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English Paper 2 Question Paper

English Paper 2

Course:English

Exam Year:2011

2011
ENGLISH
Paper 2
(Comprehension, Literary Appreciation and Grammar) Oct/Nov 2011
21/2 hours

Read the passage below and then answer the questions that follow.
When I visited my mother last May, much of her sitting room had been converted into what I half jokingly called a Barrack Obama shrine. Since Obama had declared his candidacy for president, my mother had diligently collected everything about the man that she could get her hands on. Magazines, newspaper articles, and T-shirts formed the bulk of her collection, all of it in pristine condition and not to be handled except with utmost care. Almost overnight, all things Obama had become a staple of my mother's conversation. His message of unity and transcendence, his unwillingness to be cowed by "a chorus of cynics," all of this inspired in my mother a late-life surge of confidence. It had even led to her changing the way she answered her phone. Instead of her usual "Hello," she took to lifting the receiver and announcing, "This is our moment."
By the night of Obama's remarkable triumph, she had digested far more than his trademark phrases. Still, she was more than thrilled when, during his victory speech at Chicago's Grant Park, he once again proclaimed, "This is our moment." Obama's victory seemed "just too good to be true, overwhelmingly good, "she told me. 'There are no words to describe how I feel. 'Elated' is not good enough.'*
Hers is a voice tempered and made scratchy by seventy-seven years of living, and decades of making herself heard in a house crowded with loud, boisterous youngsters. My mother is special to me, of course, but in many respects she's a typical black woman of her generation. A child of the Depression, she married young, and stayed home to raise six children. She remembers Jim Crow quite well and, like many of her peers, has more than a few chilling firsthand tales of travel in Mississippi (where her father was born), Missouri, and other places known for white residents' historically open and violent hostility towards African Americans. She is faithful, fearless, and frank, adept at blessing you with gentle encouragement while demonstrating her unerring skill at telling it exactly like it is. While her experience, her lifetime of dearly purchased knowledge, deeply informs my own life, there are parts of it to which I have no access. Her memories contain mysteries that I can only guess at. To hear her answer her phone with such an uncautiously optimistic phrase was a startling, wonderful surprise.
[Adapted from What Obama Means: For Our Culture,
Our Politics, Our Future.
by Jabari Asim. New York: Harper
Collins Publishers, 2009]

(a) What does the author of this passage suggest by referring to his mother's living room as a shrine?
(2 marks)
(b) Why does the author's mother like and support Barack Obama's candidacy?
Give two reasons. (2 marks)
(c) Explain why the words: 'This is our moment" particularly thrilled the mother. (2 marks)
(d) Why does the author's mother find Obama's victory "just too good to be true"? (2 marks)
(e) Give one reason why the author uses his mother and not himself to explain the significance of the
Obama campaign and victory? (2 marks)
A child of the Depression, she married young. (Rewrite using: for) (1 mark)

(g) Describe the relationship between the author and his mother. Illustrate your answer. (4 marks)

(h) The author's mother remembers Jim Crow. Do you think this memory is positive or negative?
Illustrate your answer. (2 marks)

(i) Explain the meaning of the following as used in the passage: (3 marks)

(i) staple of my mother's conversation;

(ii) surge;

(iii) digested.

2 Read the excerpt below and then answer the questions that follow.
HOVSTAD: Hush! (calls out.) Come in! (DR. STOCKMANN comes in by the street door,
HOVSTAD goes to meet him) Ah, it is you, Doctor! Well?
DR. STOCKMANN: You may go ahead and print it, Mr. Hovstad!
HOVSTAD: Has it come to that, then?
BILLING: Hurrah!
DR. STOCKMANN: Yes, you may go to press. Certainly it has come to that. Now they must take what they get. There is going to be a fight in the town, Mr. Billing!
BILLING: War to the knife, I hope! We will get out knives to their throats, Doctor!
DR. STOCKMANN: This article is only a beginning. I already have four or five more figured out in my head. Where is Aslaksen?
BILLING: (calls into the printing-room): Aslaksen, just come here for a minute!
HOVSTAD: Four of five more articles? On the same subject?

