Cameroon GCE ordinary level June 2025 literature in English 2

Here are the questions extracted from the provided image:

SECTION A: DRAMA

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: MACBETH

1. Read the following extract and answer the questions below it.

   Two truths are told

   As happy prologues to the swelling act

   Of the imperial theme.

   I thank you, gentleman.

   This supernatural soliciting

   Cannot be ill, cannot be good: – if ill,

   Why hath it given me earnest of success,

   Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor:

   If good, why do I yield to that suggestion

   Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair

   And make my seated heart knock at my ribs

   Against the use of nature? Present fears

   Are less than horrid imaginings:

   My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,

   Shakes so my single state of man, that function

   Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is,

   But what is not.

   (a) Who is speaking and where is the speaker?

   (b) Name the two gentlemen to whom he gives thanks.

   (c) Give the meaning of the following words and expressions as used in the extract.

   (i) prologues (Line 2)

   (ii) cannot be ill (Line 6)

   (iii) unfix my hair (Line 10)

   (iv) whose murder yet is but- fantastical (Line 14)

   (d) State and explain TWO character traits of the speaker.

   (e) What message has provoked the speech quoted above?

   (f) Give an account of the rest of the scene.

2. Read the following extract and answer the questions below it.

   Bring them before us. — To be thus is nothing,

   But to be safely thus. — Our fears in Banquo

   Stick deep, and in his royalty of nature

   Reigns that which would be feared; ’tis much he dares,

   And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,

   He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour

   To act in safety. There is none but he

   Whose being I do fear; and under him

   My genius is rebuked, as it is said

   Mark Antony’s was by Caesar. He chid the sisters

   When first they put the name of king upon me,

   And bade them speak to him; then, prophet- like,

   They hailed him father to a line of kings.

   Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown,

   And put a barren sceptre in my1 gripe,

   Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand,

   No son of mine succeeding. If ‘t be so,

   For Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind;

   For them the gracious Duncan have I murdered;