Get premium membership and access questions with answers, video lessons as well as revision papers.
a) (N.B.: This may take two approaches: The plot approach and the thematic approach)
The Plot Approach
i) They meet and marry
ii) A pale child is born
iii) The man denies responsibility
iv) They separate/divorce
v) They both die
vi) The child is left with no inheritance/there is no next-of-kin/the boy roams the streets
(Any 4 points each 1 mk = 4 marks)
The Thematic Approach
i) Immorality
ii) Deception
iii) Irresponsibility
iv) Promiscuity
v) The plight of street children
(Identification of theme = 2 marks, Illustration = 2 mks, two illustrations per theme each 1 mark =2 marks or 1 illustration and 1 explanation = 2 marks)
b) The mother is unreliable/unreliable/untrustworthy/immoral/unfaithful/deceitful/dishonest/promiscuous/treacherous/traitorous
She wants the man to accept responsibility for a child that he obviously has not fathered. The man is black while the child is
white.
- She is secretive
- She is irresponsible/uncaring/unconcerned - \she leaves no inheritance for the child. She has not introduced the child to any of his kin.
- Calculating/cunning/scheming - makes the man think he is the father until the child is born
(1mark for identification, 1mark for illustration. Any two traits =4marks)
c) i. disclaimed - denied/refused/disagreed/did not agree/disowned (1mk)
ii. The mother?s husband is not the biological father of the child. This infuriated him for being cheated. (1mk)
d) i. We have a pale child from a black father (3 mks)
ii. An illegitimate child from a legitimate marriage
iii. The birth of a child should consolidate a marriage but this one leads to a break up.
iv. The child who has done no wrong is declared an out-cast (Any 1 point each 3 marks = 3 marks.)
e) Attitude - Pities/pitying/sympathetic/piteous/compassionate.
The persona recognizes that the poor boy suffers because of other people's mistakes. He refers to the boy as a ,'poor child',
'casualty' and says he is ''hardly ten'.
f) - All that glitters is not gold (2 mks)
- hurry hurry has no blessing(s) (2 mks)
- Look before you leap (2 mks)
- Marry in haste, repent at leisure (2 mks)
- when two bulls fight, it is the grass that suffers (2 mks)
- As you make your bed, so must you lie on it. (2 mks)
marto answered the question on April 9, 2019 at 05:49
- Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow(Solved)
Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow
If you have some sure year
Then get to hear
A man of your year
Even if he is a bad man anywhere
Should not be found phoning here
Don't you think that it is sometimes queer To neutralize fear
With a bottle of beer?
Anon.
i) Comment on the rhyme scheme of the above poem. (2 marks)
ii) Other than through rhyming words, illustrate other three ways in which the poet has attempted to achieve rhythm.
(6 marks)
Date posted: April 9, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow: The earth does not get fat. (Solved)
Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow
The earth does not get fat.
It makes an end- Of those who wear the head plumes We shall die on the earth.
The earth
does not get fat.
It makes an end of those who act swiftly as heroes.
Shall we die on the earth?
Listen O earth.
We shall mourn because of you. Listen O earth.
Shall we all die on the earth? The earth does not get fat.
It makes an end of The chiefs.
Shall we die on earth? The earth does not get fat.
It makes an end Of the women chiefs.
Shall we die on earth?
Listen o earth. We shall mourn because of you.
Listen O earth.
Shall we all die on earth? The earth does not get fat.
It makes an end Of the nobles.
The earth does not get fat It makes an end of the royal women.
Shall we die on earth?
The earth does not get fat.
It makes an end
of the common people.
Shall we die on the earth?
The earth does not get fat.
It makes an end of all the beasts Shall we die on the earth?
Listen you who are asleep, who are left
tightly closed in the land.
Shall we all sink Into the earth? Listen O
Earth the sun is setting tightly.
We shall enter into the earth.
We shall not enter into the earth.
(From: 'The Heritage Of African Poetry
a) What is the poem about? (3 mks)
b) Who is the persona in the poem? (2 mks)
c) Identify and illustrate any two features of style used in the poem? (4 mks)
d) What is the tone of the persona in the poem? (2 mks)
e) What in the poem shows that death is indiscriminate in its manifestations? (2 mks)
f) Describe the political setting of the community from which the poem originates. (2 mks)
g) What is the mood of the poem? (2 mks)
h) Explain what the expressions below mean : (3 mks)
i) The earth does not get fat .
ii) Those who wear the head plumes
iii) Earth the sun is setting tightly
Date posted: April 8, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and then answer the questions that follow: Why do we Grumble?(Solved)
Read the poem below and then answer the questions that follow
Why do we Grumble?
