REPUBLICOF CAMEROON

REPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN PEACE – WORK – FATHERLAND

PAIX – TRAVAIL – PATRIE
…………………..
…………………..
MINISTRY OF SECONDARY
MINISTERE DES ENSEIGNEMENTS
EDUCATION
SECONDAIRES
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REGION DE CENTRE CENTRE REGION

SUBJECT CODE PAPER

CASPA-INTER-REGIONAL MOCK NUMBER NUMBER
EXAMINATION-CASPA-IRMEX BOARD 730 1

CANDIDATE NAME: ……………………………………… SUBJECT TITLE

CANDIDATE NUMBER: …………………………………… ENGLISH LANGUAGE
CENTRE NUMBER: …………………………………………

ADVANCED LEVEL DATE: March 20th 2024

Time Allowed: One and a half hours

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES
Read the following instructions carefully before you start answering the questions in this paper.

Make sure you have a soft HB pencil and eraser for this examination.
1. Use a soft HB pencil throughout the examination
2. Do not open the booklet until you are told to do so.

Before the examination

3. Check that this questions paper is headed ‘Advanced Level English Language 730’
4. Insert the information required in the space provided.
5. Without opening the booklet, pull out your answer sheet carefully form inside the front cover of this booklet. Take care that you
do not erase or fold the answer sheet or make any mark on it other than those asked for in this instructions.
6. Insert the information required in the space provided on the answer sheet using your HB pencil.

Candidate Name, Centre Number and Name, Candidate Number, Subject Code Number and Paper Number.
7. Answer all the 50 questions in the examination. All question carry equal marks.
8. Non-programmable calculators are allowed.
9. Each question has FOUR suggested answers: A, B, C and D . Decide on which answer is correct. Find the number of the
question on the sheet and draw a horizontal line across the letter to join the square brackets for the answer you have chosen. For
example if B is your correct answer, mark as shown below:
[A] [B] [C] [D]
10. Mark only one answer for each question. If you mark more than one answer, you will score a zero for that question. If you
change your mind about an answer, erase that mark carefully, then mark your new answer.
11. Avoid spending too much time on any one question. You can come to these questions later.
12. Do all rough work in this booklet, using where necessary, and the blank spaces in the question booklet.
13. Mobile phones are not allowed in the examination room.
14. You must not take this booklet out of the examination room. All question booklets and answer sheets will be collected at the
end of the examination.

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SECTION A: READING COMPREHENSION (16 Marks)

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow it.

The Land of Money

THE POT OF GOLD

You could not say fairly of Ralph and Laura Whittemore that they had the failings and the characteristics of
incorrigible treasure hunters, but you could say truthfully of them that the shimmer and the smell, the peculiar
force of money, the promise of it, had an untoward influence on their lives. They were always at the threshold of
fortune; they always seemed to have something on the fire. Ralph was a fair young man with a tireless
commercial imagination and an evangelical credence in the romance and sorcery of business success, and
although he held an obscure job with a clothing manufacturer, this never seemed to him anything more than a
point of departure.

The Whittemores were not importunate or overbearing people, and they had an uncompromising loyalty to the
gentle manners of the middle class. Laura was a pleasant girl of no particular beauty who had come to New York
from Wisconsin at about the same time that Ralph had reached the city from Illinois, but it had taken a few years
of comings and goings before they had been brought together, late one afternoon in a lobby of the lower Fifth
Avenue office building. So true was Ralph’s heart, so well did it serve him then, that the moment he saw Laura’s
light hair and her pretty and sullen face through the crowd, and since she had dropped nothing, since there was
no legitimate excuse to speak to her, he shouted after her, “Louise! Louise! Louise!” and the urgency in his voice
made her stop. He said he’d made a mistake. He said that he was sorry. He said he looked just like a girl named
Louise Hatcher. It was a January night and the dark air tasted of smoke, and because she was a sensible and lonely
girl, she let him buy her a drink.

This was in the thirties, and their courtship was hasty. They were married three months later. Laura moved her
belongings into a walk up in Madison Avenue, above a pants presser’s and a florist’s, where Ralph’s was living.
She worked as a secretary, and her salary, added to what was brought from the clothing business, was little more
than enough to keep them going, but they never seemed touched by the monotony of a saving and gainless life.
They ate dinners in drug stores. She hung a reproduction of van Gogh’s “sunflower” above the sofa she had
bought with some of the small sum of money her parents had left her. When their aunts and uncles came to town
their parents were dead – they had dinner at the Ritz and went to the theatre. She sewed curtains and shined his
shoes, and on Sundays they stayed in bed until noon. They seemed to be standing at the threshold of plenty; and
Laura often told people that she was excited because of this wonderful job that Ralph had lined up.

