You have been invited to a night party by a friend. Write a letter to the friend, giving at least three reasons why you cannot attend.

Write an article suitable for publication in a national newspaper on the need to promote local industries in your country.

Write a letter to the Director of Health Services in your district discussing at least three ways in which the quality of healthcare in your community can be improved.

You are the main speaker in a debate on the topic: Brain drain has undermined the development of most African countries. Write your argument for or against the motion.

Write a story ending with the statement: If I had known the truth, I would not have acted they way I did.

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions on it.

It was unfortunate that sometimes the misconceptions of our childhood, if not corrected, can shape our subsequent actions and seal our fate.

I remember clearly the case of Kofi Mensah. An uncle had taken him along to the city from our village, Bandana. Although he was already eight years old, he was not attending school because his parents had been too poor to send him to school. But now his benevolent uncle was going to put him in school in the city. How lucky for him, we all thought.

But to our greatest surprise, three months later, Kofi was back in the village! When we asked him why, he gave us chilling accounts of school. For him, the strict rules of school robbed one of the carefree liberty that village life offered and school meant wicked teachers who flogged pupils mercilessly. As a result, he had not only decided to stop attending school, but also instigated a number of his classmates to do the same. Subsequently, they would pretend to leave for school each day but end up in a secret place and while away the hours until school was over. When the school authorities found out what Kofi had done, he and other truants received the flogging of their lives and were suspended for two weeks. But Kofi never went back to school.

Two years later, when my own elder brother took me with him to the same city to start school, Kofi's chilling accounts of school were all frighteningly fresh on my mind. That was why on the first day of school, with a pounding heart and reluctant steps, it took me an hour to drag myself to school and I arrived very late. The teacher on duty, who happened to know how close my brother's house was to the school, asked me, "When did you leave home for school?"
"One hour ago, Sir", I replied.
"And it took you a whole hour to get to school from a distance of less than half a kilometre on the first day of school?"
As the teacher motioned to me to receive my punishment for coming late, he muttered in a voice full of concern, "We have a sacred duty to mould you children into responsible adults, my young man. Spare the rod and you will spoil the child". That comment brought an instant understanding to me and I comported myself to receive my well-deserved punishment.

Today, as a university lecturer, I look back to those days and I remember Kofi Mensah and his misconceptions about school, teachers and discipline. He still lives in the village and because those misconceptions were never corrected, he had ended up a mere illiterate farmhand, too poor to send his own children to school.

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions on it.

It is very disturbing that the twenty-first century is plagued by many calamities. Wars and other forms of violence like terrorism and kidnapping have become recurring problems that many countries have to contend with. This is because people are not willing to tolerate one another's differences. For instance, different ethnic groups take up arms against one another. Also, political differences and religious diversities have become major dividing factors and one frequently addressed through physical aggression.

Another problem is the increase in diseases. Now, more than before, many bacteria and viruses are being genetically created in medical laboratories. Sometimes, human beings are accidentally infected with these laboratory-invented microorganisms; at other times, infection is deliberate for research purposes but could be accidentally transmitted to other people. Many of these genetically created bacteria and viruses subsequently develop drug-resistant strains. This, however, is not to suggest that medical science has failed humankind.

Apart from diseases, people in many parts of the world contend with disasters such as earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, droughts, volcanic eruptions and hurricanes. All of these have devastating effects on human beings and the environment. A lot of people usually die and many plants are destroyed. Although many consider these disasters acts of God, they are actually mostly triggered by human activities.

Despite the enormity of the problems, a lot is being done to eradicate, or at least, control their impact on humans and the environment. People of diverse ethnic, political and religious backgrounds meet from time to time to find amicable resolutions to their differences before they escalate into violence. Often on the news, we hear of peace talks, seminars, summits and conferences convened by international bodies such as the United Nations, the African Union and the European Union to resolve conflicts of various nature.

Also, the human activities that have resulted in global warming and environmental degradation are being checked through regulations and policies by the relevant authorities. Such policies include planting of trees, cutting down on the emission of greenhouse gases, discouraging indiscriminate felling of trees and recycling of non-biodegradable materials. While the world may not be completely rid of diseases and illness, researchers are working hard to produce drugs that will cure these diseases. Research on HIV/AIDS and the Ebola virus, for example, have received much funding in recent times. As a result, HIV can now be controlled and prevented from turning into full-blown AIDS. The Ebola disease can now be treated, and cures for other chronic diseases are on the verge of discovery. Indeed, people want to live happy lives. If all these interventions work out as hoped, the world would certainly become a better place to live in.