words is exactly what alliteration means, and it is how Nigerian study guides on Neto's The Grieved Lands of Africa classify this particular line.

3. 3.From the novel;

   This question is based on MARRIAGE OF ANANSEWA.

   What style of performance influences the structure of the play?

   1. A
      The classical Greek tragic convention of a chorus commenting on the action between episodes
   2. B
      The Yoruba travelling theatre tradition of touring companies performing Alarinjo-style masked drama
   3. C
      The traditional Akan storytelling performance (Anansesem), with a Storyteller, audience interaction and mboguo songs
      Correct
   4. D
      A silent mime and dumb-show tradition in which the actors perform the story without any spoken dialogue
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   Answer: C

   The traditional Akan storytelling performance (Anansesem), with a Storyteller, audience interaction and mboguo songs is correct.

4. 4.From the novel;

   Niyi Osundare's "The Leader and the Led" is a fable because of the

   1. A
      its setting inside an actual, named forest reserve in Nigeria
   2. B
      its depiction of real, named Nigerian politicians disguised as animal characters
   3. C
      its consistent use of rhymed couplets running through all twelve stanzas
   4. D
      its use of animal characters that talk, reason and campaign like human beings to teach a lesson on leadership
      Correct
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   Answer: D

   Niyi Osundare's "The Leader and the Led" is a fable because it gives its animal characters human qualities — the Lion, Hyena, Elephant, Giraffe and others speak, reason, campaign and contest for leadership exactly as human beings would, and their debate teaches a moral lesson: that a good leader must be a "hybrid of habits," combining strength with compassion, rather than a single dominant trait.

5. 5.From the novel;

   This question is based on REDEMPTION ROAD.

   What does Benji's story reveal about the long-term consequences of political silence?

   1. A
      Silence fosters reconciliation
   2. B
      Silence protects dignity
   3. C
      Silence can lead to invisibility and forgotten sacrifices
      Correct
   4. D
      Silence secures promotions
   Show answerHide answer

   Answer: C

   In Redemption Road, Benji is Bendu's brother, killed as a boy during the political violence that tore the family apart, and it is only much later, when their mother Eva finally opens up, that Bendu and Siatta learn the full truth: Benji had sacrificed his own life so that Bendu, Siatta and Calvin could survive.

6. 6.From the novel;

   This question is based on Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.

   I'm trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back.
   I don't care how long I will wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!                                                                   
   Who made the statement?                                                       

   1. A
      Hareton Earnshaw
   2. B
      Edgar Linton
   3. C
      Hindley Earnshaw
   4. D
      Heathcliff
      Correct
   Show answerHide answer

   Answer: D

   Heathcliff is the one who makes this statement in Chapter 7 of Wuthering Heights. It comes after Hindley humiliates him and shuts him out following the Christmas visit of the Lintons, when Heathcliff, smarting from the insult and from Edgar's mockery, confides to Nelly Dean his quiet, patient resolve to get even with Hindley one day, no matter how long it takes.

7. 7.From the novel;

   This question is based on ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

   Enobarbus: "Caesar's whole fleet's at sea: / Well spread and almost yare. For he's not dumb, / That tells my departure."

   Agrippa: "Let's grant it is not / Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy; / To give a kingdom for a mirth, to sit / And keep the turn of tippling with a slave..."

   What tone is used in the above excerpt and why?

   1. A
      Solemn and tragic, as Agrippa mourns the political ruin that Antony's affair has already brought upon Rome
   2. B
      Admiring and respectful, since Agrippa is praising Antony's boldness in defying Roman convention for the sake of love
   3. C
      Humorous and lighthearted, as Agrippa joins in celebrating the carefree revelry between Antony and Cleopatra's court
   4. D
      Sarcastic and mocking, as Agrippa's ironic "grant it is not amiss" excuses conduct he clearly views as shameful, exposing Antony's loss of dignity and judgment
      Correct
   Show answerHide answer

   Answer: D

   The tone here is sarcastic and mocking.

   Look closely at how Agrippa phrases his comment: "Let's grant it is not / Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy." This is a figure of speech called litotes — saying something is "not amiss" (not wrong) when everyone, including the speaker, knows it plainly IS wrong. Agrippa is not really excusing Antony; he is being ironic, using pretend approval to mock Antony's undignified behaviour: sleeping with a woman already linked to Ptolemy and Julius Caesar, giving away a kingdom "for a mirth" (a joke), and drinking as an equal ("keep the turn of tippling") with a mere slave. Listing these serious lapses so casually, as if they were trivial, is exactly how sarcasm works — the speaker's real judgment is the opposite of what his words literally say.

8. 8.From the novel;

   This question is based on Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights.

   The overriding depiction of mystery and terror in the novel accounts for its classification as a 

   1. A
      Romantic novel
   2. B
      Bildungsroman
   3. C
      Gothic novel
      Correct
   4. D
      Tragedy
   Show answerHide answer

   Answer: C

   Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is famous for its atmosphere of mystery, the supernatural, and terror — the ghost of Catherine knocking at the window, the eerie moors, Heathcliff's brooding menace, and the dark, decaying setting of the house itself. These features — a haunting setting, suggestions of the supernatural, doomed passion, and pervasive dread — are the defining marks of the Gothic novel tradition, so the novel is classified within that genre.

9. 9.

   This question is based on General Literature Principles and Literary Appreciation. 'Beautiful Kareendi, flower of my heart. No one but you can type them. For I want to send them care of the address of your heart, by the post of your heart, to be read by the eye of your heart, thereafter to be kept within your heart, sealed there forever and ever.'

   The dominant device in this extract is

   1. A
      Hyperbole exaggerating the speaker's devotion
   2. B
      Extended metaphor comparing the heart to a postal system
      Correct
   3. C
      Personification of the beloved's feelings
   4. D
      Repetition for emotional emphasis
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   Answer: B

   Read the extract closely: the heart is given an address, a post that carries messages, an eye that reads them, and a place where they are kept and sealed forever. That is one single comparison - the heart mapped onto a whole postal system - carried across several clauses rather than used once and dropped. Sustaining one comparison like this across a passage is exactly what an extended metaphor is, and it is the device that organizes the entire extract.

   So the dominant device a candidate should identify is the extended metaphor built around "address," "post," "eye," and "sealed."

10. 10.

    This question is based on MARRIAGE OF ANANSEWA.

    Which character is Ananse's daughter?

    1. A
       Aya
    2. B
       Anansewa
       Correct
    3. C
       Christie
    4. D
       Ekuwa
    Show answerHide answer

    Answer: B

    Anansewa is Ananse's daughter, and the entire play is built around his scheme to marry her off to four different chiefs at once for wealth and status. She is the beautiful young woman whose fate drives the whole plot, and the play is even titled after her.

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