AHSEC| CLASS 11| ALTERNATIVE ENGLISH| QUESTION PAPER - 2016| H.S. 1ST YEAR
2016
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:
Some insect
societies, at first glance, look like a well-run human city operation. But
actually, there is very little similarity between a group of insects and a
group of humans. (Para 1)
In the insect
city there are no private homes. Everything is operated as though everything,
even the young, belonged to everyone. Humans have tried that sort of living,
but haven't been able to make it work. Humans like to get off by themselves
from time to time and have things that are theirs alone-like babies and books and
homes. (Para 2)
In the insect
city, most things happen automatically, as though all the insects were cogs in
some sort of machine. In a human city, every person is different, working
differently (or not working at all) and the city operates because thousands of
people are doing thousands of jobs for thousands of reasons and not just to
survive the one reason that keeps an insect city going. (Para 3)
But perhaps the
most important difference between the insect cities and human cities is even
deeper. There are no churches in insect cities, no art galleries, no schools.
Beauty and faith and the way of thinking that humans have is not a part of
insect life. (Para 4)
So, when people
say that we can learn many things from watching insect cities they are right.
But when we can learn is not about human cities, it is just about insect
cities.
Remembering
that, let's look at some insect cities, for they are fascinating.
An ant colony is
a good place to start. Ants live almost everywhere on the earth, and their colonies
or cities are pretty easy to find and watch. But, because most ant cities are
under the ground, it takes special effort to see everything that goes on.
The time to
start looking for what happens in an ant colony is during the summer when the
ants are ready to start having new families. This is the time of year when the
ants have wings.
On a certain day
(which changes all the time) all the ants in a particular area of many square
miles leave their old homes and swarms of them start to fly about in the air.
These are the male and female ants, and while they are flying, they separate
into pairs to mate and make eggs. The ant couple will come together in the air
and some of the cells from the male will be taken into the body of the female.
After the male has landed back on the ground he usually dies. The female,
however, starts looking for a place to set up a nest of her own. While she does
this, she losses her wings. If they don't's drop off, she chews them off. From
the day of the swarming in the air, the ants are earthbound.
When the female
ants find a likely spot for her nest, she digs a pit for herself and settles
down. Within a few days she has begun to produce eggs. The eggs hatch and
produce larvae which the ant mother feeds. The larvae spin their tiny cocoons
and go into the pupa stage. Within just a few weeks, the pupa stage is over,
and fully developed ants appear. It is very fortunate for the ant mother that
by now some new ants have come along to help her. Until this point, she alone
has had the entire job of caring for the eggs and feeding the larvae. But the
new workers, her own children, immediately begin to help. They do the job of
getting food into the nest and they even start building a better nest which,
depending upon the particular kind of ant involved, may take the form of a
series of passages under the ground, or tunnels in a log, or perches on leaves.
From this time on, the female that started the nest has no other job but to
produce eggs.
Gathering or
producing the food for the ant city is one of the most amazing things done by
any insects. There are ants that simply go out and gather seeds to eat, but
there are others that actually have tiny farms, others that raise insects the
way humans raise cows, and others that go hunting.
You might never
guess that some ants grow tiny farms and grow them just as carefully and with
as much skill as human farmers. It took many years of careful watching before
scientists discovered this. Before that, when a few people said that some ants
farmed crops, everybody laughed. Impossible, they said. And yet it is true, and
here is how and where it happens.
A The farmer
ants live far, far to the South of the United States. They live in the tropical
climate of South America. If you were there to watch these amazing ants, you
could hardly miss them. When they go about their business, they go about it by
the millions. Out they come from their nest. They march in a broad column and
use the same path over and over. If it is through thick grass, the grass is
actually trampled down by the marching of the millions of ants, despite the
fact that each ant is only about as long as your fingernail. This well-trampled
path goes straight to the trees from which the ants are taking leaves. Up the
trees they go. They work like a well-trained army, each ant heading straight
for a leaf with no nonsense and no hesitation.
(i) State
True or False: 1.5x4= 2
(a) Every insect
is different in an insect city.
