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Nyamira District Mock - English Paper 2 Question Paper

Nyamira District Mock - English Paper 2

Course:Secondary Level

Exam Year:2006

101/2
ENGLISH
Read the passage below and answer the questions which follow:
An agreement this week in Nairobi by the seven countries of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad) to establish a regional emergency fund involving the private sector to fight famine in the Horn of Africa is historic. The decision is significant in that it represents the first time the countries are involving the private sector on a regional scale to fight famine.
It also signifies a turning point for Igad: a realisation that Africa cannot attain food security without tackling the root causes of famine – political turmoil, civil strife and war that have made a continent that was an exporter of food 50 years ago unable to feed itself. Observers see another agreement also reached this week to deploy security forces to Somalia to help the transitional government secure peace, as well as ongoing peace initiatives in Darfur, as efforts that will ultimately help the region to resolve its food crises.
Uplifting as this may be, Igad, which was set up primarily to fight drought and desertification before its mandate was expanded, is setting up the emergency fund on its 20th anniversary, two decades late.
The seven Igad members – Kenya, the new chair, Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia and Djibouti – will need to prove that the political will they displayed at their Nairobi summit will outlast the famine currently ravaging the region. That has to begin with action on the ground.
In the sun drenched plains of Elwak, some 250 kilometers south of Mandera in Kenya’s North Eastern Province, swirls of dust reveal that the rains that had been pounding Nairobi and its environs did not spread out to the province, now going through a third consecutive year of drought.
The results have been disastrous: the pastoral communities dependent on rain for water and pasture are literally staring death in the face. A dozen people had perished by December 2005, when the Kenyan Government – embarrassed by the distressing media images showing the starving masses – responded by dispatching tonnes of grains and gallons of water to those who needed it.
Even fodder was transported to save the animals, in a campaign that galvanised the general population to raise funds for their starving compatriots.
But the process has been excruciatingly slow, partly due to infrastructural limitations and bureaucratic bottlenecks that are choking life saving operations, while eating away huge amounts of money.
A recent visit to parts of Mandera district revealed that things are going from bad to worse, judging from the growing numbers of hungry people. “There are new arrivals every hour,” said Mohamed Abdi Noor, the Red Cross Chairman in Mandera District. “As it is, things are very bad”.
The “new arrivals” refers to herdsmen who had been trekking through the wilderness in search of water and pasture, and having lost their animals, are pitching tent in settlements near towns. Noor says food distribution has only covered 57 per cent of the NEP population at 75 per cent food rations.
The number of animals that have succumbed to the drought have risen to 90 per cent, says Elwak district officer Patrick Choge, a situation that could take up to 15 years to reverse, according to British aid agency, Oxfam. The humanitarian intervention in NEP is increasingly turning to be a case of too little, too late.
With over 70 million people facing chronic hunger and poverty, the Horn of Africa region is one of the most vulnerable in the world. In the most immediate future, however, Oxfam says at least 11.5 million people need food aid.
But the region’s current severe food shortage is not just about patterns of weather; food security is essentially a political question. Civil strife, for instance, has engulfed Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea and Uganda, disrupting agricultural production – the mainstay of the region’s economy.
The situation is replicated elsewhere, with the food and Agricultural Organisation citing only 12 of the 27 countries facing acute food shortages in Sub Saharan Africa to be as a result of drought, compared to the 15 countries whose woes stem from political turmoil.
The continent has suffered from 186 coups and 26 major wars in the past 50 years, displacing 16 million refugees.
But what remains unpalatable is how a continent that exported enormous quantities of food at independence, now can not feed its people.
A study of Kenya’s growing food insecurity illuminates the broader crisis within the continent.
Although post-independent Kenya has not been at war, its over-tilled lands have grown less
productive, while shrinking in size to accommodate its rapidly growing population, currently standing at 33million from the 3.5 million at independence in 1963.
Under-investment in rural areas is another factor that applies to the regions presently facing famine.