DR. STOCKMANN: No - far from it, my dear fellow. No, they are about quite another matter. But they all spring from the question of the water supply and the drainage. One thing leads to another, you know. It is exactly like beginning to pull down an old house.
BILLING: By God, it's true; you find that you are not done till you have pulled all the old
rubbish down.
ASLAKSEN: (coming in): Pulled down? You are surely not thinking of pulling down the
Baths, Doctor Stockmann?
HOVSSTAD: Far from it, don't be alarmed.
DR. STOCKMANN: We meant something quite different. Well what do you think of my article, Mr. Hovstad?
HOVSTAD: I think it is simply a masterpiece.
DR. STOCKMANN: You really think so? Well, I am very pleased.
HOVSTAD: It is so clear and intelligible. One need have no special knowledge to
understand it. You will have every enlightened man on your side, once they have read it.
ASLASKEN: And every prudent man too, I hope!
BILLING: The prudent and the imprudent alike - almost the whole town.
ALASKEN: In that case we may venture to print it.
DR. STOCKMANN: I should think so!
HOVSTAD: We will put it in tomorrow morning.
DR. STOCKMANN: Of course - you must not lose a single day. Aslaksen, please do me a favour. Could you supervise the printing of it yourself.
ASLAKSEN: With pleasure, Dr. Stockmann.
DR. STOCKMANN: Take care of it as if it were a treasure! No misprints - every word is important. I will look in a little later; perhaps you will be able to let me see a proof. I can't tell you how eager I am to see it in print, and see it fired off...
B [LLINGS: Yes, like a flash of lightning!
DR. STOCKMANN: ... and to have it submitted to the judgement of my intelligent fellow
townsmen. You cannot imagine what I have gone through today. I have been threatened with all sorts of things; they have tried to rob me of my most elementary rights as a man...

(a) Briefly explain what Hovstad and Billing were talking about before Dr. Stockmann entered.
(2 marks)
(b) "You may go ahead and print". What had made Dr. Stockmann delay the printing of the article?
(2 marks)
(c) Briefly state what the content of the article is. (4 marks)

(d) " In that case we may venture to print it". What do these words tell us about Aslaksen's attitude
towards the article? (3 marks)
(e) "There is going to be a right in town". Outline the losses incurred by Dr. Stockmann.
his family and friends as a result of the fight. (6 marks)

(l) "Now they must take what they get". To whom does 'they' refer? (1 mark)
(g) Why doesn't Aslaken want the baths to be pulled down? (2 marks)

(h) Hovstad and Aslaksen's decision on whether to publish the article changes twice after this
incident. What does this reveal about their character. (2 marks)

(i) What is the irony in Dr. Stockmann asking Aslaksen to supervise the printing of the article
himself? (2 marks)

(j) " I have been threatened with all sorts of things." Rewrite using "me" instead of "I." (1 mark)

