2018
H.S. 2nd
Year
ENGLISH
Full Marks : 100
Pass Marks : 30
Time : Three hours
SECTION A
1. Read the following passage carefully:
Among the natural resources which
can be called upon in national plans for development, possibly the most
important is human labour. Since the English language suffers from a certain
weakness in its ability to describe groups composed of both male and female members,
this is usually described as “manpower”.
Without a productive labour
force, including effective leadership and intelligent middle management, no amount
of foreign assistance or of natural wealth can ensure successful development and
modernization.
The manpower for development
during the next quarter century will come from the world’s present population
of infants, children and adolescents. But we are not sure that they will be
equal to the task. Will they have the health, the education, the skills, the
socio-cultural attitudes essential for the responsibilities of development?
For far too many of them the
answer is no. The reason is basic. A child’s most critical years, with regard
to physical, intellectual, social and emotional development, are those before
he reaches five years of age. During those critical formative years he is cared
for almost exclusively by his mother, and in many parts of the world the mother
may not have the capacity to raise a superior child. She is incapable of doing
so by reason of her own poor health, her ignorance and her lack of status and recognition of social and legal
rights, of economic parity, of independence. One essential factor has been
overlooked or ignored. The forgotten factor is the role of women. Development
will be handicapped as long as women remain second-class citizens, uneducated,
without any voice in family or community, married when they are still
practically children, and henceforth producing one baby after another, often to
see half of them die before they are of school age.
We can enhance development by
improving “women power”, by giving women the opportunity to develop themselves.
Statistics show that the average family size increases in inverse ratio to the
mother’s years of education – is lowest among college graduates, highest among
those with only primary school training, or no education.
Malnutrition is most frequent in
large families, and increases in frequency with each additional sibling. The
principle seems established that an educated mother has heathier and more
intelligent children, and that this is related to the fact that she has fewer
children. The tendency of educated, upper class mothers to have fewer children
operates even without access to contraceptive services.
The educational level of women is
significant also because it has a direct influence upon their chances of
employment, and the number of employed women in a country’s total labour force
has a direct bearing on both the Gross National Product and the disposable
income of the individual family. Disposable income, especially in the hands of
women influences food purchasing and therefore the nutritional status of the
family. The fact that the additional income derives from the paid employment of
women provides a logical incentive to restrict the size of the family.
On the basis of your reading of
the passage answer the following questions:
(A) Choose the most appropriate
option: 1x4=4
(a) Among the natural resources
which can be called upon in national plans for development-
(i) the most important is
certainly human labour.
(ii) the most important is
possibly human labour.
(iii) the least developed is
certainly human labour.
(iv) the least developed is
undoubtedly human labour.
(b) Without a productive labour
force, including effective leadership and intelligent middle management.
(i) no productive work is
possible.
(ii) entrepreneurs will incur
heavy loss.
(iii) economic development will
not keep pace with national movements.
(iv) no amount of foreign
assistance or of natural wealth can ensure successful development and
modernization.
(c) The manpower development
during the next quarter-century
(i) will be adversely affected by
the threat of war.
(ii) will come from the world’s
present population of infants, children and adolescents.
(iii) will be taken care of by
the current emphasis on free education for women.
(iv) will be adversely affected
by the country’s economic losses and political instability.
(d) “Women power” means
(i) giving women the opportunity
to develop themselves.
(ii) giving women the opportunity
to fight themselves.
(iii) giving women the
opportunity to dominate others.
(iv) giving women the opportunity
to befool others.
(B) Answer the following
questions briefly: 1x6=6
(a) What will be the source of
the manpower development during the next quarter century?
(b) During which period is a
child’s growth maximum?
(c) Why can’t the first teacher
be effective in some of the regions of India?
(d) What will happen to
development if the womenfolk are neglected?
(e) How can we accelerate the
rate of progress?
(f) What is the difference
between an educated mother and an illiterate mother?
SECTION B
2. You are the Proprietor of
Grassland Resort, Kaziranga. Write an advertisement to be published in an
English newspaper offering attractive discount to Holiday packages. 5
Or
You are Anil/Amrita, the Cultural
Secretary of Tezpur Govt. Higher Secondary School. You are planning to organize
a cultural program. Write a notice for the school notice-board inviting names
of students willing to participate. 5
3. You are Imran/Rita of Sunrise
Academy, Guwahati. Recently your school celebrated the World Environment Day.
Giving details of the celebrations write a report in 100-125 words for your
school magazine. 10
Or
You have witnessed a train
accident in which a Delhi bound Guwahati Express got derailed. Write a report
in 100-125 words to be published in The Sentinel, Guwahati. You are
Jayanta/Juri. 10
4. Write a letter to the Editor
of The Telegraph, complaining about the noise pollution in your locality
drawing the attention of the Government to take steps to check the same. Sign
as Mohan/Anjali, Fancy Bazar, Guwahati. 10
Or
You are Sourabh/Rimpi, of North
Lakhimpur. You have been an advertisement for the post of Assistant Teacher in
Mathematics to teach classes IX and X in Gohpur High School. Write a letter to
the President of the managing committee of the school, applying for the job.
