(Answer all questions)

SECTION A: Grammar (10 marks)

1- Fill in the blanks with appropriate expressions chosen from those in the brackets. (2.5 marks)
1. To check your email, you can . . . . . . . .it (either, both, neither) use a computer or a phone.
2. Experts advise that to get low cost but quality products, buyers . . . . . . . . . . (have to, should, will) search through the physical and online market before buying.
3. There are few recreational facilities in our country. . .. . . . . . . , (Although, Despite, However) most of them are not put to maximum use.
4. The Ministry of Youth Affairs is supposed to investigate why . . . . . . .(more, many, most) youths are getting into alcoholism, drugs and immorality than before.
5. There is no University: that would deny anybody from registering because of advanced age, . . . . . . . . (would it, isn’t it, is there)

2- Fill in each blank with an appropriate ward of your choice. (2.5 marks)
Ekobo: Hi Eboko. You are all dressed up. Where are you from?
Eboko: I’m just from a job interview.
Ekobo: . . . . .. .. did it go?
Ehoko: It went well.
Ekobo: Do you know that . . . . . . . .A we left school, I have never been called up for a job interview though I have sent in applications to many institutions?
Ebeko: Do you attach your CV all the time‘?
Ekobo: No, I don't have . . . . . . .
Eboko: Oh no! If you had known, you . . . . . . . .been attaching a CV to every application. That may have been the problem.
Ekobo: Please can you help?
Ehoko: Of course, but I did mine with the help of an expert. There is a fee.
Ekobo: How . . . . . . . did you pay?
Eboko: Just a token.
Ekobo: Please take me there as soon as possible. Thank you very much my friend.

2- Rewrite the sentences below following the instructions in the brackets. (5 marks)
1. All governments are encouraging women in the sciences as a means of fighting against gender bias. (Change into the Passive)
2. Climate change is causing much damage to the ecosystem. (Change into the Present Perfect Continuous Tense)
3- “Next year, we will be sorting out our garbage before disposing of it”, the Mayor announced. (Change into Reported Speech)
4. Poachers are hunters. Poachers hunt illegally and in conserved areas. (Join the two sentences with a Relative Pronoun)
5. There are many accidents on our roads because many drivers are . . . . . . . .(care). (Complete the sentence with the right form ot the word in bracket)

SECTION B: Vocabulary (10 marks)

1- Fill in the blank spaces with the appropriate words chosen from those in the brackets. (5 marks)
1. It is not appropriate to . . . . . (bum, fry, boil, dry) plastics, bushes and even dirt because the fires produce dangerous gases.
2. The Indomitable Lions, is considered as one of the best football . . . . . . . (teams, terms, assembly, country) in Africa so far.
3. WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter are some oft he most popular and widely used . . .. . . . ; (social media, appliances, gadgets, applications) that people download immediately they buy android phones.
4. After obtaining BACC certificates, most students move on to the University to study for 3 years and earn a . .. . . . . .. (Bachelor’s degree, PHD, Master’s degree, Diploma)
5. Public facilities like hospitals are cheaper than private ones because the government gives . .. . . . (loans, overdrafts, advances, subsidies) that help reduce costs.

I. Fill in the blanks with appropriate words of your choice. (5 marks)
I. The world today has become a . . .. . . . village with the use of phones, the internet and social media. People can interact with, and see others in faraway countries.
2. Any institution that considers males better for employment than females is practicing .. . . . . . discrimination.
3. The culture of a people is embedded in the . . .. . . . . . they eat, the clothes they wear, the language they speak and the dances they perform.
4. Elections in a democracy enable a . . . . . . . . L and fair voting of the best and qualified candidates.
5. Despite the fact that one does not receive a . . . . . . . . for volunteering like
5. Despite the fact that one does not receive a . . . . . . . for volunteering like with actual jobs, it has many other benefits that surmount financial benefits.

