English Paper 2 Questions and Answers - Kapsabet Mocks 2020/2021

1. Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow:
   One of the modern world’s intriguing sources of mystery has been aeroplanes vanishing in mid-flight. One of the more famous of these was the disappearance in 1937 of a pioneer woman aviator, Amelia Earhart. On the second last stage of an attempted round the world flight, she had radioed her position as she and her navigator searched desperately for their destination, a tiny island in the Pacific. The plane never arrived at Howland Island. Did it crash and sink after running out of fuel? It had been a long haul from New Guinea, a twenty hour flight covering some four thousand kilometres. Did Earhart have enough fuel to set down on some other island on her radioed course? Or did she end up somewhere else altogether? One fanciful theory had her being captured by the Japanese in the Marshall Islands and later executed as an American spy; another had her living out her days under an assumed name as a housewife in New Jersey.
   
   Seventy years after Earhart’s disappearance, ‘myth busters’ continue to search for her. She was the best-known American woman pilot in the world. People were tracking her flight with great interest when, suddenly, she vanished into thin air. Aircraft had developed rapidly in sophistication after World War One, with the 1920s and 1930s marked by an aeronautical record-setting frenzy. Conquest of the air had become a global obsession. While Earhart was making headlines with her solo flights, other aviators like high-altitude pioneer Wiley Post and industrialist Howard Hughes were grabbing some glory of their own. But only Earhart, the reserved tomboy from Kansas who disappeared three weeks shy of her 40th birthday, still grips the public imagination. Her disappearance has been the subject of at least fifty books, countless magazine and newspaper articles, and TV documentaries. It is seen by journalists as the last great American mystery.
   
   There are currently two main theories about Amelia Earhart’s fate. There were reports of distress calls from the Phoenix Islands made on Earhart’s radio frequency for days after she vanished. Some say the plane could have broadcast only if it were on land, not in the water. The Coast Guard and later the Navy, believing the distress calls were real, adjusted their searches, and newspapers at the time reported Earhart and her navigator were marooned on an island. No-one was able to trace the calls at the time, so whether Earhart was on land in the Phoenix Islands or there was a hoaxer in the Phoenix Islands using her radio remains a mystery. Others dismiss the radio calls as bogus and insist Earhart and her navigator ditched in the water.
   
   An Earhart researcher, Elgen Long, claims that Earhart’s airplane ran out of gas within fifty-two miles of the island and is sitting somewhere in a 6,000-square-mile area, at a depth of 17,000 feet. At that depth, the fuselage would still be in shiny, pristine condition if ever anyone were able to locate it. It would not even be covered in a layer of silt. Those who subscribe to this explanation claim that fuel calculations, radio calls and other considerations all show that the plane plunged into the sea somewhere off Howland Island.
   
   Whatever the explanation, the prospect of finding the remains is unsettling to many. To recover skeletal remains or personal effects would be a grisly experience and an intrusion. They want to know where Amelia Earhart is, but that’s as far as they would like to go. As one investigator has put it, “I’m convinced that the mystery is part of what keeps us interested. In part, we remember her because she’s our favourite missing person.”
   
   Questions.
   1. What fascinates people in the world nowadays, according to the information in the first paragraph? (1 mark)..
   2. What was Amelia Earhart’s nationality and in which year was she born? (2 marks)...
   3. Why does the writer use rhetorical questions in the first paragraph? (2 marks)..
   4. Why does the writer mention Howard Hughes and Wiley Post in the second paragraph? (2 marks)..
   5. In note form, state three likely ways by which Amelia Earhart is thought to have disappeared. (4 marks)..
   6. What proves that Amelia Earhart’s disappearance is truly interesting? (2 marks)..
   7. Why is the fate of Amelia Earhart still fascinating to investigators? (3 marks)
   8. Rewrite the sentence below to begin with the present participle clause. (1 mark)
      The Coast Guard and later the Navy, believing the distress calls were real, adjusted their searches, and newspapers at the time reported Earhart and her navigator were marooned on an island.
   9. Give the passage an appropriate title. (1 mark)
      Explain the meaning of the following expressions as used in the passage.(2 marks)
      1. vanished into thin air..
      2. hoaxer.
         
         
2. Read the excerpt below and then answer the questions that follow: (25 marks)
   
   By noon, Taiyo and Resian had packed their suitcases and they were on their way to their uncle’s home. They were most surprised by the warm reception that they received and when neighbours heard that Ole Kaelo’s daughters had come to live with their aunts, cousins and their other relatives, they streamed into Simiren’s homestead, and like that first day when they arrived into Nasila, there was a celebration mood in the air. They were greeted by so many cheerful people who shouted and hooted excitedly that they nearly got confused. This sharply contrasted with the gloomy atmosphere that they left behind in their home and for that they were appreciative.
   
