Quote from Sunday on ,

On Saturday, several news platforms published a story in which Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, reflected on the state of the nation. Apart from being bothered by the vital issues he raised about Nigeria’s threatened nationhood, I was particularly struck by the way he handled tense in of one of his sentences.  The sentence is the second in the statement below, taken from the report as published by ‘Saturday PUNCH’:

“Decree 4 has no place in democracy. It is about time we emphasised that in word and action.”

While we have, on some occasions, treated the construction involved in the use of ‘emphasised’ above – instead of ‘emphasise’ – I am revisiting it for the sake of the candidates whose English Language paper will come up in the next few days. We will consider it alongside other related usages that WAEC often tests in the objective section.

In normal English constructions, ‘emphasise’ is what is expected in the second clause, not ‘emphasised’.  If we are to follow the normal grammar rule, the verb should be in the present tense form because the action has yet to take place. But because the usage  is peculiar and falls under what we call the subjunctive mood, the tense must be past. Whether the clause comes as ‘it’s about time’, ‘it’s time’ or ‘it’s high time’, the past tense form is used because it is a pure supposition. Consider this question:

It is time all Nigerians … keeping the environment clean.

(a)  starts (b) started (c) are starting (d) should start

The correct answer is ‘started’, not ‘start’ because, as we have in the Soyinka’s sentence, the usage is specialised.

Similarly, you can be presented with the ‘If I were’ or ‘I wish’ clause. It also attracts the past tense despite the fact that the indicated action has not taken place:

I wish I … a great footballer like Messi or Ronaldo.

(a) can (b) am (c) I have been (d) were

If I were you, I … there immediately.

(a) would (b) can (c) will (d) must

For the two questions, the answers are not ‘am’ and ‘will’ – but ‘was’ and ‘would’.  If you thus come across such, you should know the right thing to do.

Beware of irregular verbs

You should also remember that not all verbs accept -d or -ed when they change to the past tense, present perfect and the past participle forms. Hence, they are called irregular verbs. Make sure you cover them in your revision. They include come, go, sleep, learn, break, buy and sew. You are not likely to have issues with any of such as I don’t expect you to say ‘I have sleeped’ or ‘She has goed’ when you mean slept and gone.

Yet, you should be careful with trickier ones (note that the word is tricky and not trickish) like sing, ring, run, begin, wind and grind. Their present tense, past and participle forms, respectively are sing, sang sung; ring, rang, rung; begin, began, begun; wind, wand, wound; and grind, ground, ground. If you are thus confronted with a question of this nature, you should know the option to go for:

Why have they not … the programme?

(a) begun (b) began (c) begins (d) beginned

I know you won’t choose ‘beginned’, but will you go for ‘began’? You will be wrong if you do so because the correct expression is ‘They have begun’ or ‘Have they begun?’.

Irregular nouns

You should similarly be cool with nouns that reject s when they are being pluralised. While many of them remain as they are whether singular or plural, others change in dramatic ways. Now, WAEC also likes to test your knowledge of these. Some of the unpredictable nouns are sheep, cattle, aircraft, information, news, furniture, infrastructure and rubble. Others are ox arise, abide, tomato, goose and alumnus. Here is a question on irregular nouns:

The farmer is unhappy because the … have not been fed.

(a)  The three cattles (b) the two cattles (c) the cattle (d) the cattles

You can talk about one cow, two cows, but normally not one cattle or two cattles. So, the correct answer is ‘the cattle’.

It is not possible for us to highlight all the areas that the examiners want to test as far as the OBJ section is concerned. Yet, I want you to bear in mind that they are aware of areas where a majority of Nigerians (and others) commit blunders as far as use of English is concerned. They usually want to be sure that you have mastered the correct expressions in such circumstances. Therefore, you should, for example, know the difference between were and where, being and been, hang and hung, has/have and had, lose and loose, choosing and chosen, his and he’s, avoid and afford etc.

Prepositions are also a very important aspect of English grammar. Can you escape questions on them? I doubt so. What this means is that you should remember, among many other examples, being good at something or at a subject, charging someone with a crime, ‘prefer to’, ‘on the outskirts of’’ ‘immune to’, ‘opportune to’ etc.

In the same vein, you should pay attention to words often misspelt because WAEC normally includes spelling-based questions in their questions.  As a matter of fact, it so much detests poor spelling (as well as other grammatical errors) that it penalises candidates for them even in essay writing, comprehension and summary writing.

That reminds me of the ‘and’ vs ‘as well as’ usage that can also be tested:

Chief Jude, as well as his children, … to see you.

(a)  are wanting (b) wants (c) want (d) have wanted

What is your answer? Please, don’t choose ‘want’ because the correct option is ‘wants’.

 

Source: Punch newspaper