North Eastern Province is considered “the forgotten frontier,” and its inferior infrastructure attests to decades of political neglect.
Said Barre’s ambition of creating what he called the “Greater Somalia,” incorporating parts of the NEP, was halted by Kenya’s superior force in the Shift a war.
The more bruising battle for the “Greater Somalia” was waged over the Ogaden region in Ethiopia.
Margery Perham explains in her book, Thinking Aloud About Africa, that three of the five white stars on the Somali flag point towards Ogaden, Kenya’s Northern Frontier District and Djibuti, representing the Somali terra irredenta.
“Poor governance is a major issue in many African Countries, and one that has serious repercussions for long term food security,” says a report by the International Food Policy Research Institute.
“Problems such as corruption, collusion and nepotism can significantly inhibit the capacity of governments to promote development efforts.”
The multiplicity of social, cultural and political issues that have impacted on Kenya’s food production also come into play in Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan and Djibouti.
(a) According to the first paragraph, what resolution did the seven Igad member states reach? Give your answer in one sentence of not more than 25 words. (2mks) *Nym *
b) Identify all the Igad member states. (1mk) *Nym *
(c) What is the full meaning of Igad? (1mk) *Nym *
(d) What was Igad’s primary objective at initiation? (2mks) *Nym *
(e) Identify and illustrate two aspects of style used in the passage (4mks). *Nym *
(f) What shows that the Kenya Government was initially reluctant to send the tonnes of grains and gallons of water to those who needed it, even after a dozen people had perished by December
2005?
(2mks). *Nym *
(g) According to information given in the passage, two factors have been given contributing to the slow pace of food transport operations to the affected parts. Which are they?(2mks) *Nym *
(h) Punctuate the following sentences:
(i) Africa cannot attain FOOD SECURITY without tackling the root causes of famine writes
Peter Kimani. (1mk) *Nym *
(ii) The solutions to the food problem in the horn of Africa region are simple end civils trife and initiate irrigation. (1mk) *Nym*
(i) “There are new arrivals every hour,” said Mohammed Abdi Noor, the Red Cross Chairman in
Mandera District. Rewrite the sentence in indirect or reported speech. (1mk) *Nym *
(j) Oxfam says at least 11.5 million people need food aid. (Rewrite in passive voice)
(1mk) *Nym *
(k) Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases as used in the passage.
(5mks) *Nym *
Ravaging
Galvanised
Compatriots
Infrastructural limitations
Replicated
2. COMING TO BIRTH BY Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye
Read the following extract and answer the questions that follow-:
At the same time Paulina was shepherding her party back to the bus, Martin was sitting in his room at Kibera glued to the radio. His eyes were hot and hard. Nancy dared not speak to him when he was like this. He had promised to take her shopping and there was a pair of shoes she was determined to get out of this month’s money. Too bad that a big man was dying, a handsome and powerful man too, but people died on the radio or in the newspapers every-day. It was not like anyone you really knew or had a duty to. Nancy was fed up.
She was eighteen, a Pumwani-born girl with a light skin and soft curly hair. Her mother was a Kikuyu.
They did not know who her father was. When she was a baby her mother had been moved from
Pumwani down to Bahati with the other ‘free’ Kikuyu. She had a vegetable stall there and grumbled constantly about the closeness of the houses and the harassment, so Nancy started with a determination to get away. She was lucky enough to get a place in high school but had to leave after the first year because she was pregnant. Her mother took the baby and it died soon, but they couldn’t afford to pull strings to get her into another school, so she drifted off to live with a school teacher who had promised to get her admission, but he never paid the fees for her and was afraid his headmaster would object to his having so young a girl in his house, so he was trying to push her out. At this point Martin, who knew the teacher through evening classes, was setting up in a new room at Kibera, since the cousin he was staying with was getting urgently married, so the teacher introduced Nancy as his cousin and a bargain was struck.
She liked Martin, who was a bit soft, and kept in reserve the possibility of really marrying him, since there was some mystery about his first wife and they had no children. On the other hand he was quite old now and might not get much more promotion, and people warned her she would be expected to learn Luo and have dozens of babies. And surely, Nancy thought, a pretty girl these days could at least expect a car before being burdened with a big family. Martin was still doling out the housekeeping money at ten shilling a time and going with her to buy a dress or a handbag in case she should be cheated over the quality or add a margin to the price. But today she was really mad at him, sitting there over that radio as though he were going to cry and taking no notice when she pulled her wrapper tighter and made ready to go out.