   Seeing the hearty welcome, the girls wholeheartedly plunged into that life with adventure in their hearts. With renewed interests and fresh feeling of affinity, they observed life at Simiren’s home.
   
   Life and work in that home was communal. Although each mother had her house and cooked her own food, all grown up daughters helped each one of them, to bring in water, firewood, and assisted in the actual cooking. Those mothers who were incapacitated by pregnancy as two of them were at the time, received most help as the grown up daughters were posted to their houses nearly permanently.
   
   The most senior mother of the house, yeiyo-botorr, could be said to have had patriarchal authority that neared that of Simiren, because she deputized him in the home. Whereas Simiren took care of the weightier matters of the family such as animal husbandry, trade and the sources of food, yeiyo-botorr took off his shoulders all matters of administration in the homestead. Hardly were there any disagreements on that front. When disputes arose, they were speedily and amicably settled.
   
   The girls were housed by yeiyo-kiti. It was in there that they slept on that first day when they arrived from Nakuru. They occupied the same bedroom and slept in the same comfortable and warm bed.
   
   They quickly bonded with her for they found her closer to them both in age and thinking. She was modern, judging by the standard of that home. They also found her amicable, kindhearted and understanding. It was joy staying in her house.
   
   It did not take long before Taiyo and Resian got used to the tempo of life in their uncle’s home. Within that short period, they had learnt quite a lot.
   
   Questions
   1. State two main events before this excerpt that compelled Taiyo and Resian go to visit their uncle. (2 marks)
   2. Mention any three circumstances in Simiren’s home that lifted the girls’ spirits. (3 marks)
   3. In a paragraph of not more than 50 words, summarise the aspects of communal life in Nasila as evident in this excerpt. (4 marks)
   4. From the first paragraph only, identify and explain how any two features of style are used. (6 marks)
   5. What can we deduce or conclude about Simiren from the information in this excerpt? (3 marks)
   6. “they had learned a lot.” What three matters had the girls learned, as revealed immediately after this excerpt? (3 marks)....
   7. Rewrite the following sentence beginning with “ It was (1mark)
      “They occupied the same bedroom and slept in the same comfortable and warm bed.”
   8. Explain the meaning of the following words as used in the excerpt. (3 marks)
      
      1. Affinity..
      2. incapacitated......
      3. amicable......
3. Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow: 20 marks
   
   Remains by Simon Armitage
   
   On another occasion, we get sent out
   To tackle looters raiding a bank.
   And one of them legs it up the road.
   Probably armed, possibly not.
   
   Well myself and somebody else and somebody else
   Are all of the same mind,
   So all three of us open fire
   Three of a kind all letting fly, and I swear
   
   I see every round as it rips through his life –
   I see broad daylight on the other side.
   So, we’ve hit this looter a dozen times
   And he’s there on the ground, sort of inside out,
   
   Pain itself, the image of agony.
   One of my mates goes by
   And tosses his guts back into his body.
   Then he’s carted off in the back of a lorry.
   
   End of story, except not really.
   His blood-shadow stays on the street, and out on patrol
   I walk right over it week after week.
   Then I’m home on leave. But I blink
   
   And he bursts again through the doors of the bank.
   Sleep, and he’s probably armed, possibly not.
   Dream, and he’s torn apart by a dozen rounds.
   And the drink and the drugs won’t flush him out –
   
   He’s here in my head when I close my eyes,
   dug in behind enemy lines,
   not left for dead in some distant, sun-stunned, sand-smothered land
   or six-feet-under in desert sand,
   
   but near to the knuckle, here and now,
   his bloody life in my bloody hands.
   
   Questions.
   
   1. What is this poem about? (3 marks)
   2. What can you infer from the title of the poem? (3 marks)
   3. The language in this poem is colloquial and slang. Explain the significance of using such language. (2 marks)
   4. Pick out a statement that shows the soldier has had to deal with such similar situations. (1 mark)
   5. Identify an example of repetition and explain its effect in the poem. (2 marks)
   6. Describe the speaker’s feelings about his actions in stanza 2 and 3. (3 marks)
   7. Basing your answer on the last three stanzas, how is the speaker affected by his earlier actions in the poem? (3 marks)
   8. Explain the meaning of the following phrases as used in the poem: (3 marks)
      
      1. legs it up ....
      2. sort of inside out.....
      3. carted off..
         
