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Kcse English Paper 2 Question Paper

Kcse English Paper 2

Course:English

Exam Year:2010

1. Read the passage below and then answer the questions that follow,

Moving to a new country can be an exciting, even exhilarating experience. In a new environment, you somehow feel more alive: seeing new sights, eating new food, hearing the foreign sounds of a new language, and feeling a different climate against your skin stimulate your senses as never before. Soon, however, this sensory bombardment becomes sensory overload. Suddenly, new experiences seem stressful rather than stimulating, and delight turns into discomfort. This is the phenomenon known as culture shock. Culture shock is more than jet lag or homesickness, and it affects nearly everyone who enters a new culture - tourists, business travellers, diplomats and students alike. Although not everyone experiences culture shock in exactly the same way, many experts agree that it has roughly five stages.
In the first stage, you are excited by your new environment. You experience some simple difficulties such as trying to use the telephone or public transportation, but you consider these small challenges that you can quickly overcome. Your feelings about the new culture are positive, so you are eager to make contact with people and to try new foods.
Sooner or later, differences in behaviour and customs become more noticeable to you. This is the second stage of culture shock. Because you do not know the social customs of the new culture, you may find it difficult to make friends. For instance, you do not understand how to make "small talk," so it is hard to carry on a casual, get-acquainted conversation. One day in the school cafeteria, you overhear a conversation. You understand all the words, but you do not understand the meaning. Why is everyone laughing? Are they laughing at you or at some joke that you did not understand? Also, you aren't always sure how to act while shopping. Is this store self-service or should you wait for a clerk to assist you? If you buy a sweater in the wrong size, can you exchange it? These are not minor challenges; they are major frustrations.
In the third stage, you no longer have positive feelings about the new culture. You feel that you have made a mistake in coming here. Making friends hasn't been easy, so you begin to feel lonely and isolated. Now you want to be with familiar people and eat familiar food. You begin to spend most of your free time with students from your home country, and you eat in restaurants that serve your native food. In fact, food becomes an obsession, and you spend a lot of time planning, shopping for, and cooking food from home.
You know that you are in the fourth stage of culture shock when you have negative feelings about almost everything. In this stage, you actively reject the new culture. You become critical, suspicious, and irritable. You believe that people are unfriendly, that your landlord is trying to cheat you, that your teachers do not like you, and that the food is making you sick. In fact, you may actually develop stomachaches, headaches, sleeplessness, lethargy, or other physical symptoms.
Finally, you reach the fifth stage. As your language skills improve, you begin to have some success in meeting people and in negotiating situations. You are able to exchange the sweater that was too small, and you can successfully chat about the weather with a stranger on the bus. Your self-confidence grows. After realizing that you cannot change your surroundings, you begin to accept the differences and tolerate them. For instance the food will never be as tasty as the food in your home country, but you are now able to eat and sometimes even enjoy many dishes. You may not like the way some people in your host country dress or behave in public, but you do not regard their clothes and behaviour as wrong -just different.
In conclusion, nearly everyone moving to a new country feels some degree of culture shock. Symptoms may vary, and not all people experience all five stages. Newcomers with a strong support group may feel at home immediately in the new culture, while others may take months to feel comfortable. Staying in touch with friends and family, keeping a positive attitude, and, above all, learning the language as soon as possible are ways to overcome the difficulties and frustrations of adapting to life in a new land.
From: Writing Academic English, Alice Oshima and Ann Hogue, Pearson Education, Longman (2006)

(a) According to the passage, what is the meaning of culture shock? (2 marks)
(b) Identify any three factors that can cause culture shock. (3 marks)
(c) What evidence does the author give to show "you understand all the words, but you do not
understand the meaning"? (2 marks)
(d) Give any three features that characterize a person in the worst state of culture shock. (3 marks)
(e) In note form, give the difficulties experienced in the second stage of culture shock. (4 marks)
(f) Why is making friends helpful in overcoming culture shock? (2 marks)
(g) Explain the meaning of the following words as used in the passage: (3 marks)
alive .....................................................................................................................................................
obsession .............................................................................................................................................
negotiating ...........................................................................................................................................
(h) Staying in touch with friends and family, keeping a positive attitude, and, above all, learning the language as soon as possible are ways to overcome the difficulties and frustrations of adapting to life in a new land.
(Rewrite the sentence above without changing the meaning. Begin: You ....) (1 mark)