(b) People work
only for survival.
(c) eggs → pupa
→larva → ant.
(d) By studying
ant colonies we can also learn about human cities.
(ii) What is the
most important differences between insect cities and human cities? 1
(iii) Where do
the farmer ants live? 1
(iv) How do the
female ants lose their wings? 2
(v) Mention some
tasks carried out by ants in their colonies. 2
(vi) Who helps
the mother ant tend to her larvae? How do they help? 2
2. Read the poem given below and on the basis of your
reading answer the questions that follow:
ANSWER TO A
CHILD'S QUESTION
Do you ask
what the birds say? The sparrow, the dove,
The linnet and
the thrush say, "I love and I love!"
In the winter
they are silent- the wind is so strong;
What it says I
don't know, but it sings a loud song.
But green
leaves and blossoms and sunny warm weather
And singing
and loving- all come back together.
But the lark
is so brim-full of gladness and love.
The green
fields below him, the blue sky above,
That he sings
and he sings and forever sings he-
"I love
my love and my love loves me!"
(i) What is the
question that the child asks?
1
(ii) List the
various birds mentioned by the poet?
1
(iii) What does
the poet say about the wind's song?
1
(iv) What
accompanies sunny warm weather?
1
(v) What does
the lark sing about? 1
UNIT - II
(POETRY)
3. Answer either A or B.
A. Oh God
of May have Mercy,
Bless these
withered bodies
With the passion
of your resurrection
make their dead
veins flow with blood again.
(a) Whose
'withered bodies' is the poet referring to?
1
(b) What mercy
is the poet seeking? 1
Or
What blessing is
the poet asking for? 1
(c) Describe in
your own words the lifeless trees of Autumn.
3
Or
How does the poet
personify Autumn in the lines quoted above? 3
Or
B. So I
have learnt many things son,
I have learned to
wear many faces
Like dresses-
homefaces,
officeface,
streetface, hostface
cocktailface,
with all their conforming smiles
like a fixed
portrait smile.
(a) From which
poem are the above lines taken? 1
(b) What does
'cocktailface' mean? 1
Or
What does 'wear
many faces like dresses' mean? 1
(c) Why has the
poet learnt to wear many faces?
3
Or
What poetic
device is the poet using in the quoted lines and what has he achieved by using
this device? 3
4. Answer any one of the following questions in about 80
words. 5
What impact do
the daffodils have on Wordsworth?
Or
Describe in your
own words the experience of the traveller of "The Listeners".
5. Answer any three of the following within 25 words
each: 3x2=6
(a) What happens
to the leaves in Autumn?
(b) What does
the Traveller tell the Listeners?
(c) What does
the poet compare the daffodils with?
(d) Give an
example of hypocrisy in modern life as described by Gabriel Okara.
(e) Where were
the daffodils growing?
6. Answer any two of the following in about 30
words: 2x3=6
(a) How do
people laugh nowadays?
(b) Describe in
your own words the house that the traveller visited
(c) Describe in
your own words the landscape which inspired the poet to write "The Daffodils".
7. Answer any three of the following in one sentence
each: 3x1=3
(a) Who is the
one man left awake in "The Listeners"?
(b) How did the
people laugh once upon a time?
(c) What does
the word 'jocund' mean in "I could not but be gay/In such a jocund
company".
(d) What happens
to the poet when he is lying on his couch in a pensive mood?
(e) Who are the
"them" referred to in "Anyone could trample them out of
shape."
8. Answer either A or B.
A.
"As I wrestled with clauses and sections, his voice rose like a gale, and
his family story, the deeds of his sons in the war, and his criticisms of the
generals and the political submerged my poor attempts to hang onto my
jobs."
(a) Who is the
"I" referred to in the above quoted lines? 1
Or
Who is the
"his" referred to?
(b) What clauses
and sections" are being referred to?
(c) Describe in
your own words the situation inside the railway carriage.
Or
What were the
topics that the speaker was discussing?
3
B.
"Ah, then you mean to say, that this gentleman's smoke, instead of
emulating the example of all other sorts of smoke, and going up the chimney,
thinks proper to affect a singularity..."
