AHSEC – Class 12 Question Papers: Alternative English ‘ 2017

2017
ALTERNATIVE ENGLISH
Full Marks: 100
Pass Marks: 30
Time: 3 hours
The figures in the margin indicate full marks for the questions
GROUP – A
(VIBGYOR)
(NEW SYLLABUS)
1. Answer any five of the following: 1×5=5
  1. What is the full name of the verger in the short story by the same name?
  2. Where does the verger work?
  3. For how long, during Narayan’s ownership of the car, was the air conditioner switched on?
  4. What does an automobile mean to Narayan?
  5. Who is the author of the story, ‘The Scarecrow’?
  6. Whom did Mriganko Babu’s father call in to find the lost watch?
  7. What is the full name of Jim in the story, ‘The Gift of the Magi’?
  8. How much used Jim to earn earlier?
  9. What is the name of the American poet philosopher whose work Robert Lynd has read?
  10. Whom does Lynd want to conduct the laborious quest for wisdom?
2. Answer any five of the following: 2×5=10
  1. What was the discovery that astonished the vicar?
  2. What was the verger told by the vicar in the vestry?
  3. What made Narayan fear, he would soon become bankrupt?
  4. Who fell on Narayan’s car when it was parked in front of the hospital?
  5. Why did Mriganko Babu go to Durgapur?
  6. Who was Abhiram?
  7. Who were the Magi?
  8. What did Jim do to get a gift for Della?
  9. In which context does Lynd mention Solomon?
  10. Who is Zeus?
3. Answer any three of the following: 4×3=12
  1. Narrate the circumstances under which the verger had to lose his job at St. Peter’s.
  2. Why, do you think, the author, R.K. Narayan, regards himself as a fanatic in the context of walking?
  3. What happened to Abhiram after he left Mriganko Babu?
  4. Show how the twist in the tale makes the story of Jim and Della a moral lesson.
  5. Why does Robert Lynd end his essay with the phrase, “it was only a dream”?
 4. Explain with reference to the context any two of the following: 4×2=8
  1. “He’s been nagging them he’ as,” said the verger to himself.
  2. I lack automobile sensibility and do not regret it.
  3. Mriganko Babu tried very hard but failed to remember. Yet, he felt sure that he had seen someone wear such a shirt, and long time ago.
  4. Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a grey cat walking a grey fence in a grey backyard.
5. Answer any five of the following: 1×5=5
  1. Who is the fair lady the narrator speaks of in Toru Dutt’s poem?
  2. Where are the three happy children?
  3. What birds skims over the brook?
  4. What flowers grow by the brook for happy lovers?
  5. Where does the traveler in Shelly’s poem come from?
  6. Which country is referred to as an antique land?
  7. Who are the opening lines of ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ addressed to?
  8. Whom did the knight meet?
  9. What tempted the village girl to tarry?
  10. What is it that might smile the village girl?
6. Answer any four of the following: 2×4=8
  1. Name the birds and animals mentioned in Toru Dutt’s poem.
  2. What is a brook?
  3. What did the traveler come upon in the desert?
  4. What did the lady give to the knight at Arms?
  5. What are the shadows of the evening compared to in ‘Village Song’?
7. Answer any three of the following: 4×3=12
  1. How are the children affected by the mother’s song?
  2. Describe the journey of the brook till it reaches Philip’s farm.
  3. What do the “wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command” signify?
  4. Attempt a description of the dream that the knight has in the cave.
  5. Briefly describe the fears of the village maiden.
8. Explain with reference to the context on any one of the following: 5×1=5
  1. I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles
In bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
  1. The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
  2. And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge has wither’d from the Lake
And no birds sing.
GROUP – B
(VIBGYOR & EFFUSIONS)
(NEW & OLD SYLLABUS) 
9. Change any five of the following sentences as per the directions given in brackets without changing their meaning: 1×5=5