2. Read the excerpt below and then answer the questions that follow:
Again Nyambura glanced over her shoulder in the direction of her home. She wondered whether to stop or to go on. She heard Waiyaki's voice.
"T am going to see Kamau."
"And I Johana. My father has sent me to him to tell him to come to our home today."
"Then we can walk together," he suggested.
They moved on slowly. He was thinking of this girl. Muthoni had been the cause of their first meeting. Then Nyambura had been a fairly tall girl with well-formed features. Now he could see the woman in her under the bright moonlight.
"What are you going to do there?" she asked. Waiyaki thought: What am I going to do there? It was then that it occurred to him that he did not want to see Kamau. Not now. He too thought of the people and what they would say now if they saw them walking together. Above them the moon gazed and lit the whole land, Nyambura was not circumcised. But this was not a crime. Something passed between them as two human beings, untainted with religion, social conventions or any traditions.
“Just to see Kamau and the family."
Nyambura felt a little angry. She thought; their activities. They came to a place where their ways parted. They stopped there and stood as if held together by something outside themselves. Perhaps it was the magic of the moon that held them both rooted to the spot. Waiyaki wanted to dance the magic and ritual of the moon. His heart beat hard, beating out the darkness. And Nyambura stood there looking as if she were the embodiment of serene beauty, symbolised by the flooding moon and the peace around.
Suddenly Waiyaki felt as if the burning desires of his heart would be soothed if only he could touch
her, just touch her hand or her hair. He controlled himself. A strange uneasiness began to creep through
him.
"Are you still teaching?"
"Yes..."
"I have not seen your school."
"You should come some day. And why not tomorrow in the afternoon just after school closes? I could take you round."

(a) Why did Waiyaki want to see Kamau at that time of the evening? (2 marks)
(b) Muthoni had been the cause of their first meeting. Explain how Muthoni had been the cause of
Nyambura and Waiyaki's first meeting. (4 marks)
(c) What indicates that both Nyambura and Waiyaki are uncomfortable in the circumstances they find themselves in this excerpt? (4 marks)
(d) Identify and explain any two character traits that Nyambura and Waiyaki share in this excerpt.
(4 marks)
(e) "What are you going to do there?" she asked.
(Rewrite in reported speech) . (1 mark)
(f) Briefly describe aspects of the themes of the Novel that come through in this excerpt. (6 marks)
(g) Identify and illustrate any two aspects of style used in the excerpt. (4 marks)

3 Read the poem below and then answer the questions that follow.
"Song of the wagondriver". B.S. Johson
My first love was a ten-ton truck They gave me when I started, And though she played the bitch with me I grieved when we were parted.
Since then I've had a dozen more,
The wound was quick to heal,
And now it's easier to say
I'm married to my wheel.
I've trunked it north, I've trunked it south, On wagons good and bad, But none was ever really like The first I ever had.
The life is hard, the hours are long,
Sometimes I cease to feel,
But I go on, for it seems to me
I'm married to my wheel. . ;
Often I think of my home and kids, Out on the road at night, And think of taking a local job Provided the money's right.
Two nights a week I see my wife And eat a decent meal, But otherwise, for all my life, 5. I'm married to my wheel.
(From The Earth is Ours: Poems for Secondary Schools.
Selected by lan Gordon)
(a) Briefly explain what the poem is about. (2 marks)
(b) What is contradictory about the persona's relationship with his first truck? (2 marks)
(c) The persona is facing a real dilemma. Which is it? (2 marks)

d) Identify and illustrate any two literary devices that the poet uses. (4 marks)
(e) What makes the persona's job demanding? Give your answer in note form. (4 marks)
(f) Explain the meaning of the following lines: (i) Sometimes I cease to feel
(i) Sometime I cease to feel (2 marks)
(ii) Provided the money's right (2 marks)
(g) Explain the meaning of the words below as used in the poem.
(i) grieved ......................................................................................................................................... (1 mark)
(ii) trunked ........................................................................................................................................ (1 mark)
4 (a) Rewrite the following sentences in Direct Speech. (2 marks)
(i) The tourist exclaimed that Kenya was a beautiful country.
(ii) Halima told James to go where she was.
(b) Rewrite each sentence below to make it communicate more sensibly. (2 marks)
(i) They left the field full of sweat.
(ii) Powerful and comfortable, the buyer really liked the car.
(c) Fill in the blank spaces with an appropriate pronoun. (3 marks)
(i) The children and ..................... ought to leave immediately if we want to arrive there before dark.
(ii) The organisers have invited Mwamburi and ..................... but I don't intend to go.
(iii) Since she obtained the highest grade, the school should give the award to no one else but

(d) Fill in the blank spaces -with the correct form of the verb in brackets, (3 marks)
(i) A flock of birds ..................... (fly) away from this lake every week.
(ii) I wondered why they had ..................... (sing) that particular song.
(iii) The ball must have been ..................... (hit) too hard.
(e) Rewrite each of the following sentences as instructed. (3 marks)
(i) It is amazing that the couple takes care of so many orphans.
(Begin: That......)
(ii) What we need in Kenya is patriotism.
(End: .......... in Kenya.)
(iii) My students don't drink. My students don't smoke. (Join into one sentence using 'neither ....)
(f) Fill in each blank space with the appropriate word. (2 marks)
(i) I stopped the child from chewing a ..................... of grass.
(ii) The doctor told her to take the ..................... of medicine according to the prescription.

Kcse English Paper 2 Question Paper

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