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 President of the Students’ Council:

  • Recommend Janepher Lugusi for leadership training under County Mentorship Program

  • Include: Duration and position served, academic qualifications, strengths (two), weakness (one), recommendation

  • Proper formal letter format required (Writer’s address, Recipient’s address, Date, Salutation, Subject, Valediction)

Cloze Test (10 marks):

• Complete a passage on Challenges Facing Education, featuring:

  • Low quality of human resources

  • Adapting to fast-changing digital world

  • Discrepancy between classroom learning and reality

  • Transformation brought by new technologies (AI, big data)

  • Need for innovative graduates

Oral Skills (30 marks):

• Poetry Analysis – Read “The Debt” by Paul Laurence Dunbar

  • Rhyme scheme (aabbccddeeff; regular; enhances memorability, creates musicality)

  • Sound devices (alliteration, consonance, assonance)

  • Performance techniques (rising intonation, stress, facial expressions, gestures)

  • Punctuation influence (dash creates suspense; comma creates pause)

• Homophones – quay/key, fir/fur, queue/cue, Jews/juice

• Intonation – Identify falling/rising intonation

• Word Stress – Explain meanings derived by stressing different words

• Debate Preparation – Things to do during a debate

• Group Discussion Skills – Leading a successful discussion

• Telephone Etiquette – Identify appropriate etiquette and shortcomings

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

Comprehension (20 marks):

• Read and answer questions on a passage about Wealth Management in Kenya

• Topics covered:

  • Why Kenya’s wealth management industry is underdeveloped

  • Reason wealthy Kenyans bank abroad (elites with political connections)

  • Factors strengthening Kenya’s wealth management systems (strong growth in East Africa, new banks, crackdown on offshore centers)

  • Importance of wealth managers

  • Distinction between low-tier and affluent millionaires

  • Irony (wealthy Kenyans enriching foreign countries; leaders not patriotic)

  • Vocabulary: crackdown, repatriate, vigilance, affluent, hedge

Literary Appreciation – Excerpt (25 marks):

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

• Key focus areas:

  • Events before the excerpt (Fiona called Mr. Longway, introduced herself, told him he dropped an item)

  • What Fiona referred to as a bad idea (handing the item to the woman at the front desk)

  • Stylistic devices (dialogue, metaphor, idiom, rhetorical questions, sarcasm)

  • Why Tad was surprised (Fiona sounded Scottish/white on phone but was black/African)

  • Character traits of Ms. McKenzie (deceitful, persuasive/tactful, polite/respectful)

  • Who Mr. Longway is (Director of Special Projects at AGDA)

  • Events after the excerpt (Fiona consults her watch, says it’s late, agrees to a coke)

  • Grammar transformation

Poetry (20 marks):

• Analyze the poem “My Father’s Wooden House” by John S. Mbiti

• Key focus areas:

  • Persona identification (an African living in Africa in its natural state)

  • What the poem is about (African cherishing natural life, rejecting Western influence)

  • Stylistic devices (alliteration, assonance, rhyme)

  • Persona’s attitude towards Manhattan (contemptuous/hateful/spiteful)

  • Why persona wants to be left in father’s house (enjoy nature, work with nature, count stars)

  • Vocabulary: bustling ceaselessly, wearing and eating nature’s overflows, dull you remain

  • Significance of last stanza (determination to live in African environment naturally)

Grammar (15 marks):

• Sentence transformation (Won’t you come? → You will come, won’t you?)

• Direct/Indirect speech

• Phrasal verbs (tolerate → put up with, ironed out, give in)

• Word forms (maintain → maintenance, die → would have died, pronounce → pronunciation)

• Idiom meanings (pour oil on troubled water, take the law into their own hands)

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

Imaginative Composition (20 marks):

• Option A: Write a story ending with: “… I wish things did not end like this.”

• Option B: Write a story to illustrate the saying: “Pride comes before a fall.”

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

• Essay topic: “In life, one must stand for something in order to gain something.” (Focus on Nicole)

• Key points:

  • Mayor Mossi – Nicole refuses to stop Samaritan App; Mossi exposed and arrested

  • Principal Narine – Admonishes Nicole; she remains steadfast; corrupt leaders arrested

  • Inspector Bembe – Arrests Nicole on trumped-up charges; she resists; thousands protest; Bembe arrested

  • Alvita and Montano – Plead with Nicole to give up; she tells them to stand firm; leaders arrested

  • Bribe – Mayor offers bribe; Nicole refuses; Mossi arrested

  • Apology – Leaders offer Nicole high office; she declines; leaders arrested

Optional Set Text – Ghosts by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (20 marks):

• Essay topic: “Many individuals struggle with ghosts from their past.”

• Key points:

  • Ikenna Okoro – Returns as “ghost” of former self; discoloured, hollow laughter

  • Professor James Nwoye – Deceased wife Ebere appears as ghost

  • War – Lingering effects of Biafran war haunt characters

  • University corruption – Ghost of past leadership affecting present

  • Fake drugs – Symptom of broken system since the war