Why do we grumble because a tree is bent
When, in our streets, there are even men who are bent? Why must we complain that a new moon is slanting? Can anyone reach the skies to straighten it?
Can't we see that some cocks have combs on their heads but no plumes in their tails?
And some have plumes in their tails but no claws on their toes? And others have claws on their toes but no power to crow? He who has a head has no cap to wear, and he who has a cap has no head to wear it on.
He who has good shoulders has no gown to wear on them, and he who has the gown
has no good shoulders to
wear it on.
The Owa has everything but a horse's stable.
Some great scholars of Ifa cannot tell the way to Ofa:
Others know the way to Ofa, but not one line of Ifa.
Great eaters have no food to eat, and great drinkers no wine to drink:
Wealth has a coat of many colors.
(An oral poem from Nigeria in Oral Poetry from Africa: Longman, U.K. 1983. Compiled by Jack Mapanje and Landeg White)
(i) Identify and illustrate two aspects that make this oral poem easy to perform. (4 marks)
(ii) Which words would you stress on the last line of the poem 3, and why? (2 marks)
(iii) How would you perform line 4 of the poem ? (2 marks)
(a) Assume that you are the principal of Bidii School where the governor makes a visit. Introduce Sarah Mwangi
(a medical doctor) who is a member of the Board of Management to the Governor (2 marks)
You.
Date posted: April 8, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the following poem and respond to the questions appropriately(Solved)
Read the following poem and respond to the questions appropriately
STILL I RISE
You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells' Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns, With the certainity of tides Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like tear drops. Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you? Don‟t you take it awful hard
'cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin' in my own backyard.
You m,ay shoot me with your word
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise.
Out of the hurts of history's shame I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain I raise
I‟m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear In the tide
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise
Into a day brake that is wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my
Ancestors game,
I am the dream and the Hope of the slave I rise
I rise I rise
Adapted from: Maya Angelous STILL I RISE (1978)
1. With support from the poem, briefly explain what the poem is about. (3 marks)
2. Identify three challenges that the speaker in the poem contends with. (3 marks)
3. What is the attitude of the speaker towards these challenges? (2 marks)
4. Identify and illustrate figures of speech from the poem above. Comment on their effectiveness. (4 marks)
5. Other than the style in (4) above, identify and illustrate other two stylistic devices employed by the poet. (4 marks)
6. Explain the meaning of the following phrases as they are used in poem. (3 marks)
a) Cause I laugh I've got gold mines'
b) But still, like dust, I'll rise'.
c) I am Black Ocean, leaping and wide.
7. Supply the following sentence with the correct question tag. (1 mark)
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
Date posted: April 5, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem written below and answer the questions that follow(Solved)
Read the poem written below and answer the questions that follow.
The seed shop
Here in a quiet and dusty room they lie
Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sane
Forlorn as ashes, shriveled scentless dry
Meadows and gardens running through any hand
In this brown husk a dale of how throne dreams A cedar in this narrow cells in thrust That will drink deeply of a century‟s streams These lilies shall make summer on my dust Here in their safe and simple house of death Sealed in their shells, a million roses leap Here I can blow a garden with my breath And in my hand a forest lies asleep
i) Identify four pairs of rhyming words. (2 marks)
ii) Describe the tone of the voice that would be appropriate in reading this poem. (3 marks)
iii) How would you say the last two lines of the poem?
Date posted: April 5, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow: THE VILLAGE WELL By the well, Where fresh water still quietly whisper(Solved)
THE VILLAGE WELL
By the well,
Where fresh water still quietly whisper
As when I
First accompanied Mother and filled my baby gourd,
By this well,
Where many an evening its clean water cleaned me;
This silent well
Dreaded haunt of the long haired Musambwa
Who basked
In the mid-day sun reclining on the rock
Where I now sit
Welling up with many poignant memories;
This spot,
Which has rung with the purity of child laughter;
This spot,Where eye spoke secretly to responding eye;
This spot,
Where hearts pounded madly in many a breast;
By this well,
Over-hung by leafy branches of sheltering trees
I first noticed her
I saw her in the cool of red, red evening
I saw her
As if I had not seen her a thousand times before
By this well
My eyes asked for love, and my heart went mad.
I stuttered
And murmured my first words of love
And cupped
With my hands, the intoxication that were her breasts
In this well,
In the clear waters of this whispering well,
The silent moon
Witnessed with a smile our inviolate vows
The kisses
That left us weak and breathless.
