Observation

This question was answered by a greater percentage of the candidates. Candidate who understood its demands did not have problem while attempting the question especially in the B part which boosted the scores of the candidates.

Weaknesses on the part of candidates in the A part is attributed to writing about the entire life of Moses and how he led the Israelites out of Egypt. They lost valuable time while concentrating on the latter part of Moses instead of focusing their efforts on his early life. Below are some of the expected points the candidates were expected to have written.

i. Moses was born at a time when the king of Egypt made a decree for the drowning of all male Hebrew babies into the Nile.

ii. This was to curb the increasing growth of the Hebrew population which was threatening Egypt’s security.

iii. Two Levites got married and gave birth to Moses.

iv. In view of the king’s law and that the child was good looking, the mother hid him for three months.

v. When she could no longer hide the baby, she placed him in a basket of bulrushes sealed with bitumen and put it in the reeds of Nile River.

vi. Miriam, Moses’s sister kept watch at a distance.

vii. Not long after, Pharaoh’s daughter who came to wash, found the baby and adopted it.

viii. She got a Hebrew woman (Moses’ own mother) through Miriam to look after the baby for a fee.

ix. After nursing the child, she handed him over to the princess who named him Moses, meaning drawn out of water.

x. Moses was brought up as a prince with the best of Egypt’s education in the palace of Pharaoh.

xi. Moses grew up as an Egyptian but was conscious of the fact that he was a Hebrew who hated the wicked treatment of the Hebrews by the Egyptians.

xii. This made him one day kill an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew.

xiii. On another occasion, he tried to separate two Hebrews fighting, but the guilty one said “Who made you a prince and a judge over us?”

xiv. The man continued, “Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”

xv. Moses realised that his killing of the Egyptian was no more a secret.

xvi. When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses but he fled from Egypt to Midian.

xvii. At Midian, Moses drove away some shepherds who were maltreating the daughters of Jethro and drew water for them

xviii. He then found favour with Jethro who invited him to stay with him and take care of his flock.

xix. Moses got married to Zipporah, one of the daughters of Jethro who bore him a son.

xx.Moses named the child Gershom meaning, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land”.