ALTERNATIVE ENGLISH
AHSEC CLASS 11 - QUESTION PAPER 2022
UNIT – I (Reading an Unseen Passage and a Poem)
1. Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow:
When he was born, he was named Pelevotso, but when he was growing up, everyone called him Pele. Except his grandmother, who would say, “His full name is Pelevotso. We must remember that.”
She was his father’s mother, and she had walked half a day from her hut at the edge of a forest to see the newborn. Ever since her husband dies in a hunt, she had lived alone, collecting jungle herbs to heal sick and wounded animals and men. People called her ‘the solitary one’.
That afternoon, she had held the infant in her lap and said, “We’ll call him Pelevotso.”
“It’s a big name for a child. Are you sure he can carry it?” Her daughter-in-law asked.
“I know it is a big name to carry. It means faithful to the end, and that is not easy. But we cannot continue to give our children safe and insignificant names. It is a way of stopping them from living powerful lives, and making sure they don’t wander too far from the village.”
“It’s because we love them that we don’t want them to wander too far from us,” her daughter-in-law said.
“Yes, and that also stops them from living a life of heroism and wisdom,” the grandmother replied. “Pray that your son understands the meaning of his name and lives a good life. He’s destined to wander.”
Her son and daughter-in-law agreed to the name out of respect for the elder. But after she went away, they shortened it to Pele.
Pele’s village was called Nialhuo; it was set on the western hills. Below the hills, there were many forests where the young men learned to hunt, and two small rivers where they fished and bathed. The older people of the village would often say, “It’s the best place to live in. We are blessed. Our young should not think there are lands better than this to build a home. They belong here, they must take the place of their ancestors.” They feared that if the young were not taught to love the village, it would soon be abandoned. They had seen it happen around them.
Everyone knew of the two ghost villagers. The first had become a very rich village; abundant harvests filled the granaries till they began to overflow. People would leave half their harvests to rot in the fields, because there was no more space in the village granaries. Soon they grew careless about the taboo that said that every village must keep aside some grain after the harvest as seed-grain.
One afternoon, when they were on their way back from their fields, the villagers saw black clouds of field mice swarming over their granaries and homes. Not one house or granary had been spared, and people had to abandon the village, because it is taboo to live in a village when its food stores have been wiped out by animals and insects.
In the second village, the members of the upper clan killed a man from the lower clan in a drunken brawl. The murder led to a war between the two clans and, by the end of the seventh day, so much blood had been spilt in the village that it became taboo to live there. The women and children filled there baskets with their belongings and walked out, weeping loudly. The men followed them with guilty hearts; they knew that if they had stopped the first killings they would not have lost their homes.
(a) State True or False: (\( \frac{1}{2} \times 4 = 2 \))
(1) Pele’s grandmother called him Pele.
(2) People called Pele’s grandmother ‘the brave one’.
(3) One day, after returning from the fields, the villagers saw a cloud of locusts.
(4) The village Nialhuo was set on the Eastern hills.
(b) What is Pele’s full name? 1
(c) What is the name of Pele’s village? 1
(d) What did the older people of the village often say? 2
(e) How did the first village become a ghost village? 2
(f) How did the second village become a ghost village? Why did the men of the second village feel guilty? 1+1=2
2. Read the following poem given below and on the basis of your reading, answer the following questions:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the lover’s ear alone,
What once to me befell.
When she I loved looked every day
Fresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening moon.
Upon the moon I fixed my eye,
All over the wide lea;
With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
Those paths so dear to me.
And now we reached the orchard-plot,
And, as we climbed the hill,
The sinking moon to Lucy’s cot
Came near, and nearer still.
In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
King Nature’s gentlest boon!
And, all the while, my eyes I kept
On the descending moon.
My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
He raised, and never stopped:
When down behind the cottage roof,
At once, the bright moon dropped.
What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
Into a Lover’s head!
“O mercy!” to myself I cried,
“If Lucy should be dead!”
(a) What has the poet known? 1
(b) Upon what did the poet fix his eyes? 1
(c) Where did the poet sleep? 1
(d) How did the poet’s horse move? 2
UNIT – II (Poetry and Prose)
(Poetry)
3. Answer either (a) or (b):
(a) "But believe me, son.
I want to be what I used to be
When I was like you. I want
to unlearn all these muting things.
Most of all, I want to relearn.
how to laugh, for my laugh in the mirror
shows only my teeth like a snake’s bare fangs!"
1. Answer any two of the following questions: \( 1 \times 2 = 2 \)
(1) Who is the ‘son’ referred to in the passage?
(2) What does the speaker want to relearn?
(3) What are the ‘muting things’ in the present context?
2. Explain the reasons behind the speaker’s desire of ‘unlearning’. 3
Or
Why, do you think, the poet finds snake’s bare fangs in the mirror? 3
(b) "Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance."
1. Answer any two of the following questions: \( 1 \times 2 = 2 \)
(1) Name the poet of the lines given above.
(2) Where were ‘they’ stretching?
(3) Give the meaning of the word ‘sprightly’.
2. Explain any three poetic devices used in the above lines along with their contexts. 3
Or
How does the poet describe them? 3
4. Answer any one of the following questions in about 80 words: 5
(a) Show how the poet has explored the theme of keeping promise in his poem, The Listeners.
(b) Do you think that the poem, When Autumn Came presents nature as a negative force? Give reasons in support of your view.