(a) Who is the
"you" referred to in the above quoted lines? 1
Or
Who is the
gentleman"? 1
(b) What is the
"singularity" being referred to? 1
(c) What
incident causes the speaker to make this comment? 3
Or
Who does
"emulating the example of all other sorts of smoke" mean? 3
9. Answer any one of the following questions in about 80
words: 5
Do you think the
writer's comparison of the ship losing nuts to the loss of bio-diversity is
apt? Why do they make this comparison?
Or
Why did Pyotr's
friend ask for a stag party? From where did people get the idea that Pyotr was
getting married?
10. Answer any two of the following within 25 words
each: 2x2=4
(a) Why does
Fituyev refuse to certify Pyotr as mad?
(b) What does
Gardiner mean by "the rule of road"?
(c) What are
"flagship" species of animals?
(d) Why does Cox
want Mrs Bouncer to change his bolster?
11. Answer any two of the following questions within 30
words each. 2 x3=6
(a) Attempt a
brief character sketch of Mr. Cox.
(b) What is
bio-piracy? What challenges is India facing from it?
(c) Narrate the
incident of the old lady walking down the middle of the road in Petrograd.
(d) List any
three excuses that Pyotr makes to Kondrashkin to convince the latter that he is
not a suitable suitor for Anastasia.
12. (a) "I might like to practice on the
trombone"
What does
'trombone' mean?
(b) Give the
synonyms and antonyms of any two of the following words. 2+2=4
(i) chaos (ii)
peril (iii) liberty (iv) aggressive
UNIT-III
(GRAMMAR)
13. Make sentences with any two pairs of words to
illustrate the difference in meaning between them. 2+2=4
pore, pour ;
vain, vein; cereal, serial; heard, herd; flew, flu.
14. Fill in the blanks with suitable form of the verbs
given in brackets: (any three)
1x3=3
(a) I (go) if I
had known.
(b) If my car
___ (not break) down, I should have caught the train.
(c) If they had
waited, they_ (find) me.
(d) If it _____
(be) fine tomorrow, I shall play tennis.
(e) If Johnny
____(eat) another cake, he will be sick.
15. Add tag questions to the following: (any four)
1/2x4=2
(a) Let's go,
___?
(b) I am right,
____?
(c) It's not
very warm today, _____?
(d) Few people
knew the answer, _____?
(e) Let's go for
a walk, _____?
(f) None of the
food was wasted, ____?
16. Fill in the blanks with appropriate prepositions:
(any six) 1/2x6=3
(a) All the
players shook hands ______the end of the match.
(b) The bus was
late this morning but it's usually ______the time.
(c) She's
standing _____in a queue.
(d) Write your
name _____the top of the page.
(e) Can you meet
me _____ at the station?
(f) I was
delighted _____the present you gave me.
(g) We are
excited _____going on holiday tomorrow.
(h) They invited
only a few people ______the party.
17. Fill in the blanks with appropriate articles where
necessary. 0.5x6=3
(a) ____Gold is
a precious metal.
(b) If you will
pay for _____bread, I'll pay for ____meat.
(c) When do you
have _____dinner.
(d) London is on
_____thames.
(e) By
______united effort we may achieve success.
18. Identify any five nouns and five adjectives in the
passage given below: 1/2x10=5
I regarded
Grandma's room as a dark den. She had two wobbly old candlesticks. There was a
plain rocking chair under a lamp on which she could sit and read. She kept her
room clean and tidy.
UNIT-IV
(CREATIVE WRITING
SKILL)
19. Write a paragraph of about 180-200 words on any one
of the following: 5
(a) Swach Bharat
Mission
(b) Importance
of spoken English
(c) Ideal
Citizen
20. Write a substance of para 1 to 4 of the passage given
in question 1. 5
21. Develop a story from the given outline-
Ram carelessly
throwing stones - breaks windows of a shop - he confess - no money to pay for
damage - agrees to work at shop to make up for damage - grocer agrees - happy
with Ram's work - gives permanent job.
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