         
4. Grammar (15 marks)
   1. Use the correct form of the word in brackets to fill in the blanks. (4marks)
      1. The damage caused by the floods was so severe that it was........................................................(repair)
      2. In rural Kenya, clean drinking water is a(rare).
      3. I have..(ring) this bell five times.
      4. If I had studied something different in university, my life ..(be).. very different.
   2. Rewrite the following sentences as instructed (4 marks)
      
      1. Manchester United beat Liverpool at Old Trafford. (Rewrite in the passive)
      2. He was absent from work for three days without permission. He wrote a rude letter to the manager.(Rewrite as one sentence beginning: Not only....)
      3. 'We have to set out early tomorrow if we are serious about getting back the same day,'one member suggested. (Rewrite in indirect speech)
      4. Onyango regretted renting the house in that estate. (Begin: Onyango wished................................)
   3. The sentence below has two meanings. Explain clearly the two different meanings. (2 marks)
      
      The Manager was anxious to please his customers as his staff.
   4. Fill each blank space in the following sentences with the correct preposition (3 marks)
      
      1. Sometimes it is quicker to go...foot than ... bus.
      2. Sign your name ... the dotted line... the bottom of the page.
      3. There is something exciting .... football. Throughout Kenya, football matches are played ... capacity crowds.
   5. Replace the words in italics with a phrasal verb which begins with the word in brackets to convey the same meaning. (2 marks)
      1. Good students constantly revise their work in preparation for the examination (go).
      2. Atieno is usually so smartly dressed that she is easy to notice in the midst of other girls (stand).

