AHSEC| CLASS 11| ENGLISH| QUESTION PAPER - 2017| H.S. 1ST YEAR
2017
ENGLISH
Full Marks: 90
Time: 3 hours
The figures in the margin indicate
full marks for the questions
SECTION - A
(Reading)
1. Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
Look at the
opposition between the pen and the sword. The sword can only destroy; ideas
also can destroy-the ideas of Bolshevism destroyed Czarism; the ideas of
Voltaire and Rousseau destroyed the French aristocracy. But ideas can also
build, whereas the sword can only destroy.
It is in fact the
power of ideas which has brought us out of barbarism into such civilization as
we have been able to achieve. "In what", asked Aristotle, "does
man differ from the animal?" and answered, "it is by virtue of
reason." The greatness of man consists in his thinking. The universe is
vast, and man is tiny, but man has one advantage over the universe. He knows it
is vast and he is tiny, but the universe does not.
In this sense,
that it is to ideas and not to violence, to the pen and not to the sword, that
man owes whatever has distinguished him from animals, whatever has enabled him
to rise above a purely savage condition. For the pen is the vehicle of thought,
and it is by thought that man is enabled to voyage through the infinite in
philosophy, to unlock the secrets of the universe, to create beauty and to
commune with God.
Questions:
(a) (i)
What destroyed Czarism? 1
(ii) Who were
responsible for the fall of the French aristocracy? 1
(iii) What has
brought humankind out of barbarism into civilization? 1
(iv) What does
the pen represent here? 1
(v) How do ideas
and the sword differ from each other? 2
(vi) What,
according to Aristotle, makes man different from the animal? 2
(vii) What is
the one advantage that man has over the universe? 2
(b) Pick
out words from the passage that mean the following: 1x2=2
(i) People of
noble birth or rank
(ii) Primitive
condition
2. Read the passage given below and answer the questions
that follow:
1. How does
television affect our lives? It can be very helpful to people who carefully
choose the shows that they watch. Television can increase our knowledge of the outside
world; there are high-quality programmes that help us understand many fields of
study such as science, medicine, the arts, and so on. Moreover, television
benefits very old people who cannot often leave the house as well as patients
in hospitals. It also offers non-native speakers the advantage of daily
informal language practice. They can increase their vocabulary and practise
listening.
2. On the other
hand, there are several serious disadvantages of television. Of course, it
provides us with a pleasant way to relax and spend our free time, but in some
countries, people watch the 'boob-tube' for an average of six hours or more a
day. Many children stare at a television screen for more hours each day than
they do anything else, including studying and sleeping. It's clear that the
tube has a powerful influence on their lives and that its influence is often
negative.
3. Recent
studies show that after only thirty seconds of television watching, a person's
brain 'relaxes the same way that it does just before the person falls asleep.
Another effect of television on the human brain is that it seems to cause poor
concentration. Children who view a lot of television can often concentrate on a
subject for only 15 to 20 minutes.
4. Another
disadvantage is that television' often causes people to become dissatisfied
with their own lives. Real life does not seem as exciting to these people as
the lives of actors on the screen. To many people, television becomes more real
than reality and their own lives seem boring. Also, many people get upset or
depressed when they cannot solve problems in real life as quickly as television
actors seem to.
5. Before a
child is 14 years old, he or she views eleven thousand murders on the tube. He
or she begins to believe that there is nothing strange about fights, killings
and other kinds of violence. Many studies show that people become more violent
after certain programmes. They may even do things that they have' seen in a
violent show.
6. The most
negative effect of the 'boob tube' might be people's addiction to it. People
often feel a strange and powerful need to watch television even when they do
not enjoy it. Addiction to a television screen is similar to drug or alcohol
addiction. People almost never believe they are addicted.
Questions:
(a) On the
basis of your reading of the above passage, make notes on it, using
recognisable abbreviations wherever necessary. Add a suitable title to it. 5
(b) Make a
summary of the above passage in about 80 words. 3
SECTION - B
(Writing)
3. You are arranging an excursion trip to Shillong planned
in the last week of April. Write a paragraph on your preparations to your classmates
in about 100 words giving all relevant details.
6
Or
Your
school/college observed the Human Rights Day recently. Prepare a report on the
daylong programme in about 80 words to be published in a local daily.
4. Write a speech to be delivered in the school/college
assembly on Importance of Discipline in Life'. 6
Or
Write an article
for your school/college magazine on the need to fight environmental degradation
in our country.
