Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions on it.
I sat down to relax after a hard day’s work as a radio broadcaster, my attention was immediately arrested by what I saw on the television. There was my old classmate, Funke Jacobs, introduced as Mrs. Funke Ajayi. Evidently, she must have married since we parted some fifteen years earlier. She looked as smart as she did when we were both secondary school students, though age and child bearing had taken their toll. As I watched and listened, I realized that Funke was still her old self. I recalled how several years ago, when we were directed by the English Language master to write an essay on “The Profession of My Dream”, each of us opted for and defended our choices as future teachers, doctors, engineers, accountants and the like. I chose to be a newscaster, and that was what I eventually became. Funke alone decided on a totally different direction. She opted to be a farmer. Shocked by her choice, the teacher summoned her to the front of the class to read her essay. Ever confident and charming, she did. As we listened, most of us laughed, believing that she must be joking. After her presentation, the teacher agreed adding that it must be just an academic exercise. But Funke insisted she was as serious as any of us in our choices.
I thought of her academic brilliance; she was among the very best in most school subjects. She was from a well-to-do family, so her parents should have no problem seeing her through tertiary education to acquire one of the ‘noble’ professions. She had good looks, the type you would associate with an office chief executive, not with the farm. So, why farming? But farming was her choice, and into farming she went. What I did not know, which the interviewer brought to light, was that she indeed studied Agriculture in the university, had three children, and secured the support of a bank that loaned her some money which she had since refunded.
Now, she has become a successful farmer, successful enough to have won the award for the most accomplished farmer of the year in the country. As the interviewer reveals, Funke is into crop farming, animal rearing and fruit cultivation. She is also into planting and processing of rice. Her plantations cover more than five hundred hectares, which are worked with several machines like planters, harrowers, harvesters and insecticide sprayers.
Here I am, struggling to keep my ageing car alive, while Farmer Funke has become an employer of three hundred hands. I am no longer laughing.
Questions
(a) What was the common link between Funke and the writer?
(b) Why did the writer think that Funke would not go into farming?
(c) Why did the writer put ‘noble’ in inverted commas?
(d) What two factors helped Funke’s success?
(e) How successful was Funke in her chosen profession?
(f) What does the last sentence suggest about the writer?
(g)… as serious as any of us in our choices. What figure of speech is used in the expression above?
(h)… that she indeed studied Agriculture in the university,… (i) What is the grammatical name given to this expression as it is used in the passage? (ii) What is its function?
(i) For each of the following words, find another word or phrase which means the same and which can replace it as it is used in the passage: (i) relax; (ii) confident; (iii) refunded; (iv) reveals; (v) struggling.
