What the paper is made of
Use of English breaks into a few recognisable parts: comprehension passages, lexis and structure (synonyms, antonyms, sentence completion, word usage), and oral forms — stress, vowels and consonant sounds. They reward completely different things, and they should be revised completely differently.
Everything here sits inside the official JAMB Use of English syllabus, which changes very little from year to year, so there is no need to wait for the 2027 edition before you start. What is confirmed for 2027 so far is in our JAMB 2027 update.
Comprehension: answer from the passage, not from sense
The most expensive habit in comprehension is answering from general knowledge. JAMB writes distractors that are true in the world but unsupported by the passage, and they catch thoughtful candidates more often than careless ones.
- Read the questions first, then the passage. You read differently when you know what you are looking for.
- For every answer, be able to point at the line that justifies it. If you cannot, you are guessing from sense.
- Watch for "according to the passage" and "the author implies" — they demand different kinds of answer, and swapping them is a standard trap.
Lexis and structure: the section that rewards volume
This is where past questions pay most directly. The vocabulary JAMB tests recurs, the sentence patterns recur, and candidates who have worked through several years of papers start recognising items rather than reasoning them out. There is no clever technique here — it is exposure, spaced out over weeks.
Keep a list of every word you meet and could not define, and revisit it. Not a beautiful notebook you never open. A working list.
Oral forms: small, learnable, routinely abandoned
Stress and sound questions are a fixed, finite set of patterns. Candidates skip them because they feel foreign, then lose marks that were genuinely available for a few hours of study. Learn the common stress patterns, the vowel and consonant contrasts that come up repeatedly, and how emphatic stress shifts meaning in a sentence. It is the most contained topic on the paper.
Four weeks, if you have been ignoring it
- Week 1: two comprehension passages a day, timed, with justification for every answer.
- Week 2: lexis and structure from past papers, 40 questions a day, wrong answers written down.
- Week 3: oral forms from scratch, plus revisiting week 2's wrong answers.
- Week 4: full timed English sections only, then error review.
The reading that helps
Read editorials and long-form journalism, not social media. The register JAMB tests — formal, argued, structured — is the register of newspaper opinion writing. Twenty minutes a day of that does more for comprehension speed than another list of synonyms.
Questions people ask
What is in the JAMB Use of English paper?
Comprehension passages, lexis and structure covering synonyms, antonyms, sentence completion and word usage, and oral forms covering stress, vowels and consonant sounds. They reward completely different things and should be revised completely differently.
How should I answer comprehension questions?
From the passage, not from general knowledge. JAMB writes distractors that are true in the world but unsupported by the passage, and they catch thoughtful candidates more often than careless ones. For every answer, be able to point at the line that justifies it.
How do I improve at lexis and structure?
Volume. The vocabulary JAMB tests recurs and the sentence patterns recur, so candidates who work through several years of papers start recognising items rather than reasoning them out. There is no clever technique here, only exposure spaced out over weeks.
Are oral forms worth studying?
Yes, and they are routinely abandoned. Stress and sound questions are a fixed, finite set of patterns and the most contained topic on the paper, so a few hours of study recovers marks that were genuinely available.
Practise this, don't just read it. Comprehension improves faster than any other section, but only against a clock. JAMBUDDY gives you timed mocks and 20,000+ real past questions inside Telegram, free for 14 days. Open @jamb_buddy_bot.