SAMPLE PAPER
HOT QUESTIONS-2014
CLASS-
XII (CORE)
Sub. — English
HOT QUESTIONS
Time-3hrs. M.M.
100 Marks
General instructions:
- The paper is divided into three sections - A, B and C.
- Separate instructions are given with each
section and question, wherever necessary. Read these instructions very
carefully and follow them faithfully.
- Do not exceed the prescribed word limit while
answering the questions.
- Please write down the serial number of the
question in the answer sheet before at tempting it.
SECTION - A [READING] (20 Marks)
A.1. Read the following
passage carefully and answer the questions that follow: (12)
- When television
became widespread after World War II, some people though that television
will replace reading. They believed that only a few people might still
have any reason to read and that television would become the number one educational
tool.
- We know now that
this prediction was incorrect. There has been no decline in most people's
need to read. In fact surveys show that more books than ever are being
sold and the amount of time that the students spend on reading is greater than in the days before television.
Unfortunately, however, many students are doing little or no voluntary
reading. Most of the reading that they do is assigned by their teachers.
- Just think about
how much you read every day in order to complete your school work. How
often can you finish an assignment or your home work without doing any
reading? Is there any class in your school that does not require you to
do some reading? You have to read in home-economies-directions and
recipes, if nothing else-in shop and auto mechanic classes, in the Science
lab and certainly in such courses as Social Studies and English. There is
no denying the fact that most academic and vocational courses rely
heavily on text books.
- Not too long ago, a
group of teachers made a study of the students about learning problems. A
curious fact came out of this study. The teachers discovered that the students
who did poorly in subjects such as Maths or Art could still do very well
in other subjects. But the students who did poorly in reading, almost always
did poorly in all their other courses.
- For a while the
teachers who made the study were puzzled by this, but they soon had an
answer to this puzzle. The teachers looked at the subjects that the
students were failing in and discovered that even subjects like Maths and
Science were based on reading.
- Of course there
were also other skills involved such as learning to add and subtract in
Maths class but most of the explanation of how to do things had to be read
by the students. Much of the home work assignments required students to
read long sets of directions and tests and, problems in class often
involved story problems, problems that were explained in words and had to
be read and understood before they could be solved. Your success or failure
in these classes will depend on your ability to read the required
material. Finally, if you go to college, almost all your study time will
be spent on reading. You need more and more information and most of this
information comes from the printed material you have to read. Even if you
could get tapes or movies containing all the information, you need to know
that they would not be of much help until and unless you know how to read.
- Magazines and books
may all be on microfilm in the next few years, but they will still have to
be read. The same is true of most of what you have to learn in school.
Your school is probably not going to throw all printed material out of the
window very soon.
- Success in school
courses still depends on an ability to read and those students, who cannot
read or at least read well enough to master material, are in trouble.
- You are moving into
a world where every day more and more technical reading is required.
Instructions for using appliances are becoming more complex. There are
written instructions to follow, for food preparations, traffic signs,
travel directions and safety information, all requiring the ability to
read. People in modern society read hundreds and even thousands of words
every day.
- Also your ability
to get and keep a job is directly related to your ability to read. Even
the simplest job require some reading ability, and many people advance to
more important and better paying jobs by getting additional knowledge, and
skills through reading. The more specialized the job, the greater the need
to read confidently, quickly and efficiently.
- Doctors read
professional journals so that they can use the latest medical knowledge in
treating patients while pharmacists have to read the prescriptions the
doctors write. Lawyers spend their days reading briefs. The number of semi
skilled and professional cannot read is almost unemployable.
1.1. Answer the following
questions briefly based on above passage: (9)
(a) What prediction
concerning television is referred to by the author and why does he say
that
it is incorrect? (2)
(b) What were the findings
of the teachers regarding the poor performance of the students? (2)
(c) What do you understand
by the term 'technical reading'? (1)
(d) Do you think
audio-visuals and microfilms can replace reading in modern society? (2)
(e) Why can't professionals
and semi-skilled people do away with reading? (2)
1.2. Find out the words
from the passage which mean the same as the following: (3)
(a) decrease
(Para 2)
(1)
(b) depend
with confidence (Para 3) (1)
(c) strange
(Para 4) (1)
A.2. Read the following
passage carefully and answer the questions that follow: (8)
- How you can best
improve your English depends on where you live and particularly on whether
or not you live in an English speaking community. If you hear English
spoken everyday and mix freely with English speaking people, that is on
the whole, an advantage. On the other hand, it is often confusing to have
the whole language, poured over you at once. Ideally, a step-by-step
course should accompany or lead up to this experience. It will also help
a great deal if you can easily get the sort of English books in which you
are interested.
- To read a lot is
essential. It is stupid not to venture outside the examination 'set books'
or the textbooks you have chosen for intensive study. Read as many books
in English as you can, not as a duty but for pleasure. Do not choosy the
most difficult books you find, with the idea of listing and learning as
many new words as possible : choose what is
likely to interest you and be sure in advance that it is not too hard. You
should not have to be constantly looking up new words in the dictionary,
for that deadens interest and checks real learning. Look up a word here
and there, but as a general policy try to push ahead, guessing that words
mean from the context. It is extensive and not intensive reading that
normally helps you to get interested in extra-reading and thereby improves
your English. You should enjoy the feeling which extensive reading gives
of having some command of the language. As you read you will become more
and more familiar with words and sentence patterns you already know,
understanding them better and better as you meet them in more and more
contexts, some of which may differ only slightly from others.
- Some people say
that we cannot learn to speak a language better with the help of a book.
