Class Test-2
English Core
Class XII
Time: 90
Minutes
M.M: 50
General
Instructions:
1. All questions are compulsory.
2. Separate instructions are given with each
question. Read them carefully and follow them faithfully
3. Do not exceed the prescribed word limit
while answering the questions.
Q1. Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow:
10
As dusk falls the
neon lights of the jewellery shops in Bowbazaar come alive but the lights have
no effect on the face of Mahadeo Yadav who is seated on the footrest of his
rickshaw that is parked by the road, feeling very sad. He is sitting on his
feet, hugging his knees to keep himself warm in the biting cold, so weakened
and lifeless as if he had been dead for days without anyone noticing.
Who would after all
notice a rickshaw puller, to check whether he is breathing or not? Yet when the
same rickshaw puller goes about his work pulling his rickshaw like a horse, he
becomes the most noticed man in Calcutta. He makes a great subject for
photographers, writers and film-makers. He is the symbol of poor Calcutta. Many
a famous actor has pulled the rickshaw in films set in the city.
Calcutta is said to
have about 6000 rickshaw pullers running on its roads, running mostly in its old
neighbourhoods. They have something in common apart from their poverty. All of
them come from the country side. All of them wear the lungi to work, perhaps
for better movement. Almost all of them are elderly; I am yet to see a young
man hand pulling a rickshaw. It can be a sad sight to watch a man almost as old
as your father struggling his way through the roads dressed only in a vest and
a lungi and often barefoot.
Mahadeo Yadav, the
rickshaw puller is in his seventies and has been pulling the same rickshaw in
and around Bowbazaar for fifty years. For him, fifty years, half a century is
not an achievement, but merely the time that has passed ever since he came to
Calcutta to earn a living.
He lives all alone
in Calcutta, in a room in a nearby lane, paying a monthly rent of fifty rupees.
He is out with his rickshaw between three in the afternoon and ten at night,
sometimes earning sixty or seventy rupees a day and sometimes nothing. Every
month without fail he sends 300 rupees to his wife back home, and once every
year visits her. “I will pull the rickshaw as long as I can”, he says, “This is
my only source of livelihood. These days I tire easily. Sometimes my feet hurt
and sometimes my back. But do I have a choice?” He answers all my questions
without looking at me even once, but continued to stare ahead blankly, his arms
folded around his knees. I take a good look at his rickshaw: the two – the
rickshaw and the rickshaw puller – make quite a pair.
1.1 Choose the correct alternatives from the options given below: 1X2 = 2
(a) A rickshaw puller is
noticed only when he
(b)
acts in a film.
(c)
becomes a subject
for photographers.
(d)
sits all alone.
(e)
is old and tired.
(b) Pick out the statement
which is not true.
(a)
Most rickshaw
pullers are old.
(b)
The rickshaw pullers
earn very little.
(c)
Many renowned actors
are rickshaw pullers.
(d)
They are neglected
by people.
1.2 Answer the following questions: 1X6
= 6
(a) Why does Yadav
“stare ahead blankly”?
(b) Why are rickshaw
pullers known as the icons of poor Calcutta?
(c) Which instance
tells you that Yadav loved his family?
(d) Where does Yadav
stay?
(e) What comparison
does the writer draw between the rickshaw and its puller?
(f) What do the
rickshaw pullers have in common?
1.3 Pick out words from the passage that mean the following: 1X2 = 2
(a) Well-known (para
2)
(b) Income (para 5)
Q2. You want to sell your flat as you are
going abroad. Draft an advertisement to be published in a national daily. 4
OR
Draft a formal invitation on
behalf of your parents to be sent to your friends and relatives on the occasion
of your brother's marriage. 4
Q3.You
are Jay/Jaya, living at 65-C, M.G. Road, New Delhi. You are very much concerned
about the irregular supply of drinking water supplied through taps, which
indirectly makes even low income people spend a substantial amount every month
on buying drinking water. Write a letter to the municipal authorities about the
problem and the financial burden arising out of this issue, seeking immediate
corrective measures. 8
OR
You are Nikesh / Natasha, 12-A, Karol Bagh, New Delhi. Write a letter to
the editor of The Times of India, New Delhi about the misuse and poor
maintenance of public parks in your city. 8
Q4. Read the following
extract and answer the questions that follow:
4 marks
And show the children to
green fields, and make their world
Run azure on gold sands,
and let their tongues
Run naked into books, the
white and white green leaves open
History is theirs whose
language is the son.
(a) What does the poet wish for the children of the slums?
2
(b) Who create history?
2
OR
As a late winter’s moon
and felt that old
Familiar ache, my
childhood’s fear,
But all I said was, see
you soon, Amma,
All
I did was smile and smile and smile….
(a) Why has the mother been compared to the
‘late winter’s moon’? 2
(b) Why did the poet smile and smile? 2
Q.5. Answer any four of the
following in about 30-40 words. 3x4=12 marks
(a) Describe the irony in Saheb’s name.
(b) What will the Maharaja do to find
the required number of tigers to kill?
(c) What was the chief concern of Sadao’s father?
(d) What was the
parting message of M.Hamel to his students and the village elders?
(e) Why does the poet put that thought
away?
Q.6. Answer any
one of the following in about 100 words. 6 marks
(a) Give a brief account of
the life and activities of the people like Saheb-e-Alam settled in Seemapuri?
(b) How did Dr. Sadao rise above narrow prejudices of race and country to
help a human being in need?
Q.7. Answer any one of the
following in about 100 words. 6
marks
(a) Give an account of the
strange man’s arrival in ‘Coach and Horses’.
(b) How did the stranger pass his
initial days at Iping?
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