5. You are Ranjan/Ragini. You have seen an advertisement in
The Assam Tribune for the post of Assistant Teacher in an L. P. School in
Goalpara. Write an application to the Headmaster of the school in response to
the advertisement. Mention all relevant details. 8
Or
Write a letter
to the Editor of a local English Daily drawing attention of the authorities
concerned to the nuisance of loudspeakers in your area.
SECTION - C
(Grammar)
6. (a) Fill in the blanks with suitable determiners:
1/2×2=1
(i) Do you need
_______help? (some/any)
(ii) _______of
the boys was given a pen. (Every/Each)
(b) Rewrite
the following sentences with the correct form of the verb given in brackets:
1/2×2=1
(i) Football
(play) all over the world.
(ii) She behaves
as if she (know) everything.
(c) Fill in
the blanks with appropriate modal auxiliaries (the sense of the sentence is
indicated in the bracket): 1/2x2=1
(i) He ______pay
his dues before he can be allowed to sit at the examination. (compulsion)
(ii) He
_______listen to what his parents say. (moral duty)
(d) Correct
the following: 1/2×2=1
(i) Guwahati is
one of the oldest city in the country.
(ii) This city
is known for its beautiful sceneries.
7. (a) Complete the following piece of conversation by
choosing the correct alternative from the brackets: 2
I said to her,
"_____ (How/When) are you?" She replied, "I'm fine. It's so nice
to see you ______(returned/ back/come) in our village again."
(b) Rewrite
the following sentences as directed: 1x2=2
(i) Stephen
Hawking is the most famous scientist of this generation. (Use the comparative
degree of famous')
(ii) She knows
my address. (Make it a complex sentence)
8. Rearrange the words in the following to form
meaningful sentences: 1×2=2
(a) Shyam not
know swim does to how.
(b) He came I
had left after place the.
SECTION - D
(Textual
Questions)
9. Read any one of the stanzas given below and answer the
questions that follow:
(a) The
cardboard shows me how it was
When the two
girl cousins went paddling
Each one holding
one of my mother's hands,
And she the big
girl-some twelve years or so.
All three stood
still to smile through their hair
At the uncle
with the camera,
(i) What does
the cardboard show the poet? 1
(ii) How did
the girls go to the sea beach? 1
(iii) Why did
the two girl cousins hold one of the poet's mother's hands? 1
(iv) Who
clicked the three girls in the cardboard? 1
(v) What kind
of a childhood do the quoted lines project? 4
(b) I do not
understand this child
Though we have
lived together now
In the same
house for years. I know
Nothing of him,
so try to build
Up a
relationship from how
He was when
small.
(i) Where do
these lines occur? 1
(ii) Why does
the speaker say that he does not know 'this child'? 1
(iii) For how
long have the father and son lived together? 1
(iv) What does
the speaker try to build? 1
(v) What idea
do you form about the relationship between the father and son from the quoted
lines? 4
10. Answer any two of the following questions: 3×2=6
(a) How is the
cyclic movement of rain brought out in the poem, The Voice of the Rain?
(b) The poet's
mother laughed at the snapshot. What did this laugh indicate?
(c) What,
according to the poem, Childhood, is involved in the process of growing up?
(d) How is the
father's helplessness brought out in the poem, Father to Son?
11. Answer any five of the following questions: 2x5=10
(a) What are the
different ways in which we come to know that the author's grandmother was a
deeply religious person?
(b) Contrast the
Chinese view of art with the European view.
(c) What does
the notice The world's most dangerous animal' at a cage in the zoo at Lusaka,
Zambia, signify?
(d) Why did the
author Verrier Elwin say that he was an unconventional visitor?
(e) Mention
three ways in which the author's grandmother spent her days after he grew up.
(f) What does
Verrier Elwin have to say to the hill people of Assam?
12. (a) "The earth's vital signs reveal a patient
in declining health." Elucidate. 6
Or
(b) Describe the
changing relationship between the author Khushwant Singh and his grandmother.
Did their feeling for each other change?
13. (a) “English integrates India as a nation."
Discuss with examples from the story, Ranga's Marriage. 6
Or
(b) What do you
make of Einstein's nature from his conversations with his history teacher, his
mathematics teacher and the head teacher?
14. Answer any two of the following questions in brief:
2×2=4
(a) Why does
Einstein think that learning facts is no education at all?
(b) What were
Ranga’s views on marriage?
(c) How does the
example of Einstein prove that the school system ends up by curbing individual
talent?
***
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