In the first year of their marriage, Ralph worked hard on a plan that promised him a well-paying job in Texas, but
through no fault of his own this promise was never realized. There was an opening at Syracuse a year later, but
an older man was decided upon. There were many other profitable, but elusive openings and projects between
these two. In the third year of their marriage, a firm that was almost identical in size and character with the firm
Ralph worked for underwent a change of ownership, and Ralph was approached and asked if he would be
interested in joining the overhauled firm. His own job promised only meagre security after a series of slow
promotions and he was glad of the chance to escape. He met the new owners, and their enthusiasm for him seemed
intense. They were prepared to put him in charge of the department and pay him twice what he was getting then.
The arrangement was to remain tacit for a month or two, until the new owners had secured their position, but they
shook hands warmly and had a drink on the deal and that night Ralph took Laura out for dinner at an expensive
restaurant.

They decided, across the table, to look for a larger apartment, to have a child and to buy a second hand car. They
faced their good fortune with perfect calm, for it is what they had expected all along. The city seemed to them a
generous place, where people were rewarded either by a sudden and deserved development like this or by the
capricious bounty of lawsuits, eccentric and peripheral business ventures, unexpected legacies, wind falls. After
dinner, they walked in central park in the moon light while Ralph smoked a cigar. Later, when Laura had fallen
asleep, he sat in the open bedroom window in his pyjamas.

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The peculiar excitement with which the air of the city seems charged after midnight, when its life falls in the
hands of watchmen and drunks had always pleased him. He knew intimately the sound of the night street: the bus
brakes, the remote sirens, and the sound of the water turning high in the air – the sound of water turning a mill
wheel – the sum, he supposed, of many echoes, although, often as he had heard the sound, he had never decided
on its source. Now he heard all this more keenly because the night seemed to him portentous.

He was twenty-eight years old; poverty and youth were inseparable in his experience, and one was ending with
the other. The life they were about to leave had not been hard, and he thought with sentiment of the soiled table-
cloth in the Italian restaurant where they usually went for their celebrations, and high spirit with which Laura on
a wet night ran from the subway to the bus stop. But they were drawing away from all this – shirt sales in
department-store basements, lines at meat counters, weak drinks, when roses were cheap – these were all
unmistakably the souvenirs of the poor, and while they seemed to him good and gentle, he was glad that they will
soon be memories.

Laura resigned from her job when she got pregnant. The reorganization and Ralph’s new position hung fire, but
the Whittemores talked about it freely when they were with friends. “We’re terribly pleased with the way things
are going,” Laura would say. “all we need is patience”. There were many delays and postponement, and they
waited with the patience of people expecting justice. The time came when they both needed clothes, and one
evening Ralph suggested that they spent some of the money they had put aside. Laura refused. When he brought
up the subject, she didn’t answer him and seemed not to hear him. He raised his voice and lost his temper. He
shouted. She cried. He thought of all the other girls he could have married – dark blonde, the worshipful Cuban,
the rich and pretty one with a cast in her right eye. All his desires seemed to lie outside the small apartment Laura
had arranged. They were still not speaking in the morning, and in order to strengthen his position he telephoned
his potential employees. Their secretary told him they were both out. This made him apprehensive. He called
several times from the telephone booth in the lobby of the building he worked in and was told that they were
busy, they were out, they were in conference with lawyers, or they were talking long-distance. These varieties of
excuses frightened him. He said nothing to Laura that evening and tried to call them the next day. Late in the
afternoon, after many tries, one of them came to the phone. “we gave the job to somebody else, sonny” he said.
Like a saddened father, he spoke to Ralph in a hoarse and gentle voice. “Don’t try to get us on the telephone any
more. We’ve got other things to do besides answering the telephone. This other fellow seemed better suited,
sonny. That’s all I can tell you, and don’t try to get me on the telephone any more.

