March 2008
ENGLISH H. L.
Time: 3 Hrs. Marks: 80
SECTION - A: PROSE
READING SKILLS, VOCABULARY, GRAMMAR
Q. 1: (A) Read the following extract carefully and answer the questions given below.
One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see an awful looking man. I stared at the stopped, shriveled body. His face, lopsided from swelling, was red and raw.
Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, "Good evening. I've come to see if you've a room for just one night. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there's no bus till morning." He told me he'd been hunting for a room since noon but with no success. "I guess it's my face…. I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments…." For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me. "I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning."
When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes. It didn't take a long time to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury.
He wasn't complaining; in fact, every other sentence was prefaced with thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease which was, apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going.
Questions:
(1) What disease was the old man suffering from? (1)
(2) Why was it difficult for the old man to find a room? (1)
(3) How did the old man earn his livelihood? (1)
(4) (a) My bus leaves early in the morning. (Add a Question Tag.) (1)
(b) His Voice was pleasant. (Rewrite as an Exclamatory Sentence.) (1)
(5) (a) This old man had an oversized heart.
(Rewrite the sentence by explaining the underlined phrase.) (1)
(b) Give the antonyms of: (i) cursing (ii) weakness. (1)
(6) Why do you think the old man was grateful to God? (2)
Q. 1: (B) Read the following extract carefully and answer the questions given below.
That Monday at school, Keryn sat with her chin propped up on one hand. "You're looking very thoughtful today, Keryn," said her teacher, Mrs. Ngeru.
As soon as she got home, Keryn hurried to her bedroom mirror. The spot was bigger. She could see it even when she stood right back from her mirror, against her bedroom wall.
She took a book, curled up on the corner of the living room sofa, and tried to forget about her chin. She was still reading when her father came home from work half an hour later.
"That's a nice little spot you've found there, love," he said.
Keryn jumped up and slammed into her room.
"What's the matter? What did I say?" She heard her father asking behind her.
At dinner that night, Keryn said she didn't want any lemon meringue, thank you. She'd just have a raw carrot instead.
"You want to be careful of those raw carrots," Jason told Keryn while he ate her share of the lemon meringue. "They might be good for your skin, but they make your teeth grow, and your ears get all long and floppy."
Questions:
(1) What upset Keryn on a Monday morning? (1)
(2) Why did her father's comment bother her? (1)
(3) How did Jason tease Keryn? (1)
(4) (a) She would just have a carrot. (Chang into Positive Degree) (1)
(b) The spot was bigger than the night before. (Change into Positive Degree)(1)
(5) (a) Keryn hurried to her bedroom mirror.
(Rewrite the sentence using the noun form of the underlined verb) (1)
(b) Supply homophones for the words given below: (i) sea (ii) be (1)
(6) In what way do you consider Keryn and Jason as typical teenagers? (2)
Q. 2: (A) Read the following extract carefully and answer the questions given below.
The Ajanta caves, we were told, lay in the side of a ravine in wild and desolate century some 350 miles to the north-west, at the extreme tip of Hyderabad state where it touches the Bombay Province. Property speaking they were not caves at all, but temples which had been excavated from the living rock by Buddhist monks. These monks had first come to the ravine somewhere in the second century before Christ and they had begun by hacking out the rock by hand and hurling it down into the river below. Then, probably with large mirrors to reflect the sunshine from the ravine outside, they set about the decoration of the walls, the doorways and the ceilings. They continued for the next eight hundred years, always painting and sculpturing Lord Buddha, but setting him against an idyllic background of folk tales and the everyday life of their own time. In much the same way as in the Italian Renaissance which over a thousand years later, the work was subsidized by the wealthy merchants and the princes of the surrounding countryside.
Questions:
(1) Who came to the ravines in the second century before Christ? (1)
(2) What did the monks use to reflect light into the caves? (1)
(3) What did the caves depict? (1)
(4) (a) The work was subsidized by the wealthy merchants.
(Change the Voice) (1)
(b) They continued for the next eight hundred years.
(Rewrite as an Interrogative Sentence) (1)
(5) Complete the table given below: (2)
| NOUN | ADJECTIVE | VERB |
| reflect | ||
| surrounding |
(6) Would you like to see the caves? If so, why? If not, Why not? (2)
Q. 2: (B) Read the following extract carefully and answer the questions given below.
I should be the last person to be telling school and college students to take their studies seriously. I never did so myself and scraped through my exams with an unbroken record of third divisions. In successive years at school, I distinguished myself by getting zeroes in arithmetic and just managed to get by with algebra and geometry. It was almost the same in college and for higher studies in law in England. Most students did their L. L. B. and Bar-at-Law in three years. I took five year to pass the same exams. When I returned home, my father quite rightly belittled my performance. When any of his friends asked him "What did your son pass in England?" he would reply, "I am not sure what he passed except that he passed a lot of time."
Students who take their studies seriously do well in their exams and get a headstart in life. You will notice that most of those who get into the best services like administrative, foreign, revenue, education, engineering, police and other police and other posts of the bureaucracy were among the toppers in their classes. Others who do equally well or better in professions like law or medicine, have to make up by studying and working harder in later life. There are no shortcuts to success.
Questions:
(1) Choose the correct alternative and complete the sentence.
This piece of writing is ……………. .
(a) An Autobiography (b) Science fiction (c) Biography. (1)
(2) How did the author's father feel that he had spent his time in England? (1)
(3) What is the author's conclusion about the road to success? (1)
(4) (a) There are not many alternatives.
(Rewrite as an Affirmative Sentence) (1)
(b) When I returned home, my father belittled my performance.