Three Luo men trooped in. They shook hands, barely speaking and huddled over the radio also. At last there was a low moan. She was rattling water in a tin basin outside and barely understood who had made the sound but the import was clear. The man had died and they sat there staring at one another like mad things.
2. (a) Place this extract in its immediate context. (2mks) *Nym *
(b) Who is Nancy? (1mk) *Nym *
(c) Explain the following in the context of the extract;
(i) Girl with a light skin (1mk) *Nym *
(ii) They couldn’t afford to pull strings to get her into another school (1mk) *Nym *
(d) What do you learn about urban social set-ups from Nancy’s birth and later her stay with
Martin and the school teacher? (2mks)
*Nym *
(e) “The man had died and they sat there staring at one another like mad things” Which man
had died? (1mk) *Nym *
(f) In not more than 100 words, summarise all the hardships, constraints or dilemma
facing both individual characters and the society presented in this extract.(8mks) *Nym *
(g) Identify one character trait of Martin from this extract and one other from elsewhere in the novel.
(4mks) *Nym *
(h) Illustrate one aspect of style used in this extract. (2mks) *Nym *
(i) Illustrate one theme brought out in this extract. (2mks). *Nym *
(j) She liked Martin, ………………………………………..? (add a suitable question tag)
(1mk).
3. POETRY
Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow:
ON BEING A STUDENT by Everett Standa.
It is that age in life,
When knowledge is delicious and urgent
Like mother’s milk to a baby we take it whole as it comes
Add plays with the world
Satisfied.
It is that age in life
Where every puzzle is like a joke
Which we quickly see through
And work out complete solutions
For long life problems
Which
In real life
No politician, scholar
Or theologian
Has succeeded in resolving.
It is that age in life
When everything around us is like a play toy
Which we make or destroy
As our tempers rise and fall
Even the costly precious artifacts
Can be turned into little scattered pieces
Once our urgent solutions
Are not rewarded by society.
It is that age in life
When the past and the future
Are like distant dreams
Which can only be remembered
By the idle
Who care to stop and consider
Their contribution and responsibility
To the society which sustains them,
That age is life
Slowly fades away
As we mature into adulthood
And begin to nurture our offspring
Into more responsible citizens.
As that student age fades
Our memory goes
And we, in turn,
Condemn the new inheritors
Of the student age
Who appear to appreciate
Little in tradition and the future
But the life of Now forever,
That age in life
Is a terrible life
Questions
a) Sate and illustrate the attitude of the following towards the student
(i) The poet (2mks) *Nym *
(ii) The ‘We’ in the 6th stanza (2mks) *Nym *
b) By illustrations, comment on the effectiveness of the following poetic devices in the poem.
i) Irony (2mks) *Nym *
ii) Metaphor (2mks) *Nym *
iii) Repetition (2mks) *Nym *
c) What do the following lines mean as used in the poem
i) When the past and future are like distant dreams (2mks) *Nym *
ii) And begin to nurture our offspring into more responsible citizens (2mks) *Nym *
d) Identify and illustrate two qualities of the students (4mks) *Nym *
e) According to the poet, why is ‘that age of students” a terrible life? (2mks) *Nym *
4. (a) Rewrite the following sentence as according to instructions given after each
(3mks) *Nym *
(i) The elders handled the dispute in a careless manner. Matoke had to appeal.
(Join into one sentence beginning; so……)
(ii) Who did it?
(Begin; By…………………)
(iii) You may go home now.
(Rewrite using ‘allow’)
b) Use the right form of the verb in the brackets to fill the blank spaces.(3mks) *Nym *
i)……………………………….(clear) and accuracy are important qualities in a piece of
writing……………………………………………………………………………………………
ii) It was ………………………… (broadcast) that the minister for education had resigned.
iii) Will Paulina show her………………………………………..(Naive) till the end of the
novel?
c) For each of the following sentences, replace the underlined phrasal verb with a word
that has the same meaning. (3mks) *Nym *
i) They made up for lost time
ii) Everybody knows how beautiful you are. There is no need to show off.
iii) The road has to peter out into a dirt track.
d) Fill each blank space in the following sentences with the correct preposition.
(3mks) *Nym *
i) Let us meet at the junction to the Museum……………………………..Uhuru Highway.
ii) Keraka has applied for a job………………………………the Barclays Bank.
iii) There is something exciting about football throughout the world, football matches are
played………………………………………………… capacity crowds.
e) Identify the grammatical errors in the following sentences and rewrite them correctly.
(3mks) *Nym *
i) You are welcomed home today
ii) The new building had its roof blown off.
iii) He hanged his pair of trousers in the sun.

Nyamira District Mock - English Paper 2 Question Paper

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