Ralph walked the miles from his office to his apartment that night, hoping to free himself in this way from some
of the weight of his disappointment. He was so unprepared for the shock that it affected him like vertigo, and he
walked an odd, high step, as the paving were quicksand. He stood downstairs in front of the building he lived in,
trying to decide how to describe the disaster to Laura, but when he went in, he told her bluntly. “Oh, I’m sorry,
darling,” she said softly and kissed him. “I’m terribly sorry.” She wandered away from him and began to
straighten the sofa cushions.
Choose the best answer from the alternatives A, B, C, and D for each question
1) The passage opens with the notion that the 3) The expression ‘they always had something on the
Whittemores are: fire’ is
A) Street beggars A) A paradox
B) Determined to work hard B) A contra statement
C) Money mongers C) An idiom
D) A proverb
D) B and C are correct
4) What aspect in Ralph’s character makes him
2) Which of these is not true of what pushes the
always on the go:
Whittemores to search for money
A) Ralph is a fair young man
A) The shimmer and smell of money
B) Ralph had an obscure job with a clothing
B) The force of money
manufacturer
C) The promise of money
C) It never seemed to him anything more than a
D) The strength needed in working for the money
point of departure

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 D) Ralph had a tireless commercial imagination A) Little
and an evangelical credence in the romance and B) colossal
sorcery of business C) Minute
5) After Laura’s wedding, she works as a D) Small
A) Factory attendant 12) The predominant narrative technique used in
B) Secretariat paragraph 7 is known as
C) Secretary A) Flashback
D) Cleaner B) Flash forward
C) Symbolism
6) The Whittemores live a
D) Satire
A) Carefree and luxurious life despite their
13) The word ‘terribly’ in the expression ‘we are
income
terribly pleased’ is functioning as
B) Luxurious and careful life due to their income
A) An adverb
C) Carefree and luxurious life due to their income
B) An intensifier
D) Responsible life due to their income
C) An adjective
7) Laura had dropped nothing can be understood
D) A verb
contextually to mean
A) She had not saved anything in her account 14) Ralph is … after he gets the news from his
B) She had never been delivered of a baby prospective employers.
C) She had never given Ralph any information A) Demoralized
about herself B) Despondent
D) Ralph had never seen her before C) Devastated
8) Ralph accepts to make a move to the new firm D) Dignified
because 15) When Ralph calls his prospective employers
A) He had a very low salary at the new firm, the respondent told him
B) The work in his company is tedious A) Never to call them no more
C) His wife did not like it B) Never to call always
D) His previous job promised only meagre C) Never to call them any longer
security and slow promotions D) Never to call them any time
9) The expression “they never seemed touched by 16) Laura can best be described as
the monotony of a saving and gainless life” A) Opportunistic
suggests that Ralph and Laura B) Understanding
A) Met too often but seldom touched each other C) Patient
B) Were not bothered by the boredom of their D) Self-controlled
stagnant situation
SECTION B: GRAMMAR (22 MARKS)
C) Never touched the money they worked for
because it was not gainful 17) The girl …. a message to her classmate last week.
D) Go through a tedious experience of saving and A. text
borrowing without gain B. texted
10) What advantage is Ralph going to have when C. texts
D. tested
he moves job
A) he would be put in charge of a department 18) “Are you going to be here tomorrow?” Oscar
B) he would be paid twice what he is getting asked the teacher. Oscar asked the teacher if he
C) The new owner’s enthusiasm for him seems A. is going to be there tomorrow
intense B. is going to be here the next day
D) He would be put in charge of a department C. was going to be here the next day
and paid twice what he is getting D. Was going to be there the day after
11) A possible antonym for meagre as used in the 19) Mrs. Neba gave her husband a surprise birthday
passage is party. The word surprise is used as a/an