It is dark.
It is dark by the well that still whispers.
It is darker
It is utter darkness in the heart that bleeds
By this well
Where magic has evaporated but memories linger.
Of damp death
The rotting foliage reeks,
And the branches
Are grotesque talons of hungry vultures,
For she is dead
The one I first loved by this well.
Questions:
(i) Who is the persona in this poem? (2 marks)
(ii) What is the significant of the well to the persona? (4 marks)
(iii) Identify imagery in the poem. (2 marks)
(iv) Explain the meaning of the following lines as used in the poem.
(a) Dreaded haunt of the long haired Musambwa. (2 marks)
(b) I saw her in the cool of a red, red evening. (2 marks)
(c) It is dark by the well that still whispers. (2 marks)
(v) Comment on the change of mood in the last two stanzas. (4 marks)
(vi) What is the attitude of the persona towards death?
Date posted: April 4, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the oral poem below and then answer the questions that follow: He couldn't wait, eh! For the child of my mother To finish school(Solved)
Read the oral poem below and then answer the questions that follow
He couldn't wait, eh!
For the child of my mother To finish school
He begged, eh!
That man begged
He begged and begged
He couldn't wait, eh!
For the child of my mother To dress up
Questions.
(i) What makes this oral poem rhythmic? (2 marks)
(ii) Which word are you likely to stress in the second line of the first and last stanzas and why? (2 marks)
(iii) How would you say the last line of the poem
Date posted: April 4, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow: Old and New. She went up the mountain to pluck wild herbs(Solved)
Old and New
She went up the mountain to pluck wild herbs,
She came down the mountain and met her former husband,
She knelt down and asked her former husband,
What do you find your new wife like?
My new wife, although her talk is clever,
Cannot charm me as my old wife could,
In beauty of face there is not much to choose,
But in usefulness they are not at all alike,
My new wife comes in from the road to meet me,
My old wife always came down from her tower.
My new wife is clever at embroidering silk;
My old wife was good at plain sewing.
Of silk embroidery one can do an inch a day;
Of plain sewing, more than five feet.
Putting her silks by the side of your sewing,
I see that the new will not compare with the old.
Anonymous 1st Century B.C
Questions
a. What is the poem about? (3 marks)
b. With illustrations identify one similarity and difference in the two wives. (4 marks)
c. Comment on any two poetic devices used in the poem. (6 marks)
d. Explain the meaning of the following lines.
'My new wife, although her talk is clever, cannot charm me as my old wife' (3 marks)
e. Identify aspects of social life noticeable in the poem. (3 marks)
f. What is the tone of the poem?
Date posted: April 4, 2019. Answers (1)
- Paraphrase the poem below with about 60 words. Ibadan.running splash of rust and gold - flung and scattered among seven hills like broken China in the sun.(Solved)
Paraphrase the poem below with about 60 words.
Ibadan.
running splash of rust
and gold - flung and scattered
among seven hills like broken
China in the sun.
Date posted: April 3, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the song below and then answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the song below and then answer the questions that follow.
Death
There is no needle without piercing point
There is no razor without trenchant blade
Death comes to us in many forms
With our feet we walk the goat’s earth
With our hands we touch God’s sky
Some future day in the heat of noon,
I shall be carried shoulder high
Through the village of the dead
When I die, don’t bury me under forests trees,
I fear their thorns
Bury me under the great shade trees in the market,
I want to hear the drums beating
I want to feel the dancer’s feet.
i. Explain how good artist would involve the audience in the audience of thus song (2 mks)
ii. How would you make line 4 – 12 more effective as you perform the song to an audience (4 mks)
iii. Mention three ways in which you would expect the audience to react during the presentation of this song (3 mks)
D) Your house was broken into last night and your friend come to comfort you the following day and wants to know what happened. Below is the conservation. Fill in the blanks appropriately (6
mks)
Japeth : I’m sorry to hear about the break in at your house. Was anybody hurt?
You: …………………………………………………………………………
Japeth : What happened? Did you hear the thugs breaking?
You: ……………………………………………………………………….
Japeth : Did your father open the door?
You: ……………………………………………………………………..
Japeth : What did you do?
You : …………………………………………………………………….
Japeth : Did they steal anything? How did they carry the TV’s decks and fridge?
You: ………………………………………………………………………..
Japeth : Who untied you after they left?
You: ………………………………………………………………………..
Date posted: April 3, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.