To believe this is to believe that the spoken language and the written
language are quite different things. This is not so. There is a very great
deal in common between the two. In learning the patterns and vocabulary of
the written form, we are learning to a considerable extent those of the
spoken form too. We are, in fact, learning the language and not merely
one form of the language.
2.1 On the basis of your reading of the above passage
make notes in points only. Use recognizable abbreviations, wherever necessary (minimum
4) and a format you consider suitable. Supply an appropriate title to it. (5)
2.2. Write a summary of the above passage in about 80
words. (3)
SECTION – B (ADVANCED WRITING SKILLS) (35 Marks)
Q.3. You plan to sell your two-wheeler. Draft a
suitable advertisement in not more than 50 words to be given in the classified
column of a local daily, giving all necessary details. You are Sumit / Sudha, 15, Krishna Nagar,
New Delhi (5)
OR
You
are Neelam / Siddharth, the
cultural secretary of Golden Academy, Indore. Your school is organizing its 5th
Inter – school music carnival for the students of class VI – XII. Write a
notice inviting students to appear for an audition in the presence of renowned
singer, Ms. Sudha Chauhan . Construct the
necessary details in not more than 50 words.
Q.4. Your school celebrated its Annual prize
distribution and cultural extravaganza on 12 Dece mber 2012.
Write a brief report in 100-125 words to be published in your school magazine.
You are Pradeep / Manju,
Head boy / Head girl of ABC Public School, (Delhi) (10)
OR
Write
in about 100-125 words your experience of watching birds in cages and animals
in enclosures when you visited the zoo last Sunday. Imagine yourself as Sanjeev / Sarita, a student of Aurobindo Public School, Chennai.
Q.5. You want to visit Udaipur and two other cities of
Rajasthan during the next vacation. Write a letter to the Director, Rajasthan
Tourism, Jaipur enquiring
about the things you consider important before planning your visit. You are Kishan Kashyap, living 4, Anmadurai Apartments.
(10)
OR
Pramod
Goel of Shimla is worried
that despite legal ban on trafficking of drugs, a large number of school and
college going youth are becoming drug addicts. Write a letter to the Editor of
a local newspaper, pointing out the harmful effects of drug addiction and
suggesting steps to curb it.
Q.6. In times when law and order are a casualty and
anti-social elements are out on a rampage, women themselves have to take on the
challenge of protecting themselves. As the Chair person of a women’s
organization, write an article on the topic “Dealing with crimes against women”
in not more than 200 words. (10)
OR
Corruption
is the bane of Indian democracy. You feel that if the monster of corruption can
be killed once and for all, our country can progress in leaps and bounds. Write
a speech on the topic “The Evils of corruption and the Role of Youth’ to be
given in the morning assembly. You are Anuj / Anjali of class XII. Write the
speech in not more than 200 words.
SECTION
C : TEXT BOOKS 45
Q.7. Read the extract given below and
answer the questions that follow: 4
It would be
an exotic moment
Without
rush, without engines,
we would all
be together
in a sudden
strangeness
(i) What does the poet mean by `exotic moment’? How and when
it will happen? 2
(ii)
Explain: `without rush, without engines’
1
(iii) How
would all of feel at that moment?
1
OR
Aunt Jennifer’s
fingers fluttering through her wool
Find even
the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive
weight of Uncle’s wedding band
Sits heavily
upon Aunt Jennifer’s hand
(i) What does the first line tell about Aunt Jennifer? 1
(ii) Why is
it so hard for her to pull the ivory needle? 1
(iii)
Explain: “massive weight of uncle’s wedding band”. 2
(b) Answer any three of the following in
30-40 words each. 2X3=6
(i) Describe the world inside the car and out side the car
(My Mother At Sixty Six)
(ii)
`History is theirs whose language is the sun’. Explain: (An Elementary school
classroom in a slum)
(iii) Do we
experience things of beauty for short moments or do they make a lasting
impression on us?
(iv)
Why
did not the polished traffic stop at the road ride stand? What things irritated
those who stopped there?
Q.8. Answer the following in 30-40
words each 2x5=10
(a) What
does M. Hamel say about French language?
What did he urge upon his students and
villagers to do?
(b) Why is
the heap of garbage rap in wonder for children? (Lost Spring
)
(c) Why did the peddler think he himself had been
caught in a rattrap?
(d) Why did not the judge pronounce sentence for
several days and allowed Gandhi to remain at liberty?
(e) In what sense was Subu
loyal to the boss?
Q.9. Answer the following in 125-150
words 10
Why does
Douglas as an adult recount a childhood Experience of terror and his conquering
of it? What larger meaning does he draw from his experience?
OR
Why did
Sophie like her brother Geoff more than any other person? From her prospective, what does he
symbolize ?
Q.10. Answer the following in 125-150
words 7
Both the
units of ‘Memories of Childhood’ present autobiographical episode from the
lives of two women from marginalized communities. Describe the main issues
raised as well as the common features highlighted in them.
OR
How does Mr.
Lamb inspire Derry? Explain.
Q.11. Answer the following in 30-40
words each
2X4=8
(a) How did
the Maharaja feel when he hunt the first tiger? What
did the chief astrologer say?
(b) Dr. Sadao was compelled by his duty as a doctor to help the
enemy soldier. What made Hana, his wife, sympathetic
to him in the face of open defiance from the domestic staff?
(c) What
made Jack realize that the custom of telling his daughter a story for the
evening naps had become futile?
(d) Mc Leery
had a semi-inflated rubber ring. What did he say he had brought it for? What
did it actually contain?