AHSEC| CLASS 11| ALTERNATIVE ENGLISH| QUESTION PAPER - 2019| H.S. 1ST YEAR
2019
Alternative English
Full marks: 100
Time: 3 hours
UNIT-I
(READING AN UNSEEN PASSAGE AND A
POEM)
1. Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow:
It began in a
forest rest house. My father died when I was ten, and for the next few years
books became a scarce commodity, for my mother and stepfather were not great
readers. In my lonely early teens, I seized upon almost any printed matter that
came my way, whether it was a girls' classic like Little Women, a Hotspur or
Champion comic, a detective story or The Naturalist on the River Amazone by
Henry Walter Bates. The only books I baulked at reading were collections of
sermons (amazing how often they turned up in those early years) and self-
improvement books, since I had not the slightest desire to improve myself in
any way.
I think it all
began in a forest rest house in the Siwalik Hills, a subtropical range cradling
the Doon Valley in northern India. Here my stepfather and his gun-toting
friends were given to hunting birds and animals. He was a poor shot, so he
cannot really be blamed for the absence of wildlife today; but he did his best
to eliminate every creature that came within his sights. On one of his shikar
trips we were staying near the Tamil Pass. My stepfather and his friends were
after a tiger. You were out of fashion if you weren't after big game) and set
out every morning with an army of paid villagers to beat the jungle, that is,
to make enough noise with drums, whistles, tin trumpets and empty kerosene tins
to disturb the tiger and drive the unwilling beast into the open where he could
conveniently be despatched. Truly bored by this form of sport, I stayed behind
in the rest house, and in the course of the morning's exploration of the
bunglow, discovered a dusty but crowded bookshelf half-hideen in a corner of
the back veranda.
Who had left
them there? A literary forest officer? A memsahib who'd been bored by her
husband's camp-fire boasting? Or someone like me who had no enthusiasm for the
'manly' sport of slaughtering wild animals, and had brought his library along
to pass the time?
Or possibly the
poor fellow had gone into the jungle one day as a gesture towards his more
bloodthirsty companions, and been trampled by an elephant or gored by a wild
boar, or (more likely) accidentally shot by one of his companions-and they had
taken his remains away but left his books behind.
Anyway, there
they were- a shelf of some fifty volumes, obviously untouched for several
years. I wiped the dust off the covers and examined the titles. As my reading
tastes had not yet formed, I was ready to try anything. The bookshelf was
varied in its ccontents-and my own interests have remained equally
wide-ranging. Anyway, back to the rest house, By the time the perspiring
hunters came back late in the evening, I'd started on M.R. James' Ghost Stories
of an Antiquary, which had me hooked on ghost stories for the rest of my life.
It kept me awake most of the night, until the oil in the kerosene lamp had
finished. Next morning, fresh and optimistic again, the shikaris set out for a
different area where they hoped to locate the tiger. All day I could hear the
beaters' drums throbbing in the distance. This did not prevent me from
finishing a collection of stories called The Big Karoo by Pauline Smith-
wonderfully evocative of the pioneering Boers in South Africa.
My concentration
was disturbed only once, when I looked up and saw a spotted deer crossing the
open clearing in front of the bunglow. The deer disappeared into the forest and
I returned to my book.
Dusk had fallen
when I heard the party returning from the hunt. The great men were talking
loudly and seemed excited. Perhaps they have got their tiger! came out on the
veranda to meet them.
'Did you shoot
the tiger?" I asked. 'No Ruskin'. said my stepfather 'I think we'll catch
up with it tomorrow. But you should have been with us-we saw a spotted
deer!" There were three days left and I knew I would never get through the
entire bookshelf. So, I chose David Copperfield-my first encounter with
Dickens-and settled down in the veranda armchair to make the acquaintance of
Mr. Micawber and his family along with Aunty Betsy Trotwood, Mr. Dick, Peggotty
and a host of other larger-than-life characters. I think it would be true to
say that Coperfield set me off on the road to literature. I identified with
young David and wanted to grow up to be a writer like him.
But on my second
day with the book an event occurred which interrupted my reading for a little
while.
I'd noticed, on
the previous day, that a number of stray dogs- some of them belonging to
watchmen, villagers and forest rangers- always hung about the bungalow, waiting
for scraps of food to be thrown away. It was about ten o'clock in the morning
(a time when wild animals seldom come up, I saw a large, full-grown leopard
making off with one of the dogs. The other dogs, while keeping their distance,
set up a furious barking, but the leopard and its victim had soon disappeared. I
returned to David Copperfield.
It was getting
late when the shikaris returned. They looked dirty, sweaty and disgruntled.
