How to practise JAMB Use of English in CBT mode

To practise JAMB Use of English in CBT mode, do it on a screen and against a clock: 60 questions, read passages by scrolling, answer with the keyboard, and review every miss by topic. It is compulsory and carries a third of your 180 UTME questions, so it deserves a third of your timed practice too.

Key points

• Use of English has 60 questions. Each of your other three subjects has 40. All 180 share one 2 hour clock, according to JAMB's 2026 manual for officials.
• The syllabus has three parts: comprehension and summary, lexis and structure, and oral forms.
• On screen, long passages need scrolling. JAMB lets you use the up and down arrow keys for that and A to D to answer.
• A budget of about 40 minutes for English leaves 75 for the other three subjects and 5 to check. That is my suggestion, not a JAMB rule.
• My app, Etest CBT: JAMB Practice 2027, sets 60 English questions in its full mock. Get it on the App Store or Google Play.

What is in the JAMB Use of English paper?

JAMB's Manual for Officials of the 2026 UTME is clear on the shape. Use of English is compulsory, it has 60 multiple choice questions, each question has four options lettered A to D, and the whole exam runs two hours, a time that "cannot be altered under any circumstance."

The content comes from JAMB's syllabus, which sits on its IBASS portal. I could not open the syllabus pages there, so this outline comes from published copies of it:

• Comprehension and summary. Passages of description, narration, exposition and argument, with questions on meaning, inference and the writer's purpose. A cloze passage, where you fill in gaps, is part of this.
• Lexis and structure. Synonyms, antonyms, idioms, sentence completion, concord, tenses, word classes, punctuation and spelling.
• Oral forms. Vowels, consonants, rhymes, word stress and emphatic stress.

There is also a reading text. Reports say JAMB named The Lekki Headmaster by Kabir Alabi Garba as the Use of English text from the 2025 UTME, replacing The Life Changer. When I checked jamb.gov.ng on 24 October 2026 I found no notice about the text for 2027. Confirm it with JAMB before you buy a copy.

Why does CBT mode change how I should practise English?

Because English on a screen is a different task from English on paper.

• Passages scroll. On paper you see the whole passage. On screen you scroll, and it is easy to lose your place. JAMB's manual says the up and down arrow keys scroll passages.
• You cannot underline. On paper you mark key words. On screen you hold them in your head, or write a word or two on the rough worksheet the supervisor hands out.
• The keyboard is faster than the mouse. Press A, B, C or D to answer, and N for the next question. Answers save when you select them or press N or P.
• English shares the clock. There is one clock for all four subjects. If you dwell on a hard passage, your Physics pays for it.

So practising English from a textbook is fine for learning. For exam rehearsal, use a timed screen.

How should I split the 2 hours?

Here is the split I suggest. JAMB does not set one, so adjust it to your strengths.

Part	Questions	Time I would give it
Use of English	60	40 minutes
Subject 2	40	25 minutes
Subject 3	40	25 minutes
Subject 4	40	25 minutes
Final check of flagged questions		5 minutes

Forty minutes for 60 questions is 40 seconds a question, the same average as the whole paper. Lexis questions often take 15 seconds. A comprehension passage with five questions can take four minutes. They balance out, as long as you do not freeze on one passage.

What does a four week English practice plan look like?

This is the plan I would follow with four weeks to go. It assumes about 30 minutes of English a day, plus one full mock a week.

1. Week 1: lexis and structure in study mode. Do 20 questions a day with instant answers, no timer. Read the explanation for every miss and write the rule in your own words.
2. Week 2: comprehension on screen. Do one passage a day, timed at about a minute per question. Practise scrolling with the arrow keys. Read the questions first, then the passage.
3. Week 3: oral forms and mixed sets. Oral forms are small in number but easy to lose marks on, so drill vowel sounds and stress patterns for ten minutes daily. Then do timed sets of 30 mixed questions in 20 minutes.
4. Week 4: full mocks. Two full mocks in the UTME layout, 180 questions in 2 hours, with English first. Review every English miss by topic the next day.

Each Saturday, sit one full mock. My guide on taking a full JAMB mock on your phone has the routine, and using past questions without wasting them covers the review step.

Which English topics come up most in past questions?

I can only speak for the questions in my own app. Etest CBT has 541 English past questions, tagged by topic. The biggest groups are Lexis and Vocabulary with 149, Idioms and Figurative Expressions with 79, Comprehension with 73, Grammar and Concord with 67 and Tenses with 41. Oral forms add up to 44.

That is a count of what my bank holds, not a forecast of your paper. Still, it shows where volume sits. Vocabulary and idioms together make up more than two in five of my English questions, and both reward daily practice more than last minute cramming.

My one firm opinion here: most students under practise idioms. They feel like trivia, so they get skipped. They are also the questions you either know in five seconds or never get.

How does Etest CBT handle Use of English?

In the full mock, Etest CBT makes Use of English compulsory and draws 60 English questions and 40 for each of your other three subjects, on one 2 hour clock, with a question navigator and flags. Outside the mock you can practise English in study mode, with an explanation for every answer, or in timed papers of 60 to 180 minutes.

The app has 15 English study guides and a study plan, and it works offline. See Etest CBT. It is an independent app, not affiliated with JAMB.

Frequently asked questions

How many questions are in JAMB Use of English?

Sixty. JAMB's 2026 manual for officials says Use of English is compulsory with 60 multiple choice questions, while each of the other three subjects has 40. That makes 180 questions in all, answered in two hours on a computer.

Is Use of English compulsory in JAMB?

Yes. Every UTME candidate sits Use of English plus three subjects linked to their course. You choose the three subjects, but English is fixed. My post on choosing a JAMB subject combination explains how to pick the other three.

Is there a novel in JAMB Use of English for 2027?

Reports say JAMB named The Lekki Headmaster by Kabir Alabi Garba as the reading text from the 2025 UTME. On 24 October 2026 I found no JAMB notice about the 2027 text on jamb.gov.ng. Check JAMB's official channels before you buy a copy.

How long should I spend on JAMB English in the exam?

JAMB gives one clock for all four subjects and does not split it. I suggest about 40 minutes for the 60 English questions, which leaves 75 minutes for the other three subjects and five minutes to check flagged questions. Adjust it after your first full mock.

Can I use the keyboard for English comprehension passages?

Yes. JAMB's 2026 manual says candidates can scroll passages with the up and down arrow keys, answer with A, B, C or D, and move with N for next and P for previous. Practise with these keys so you are not hunting for the mouse.

How I wrote this

The exam layout and the keyboard keys come from JAMB's Manual for Officials of the 2026 UTME, read on jamb.gov.ng on 24 October 2026. I could not open the syllabus on JAMB's IBASS portal, so the syllabus outline and the reading text come from published copies and reports, and I have said so. The topic counts come from my own app's question bank. The time split and the four week plan are my own method.

By John Osakwe, founder of Etest Tech Hub. I have built apps and websites since 2015, including Etest CBT, FizzFree and Pawlarm.