Read the passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 2...

Read the passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 23 to 30.

        Founded in 2013, the Internet Society (ISOC) Zimbabwe Chapter works to grow the Internet, make it stronger, and empower communities. Through community networks, it has connected the unconnected and, crucially, used research evidence to inform policy and practice. With a US$79,000 grant for e-waste research, the chapter now confronts a burgeoning dilemma: devices proliferate while lifespans contract. If inclusion is to matter, institutions must be capacitated and regulatory design must keep pace, or progress will be proclaimed yet unevenly enjoyed.

        Over the past decade, device adoption surged; lifespans dwindled; discards piled up in landfills. Because boards contain valuable metals, an informal economy extracts and recycles them with rudimentary methods that endanger workers and ecosystems. Lacking specific legislation, Zimbabwe relies on fragmented rules that are rarely enforced. ISOC Zimbabwe aims to raise awareness, improve management practices, and rally policymakers to act. Informal recyclers often burn or leach components; they frequently lack protective equipment, so exposure is chronic if nothing changes.

        To widen perspective, ISOC Zimbabwe collaborates with the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication. The project follows the value chain from extractive mines in South Greenland and Zimbabwe to Amazon data centres, evaluating energy and waste politics in Virginia and California, and tracing transnational dumping in US–Mexico landfills. What seems benign in the cloud is entangled with material costs, political bargaining, and externalised risk. Only when flows are mapped can responsibility be apportioned credibly.

        The partnership will share data and convene a joint symposium to seed evidence-based practice. It also seeks to inform policies that regulate import, reuse, and recycling, so hazardous steps are no longer normalised. Only by aligning policy, research, and grassroots practice will Zimbabwe escape a cycle where hazard is outsourced to the poorest. If such coordination emerges, safer livelihoods could be created, and environmental harm would be amortised rather than concentrated. Otherwise, short device lifespans will keep generating harm faster than fixes.

(Adapted from Internet Society Foundation  –  “The Future of E-waste in Africa” (2021), interview on ISOC Zimbabwe’s project)

Question 23. The word burgeoning in paragraph 1 can be best replaced by ______?

A. static                B. proliferating                C. obsolete                        D. tentative

Question 24. Which of the following is TRUE according to paragraph 1?

A. The grant funds rural water schemes rather than e-waste research.

B. ISOC Zimbabwe focuses exclusively on government training programs.

C. The chapter avoids research in favor of rapid activism.

D. Research evidence is used to inform policy and practice.

Question 25. The word benign in paragraph 3 is OPPOSITE in meaning to ______.

A. innocuous                B. noxious                        C. salubrious                        D. beneficial

Question 26. The word they in paragraph 2 refers to ______.

A. informal recyclers extracting metals with rudimentary methods

B. national policymakers drafting electronics rules

C. importers of refurbished phones and chargers

D. data-center operators in Virginia and California

Question 27. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in paragraph 2 as an aim of the study?

A. establishing a commercial export hub for second-hand electronics to maximise profits from cross-border resale markets

B. raising public awareness of health and environmental harms associated with unsafe, informal e-waste processing methods

C. improving practical e-waste management routines and promoting safer recovery techniques within affected communities nationwide

D. appealing to policymakers to develop clear legislation regulating import, reuse, recycling, and disposal of electronic devices

Question 28. Which of the following best paraphrases the underlined sentence in paragraph 4?

A. Zimbabwe can break the pattern of exporting risks to marginalized groups solely through integrated policy, research, and community action.

B. Comprehensive coordination among policymakers, researchers, and practitioners is necessary to prevent hazards from disproportionately affecting the poor.

C. Zimbabwe stops shifting hazardous burdens onto the vulnerable only when policy, evidence, and local practice are fully coordinated.

D. Aligning governance, evidence, and local engagement offers the only viable path to ending the displacement of e-waste dangers onto vulnerable populations.

Question 29. Which paragraph mentions global tracking from mines to data centres and US–Mexico landfills?

A. Paragraph 1        B. Paragraph 2                C. Paragraph 3                D. Paragraph 4

Question 30. Which paragraph mentions the founding year and mission areas of ISOC Zimbabwe?
A. Paragraph 1        B. Paragraph 2                C. Paragraph 3                D. Paragraph 4