Next day, we were to return to the city, and none of them had anything to show
for a week in the jungle.
'I saw a leopard
this morning' I said modestly.
No one took me
seriously, 'Did you really?' said the leading shikari, glancing at the book in
my hands. 'Young Master Copperfield says he saw a leopard!'
"Too
imaginative for his age', said my stepfather. ' Comes from reading so much, I
expect.'
I went to bed
and left them to their tales of the 'good old days' when rhinos, cheetahs and
possibly even unicorns were still available for slaughter. Camp broke up before
I could finish Copperfield, but the forest ranger said I could keep the book.
An so I became the only member of the expedition with a trophy to take home.
Questions:
1/₂x4=2
(a) State
true or false:
(i) Writer's
stepfather was an expert shooter.
(ii) The
writer imagined that he had seen the leopard.
(iii) At that
time animal hunting was a fashion.
(iv) The
narrator wanted to become a writer like Dickens.
(b) At what age
the narrator lost his father? 1
(c) In which
place of India the forest rest house was situated? 1
(d) What did the
paid villagers do in a shikari troop? 2
(e) Mention the
names of two characters from David Copperfield.
2
(f) How did the
narrator become the only member of that expedition to take a trophy? 2
2. Read the poem given below and on the basis of your
reading answer the questions that follow:
Fable
The mountain and
the squirrel
Had a quarrel,
And the former
called the latter 'Little Prig'.
Bun replied,
'You are
doubtless very big;
But all sorts of
things and weather
Must be taken in
together,
To make up a
year
And a sphere.
And I think it
no disgrace
To occupy my
place.
If I'm not so
large as you,
You are not so
small as I,
And not half so
spry.
I'll not deny
you make
A very pretty
squirrel track;
Talents differ;
all is well and wisely put;
If I cannot
carry forest on my back,
Neither can you
crack a nut.'
(a) What is the
meaning of the word 'prig'? 1
(b) Who is 'Bun'
referred to here?
(c) Find a word
in the poem which means "active or lively".
(d) What do the
last two lines of the poem signify?
(e) Write down
from the following statements the one that does not tell us the theme of the
poem: 1
(i) Mere size is
not everything.
(ii) None is
suprerior or inferior in this world.
(iii) It is all
right to judge merely by appearances.
(iv) Everyone is
gifted with different talents.
UNIT-II
(Poetry and Prose)
3. Answer either (a) or (b):
(a) The waves
beside them danced, but they
Out-did the
sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not
be but gay
In such a jocund
company!
Igazed-and
gazed-but little thought
What wealth the
show to me had brought:
I. Answer any
two of the following: 1x2=2
(i) Who is the
"I" here?
(ii) What does
the word "waves" refer to here? 1
(iii) What is
the meaning of the word 'Sparkling'?
II. Describe
in your own words the 'Jocund company' that the poet speaks about. 3
Or
Describe the
'wealth' mentioned in the above lines. How does the 'wealth' benefit the
speaker?
(b) And he smote
upon the door a second time;
'Is there anybody
there?' he said.
But no one
descended to the Traveller;
No head from the
leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and
looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood
perplexed and still.
But only a host
of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the
lone house then
Stood listening
in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice
from the world of men:
(I) Answer
any two of the following:
(i) What did
the traveller ask while knocking at the door?
(ii) Who are
the listeners to the traveller's call?
1x2=2
(iii) What is
the meaning of the word 'perplexed'?
(II) What was
the response to the traveller's call? 3
Or
What time of
the day is described in the poem? Mention one word from the poem which suggests
the time.
4. Answer any one of the following questions in about 80
words: 5
(a) Write a note
on Faiz Ahmed Faiz' attitude to nature as revealed in his poem "When
Autumn Came".
(b) State how
the poem "Once Upon a Time" mocks and ridicules some of the common
behavioural patterns of modern life.
5. Answer any three of the following within 25 words
each: 3x2=6
(a) What
resemblance does the poet find between the stars and the daffodils?
(b) What happens
to the birds when autumn comes?
(c) What was the
effect of the traveller's second call?
(d) What
frightens the poet when he sees his smile in the mirror?
6. Answer any two of the following: 3x2=6
(a) Why has the
poet described solitude as being blissful?
(b) What does
the phrase "Grey Eyes" implicate in the poem "The
Listeners"?
(c) What is the
poet's experience when he goes for the 'twice' to anyone's home?
7. Answer any three of the following in one sentence
each: 1×3=3
(a) Who was
dancing along with the daffodils?
(b) What did
scatter over the ground in the poem "When Autumn Came"?
***
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