SECTION C: Reading comprehension (10 marks)

Read the passage below carefully and answer the questions that follow using your awn words as much as possible.
For the past fifty years, the school system has been giving the impression that the graduates will acquire “the power of the world, gain a high office with big pay, a big house, a big car, and if possible many offices and women”. The frustration seen in most homes due to the deceit in that belief is just too much. The discovery is that the educational systems in Africa have neither made us Europeans nor Africans.
Many African countries started to question their educational systems barely thirty years after independence. Cameroonian scholars joined the trail and succeeded to get the government involved only in 1995, when the National Forum on Education was organised in Yaounde. The small and big schools that were built and fashioned in the Western systems were fast producing unemployed and frustrated youths. Some of them found an easy way out in crime or in protest matches and other social troubles. Others left their University hostels after their thirtieth birthday to go and pester their younger brothers and their parents back in the villages for daily needs. .
Our emphasis on the certificate qualification has led to an increase in the production of take certificates and the reduction of ages since the parents still believe that if the public service is closed, then it would mean doom for our children. Parents do not send their children to school to acquire skills, rather they are eager to hear later that the children have gotten five A grades in the GCE or good marks in the Baccalaureate. At the level of the university, they have degrees in Geology, Women’s studies, History, Geography, Linguistics and the list is long.
When they have waited for too long, the tendency is to want to go abroad where the streets are clean and some crumbs are still available for grab. The regular shortage of passport booklets in the Emi-Immigration office is proof that there is a big worry in the educational system. The events are only pointing to a worsening situation, since we have not yet adjusted to the realities that are ours. .
After a tour of the schools in Anglophone Cameroon in 1975, Michael Kelly, a keen observer at the time noticed a pathetic situation whereby any question put to children on things that seem obvious, a child would reply that it is not in the book or that we have not reached there”. He saw the lack of curiosity and of stimulus to find out about one’s own country, to be creative in unstructured areas of knowledge, to express oneself freely and openly and that these are likely to have negative effects on the development of intelligence or power to articulate fluently amongst primary school attenders. His argument was firm, namely that “unless education is made relevant to the development in tone and content it is hard not to become depressed”; the education of learning by doing that the traditional African parents practised.
However, all is not lost since the Cameroon government is mindful of this handicap and has started taking measures to move our education to the level where it will be of benefit not only to the youths but to all Cameroonians in general. More adapted educational institutions are being created and even the teaching approach has made things more practical and related to real-life issues. We are hopeful!

(Adopted from “Educational reforms: the new slavery”, Change Magazine pg. 26.)

QUESTIONS

l. What, according to the writer is the fundamental problem with the educational system in Cameroon? (2 marks)
2. With inspiration from the, why do many of our children seek to go abroad? (2 marks)
3. What does the writer insinuate when he says “…if the public service is closed then it would mean doom for our children”? (2 marks)
4. Give two differences between our Cameroonian children and Western children mentioned in the passage. (2 marks)
5. Explain one way in which you think the government is adapting some educational institutions. (2 marks)

SECTION D: Composition writing (10 marks)

Choose ONE topic from below and write an essay of between 250 -300 words
1. You have just passed the BACC exam and want to volunteer your services at your local council. Write a letter of application to the Mayor of the council in Eding, explaining what you desire to do and why, the benefits it will bring to your community, the council and yourself.
Your name and address is Angelo Abong, GBHS Eding, P.O. Box 2033.

2. You so much desire to travel abroad after you pass the BACC exam. Your grandmother advises you to stay back and says, “home is home”. Write an essay in which you explain what this means. Explain with reasons whether you agree or disagree with this mass emigration.

3. You are the president of the English club in your school. It is the Bilingualism Week and you have to address the youths on the theme “Bilingualism, the bedrock of unity and multiculturalism.” Write a speech that explains this theme and elaborate on the benefits of bilingualism.
Your name is Amine Ottou and your school is GBHS Akata.