(Rewrite the sentence using 'ing' participle) (1)
(5) (a) Expand the abbreviations given below: (i) I.A.S. (ii) L.L.B. (1)
(b) Complete the following with a collocation from the extract:
(i) …………… record (ii) …………… studies. (1)
(6) State the advantages of hard work. (2)
Q.3: Do as directed:
(a) Smith: Good Morning, Mr. Jones. It is a long time since I saw you in town.
Jones: Good Morning, Mr. Smith. I only came up for business for few hours.
(Rewrite in Indirect Speech) (1)
(b) I received his message …………. 8 O'clock …………. The morning.
(Insert suitable prepositions) (1)
(c) You …………. (needn't mustn't, won't) light a match, the room is full of gas.
(Choose the correct alternative and complete the sentence) (1)
SECTION - B: POETRY
Q. 4: (A) Read the extract carefully and answer the questions that follow: (5)
The tender snail that fears the sun
Weaves, where the cold fresh night-dews lie,
His shining track that's seen by none
But the moon's shining harmless eye.
Lean-flanked and hungry-eyed the cat
As stealthy as a wind-blown leaf,
For careless vole of scurrying rat
Lurks in the shadows like a thief.
Beyond the town, in moon-washed grass,
The rabbit and the field-mouse creep,
While moon-white owls like phantoms pass:
Then who says night's the time for sleep?
Questions:
1. Name the different creatures from the extract. (1)
2. Who lurks in the shadows like a thief? (1)
3. Why does the snail fear the sun? (1)
4. Fill in the blanks with the compound adjectives:
(i) …………….. leaf. (ii) …………….. owls. (1)
5. Pick out an example of Personification from the extract. (1)
Q. 4: (B) Read the following extract carefully and answer the questions given below:
Defeat! He lied there silently
-A tear dropped from his eye-
"There's no sense running anyone:
Three strikes; I'm out! Why try?"
The will to rise had disappeared;
All hope had fled away;
So far behind, so error-prone:
A loser all the way.
"I've lost, so what's the use," he thought
"I'll live with my disgrace."
But then the thought about hi. Dad
Who soon he'd have to face.
Questions:
1. What did the boy resolve when he fell the third time? (1)
2. Why did the boy feel a sense of hopelessness? (1)
3. 'A tear dropped from his eye' - What does this line tell you about the boy? (1)
4. List any two pair of rhyming words. (1)
5. Name and explain the figure of speech:
'So far behind so error-prone' (1)
SECTION - C: RAPID READING
Q. 5: Read the following extract carefully and answer the questions given below:
The camp itself was sumptuous seven large tents (one for each shikari), a dining-tent, and a number of servants' tent. The dinner was very good, as Grandfather admitted afterwards; it was not often that one saw hot-water plates, finger-glasses, and seven or eight courses, in a tent in the jungle! But that was how things were done in the days of the Viceroys…… There were also some fifteen elephants, four of them with howdahs for the shikaris and the others specially trained for taking part in the beat.
The sportsmen never saw a tiger, nor did they shoot anything else, though they saw number of deer, peacock and wild boar. They were giving up all hope of finding a tiger and were beginning to shoot at jackals, when Grandfather, strolling down the forest path at some distance from the rest of the party, discovered a little tiger about eighteen inches long, hiding among the intricate roots of a banyan tree. Grandfather picked him up, and brought him home after the camp had broken up. He had the distinction of being the only member of the party to have bagged any game, dead or alive.
At first the tiger cub, who was named Timothy by Grandfather was brought up entirely on milk given to him in a feeding-bottle by our cook, Mahmoud. But the proved too rich for him and he was put on a diet of raw mutton and cod liver oil, to be followed later by a more tempting diet of pigeons and rabbits.
Questions:
1. Who was Timothy? Where was he found? (1)
2. Why did the sportsmen start to shoot jackals? (1)
3. What was Timothy's diet? (1)
4. Hunting of wild life is banned today. Why? (2)
SECTION - D: WRITING SKILLS
Q.6: (A) You are a member of a joint family. Write a letter to your friend telling him / her the advantages of a joint family. (5)
Or
Write an application based on the classified advertisement.
Wanted librarian for a public library. The candidate should be a graduate or post-graduate with a degree in Library Science, should have computer knowledge and one year experience of modernizing a library. (Address to Reference Manager XY Charitable Library of your town / city)
(B) Write a paragraph of 100 words based on the information provided in this graph. (5)
PUPIL-TEACHER RATION IN INDIA 1960-1995
OR
Prepare a flow chart based on the following information:
Modern Olympic games starts with the -
(1) Arrival at the stadium of a runner carrying the torch ignited at Olympia in Greece.
(2) Women athlete first competed at the Olympic Games in 1928.
(3) In 1895 a French monk, Father Didon, coined the sporting slogan for the Olympic Motto.
(4) The first meeting in 1896 was held in Athens when 59 athletes from 10 countries competed in a dozen track and field events.
(5) The Games are held in different countries in turn, the host being chosen by the International Olympic Committee.
Q.7: (A) Prepare a speech to be delivered to the students of Std. IX on how to study for Std. X. (5)
OR
Write a dialogue between a father and son discussing the secrets of success in business.
(B) Write a Report for your school magazine about the health exhibition in your school. (5)
OR
Frame 10 questions to interview astronaut Sunita Williams.
Q.8: Expand any one of the following in about 100 words: (5)
(1) Where there is a Will, there is a Way,
(2) A little learning is a dangerous thing.
(3) We are a part of Environment not apart from Environment.