JAMB Commerce 2004

B: ocean liners

Ocean liners provide regular services across oceans according to schedules. Tramp vessels seek cargo without a fixed regular timetable; coastal liners serve coastal rather than ocean-crossing routes.

A: gambling

Gambling deliberately creates a speculative chance of gain or loss. Ordinary insurance covers specified fortuitous losses rather than reimbursing a person’s gambling losses.

C: system software

An operating system is system software: it manages hardware and provides services for applications. A flowchart represents a process, and syntax describes the rules for writing a language.

A: Insurance

Insurance provides financial protection against specified uncertain events. Reinsurance is insurance obtained by an insurer, and a warranty is a promise about a product or service.

A: facilitating interaction between producers and consumers

Communication allows producers and consumers to exchange information about needs, products and orders. Physical movement is transport and safe storage is warehousing.

A: National Council on Privatization

The National Council on Privatisation makes policy decisions, while the Bureau of Public Enterprises implements the programme as its secretariat. These are distinct policy and implementation roles.

B: Burkina Faso, Guinea and Nigeria

Burkina Faso, Guinea and Nigeria are all members of the Niger basin organisation. The other options contain Ghana or The Gambia, which are not members.

C: redress

Redress means access to a remedy when consumer rights are breached, such as replacement or refund where appropriate. Consumers have no general right to free samples, credit or a share of business profits.

B: independence

ECOWAS is a community of sovereign states. Independence is the relevant statehood condition among the options; no particular population or land area is the general membership criterion.

C: land and water pollution

Dumped waste and oil can contaminate soil, while sewage and runoff pollute rivers and other water bodies. Land and water pollution together describe the principal contamination routes listed.

B: bank overdrafts

A bank overdraft provides business credit by allowing an account to go below its available balance up to an agreed limit. It is a normal short-term financing source alongside the other sources in the question.

A: bank rates

In traditional monetary terminology, the bank rate is the central bank’s lending or rediscount rate for commercial banks. Interest rate is the wider category rather than this specific named rate.

C: bills of exchange and promissory notes

A bill of exchange orders payment and a promissory note promises payment. Both can embody credit obligations, unlike vouchers and account statements, which primarily record transactions.

D: quoted shares.

Quoted shares are shares listed and priced on a stock exchange. Issued shares need not be exchange-listed, and deferred describes rights or priority rather than listing status.

A: Selling the shares and stocks of companies to be privatised

The capital market provides a mechanism for selling ownership securities to investors. In privatisation this enables government shareholdings to pass to private investors through the offering process.

B: letters of credit

A documentary credit is a letter of credit under which the bank undertakes payment against complying documents. A credit note adjusts an invoice and a bank draft is a different payment instrument.

C: registered share capital

Under traditional authorised-capital terminology, registered capital is the maximum capital recorded in the company’s constitutional documents. Issued, called-up and paid-up amounts describe different stages.

A: ultra vires

Ultra vires means beyond the powers. In the traditional objects-clause doctrine it describes an act outside the company’s stated objects, unlike caveat emptor or utmost good faith.

D: consolidation.

Consolidation can concentrate activity in fewer locations by closing inactive operations. Diversification expands into additional activities and rejuvenation attempts to revive an operation.

A: Conglomerate merger

Textiles, cement and leather tanning are different industries. Combining businesses across those unrelated lines is a conglomerate merger rather than joining competitors at one stage or successive stages of one chain.

D: construction

Branch i groups industrial occupations, including extraction and the other production branches. Construction is an industrial activity; commerce, exchange and finance belong elsewhere in this classification.

A: Aids to trade

Branch ii is commerce, whose two major divisions are trade and aids to trade. Therefore v is aids to trade, the services such as transport and banking that facilitate exchange.

C: Public company limited by shares

PLC denotes a public limited company. The public designation distinguishes it from a private company limited by shares; a company limited by guarantee is a different form.

D: distribution

Commerce concerns getting goods and services from producers to users through trade and its supporting activities. Distribution is the broad category here, including exchange, transport and storage.

A: resources required for the provision of goods and services

Factors of production are the resources used to produce goods and services, traditionally land, labour, capital and enterprise. They are not simply government monetary instruments or policy-making steps.

C: Warehouse services

Warehousing stores goods when supply is plentiful and releases them when needed. This can smooth availability over time, although it cannot guarantee elimination of every shortage.

C: Mutual schemes

Thrift societies pool members’ savings and lend from those common funds under agreed rules. The members support one another through that shared arrangement, making it mutual.

B: a requisition

A requisition is an internal request for goods to be bought or issued from stock. A quotation states a proposed price, while a tender is a formal offer to supply.

C: an indent

An indent is an order specifying goods an importer wants from an overseas supplier. A manifest lists cargo carried by a ship, and a bill of lading records receipt and shipment of cargo.

B: Unequal distribution of natural resources

Countries have different resource endowments, which create opportunities to specialise and exchange goods. Differences, rather than uniform production conditions, help explain international trade.

A: Trade discounts

A trade discount reduces the list price for intermediaries such as wholesalers or retailers. It differs from a cash discount for prompt payment and a seasonal discount tied to the time of year.