Read the passage below and then answer the questions that follow.
Once upon a time, there lived a boy called Nzoko. He liked two things more than anything else: the forest and mitsic. Scarcely did a moment pass before he sang or quietly whistled a little tune to himself.
The boy's father kept goats, and when Nzoko returned from school, he always took them out to graze in the forest. Once there, he would begin singing, first repeating all the songs he knew and then trying out a few new ones. The murmuring of the river, the rustle of the wind in the trees, even the hum of the bumble bees, all made little tunes for him. One day, he cut a short piece of wood from a willow trees, whittled it down, pierced holes into it and made a flute. On his flute, the tunes sounded lovelier than ever before-One warm day. Nzoko heard something moving in the bushes around him. On looking up, and to his amazement, he saw a little fairy man. "Do you know what I have come for? the fairy asked. "No", I'm ... I'm ve..jy so..rry but don't," answered the boy.
"Well.” the fairy said, " the spirits of the forest have been long listening to your flute and they are con-vinced only the fairy piper can play as well as you do. So I have come to hear for myself and I will reward you well if you impress me too."
Nzoko did not need telling twice. He was quite at ease with the little man now, and he began to play music so sweet that it entranced the fairy, making him stay on until the moon rose over the distant hills. Before leaving, he asked Nzoko what reward he desired most. "The fairy fiddle, please. For 1 have heard it said that it is the finest in the whole wide world," the boy replied expectantly.
"'The fairy fiddle!" exclaimed the fairy, greatly astonished. "That is the most precious gift, and onlone who fulfils these three conditions will obtain it. Now listen carefully, Nzoko: your playing must be so enchanting that it will charm the birds into stopping their own music to listen; your music must make animals stop their fighting and finally, your tunes must heal the sick. Take this ring, and when you have worked hard enough, and only then, turn it and it will bring you the fairy fiddle," the fairy said and then vanished.
In the following days. Nzoko played every song over and over, trying to make each better and better. He tried to silence the music of a blackbird with his own but to no avail. However, he didn't give up and one sunny afternoon, there suddenly gathered a wide circle of birds: robins and wrens, finches and blackbirds, cuckoos and wagtails. And they listened. Could this be the first condition fulfilled?
Several days later, he heard a great din coming from a farm. On checking, he saw a fox running after cackling hens, wanting to turn them into a meal. Without realizing it, Nzoko started playing his flute loudly and as if by magic, the fox melted away. Thus, the second condition was fulfilled.
On yet another day. as he drove the goats home, he heard a child cry weakly in agony. He peeped through the window of the cottage and saw a little girl lying in bed, pale and worn. The mother must have gone to look for herbs. Nzoko's eyes welled with tears, and as if driven by some force beyond him, he started playing a merry tune on his flute, then a merrier one still. And, slowly, very slowly, colour began to creep back into the girls face and after a little while she asked for food. The third and last condition fulfilled?
Nzoko leapt for joy and turned the ring, and there, right there in front of him, was the most wonderful fiddle there ever was.
(Adapted from Your Ora! Literature by Henry Mbarwa (1989). Nairobi: Kijabe Printing Press)
(a) From the second paragraph, what inspired Nzoko to create new tunes? (2 marks)
(b) Why do you think the boy's reply to the fairy is broken with dots? (3 marks)
(c) How do we know that Nzoko was very eager to play the flute for the fairy man? (2 marks)
(d) Give two reasons why you think the fairy set conditions for Nzoko before he could get the fairy
fiddle. (4 marks)
(e) Why do you think the narrator mentions six different kinds of birds? (2 marks)
(f) With an illustration for each, describe any two character traits of Nzoko. (4 marks)
(g) What can we learn about the values of this community? (3 marks)

(a) Rewrite the following sentences according to the instructions given after each. (3 marks)
(i) Aisha asked Tom to return her key the following day. Rewrite in direct speech)
(ill The teacher asked them where they had been the previous Friday. {Rewrite in direct speech)

(iii) It is a pleasant surprise to meet you again after all these years. (Rewrite beginning: What ...)

(bi Complete the sentences below with the correct form of the verb. (2 marks)

(i) Each of the boys............................................. given a present.
(ii) Either Joyce or her daughters ...................................... coming.
(c) Briefly explain the difference between the following pairs of sentences. (4 marks)
I (i) They collected all the money they needed.
(ii) They needed all the money they collected.
II. (i) Four of those students were admitted to the university, (ii) Those four students were admitted to the university

(d) For each of the following sentences, provide the appropriate noun formed from the word 'break'
to fill the blank space. (3 marks)
example
The story of the .................................... of prisoners from the maximum security prison was
carried by all the dailies.
Answer: breakout
(i) Scientists have been working hard to find a cure for HIV-AIDS without a major
(ii) The ........................................ of their friendship was caused by unfaithfulness.
(iii) The business has operated for quite sometime but is yet to reach the ........................................point.
(e) For each of the following sentences, use the correct form of the word in brackets to fill in the blank
space. (3 marks)
(i) Once the sun has .................................... I cannot sleep any more, (rise)
(ii) How long have you ................................... here? (dwell)
(iii) It is advisable that we ................................... forgive those who wrong us. (condition)

English Paper 2 Question Paper

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