FIRST LANGUAGE ENGLISH
Paper 2 Composition – Sample Answer Descriptive
0500 For examination from 2020 2 hours
During a walk through open country, you stop for a few moments. Describe what you
see and hear, and the effect it has on your thoughts and feelings.
It has been a long trek, a slow steep climb. The exertion had diverted all my attention to the
laborious effort of putting one foot after another and it was not till the leader called out for
a water break, half way up the mountain, that I was able to take in my surroundings.
I think it was really my surroundings that took me in. On one side was the distant ocean. A
vast stretch of blue green and black. Sorry, angry, confused and friendly it lay like an old
man, confident of its dominance and wisdom but weary of its variety of moods and
ailments. Seagull calls echoed and mingled so closely with the orchid white clouds I could
barely make out their movement. The sound of the waves was a persistent low rumble. I
longed to turn back and walk to the beach. It was comforting, generous and familiar. I had
not wanted to take this trek up the small mountain behind the beach, but now this view was
compensating for my aching thighs and my raging thirst.
As I turned to look at what lay ahead, I realised that the view of the mountain standing on it
was starkly different to looking at it from the beach. Up close the boulders, bushes and
bramble created the effect of a prehistoric movie set. The occasional flash of a dark green
low shrub welcomed our intrusion and for the first time the mountain felt alive to me like
the sea was. It rose benevolently watching over the beach, perhaps the old man’s
companion, as weary and weighed down with the aches and pains of history.
Then I looked out at the sky. Where was this beautiful pale blue white and misty expanse in
this delicate tripartite? The sky, light and playful, clouds that drifted then hopped and
skipped. The sea the mountain and the sky together filled this world in front of me. As small
as I was I felt included in this strong friendship. Enveloped by the power of these three, for
the first time, from this height, I got a sense of the tremendous power and benevolence of
the nature and how it sustains this beautiful planet.
As we packed up our bottles to continue our trek up the mountain, I did so with renewed
understanding, energy and commitment to stop more often, to look to listen and to
commune with my surroundings.