Give your detailed bio-data as well. 10
SECTION C
5. Change the form of narration
in the following sentences: 2x2=4
(a) The Speaker said, “I thank
you, ladies and gentlemen, for giving me a kind hearing. When I arrived here
yesterday I did not believe that I might meet so large a gathering”.
(b) His mother exclaimed in
sorrow that she had not a bit of bread to give him and that he had eaten up all
the provisions she had in the house the previous day.
6. Change the voice of any three
of the following sentences: 3x1=3
(a) A Japanese firm makes these
television sets.
(b) An earthquake destroyed the
town.
(c) Whom did you laugh at?
(d) He was taught this in his
boyhood.
(e) Shut the window.
7. Rewrite any five of the
following sentences using the verbs given in brackets in their correct tense
forms: 5x1=5
(a) He ______ (work) here since
2011.
(b) I ________ (write) the letter
last night.
(c) He _________ (sit) in the
library when I saw him.
(d) If I were you, I ________
(not do) it.
(e) The first World War _______
(last) for four years and ended in 1918.
(f) The rubbish van ________
(come) again in the afternoon tomorrow.
8. Rewrite any four of the
following sentences filling in the blanks with appropriate prepositions: 4x1=4
(a) He is fond _________ playing
cards.
(b) She was annoyed _________
missing the bus.
(c) Who is responsible ________
breaking this mirror?
(d) We tried to dissuade her
_________ marrying an old man.
(e) They are thinking _________
moving to another house.
9. Rewrite any four of the
sentences as directed: 4x1=4
(a) This is one of the best
colleges in the North. (Change it into comparative degree)
(b) You are richer than I. (Make
it negative without changing the meaning)
(c) There is no smoke without
fire. (Make it affirmative without changing the meaning)
(d) We heard of her failure.
(Make it a complex sentence)
(e) He admitted that he had done
wrong. (Make it a simple sentence)
(f) Unless you work hard, you
will fail. (Make it a compound sentence)
SECTION D
10. Read one of the following
extracts and answer the questions that follow:
(a) “Perhaps the Earth can teach
us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I’ll count up to twelve
And you keep quiet and I will
go”.
Questions:
(i) What can the Earth teach us? 2
(ii) Why does the poet count up
to twelve? 1
(iii) What will ‘keeping quiet’
help us achieve? 1
Or
“No, in country money, the
country scale of gain,
The requisite lift of spirit has
never been found,
Or so the voice of the country
seems to complain,
I can’t help owning the great
relief it would be,
To put these people at one stroke
out of their pain.
And then next day as I come back
into the sane,
I wonder how I should like you to
come to me
And offer to put me gently out of
my pain”.
Questions:
(i) Where do these lines occur? 1
(ii) Why has the requisite spirit
never been found? 1
(iii) What does the voice of the
country people seem to say? 1
(iv)What will be of great relief
for the poet? 1
11. Answer any three of the
following questions in 30-40 words: 3x2=6
(i) What increases continuously
in ‘ A Thing of Beauty’?
(ii) What is considered to be ‘an
exotic moment’ in ‘Keeping Quiet’
(iii) What are the ‘merry
children spilling out of their homes’ symbolic of?
(iv) Which things irritated the
passers-by who stopped at the road-side stand?
12. Answer any five of the
following questions: 5x1=5
(a) What is the name of the
blacksmith in “The Last Lesson”?
(b) What is the ‘great trouble
with Alsace’?
(c) Why have Saheb and his family
migrated to Seemapuri?
(d) Who is the ‘Chota Sahib’ in
the ‘Memoirs of a Chota Sahib’?
(e) How did John Rowntree find
the weather when he arrived at Gauhati?
(f) Where was Champaran?
(g) Which country does Danny
Casey play for?
13. Answer any five in 30-40
words: 5x2=10
(a) ‘Will they make them sing in
German, even the pigeons?’ What does this sentence suggest?
(b) What are the two different
worlds in Firozabad?
(c) What was the promise made by
anees Jung to Saheb?
(d) What unusual visitor did
Rowntree have in his bungalow one right?
(e) Why did Gandhi choose to go
to Muzzafarpur first before going on to Champaran?
(f) What job is Geoff engaged in?
Does he enterain wild and impractical dreams like his sister?
(g) What kind of a person is Geoff?
14. Answer any one of the
following questions in 80-100 words: 1x5=5
(a) Describe the bangle makers of
Firozabad. How does the vicious circle of the Sahukars, the middlemen never
allow them to come out of their poverty?
Or
Relate Rowntree’s experience of
floods in Assam.
15. Answer any one of the
following questions in 125-150 words: 1x7=7
(a) Describe Tishani’s journey to
the end of the earth – the Antarctic region, and his experience during that
journey.
Or
(b) Discuss the forms of
discrimination projected in the narrations of Zitkala-Sa and Bama.
16. Answer any four of the
following questions in 30-40 words: 4x2=8
(a) What was Zitkala-Sa’s
immediate reaction to the cutting of her hair?
(b) What did Annan say about his
community to the narrator?
(c) How has Antarctica remained
relatively pristine?
(d) What are Geoff Green’s
reasons for including high schoolstudents in the ‘Students on Ice’ expedition?
(e) What is it that draws Derry
towards Mr. Lamb in spite of himself?
(f) Why aren’t there any curtains
at the windows of Mr. Lamb’s house?
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