Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education
2017 English Paper 2
1. Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow.(20 marks)
The world has a weight problem. Within the past decade, obesity rates have shot up by 50 percent, rising from 200 million people in 1995 to 300 million in 2003.
Even places more familiar with famine than fat are starting to worry about their waistlines. Africa now has weight loss clinics.
In a recent survey in India — home to half the world’s undernourished population — 55 percent of women between 20 and 69 were found to be overweight.
Twenty percent of Chinese adults are overweight.
Brazil’s childhood-obesity rate has jumped to 239 percent in a generation —four times the growth rate for youth in the United States.
In March 2003, the International Obesity Task Force revealed that 1.7 billion of the planet’s 6 billion people were overweight or obese.
How did we all get so fat? The problem stems from the collision of a number of modern trends; rising affluence and urbanization; the proliferation of conveniences like cars, computers, fast food and television; and the 21st century work culture, with its desk jobs and long hours.
In rich countries, the familiar mantra of low-fat diet and exercise is routinely ignored.
In the developing world, where health education is frequently non-existent, people are particularly vulnerable to the glamour of American burgers and the comforts of the couch.
Rural migrants to cities are suddenly confronted with market-stall snacks and McDonald’s.
In newly industrialized countries packaged foods and fast food chains are promoted as an index of affluence.
The consumption of foods high in fat, sugar and salt-combined with increasingly sedentary lifestyles — is worrying health experts.
And it is killing us.
Diet-linked diseases — chiefly heart disease, cancer, diabetes and hypertension, now account for more than half of all deaths in Arab countries. In Barbados, more than 60 percent of hospital and drug-service budgets go toward coping with obesity-related illnesses.
In Chinese hospitals, the number of patients suffering from weight-related diseases has increased 130 percent.
The problem is so pervasive that the World Health Organisation has declared obesity a global epidemic.
In many places, obesity and related illnesses such as diabetes are growing fastest among children and teenagers.
These may be because those groups are more vulnerable to the excesses of their new found liberation.
Teenagers from rich homes have cars and can go to restaurants with their friends, and consume high-fat fast food.
Nutritionists also blame food marketing and the proliferation of supermarkets for the rise in childhood obesity.
Ultimately, diabetes is incurable.
Although changes in lifestyles and diet can help stem the progression of the disease, it never disappears.
Most patients are on insulin a decade after diagnosis. The best long-term hope for reversing the trend is for society to get its weight problems under control.
(Adapted from Newsweek August 11, 2003)
(a) What is this passage about? (1 mark)
(b) What is achieved by the use of figures in paragraph one?(2 marks)
(c) From the information given in paragraph two, how can society get the weight problem under control? (3 marks)
(d) According to the passage, what are the indications of the increasing danger of obesity? (3 marks)
(e) In about 50 words summarise what the passage says about obesity in children and teenagers. (6 marks)
Rough copy
Fair copy
(f) In what way is the modern lifestyle a curse rather than a blessing? (3 marks)
(g) Explain the meaning of the following words as used in the passage.(2 marks)
(i) affluence
(ii) sedentary
2. Bertolt Brecht, The Caucasion Chalk Circle
Read the excerpt below and then answer the questions that follow.(25 marks)
Azdak: That’s why our sons don’t bleed any more, that’s why our daughters don’t weep.
That’s why only the slaughter house cattle have blood in their veins, And only the willows shed tears by Lake Urmia toward morning.
First iron shirt: Are you going to sing that song here in town?
Azdak: Sure What’s wrong with it?
First iron shirt: Have you noticed that the sky’s getting red? (Turning round, Azdak sees the sky red with fire). It’s the people’s quarters on the outskirts of town.
The carpet weavers have caught the “Persian sickness,” too. And they’ve been asking if prince Kazbeki isn’t eating too many courses. This morning they strung up the city judge. As for us we beat them to pulp. We were paid one hundred piasters per man, you understand?
Azdak: (after a pause): I understand_ (He glances shyly round and, creeping away sits down in a corner his head in his hands).
Iron shirts: (to each other): If there ever was a troublemaker it’s him — He must’ve come to the capital to fish in the troubled waters.
Shauwa: Oh, I don’t think he’s a really bad character gentlemen. Steals a few chickens here and there. And maybe a rabbit.
Second iron shirt: (approaching AZDAK): Came to fish in the troubled waters, huh?
Azdak (looking up): I don’t know why I came.
Second iron shirt: Are you in with the carpet weavers maybe (Azdak shakes his head) How about that song?
Azdak: From my grandfather. A silly and ignorant man.
Second iron shirt: Right. And how about the dyer who paid the wages? AZDAK (muttering): That was in Persia.
First iron shirt: And this denouncing of yourself? Because you didn’t hang the Grand Duke with your own hands?
Azdak: Didn’t I tell you I let him run? (He creeps farther away and sits on the floor.)
Shauwa: I can swear to that: he let him run.
The iron shirts: burst out laughing and slap SHAUWA on the back. AZDAK laughs loudest. They slap Azdak too, and unchain him.
They all start drinking as the Fat prince enters with a young man.
First iron shirt (to Azdak pointing at the Fat Prince): There’s your new “age” for you! (more laughter).
Fat prince: Well, my friends, what is there to laugh about? Permit me a serious word. Yesterday morning the Princes of Gruisinia overthrew the war mongering government of the Grand Duke and did away with his Governors.
Unfortunately, the Grand Duke himself escaped.
