Description

What’s Inside Each Paper?

📘 Paper 1 – Functional Writing, Cloze Test & Oral Skills (60 Marks)

Functional Writing (20 marks):

• Write a confidential report as Head of Human Resources recommending Mrs. Faith Maneno for the position of Retail Manager:

  • Include academic qualifications

  • Personal attributes

  • Work experience

  • Ability to communicate effectively

  • Proper report format required

Cloze Test (10 marks):

• Complete a passage on Kidney Health and Nutrition, featuring:

  • Kidneys as vital organs

  • Removal of toxic waste products

  • Regulating fluid in the body

  • Healthy lifestyle and eating habits

  • Kidney conditions caused by unhealthy lifestyles

Oral Skills (30 marks):

• Oral Narrative Analysis – Read the story of “Hare, Elephant and Hippo”

  • How to prepare the audience to listen effectively

  • How to say “Am I not great?” (verbal and non-verbal cues)

  • How to ensure you enjoy the story as an audience member

• Homophones – Provide words with similar pronunciation (betel/beetle, board/bored, what/watt, gneiss/nice, arms/alms)

• Giving Directions – Three things you may have done that led to your friend losing his way

• Active Listening – Advice to friends on becoming better listeners

• Telephone Etiquette – Complete a dialogue with a school secretary

• Word Stress – Underline the stressed part in words (pro.duce, re.ject, re.cord, sur.vey)

• Group Discussion Skills – Four things you did right as chairperson of a discussion

📗 Paper 2 – Comprehension, Literary Appreciation & Grammar (80 Marks)

Comprehension (20 marks):

• Read and answer questions on a passage about Social Media and Mental Health

• Topics covered:

  • Importance of social connection (eases stress, anxiety, depression; boosts self-worth; adds years to life)

  • Why social media cannot replace person-to-person interaction (needs in-person contact to trigger hormones)

  • Irony (technology designed to bring people closer makes them more lonely)

  • Negative effects of excessive social media use (depression, anxiety, loneliness, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, FOMO, bullying)

  • “Not all that glitters is gold” (people share only highlights)

  • Tone (advisory/informative, cautionary/disapproving)

  • Vocabulary: on the flip side, exacerbating, hotspots

Literary Appreciation – Excerpt (25 marks):

• Analyze an excerpt from Paul B. Vitta’s Fathers of Nations (Fiona and Abiola)

• Key focus areas:

  • Events before the excerpt (Abiola and Chiamaka meet in Seamount Hotel)

  • Character traits of Abiola (open/honest, keen, respectful, sacrificial, inquisitive)

  • Character traits of Fiona McKenzie (inquisitive, sarcastic)

  • Reported speech transformation

  • Question tags

  • Passive voice

  • Themes (sacrifice, honesty)

  • Stylistic devices (direct address, rhetorical questions, sarcasm)

  • Vocabulary: streetwalker, wriggled, chided, darkened

Poetry (20 marks):

• Analyze the poem “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou

• Key focus areas:

  • What the poem is about (pride and resilience despite oppression)

  • Imagery (simile, metaphor)

  • Effectiveness of rhetorical questions (sarcasm, defiance)

  • People the persona is addressing (hateful/cruel, deceptive)

  • Lesson from the poem (courage/pride despite what others think)

  • Persona’s attitude (accusatory)

  • Meaning of phrases (“Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells pumping in my living room”)

Grammar (15 marks):

• Passive voice transformation

• Sentence transformation (Neither…, Unless…)

• Simple present tense

• Word forms (numeral → innumerable/numerous, repair → irreparable, practice → impractical, immerse → immersion)

• Prepositions (for, as, from, of)

• Pronouns (me, whom)

• Idiom correction (best of both worlds)

📙 Paper 3 – Imaginative Composition & Set Text Essays (60 Marks)

Imaginative Composition (20 marks):

• Option A: Write a story beginning with: “… I was in a quagmire; I did not know what to do.”

• Option B: Write a composition to illustrate the proverb: “Life is not a bed of roses.”

Compulsory Set Text – The Samaritan by John Lara (20 marks):

• Essay topic: “People’s lives can be greatly improved by technology.”

• Key points:

  • Robots – Can work as humans in accounts, domestic labor

  • Monitoring leaders – Technology can monitor leaders and their activities

  • Lengthening life – Technology may extend human life

  • Fighting corruption – The Samaritan App exposes corrupt leaders

  • Environmental conservation – Technology aids conservation

  • Information sharing – Technology enables fast and wide information dissemination

Optional Set Texts (20 marks) – Choose ONE:

Option A: The Truly Married Woman

• Essay topic: “Humans are deceitful in nature and can live in pretense before revealing their true nature.”

• Key points:

  • Ayo – Pretends to be good wife material but reveals true nature after marriage

  • Ajayi’s relatives – Pretend when asking for Ayo as a wife (“red, red rose… never plucked”)

  • Omo – Pretends to be helpful but is jealous

  • Soothsayer – Hypocritical in predicting a good marriage

  • Chief clerk – Hypocritical when telling missionaries Ajayi cannot be one

Option B: Parliament of Owls by Adipo Sidang

• Essay topic: “Bad politics leads to bad life.”

• Key points:

  • Freedom of movement curtailed (curfew introduced)

  • Freedom of expression denied (birds forced to stop singing)

  • Death – Birds killed (weaver birds in masses, hornbill)

  • Punitive taxes introduced

  • Revolution – Oppressive regime faces uprising

Option C: An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro

• Essay topic: “War has mostly negative outcomes.”

• Key points:

  • Death – Narrator’s son and many others died

  • Guilt – People committed suicide due to their role in the war

  • Destruction of property – Narrator’s house bombed

  • Enmity – Ono becomes enemies with Kudora due to betrayal during the war

Who Should Use This Bundle?

What Makes This Bundle Special?

✅ Authentic Lenana School Material

These are actual End of Term 2 Assessment papers from Lenana School Nairobi, one of Kenya’s most prestigious national schools, known for producing high-quality KCSE preparation materials.

✅ Up-to-Date Content

All questions, passages, and topics are current and aligned with the latest KCSE syllabus for the July 2026 examination.

✅ Student-Centered Design

Clear instructions, ample writing space, and a self-evaluation section encourage independent learning and self-improvement.

✅ Teacher-Approved

Used and trusted by teachers across Kenya as a reliable benchmark for student performance.

✅ Comprehensive Coverage

All three papers cover the entire KCSE English syllabus with detailed marking schemes.