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 A. Adverb C. furniture/were
B. Noun D. furnitures/were
C. Adjective 29) John, James, and Jane embraced ….. at the party
D. Adjunct A. Each other
20) …… are very good friends B. one another
A. Her and I C. themselves
B. I and she D. theirselves
C. She and me 30) Covid 19 is …. deadly …… malaria
D. She and I A. As/like
21) The winner exclaimed,_..... B. like/as
A. “Bravo, we have done it”! C. like/like
B. “Bravo has done it!” D. as/as
C. “Bravo! We have done it” 31) Our teacher has been driving this …. for too
D. “Bravo, we have done it!” long; they need to change
22) While passing by the hunter’s house, I saw a A. Grey luxurious little car
barking dog. The subordinate clause in this B. Little luxurious grey car
sentence is C. Little grey luxurious car
A. I saw a barking dog D. Luxurious little grey car
B. a barking dog 32) My aunt’s …. on the table.
C. hunter’s house A. Jewelry are
D. while passing by the hunter’s house B. Jewellery is
C. Jeweleries are
23) With the goods damaged, the trader is going D. Jewelleries is
to …… a lot of money
A. lose 33) …… which of the following sentences is in the
B. loose active voice?
C. lost A) Many food items were given to IDPs in our
D. loss locality
24) The principal asked everyone to give their …. B) Food is cooked everyday
A. Choice of drinks C) Prisoners are always poorly treated
B. choices of drink D) Education changes lives
C. choices of drinks 34) ….. thinks that Eto’o should be made man of the
D. choice of drink match
25) Mr. Nji prefers food ... beer.
A) Practically everyone
A. To C) For
B) Majority of the players
B. Than D) By
C) a number of people
26) Sandra had to be present at the meeting, …? D) neither of us
A. hadn’t she
B. wasn’t she 35) If this had happened to you, what …?
C. was she A) will you do
D. didn’t she B) would you do
27) Mr. Anja was happy with Pa Ngang because C) would you have done
D) would you have been doing
he devoted himself …. the widows.
A. to assisting For questions 36 & 37, choose from alternatives A,
B. to assist B, C, and D the sentence that is correctly
C. with assisting punctuated.
D. assisting 36)
28) When the students visited the Principal’s A) ‘Petrus was whispering ‘come come’ so I
house, they observed that most of his …. obsolete went to his side, explained Paulus.
and faulty. B) Petrus was whispering, ‘come, come!’ so I
A. Furnitures/are went to his side”, explained Paulus.
B. furniture/was
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 C) “Petrus was whispering, ‘come, come!’ so I A. Builder is to house
went to his side,” explained Paulus. B. Room is to mansion
D) “Petrus was whispering, come, come, so I C. Master is to servant
went to his side”, explained Paulus. D. Rhyme is to prose
For questions 46 and 47, choose the best answer
Choose the alternative A, B, C or D that best
classifies the underlined phrase. from the alternatives A, B, C, and D which is similar
37) Susan had been dreaming of buying a house, I in meaning to the underlined word in the sentences.
told them of this one. The underlined verbs are in the: 46) The children’s attitude towards their parents is
fickle: no one can predict it.
A) Past perfect progressive tense A. Malicious C) Inconsistent
B) Past participle tense
B. Impertinent D) Lacklustre
C) Past perfect tense
47) Since the damage to his car had been trivial,
D) Present perfect progressive tense.
Michael decided not to report the matter to the police.
SECTION C: VOCABULARY (12 MARKS) A) Impetuous C) Vicious
For questions 38-44, choose the alternative A, B, C, B) Paltry D) Arduous
or D that best completes each sentence. For numbers 48 to 50, choose the letter from the
alternatives A, B, C, or D which contains the word
38) On my way to the hall yesterday, I came across a
or phrase that best explains the underlined
… of rioters.
expression.
A. Mode C) Mob 48) Clergy men all over the world have repeatedly
B. Mop D) Mope condemned the mass murders that have been going
on in some African countries.
39) It was amazing how the five-year old girl could
A) Genocide C) Suicide
recite the graduation speech … B) Homicide D) Patricide
A. Of head C) Off head 49) During the prefects’ meeting, the Senior Prefect
B. Of hand D) Off hand took the other prefects down memory lane
40) Some christians were accused of committing a before presenting the agenda of the day.
… by worshipping idols. A) Gave an outline of the agenda
A) Sacrilege C) Sacreledge B) Took the other prefects to the memory lane
B) Sacriledge D) sacriladge of the school
C) Recalled the events of the past
41) I was very delighted when I noticed that all the D) Gave an outline of the prefects’ activities
women had beautiful … on their heads. 50) His wife died because she bled profusely after
A) Headties C) Headscarfes giving birth.
B) Headscarf D) headscarves A) Exceptionally C) Occasionally
42) The car that knocked down the deaf man … B) Continuously D) Excessively
several times, but he did not hear.
A) Horned C) Whistled STOP!
B) Hooted D) Applied the horn GO BACK AND CHECK YOUR WORK
43) Doctors and nurses in this hospital are … for
boorishness.
A) Famous C) Notorious
B) Popular D) Renown
For questions 44 and 45, choose the best answer
from the alternative A, B, C and D that has a similar
relationship to the words in capital letters
44) TEACHER is to STUDENT as … .
A) Patient is to doctor
B) Falconer is to falcon
C) Dog is to puppy
D) Lawyer is to pupil
45) POET is to POEM as … .
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