In this fateful hour our carpet weavers, those external troublemakers had the effrontery to stir up a rebellion and hang the universally loved city judge, our dear Illo Orbeliani Ts-ts-ts.
My friends we need peace, peace, peace in Grusinia! And justice! So I’ve brought along my dear nephew Bizergan Kazbeki.
He’ll be the new judge, hm? A very gifted fellow. What do you say? I want your opinion. Let tlie,people decide!
(a) Briefly describe what happens before the events in this extract.(4 marks)
(b) According to A&da,k, why don’t their sons bleed any more, or their daughters weep? (4 marks)
(c) What does Azdak mean by saying “I understand”? Explain Azdak’s change in behaviour after this statement. (4 marks)
(d) Why does the Iron Shirt say that Azdak “must’ve come to the capital to fish in troubled waters”? (2 marks)
(e) From the dialogue, what do we learn about Shauwa’s character? (4 marks)
(f) The Fat Prince introduces his nephew whom he wants to be installed as judge. How then does Azdak become the judge? (3 marks)
(g) Explain the meaning of the following expressions as used in the excerpt. (4 marks)
(i) denouncing
(ii) I let him run
(iii) fateful
(iv) had the effrontery
3.Read the following narrative and answer the questions that follow. (20 marks)
A man had two daughters from two different wives. One of his daughters was motherless, her mother died when she was still a baby.
The mother of the other daughter did not like the motherless girl. She did not like her because her daughter loved her stepsister more than she loved her. The woman therefore thought out some ways of eliminating her.
One day the woman made an arrangement with a hyena.
The hyena was to go and wait for the two girls somewhere in the bush.
To the motherless girl she would tie a band like a bangle on the left arm and to her daughter she would tie one on the right arm. Then she told the hyena to catch, kill and eat the girl with the band on the left arm.
After the hyena had gone to wait, she called the two girls, tied the bands accordingly and sent both of them to go and visit one of their aunts. She directed them to follow the path where she had asked the hyena to wait for them.
On the way the woman’s daughter suggested that they should exchange bangles. “Why should my mother tie your bangle on the left arm, when everybody else wears theirs on the right arm?” She complained and took her bangle and put it on her step-sister’s right arm and took the one she was wearing and put it on her left arm.
They went on with their journey. They had gone half-way through the journey when the hyena came and caught the woman’s own daughter and ate her up.
The motherless child was terrified and grew hysterical. She cried endlessly. Her grief was so great that she refused to go away from the scene of her sister’s tragic death.
She wished to die too; to be eaten up by the hyena which had eaten her dear friend and sister.
She cried, wailed, wept and grieved for her dear sister, so much that if sorrow expressed by the living would bring back the dead, Awino’s sister Nyawino would have returned to life.
After the kill, the hyena had gone away but Awino would not leave.
She stayed on the spot wailing.
“Aai, what are you doing here alone in the bush?” Some travellers asked her. “We were two, and we were going to visit our aunt but my sister has been eaten up by a hyena,” she replied amid sobs.
“Then what are you doing here alone? Go home and take the sad news of her death to your parents,” the people advised her.
“No I also want to be eaten up by the same hyena,” she cried.
The travellers saw her futile determination.
They could not leave her there and in any case they were convinced that the parents should know. “No, you go home and take the news of the death of your sister home.” The people advised her more persuasively until she accepted to go home.
She arrived home, tired and wet with tears and sweat.
She explained to her father what had happened. He became furious and called his wife to explain.
But she was so full of grief that she could not talk. The elders were then called.
It was agreed unanimously that the woman must be banished from the village because of her jealousy and wickedness. She left the village crying with regret and shame.
(a) Identify and illustrate four oral features in this narrative. (4 marks)
(b) Explain two aspects of the culture of the community from which this narrative is drawn. (4 marks)
(c) What do we learn about the charage7 of Nyawino from this narrative? (4 marks)
(d) Describe the mood of this narrative. (3 marks)
(e) Explain the role of the travelers in the narrative. (2 marks)
(f) “She left the village crying with regret and shame.”
(Rewrite beginning: Crying (1 mark)
(g) What moral lesson do we learn from the narrative in relation to Awino’s conduct?
Illustrate your answer.(2 marks)
4. (a) Rewrite the following sentences according to the instructions given after each. Do not change the meaning.(4 marks)
(i) All the farmers got a good harvest this year. (Rewrite beginning: Not) .
(ii) The old ways are changing. This should be clear to everybody.
(Rewrite as one sentence beginning: That
(iii) Mrs. Mambo said that that wall was very badly painted. (Rewrite in direct speech)
(iv) When I finished eating, I went to bed. (Rewrite using the word ‘having’)
(b) Complete each of the sentences correctly using the verb in brackets. (3 marks)
(i) I if I had known. (go)
(ii) She law for six years now. (study)
(iii) If people more reasonable, there would be no wars. (be)
(c) Explain the two different meanings in the following sentence. (2 marks)
Kamaru hates visiting relatives.
(d) Fill in each blank space with the correct alternative from the given choices. (3 marks)
(i) Can you change this powder form now? (in, into)
(ii) My reason for going is I am needed there. (because, that)
(iii) now seven O’clock”, she said. (its, it’s)
(e) Use the correct form of the word in brackets to fill in the blank space in each of the sentences below. (3 marks)
(i) This niku (hero) saved the boy from drowning.
(ii) Her (reveal) shocked everyone.
(iii) They were annoyed by the (warrant) search of their houses.