Marking Scheme

1. Reading Comprehension (20 marks)
   1. The mystery surrounding airplanes/aeroplane vanishing mid-flight.√2
   2. She was an American/ She was a citizen of America√1 and was born in 1897√1
   3. The writer uses rhetorical questions to give credence/ credibility/reliability to the essence of mystery (of disappearance). √2 The writer wants to prove that indeed these disappearances are unresolved circumstances. √ The questions are used to recall/ recapture/recollect some of the theories so far advanced about the disappearance √ ( Any one point = 2 marks)
   4. The Writer mentions Hughes and Post as extra evidence/examples/illustrations/ confirmation that the world had become obsessed with aviation/ that aviation fever had gripped the world (at that time). √2
   5. - she crashed on a remote island somewhere near her destination. √1
      - her plane ran out of fuel and crashed into the sea. √1
      - she crashed somewhere on Howland Island√1
   6. Her disappearance has been the interest/subject of at least fifty books, countless magazine and newspaper articles, and TV documentaries. √2
   7. She was a famous female aviator and adventurer √1
      There are such conflicting theories about her disappearance. √1
      She was so close to the end of her journey √1
      She presents one of the twentieth century’s greatest unsolved mysteries. √
      (Any three reasons, for 1 mark each)
   8. Believing the distress calls were real, the Coast Guard and later the Navy adjusted their searches, and newspapers at the time reported Earhart and her navigator were marooned on an island. (Observe all the rules and mechanics of grammar. If any missing = 0)
   9. Amelia Earhart’s last course/journey √1
      Amelia Earhart’s disappearance/mystery (Accept a title based on her disappearance. Do not accept “Amelia Earhart’s”on its own. The title should not be more than 5 words)
   10.  
       1. …………………disappeared √1
       2. ……………..prankster/ joker/ trickster √1
2. Excerpt from Blossoms of the Savanna by H. Ole Kulet (25 Marks)
   1. There had been a near-rape incident and the girls were traumatized, thus they needed a change of environment.√1 There was pressure on Mama Milanoi to get the girls begin the rituals of circumcision yet she couldn’t handle the whole matter alone/ without the support of yeiyo-botorr. √1Their father had become so violent and the girls’ presence would make matters worse. √ (any 2 reasons = 2 marks)
   2. They were cheerfully/heartily received √1
      There was anticipation of fun and adventure √1
      The girls found peace/solace/closeness/kindness in the company of yeiyo-kiti.√1
      There were many cousins, mothers and other relatives from whom they were happy to draw a lot of domestic and cultural knowledge √
   3. Visitors and relatives are received warmly/hospitably/by the family and community.√1a. Women’s duties are shared progressively in all houses.√1b. Women in confinement are preferentially/specially treated (as they have near permanent assistants) √1c. Administration of the homestead is in the hands of the first wife√1d. Men take the responsibility of marshalling/organizing/consolidating property or providing economic needs of the home.√1e.
      Marking Instructions
      Count up to 50 words.
      Answer should be in continuous prose.
      If in note form, penalize by 50% at every correct point and affix N on the penalized mark.
      Penalize by a glimmer for a faulty expression once in a sentence.
   4. The use of a metaphor “…they streamed into Simiren’s homestead…” √1 neighbours came in large/ great/ huge numbers√1. This reinforces the strong cultural aspect of Nasila hospitality.√1
      The use of reminiscence “…and like the first day when they arrived into Nasila.” √1. This is used to build the nostalgia in the girls’ experience.√1 the girls remember with fond memories how they were received, thus a repeat would be comforting√1
      The use of contrast “…This sharply contrasted with the gloomy atmosphere...behind”√1. They left home crestfallen/confused but they are now basking in bouts of joy √1. Contrast is used as a relief for the audience (and the girls) for they feel at ease after the tension at Ole Kaelo’s home√1.
   5. Simiren is polygamous√1
      He has a vast estate/is enterprising, (according to Nasila standards.)√1
      He is hospitable/ loves to host people/relatives in his home.√1
      He loves peace.√1
   6. They learned about selflessness. They learned that to fit into their uncle’s home, one had to be selfless/ everything was shared√1
      They learned cultural education/ the value system was handed down from one generation to another.
      They were enlightened about Minik-ene Nkoitoi (Emakererei) and her success/ glad to learn that she was close to yeiyo-kiti√1
   7. It was the same bedroom that they occupied and the same comfortable and warm bed that they slept in.√1
   8.  
      1. closeness/ kinship/ family connection.√1
      2. weakened.√1
      3. friendly.√1
3. Poetry (20 Marks)
   1. The poem is about a soldier √1remembering how he and his fellow soldiers collectively shot a looter. √1 It was their duty. √1 However, after he goes back home/ on leave, the images of the dead man keep disturbing him. √1 Sleep/drink/drugs cannot help get the images out √1leaving him distraught/distressed/ traumatized. √1 (Any 3 points)
      Or
      The poem is about trauma. √2Soldiers returning from war are affected by trauma/the horrific conflicts. √1 Much as they collectively depart on a national duty, privately/ individually they return with mental anguish/trauma/distress which they are forced to live with. √1
      (Identification of theme =2 marks. Any one illustration/ explanation= 1 mark)
   2. The title is ironic. √1 ‘Remains’ refers to the dead body of the looter who was shot and killed, √1 but also to the mental torment and guilt suffered by the soldier, which stays with him long after the period of action in the war zone. √1 (He ends the life of a looter yet he remains alive with horrifying/disturbing/distressing scars of that action.)
   3. This language is used to reflect the voice and outlook of an ordinary soldier/ police officer in the ranks. √2 / This brings the reader close to the man and his way of thinking. √2
   4. “on another occasion” √1
   5. “probably armed, possibly not” √1
      This reveals the mental disturbance/ doubt/ anguish/ torment/ guilt that persona has to content with after his actions. √1
   6. The speaker feels unsympathetic/cold/ indifferent. √2He is bold/courageous and duty-bound/obliged/ obligated since he is under instructions to shoot. √1 /“Are all of the same mind, So all three of us open fire.” √1
   7. He is distraught/haunted/ troubled/disturbed / distressed by the killing √2 “He’s here in my head when I close my eyes”. √1
      Or
      Whereas the shooting was done by him and others, he individually carries the sense of guilt/fault/blame √2“his bloody life in my bloody hands” √1
   8.  
      1. runs away/ takes to his heels √1
      2. disemboweled/ dismembered/ mutilated/ disfigured √1
      3. carried (away) √1
4. Grammar (15 marks)
   1.  
      1. irreparable √1
      2. rarity √1
      3. rung √1
      4. would have been √1
   2.  
      1. Liverpool were beaten by Manchester United at Old Trafford √1
      2. Not only was he absent from work for three days without permission but he also wrote a rude letter to the manager.√1
      3. One member suggested that they would have to set up early the following day if they were serious about getting back the same day. √1
      4. Onyango wished he had not rented the house in that estate. √1
   3.  
      1. The manager was anxious to please his customers the same way he pleases his staff √1
      2. The manager was anxious to please his customers because his customers are also his staff. √1
   4.  
      1. on…√½….by…√½
      2. along/ on …√½.. at √½
      3. about√½….to √½
   5.  
      1. go over/ go through √1
      2. stands out √1