  1. Only corrupt people are protesting against demonetization. (change into negative)
  2. Is there any nation in the world that is not taking notice of India today? (change into affirmative)
  3. The nation is taking big strides to turn digital. (change into interrogative)
  4. I left my phone behind at your place. (change into interrogative)
  5. Who does not know that the sum shines in the East? (change into affirmative)
  6. She is known to me. (change into active)
  7. He placed the book on the table. (change into passive)
  8. Wasn’t Kothanodi in unique film? (change into assertive)
10. Add tag questions to any five of the following sentences: 1×5=5
  1. The new five hundred rupee note is smaller than the old one,
  2. Your house faces the river,
  3. We will go for the movie together,
  4. They are going to Gangtok on an excursion,
  5. Rome was not built in a day,
  6. Our winters are very pleasant,
  7. You will show me your new bikes,
  8. Your computer hasn’t crashed,
11. Fill in any five of the blanks in the sentences given below with suitable prepositions: 1×5=5
  1. A bird ____ hand is worth two in the bush.
  2. Seeing the lion, the leopard ran ____ the tree.
  3. The rangers drove the rhino ____ the enclosure.
  4. I have left your watch ____ the drawer.
  5. Who stole the cookie ____ the cookie jar?
  6. He dived ____ the swimming pool.
  7. I had just a few coins left ____ my pocket.
  8. The grocer’s shop is just two blocks ____ the road.
12. Rewrite any five of the following sentences using the verbs given in brackets in their correct forms: 1×5
  1. He ____ (commute) by bus every day.
  2. By the time the police arrived, the thief ____ (flee)
  3. Reliance Jio ____(offer) free services upto April next year.
  4. Jayalalitha ____ (pass) away in December.
  5. The harder he ____ (try) the better he gets.
  6. We ____ (go) to Shimla last winter.
  7. It ____ (snow) heavily when we got there.
  8. We ____ (hunt) high and low for a foot to fit the slipper.
 13. Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow:
The mountains that clustered around Bafert were mauve and grey in the dim morning light, striped and patterned with deep purple and black in the valleys, where it was still night. The sky was magnificent, black in the West where the last stars quivered, jade green above me, fading to the palest kingfisher blue at the eastern rim of hills. I leant on the wall of the verandah where a great web of bougainvillaea had grown, like a carelessly flung cloak of brick red flowers, and looked down the long flight of steps to the road below, and beyond it to the Fon’s courtyard. Down the road, from both directions, came a steady stream of people, laughing and talking and beating on small drums when the mood took them. Over their shoulders were long wooden poles, and tied to these with creepers were big conical bundles of dried grass. The children trotted along carrying smaller bundles of their saplings. They made their way down past the arched opening into the Fon’s courtyard and deposited their grass in heaps under the trees by the side of the road. Then they went through the arch into the courtyard and there they stood about in chattering groups; occasionally a flute and a drum would make up a brief melody, and then some of the crowd would break into a shuffling dance, amid handclaps and cries of delight from the on-lookers. They were a happy, excited, eager throng.
  1. What is the name of the place being described? 1
  2. Attempt a description of the sky. 2
  3. What are the colours mentioned in the piece? 3
  4. Where is the author and what is he doing? 3
  5. What were the people carrying on their shoulders? 2
  6. Describe the scene in the Fon’s courtyard. 4
GROUP – C
(EFFUSIONS)
(OLD SYLLABUS)
14. Answer any five of the following: 1×5=5
  1. Who is it who once said that most statesmen are rogues?
  2. What does Narayan lack but does not regret?
  3. In which city was the workshop Narayan had to take his car to?
  4. What does Narayan propose to turn his energies to after locking away his car?
  5. Who has Nehru’s temporary discharge done good to?
  6. At what time of the day is Nehru writing his letter to the Mahatma?
  7. What did Nehru’s intellectual apparatus refuse to admit?
  8. What, according to Forster, is a stiffening process?
  9. Who places Brutus in the lowest circle of Hell?
  10. Which Chinese philosopher of the 6th century BC preceded Confucius?
15. Answer any five of the following: 2×5=10
  1. With what do military heroes appeal to and dazzle their contemporaries?
  2. What do those philosophers believe in who suggest the third test of who is a great man?
  3. How did the new car affect the behaviour of Narayan’s driver?
  4. Why does Narayan believes his possession of a car to be an anachronism?
  5. How does Narayan generally avoid engagements and invitations?
  6. Why did Nehru wish that all newspapers might be kept away from him?
  7. What, according to Nehru, seems to be the overmastering desire of the Working Committee?
  8. Why does Forster feel the need to formulate a creed of one’s own?
  9. What must tolerance, good temper and sympathy do, and why?
  10. What was the result of the domestication of the horse in Western Asia in the days of the Sumerians?
16. Answer any three of the following: 4×3=12
  1. What are Lord Rosebery’s views on Nepoleon’s greatness?
  2. Why was Narayan afraid he would reach the brink of bankruptcy?
  3. What happened to Nehru when he heard that the civil disobedience movement had been called off?
  4. Examine the reasons behind Forster’ giving two cheers for democracy.
  5. What does Russel have to say on the utilization of natural forces by the scientific technique?
17. Explain with reference to the context any two of the following: 4×2=8
  1. Carlyle was, of course, particular in defining his test of sincerity in precise terms, and in doing so he warned his readers by defining what his idea of sincerity was.
  2. It is this philosophy that leaves me indifferent to the mention of any petrol “hike”.
  3. Here is something comparatively solid in a world full of violence and cruelty.
  4. There was less change in methods of work from ancient Egypt to 1750 than there has been from 1750 to the present day.
18. Answer any five of the following: 1×5=5
  1. What is the man harrowing?
  2. What will cloud into the night before their stories die?
  3. What is it that winds about the blue mountains?
  4. What does Pound compare the parting of old friends to?
  5. What, according to Pound, is like a floating white cloud?
  6. How many children are there in the darkened room in Toru Dutt’s poem?
  7. What is the colour of the waving grains in the forest in ‘Sita’?
  8. What is it that will remain when all else is gone according to the rickshaw wallah?
19. Answer any four of the following: 2×4=8
  1. What is the horse doing in Hardy’s poem?
  2. What is meant by Hardy when he says, ‘Yet this will go onward the same/through Dynasties pass.”?
  3. Describe the place where the friends part in Pound’s poem.
  4. What will the friends have to do after the parting?
  5. What are the birds and animals that one sees in Toru Dutt’s poem?
  6. What is the reaction of the three young children when they hear the story of Sita?
  7. In what colours are the rickshaw wallah’s arms and legs ‘literate’?
  8. What is it that is tattooed in the arms and legs of the rickshaw wallah?
20. Answer any three of the following: 4×3=12
  1. Bring out the significance of the title of Hardy’s poem.
  2. Critically examine the series of pictures that Pound’s poem offers.
  3. Describe after Toru Dutt the forest where Sita dwells.
  4. Attempt an analysis of the central idea of the poem, ‘Rickshaw wallah’.
 21. Explain with reference to the context any one of the following: 5×1=5
  1. Yonder a maid and her Wight
Came whispering by
  1. Sunset like the parting of old acquaintances
Who bow over their clasped hands at a distance?
  1. When shall those children by their mother’s side
Gather, ah me! as erst at eventide?
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