5. Answer any three of the following questions within 25 words each: \( 2 \times 3 = 6 \)
(a) Explain the line “I wandered lonely as a cloud”.
(b) Why does the speaker consider the scene of the daffodils to be ‘wealth’?
(c) What is the significance of yellow in description of the tree leaves?
(d) What is ‘resurrection’ in the context of the trees’ withered bodies?
(e) How does Faiz Ahmad Faiz suggest the sociological dimension in the poem you have read?
6. Answer any two of the following questions: \( 3 \times 2 = 6 \)
(a) How did the poet’s mood change from sadness to happiness?
(b) Narrate what had happened to the birds in autumn.
(c) What did the traveler do when he reached the lone house?
7. Answer any three of the following questions in one sentence each: \( 1 \times 3 = 3 \)
(a) Name the poetic autobiography written by William Wordsworth.
(b) Identify the animal accompanying the traveler.
(c) What is the theme of the poem, Once Upon a Time?
(d) Match the items of List – A with that of List – B:
| List – A | List – B |
|---|---|
| (1) Wordsworth | 1. Urdu Poet |
| (2) Okara | 2. English Poet |
| (3) Faiz | 3. Nigerian Poet |
(Prose)
8. Answer either (a) or (b):
(a) "When the policeman, say, at Piccadilly Circus steps into the middle of the road and puts out his hand, he is the symbol not of tyranny, but of liberty. You may not think so. You may, being in a hurry, and seeing your car pulled up by this insolence of office, feel that your liberty has been outraged. How dare this fellow interfere with your free use of the public highway?"
(1) Where is Piccadilly Circus? 1
(2) What is tyranny? 1
(3) Why do you think that our liberty has been challenged by a traffic police? 2
(4) Give the adjectives of ‘liberty’ and ‘insolence’. \( \frac{1}{2} + \frac{1}{2} = 1 \)
Or
(b) "… it also means the tiger and the rhino and the elephant, charismatic animals that evoke awe and excitement, and which are used as ‘flagship’ species for conservation programmes."
(1) Who is/are the author/authors here? 1
(2) Why are certain animals called charismatic? 2
(3) Explain ‘flagship’ species. 2
9. Answer any one of the following questions in 80 words: 5
(a) When did Pyotr realize that everyone expected him to marry Nastya?
(b) "… if trees, grass, herbs, creepers, etc., all grow then, won’t there be economic development?" How do you reply to this?
(c) Discuss the major points highlighted in the essay, The Rule of the Road.
10. Answer any two of the following questions within 25 words each: \( 2 \times 2 = 4 \)
(a) What is a ‘stag party’?
(b) Why did Kondrashkin allow Pyotr to come to his house and meet Anastasia?
(c) Write briefly about the significance of the title ‘The Many and the None’.
(d) What were the professions of Box and Cox?
11. Answer any two of the following questions within 40 words each: \( 3 \times 2 = 6 \)
(a) Mention three statements made by Pyotr in order to avoid marriage?
(b) What is bio-piracy and how does it affect a country?
(c) Do you think Kondrashkin is right in pushing Pyotr to his daughter, at any cost?
(d) Why does Box feel agitated when he starts cooking his breakfast?
12. Vocabulary:
(a) Give the meaning of any one: (1)
(1) Embezzlement, (2) Appalled.
(b) Give the synonyms of any two: (2)
(1) Cordial, (2) Chaos, (3) Purloin.
(c) Give the antonyms of any two: (2)
(1) Anarchy, (2) Exclusive, (3) Bachelor.
UNIT – III (Grammar)
13. Make sentences with any two pairs of words to illustrate difference in meanings: 4
Bad – bed, Stationary – stationery, hair – hare, advice – advise, personal – personnel, weak – week.
14. Rewrite using suitable verb forms (any three): \( 1 \times 3 = 3 \)
(a) It was John who ______ (alert) the police.
(b) We ______ (wait) for five hours.
(c) The box ______ (be) so heavy that I could not lift it.
(d) I will call you when the guests ______ (arrive).
(e) The prizes ______ (give) away by the Principal.
15. Add question tags (any four): \( \frac{1}{2} \times 4 = 2 \)
(a) She is a good girl, ______?
(b) Don’t forget, ______?
(c) Move a bit, ______?
(d) Let’s go for a walk, ______?
(e) Raju was not in the class, ______?
16. Fill in blanks with prepositions (any six): \( \frac{1}{2} \times 6 = 3 \)
(a) He went _______ the market. (b) Let us hope _______ the best. (c) He fell _______ the ladder. (d) Butter is made _______ milk. (e) He put the books _______ the table. (f) This table is made _______ wood.
17. Fill in blanks with articles where necessary (any six): \( \frac{1}{2} \times 6 = 3 \)
(a) I am _______ university student. (b) Gold is _______ precious metal. (c) She returned half _______ hour. (d) Harishchandra was _______ honest king.
18. Identify five nouns and five adjectives in the following: 5
Raman proved to be an honest and dedicated officer. Once a merchant suffered a heavy loss when all the money that he had saved for building a house got damaged. The damage was so severe that a junior officer rejected the currency notes brought by him as useless.
UNIT – IV (Creative Writing Skill)
19. Write a paragraph (180-200 words) on any one: 8
(a) COVID-19 Pandemic, (b) Your favourite singer, (c) Online Class, (d) Gardening as a Hobby.
20. Develop a story from the outline OR write on the given context: 7
Or
"Self-reliance is the key to success..." [Discuss self-reliance in the context of personal and national growth].
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