Grade 8 English End Term 3 Exam With Answers

The first five questions are free; Learners unlock the full exam, timer and review.

Grade 8 English asks learners to read a wider range of texts and to think about how writers create meaning. Our exam includes an original information text on deforestation and the national tree-growing target, and an original drama extract in which a grandfather and his granddaughter strike a deal about homework and videos. The grammar section covers the structures taught across Grade 8. The layout mirrors the multiple-choice KJSEA English paper (901/1) that learners will sit in Grade 9.

Information texts test whether a learner can find facts, follow causes and effects, and understand the writer’s main point. In our passage, the chain is: forests are cleared, so rivers dry up and soil washes into lakes, so farmers downstream suffer. Questions about “why” usually sit on that chain. For the main point, look at the last paragraph, where writers usually leave their conclusion.

Drama questions add a few special terms:

• Stage directions: the words in brackets that tell actors what to do and how to speak. They often reveal feelings: “looking at the floor” shows guilt.
• Dialogue: the words characters say.
• Character traits: judged from what characters say and do. Mzee Otieno corrects Awino firmly but offers help, which shows he is wise and caring.
• Theme: the big idea, here learning between generations.

Expect the future perfect and present perfect, subject–verb agreement with “each” and with subjects like “Mathematics”, object pronouns, relative pronouns, the second conditional (“If I were”), reported speech, the passive voice, question tags with “Let’s”, phrasal verbs, prefixes and suffixes, homophones, commas in lists, idioms, similes, word classes and complex sentences. Every worked answer states the rule.

When a question asks what sums up a paragraph or a passage, several options are usually true of one sentence. The right answer covers the whole paragraph. In the forest passage, the last paragraph mentions the 15-billion-tree target and school clubs, but its point is that seedlings must be cared for until they survive, and that is the option to choose.

• “Each of the learners have.” “Each” is singular, so it should be “has”.
• “If I was a bird.” In the second conditional, use “were”.
• Confusing “there”, “their” and “they’re”.
• Choosing an answer that sounds true but is not supported by the passage.

Allow about 30 minutes for the information text, 20 for the drama extract and 25 for grammar. Afterwards, ask your child to find the line in the passage that proves each correct answer; this one habit does more for comprehension scores than any other. Reading widely, such as newspapers, story books and plays, builds the vocabulary that Grade 9 will demand.

More Grade 8 exams are on the Grade 8 revision papers page, and the Grade 8 CBC Challenge has short English sets for daily practice.