2020-Y4-O-level-Prelim-Paper 2-Insert

© DHS EL Dept/English Language/Year 4 O-level/Preliminary Examination 2020 Name: Index Number: Class: DUNMAN HIGH SCHOOL PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION 2020 Year 4 O-Level Programme ENGLISH LANGUAGE PAPER 2 Comprehension INSERT Additional Material: Question Booklet 24 August 2020 1 hour 50 minutes This Insert contains Text 1, Text 2 and Text 3. This document consists of 6 printed pages. [Turn over

2 Section A Text 1 Study the poster below and answer Questions 1 – 4 in the Question Booklet.

3 © DHS EL Dept/English Language/Year 4 O-level/Preliminary Examination 2020 Section B Text 2 The text below describes a hunting expedition in Kalahari Desert. Read it carefully and answer Questions 5 – 16 in the Question Booklet. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Elephants kept appearing in wrinkled herds, loitering near the dusty pans, in search of water. As the hot air of serenity blanketed the area, the pachyderms were moving at the edge of the Kalahari Desert in Namibia in a community-run wildlife reserve called Nyae Nyae, where roughly 2,800 San people live today in unyielding conditions. I waited patiently with the hunting party . We endured the heat inside the sweltering Land Cruiser. This is no place for any living thing. Dan, a tracker from the local San people stood behind the vehicle while Felix, the professional hunter and guide on this expedition and his client, Bob sat in the vehicle, admiring the guns they had brought along, a 12-pound, bespoke .470 Nitro Express double rifle. These guns, costing up to $200,000, are favoured for big- game trophy hunting because of their stopping power, and this is what Bob was here for—a trophy. With the September temperature pushing a hundred degrees at midday , the elephants left snapped branches and warm scat in their wake. When they caught our scent, our sweat mixing with the sun-scorched grasses, they broke into a trumpeting jog and were gone. Later, more materialised on the horizon, in the shade of the cam el thorn trees, shades themselves. These enormous creatures were nearly invisible but not to the sharpest eyes. “Oliphant!” Dan cried, leaning hard over the right side of the Land Cruiser, picking out tracks in the sand. He tapped on the door, and we ca me to a whiplashing halt. Dan jumped down, checking a footprint, its edges corrugated and etched inside with smaller bubbles. He motioned, and Felix popped out of the driver’s side door. Strapping, ruddy, and blond, in his 40s, he seemed straight from central casting, wearing a cloth hat and shorts. He stood over the impression for a moment, a quizzical expression on his face , and nodded his head in agreement that not only is Nyae Nyae’s desert scrub home to San families, but also home to some of the last, biggest wild elephants in the world. The rest of us unloaded. Felix and Bob hoisted their rifles over their shoulders and fell in behind Dan, who took off at the speed of a jackrabbit. Felix turned to me and said, as I stumbled to keep up, “I swear, there’s no better tracker in Africa. If it takes 30 miles, he never gives up.” I could feel the sand still shifting under my combat boots as I struggled to catch up. The sun’s never ending rays beat down on me mercilessly. Salty sweat rolled off my nose and stung my eyes. My clothing was overwhelmingly hot and sticky. The stiff, dry desert breeze blew sand into my eyes and I could see no more than a blur. My tongue felt as if it was coated in fur and my lips were chapped and dry. On we went, following the footprints. Every so often Dan would retrace his steps, circling in the dust, until we slowed to a more careful crawl. Coming over a knoll, we saw them at last, Loxodonta africana— what seemed to be three bulls, munching on leaves and grass. Felix reached for his binoculars, Bob took his 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

4 © DHS EL Dept/English Language/Year 4 O-level/Preliminary Examination 2020 7 rifle in hand. Everything narrowed to a nervous point. He was looking for tusks in the 30kg range but these elephants’ tusks were too small. In the end, Felix made his determination, turned on his heel, and began walking back to the Land Cruiser. No one seemed disappointed exactly . It was almost enough to have stood in the suburbs of such magnificent creatures. Standing in the heat and dust of the Kalahari that bright day, elephants at our back, this scene was painfully beautiful. The elephant hunt continued in the rising heat. Dan picked up the marks of three bulls moving together. Once Felix and Bob saw the elephants from a mile away, they knew they were big and approached them from downwind. Two of the bulls were in front of them, but the largest and oldest stood apart and behind. They maneuvered out around the two bulls and came up on the third as the old bull began to walk toward a clump of brush. Bob crouched low on one side as the old bull was half ground down. He could see every wrinkle draping the elephant. He aimed his double rifle with its hand-engraved silver stock and fired directly at the heart. The bull turned and began to run, 30 metres before it fell. Bob put one more shot in the brain, and it was done. The tusks weighed more than 30kg each and Bob claimed his trophy. Within six hours the San flensed the skin of the elephant and stripped its bones before taking three tons of meat home t o feed their families. 45 50 55 60

5 © DHS EL Dept/English Language/Year 4 O-level/Preliminary Examination 2020 Text 3 The article below is about the negative effects of clutter. Read it carefully and answer Questions 17 – 24 in the Question Booklet. 1 2 3 4 5 “Tidying can transform your life.” This is the beguiling promise from Japanese decluttering evangelist Marie Kondo. Around 11 million people have bought her book, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up ”, and millions more have tuned in to watch her in acti on on Netflix in the hope of learning how to emulate Kondo’s brand of minimalistic bliss. Kondo’s method of decluttering is straightforward – tidy your home by category instead of by room, pull everything out before sorting it out, and keep only things that are useful or “spark joy”. Marie Kondo is far from the only one advocating this simpler, tidier lifestyle. In the U nited Kingdom, Sophie Hinchliffe, has been demonstrating to her Instagram followers and Television viewers how having a cleaner, tidier home can lead to a better life, while in America, professional organiser Beth Penn has written a book and set up her own company to help people sort out their stuff. There are dozens of other books and decluttering services to be found with a quick search of the internet. However, for most of us, piles of clutter may not seem like a big deal. In fact, most of us quite like our stuff – it helps to turn the buildings we live in into homes. “For hoarders, objects can represent comfort and security,” says James Gregory, a clinical psychologist and expert on hoarding at the University of Bath. Most of us may not feel so strongly about our possessions, but things that are tied to emotionally significant memories can nevertheless represent a piece of our identity that is difficult to discard. However, i n the most extreme cases, hoarding is recognised as a medical disorder that can rob people of their quality of life. One study by researchers at Yale University used brain scans to show that for people with the disorder, throwing out objects activat