Bananas ripe and green and ginger- root,
Cocal in pads and alligator pears,
And tangerines and mangoes and grapefruits,
Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs.
Set in the window, bringing memories,
Of fruits- trees raden by low- singing rills,
And deny dawns and mystical blue skies
In benediction over non- like hills
My eyes grew dim, and I could no more gaze,
A wave of longing thought my body swept,
And, hungry for the old, familiar ways,
I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.
(Claude Mckay)
(i) How does the poet achieve rhythm in the poem above? (3 mks)
(ii) Identify and comment on the rhyme scheme (2 mks)
(iii) Which words would you stress in the last line of the poem? Why? (2 mks)
(B) Construct two sentences using each of the following words. In the first sentence use the word as a verb and the second as a noun
(i) Record
(ii) Disgrace
(iii) Present
(iv) Refuse
Date posted: April 3, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.
THE EAGLE
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Rung’d with azure world, he stands
The wrinkled sea beneath with crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls
a)(i) Identify two sound patterns employed in the poem (2 mks)
(ii) What has the poet achieved by use of the patterns above? (2 mks)
(iii) Which word would you stress in the last line and why? (2 mks)
(iv) What gesture would you use while reciting line 1 of the poem? (2 mks)
b. A small woman who cooks better than your mother. Answer. Bee,
(i) Identify the above genre (1mark)
(ii) Translate into English, an example of the genre you identified in (i) above using the correct format (3 mks)
(c) Write, another word with similar pronunciation as these (5 mks)
i. Time
ii. Aren’t
iii. Need
iv. Weigh
v. Aural
Date posted: April 3, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow.
This is the voice of people
From the people to some people
From the hillocks and the steeple
This voice will cause a ripple
For it is the voice of the people
From the hills together we have sung
As children in the swings we have swung
We have cherished cheerfully our youth
Now it’s Bang! Bang! Bang!
And pangas causing pangs
We are tired
We are tired my people
Hearken this voice of the people!
(a)
(i) Explain four features of style the writer has used to achieve rhythm (4 mks)
(ii) Which line would you emphasize in this poem and why? (2 mks)
(iii) Describe the rhyme in the first stanza (2 mks)
(b) Give words that are pronounced the same as each of the following (5 mks)
(i) Way
(ii) Tide
(iii) Him
(iv) Sail
(v) Flu
(c) Circle the silent letter for each of these words
-Thump
- Solemn
-Parliament
- Snatch
Date posted: April 3, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow(Solved)
Success is Counted sweetest (By Emily Dickinson)
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need
Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of victory
As he defeated - dying –
On those forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear
(a). Describe the rhyme scheme of this poem. (2 mks)
(b). Which words would you emphasize in a stanza one and why? (3 marks)
(c). i) Which words have an imperfect rhyme in the poem? (1 mark)
ii) A student play will be followed an awards dinner honoring students who have served both your school and the surrounding community. The mayor has been invited and will attend. You have been asked as the entertainment prefect to pass a vote of thanks on this day.
What non- verbal clues will make your speech effective? (4 mks)
Date posted: April 3, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow. Adam's song(Solved)
Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow. Adam's song
Come live with and be my love
Come romp with me in Eden's grave
In unabated joy, not shy
But unbashed by nudity
Where you can bare - sans shame - your
breast
Until the fell forbidden feast
Thereafter I shall toil and sweat
To earn whatever bread we eat
And you, in bearing children, shall
Know pain and suffering
The fall will bring us sickness, death and
fear
Embarrassment and underwear
(For which fig.donates its leaf)
And poets who are surely deaf
Bob Mckerity
(i). Describe the rhyme scheme of this poem. (2 marks)
(ii). Other than rhyme, identify and illustrate two sound devices used in this poem. How effectively have they been used? (2 marks)
(iii). Which words would you stress in the first and last lines? Explain.
(2 marks)
Date posted: April 3, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the following oral poem and answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the following oral poem and answer the questions that follow.
After a brief struggle I got myself a job;
My food was meat and banana flour.
A hundred ants a month and soon I had some
Money
Soon after wards I bought myself a beautiful girl.
My heart was telling time this was a fortune,
So heart you were deceiving me and I believed you.
On a Saturday morning I was leaving work;
I was thinking I was being awaited at home.
But on arrival! couldn't find my bride.
Nor was she in her parents' home
I run fast to a river valley;
What I saw gave me a shock –
There was my wife conversing
With her lovers.
I sat and silently wept;
I realized there was no lack
In this world
People are not trustworthy and
will never be
Girls are not trustworthy and
will never be!
1. Place this song in its appropriate genre
2. State and illustrate two functions of this song.
3. What evidence is there to show that this is an oral poem? Give two illustrated features.
4. If you were to do a solo performance of this oral poetry what elements would you emphasize on?
5. What is the singer’s attitude towards his subject(s) in this song?
6. Give two character traits of the singers.
7. Give this oral poem an appropriate title.
Date posted: April 2, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.
The road not taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both .
And be on traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay,
In leaves no step had trodden black,
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh,
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood and I
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.
(Robert Frost)
(a) What is the poem about? (4 marks)
(b) Identify and explain any two used in the poem. (4 marks)
(c) Explain the meaning of the following lines (6 marks
i) Because it was grassy and wanted wear',
ii) Oh, I kept the first for another day!'
iii) 'And that has made all the difference'
d) The title, of the poem can be interpreted in two different ways. Give the two possible illustrations. (4 marks)
Date posted: April 2, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow:(Solved)
Love
Love is madness
Hard brutal madness
Love is fire
Hot blazing
Love is a chameleon
a camouflaged dangerous chameleon
Hot fiery Love
I beg you ------------
Put out your blazing flame,
Because I desire to feel you.
Hard remorseless love
Please change your stance.
Before the fire of my youth
is quenched.
(From the African saga by Susan N. Kigali)
a) Explain in your own words what the poem says about love. (4 mks)
b) Identify and explain the image used to describe love (6 mks)
c) What effect does the persona create by addressing (apostrophizing?) love directly in the last stanza? (4 mks)
d) Explain the irony of the last two lines: Before the fire of my youth is quenched (3 mks)
e) Explain the meaning of the following
i) brutal
ii) Camouflaged
iii) Remorseless
Date posted: April 2, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow.
Crazy Peter Prattles
So what is the mountain deal
About the minister's ailing son
That he makes boiling news?
How come it was not whispered
When Tina's hospital bed crawled with maggots
And her eyes oozed pus
Because the doctors lacked gloves?
What about Kasajja's only child
Who died because the man with the key
To the oxygen room was on leave?
I have seen queues
of emaciated mothers clinging to
babies with translucent skins
faint in line
and the lioness of a nurse
Commanding tersely
"Get up or leave the line".
Didn't I hear it rumoured that
the man with the white mane
and black robes
whose mouth stores the justice of the land
ushered a rape case out of court
because the seven year old
failed to testify?
Anyway, I only remember these things
when I drink
they are indeed tipsy explosions.
["Crazy Peter Prattles" by Susan Nalugwa Kiguli in Echoes Across the valley: Ed. Auther I. Luvai and Kwamchetsi Makokha]
a) What problems are highlighted in the poem about the state of health care?
(2 mks)
b) What is the significance of the rhetorical question in the first stanza?
(3 mks)
c) Pick out any two images in this poem and explain their significance.
(4 mks)
d) i) Identify the problem that the fifth stanza deals with (2 mks)
ii) How does this connect with the problems in the previous stanzas?
(3 mks)
e) Explain the meaning of the following words a they are used in the poem
(3 mks)
(i) oozed
(ii) emaciated
(iii) translucent
f) What is the significance of the last stanza (3 mks)
Date posted: April 2, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow.
My little sister likes to try my shoes,
to strut in them
admire her spindle- thin twelve- year old legs
In this season's styles.
She says they fit perfectly,
But wobbles
On their high heels, they're
hard to balance
I like to watch my little sister
playing hopscotch, admire the
neat hops-and -skips of her,
their quick peck,
never missing their mark, not
over-stepping the line
She is competent at peever.
I try to warn my little sister
about unsuitable shoes,
Point out my own distorted feet, the callouses,
Odd patches of hard skin.
I should not like to see her
In my shoes
I wish she would stay
Sure footed
Sensible shod
(By Liz Lochhead in poem 1, ed. Celeste flower. Singapore: Longman, 1995.)
a) Why does the little sister try the persona's shoes? (3 mks)
b) How do we know from the first stanza that the shoes don't fit? (1 mk)
c) Why does the persona like watching her younger sister play hopscotch?
(4 mks)
d) In the third stanza, the persona gives us new reasons why her little sister should not wear her shoes. What are these reasons? (2 mks)
e) What is the message of this poem? (5 mks)
f) Describe the tone of the poem? (3 mks)
g) Explain the meaning of the following lines; I should not like to see her in my shoes (2 mks)
Date posted: April 2, 2019. Answers (1)