Q1. Write essays on any 2 of the following in about 500 words each: (2×40=80)
(a) A city that never sleeps: The hidden cost of a 24-hour economy
(b) Silence is not the absence of sound but the presence of thought
(c) If Indian villages could vote on technology, what would they choose?
(d) The ethics of remembering and forgetting in the age of the permanent digital record
(e) Sand, soil and sea: India’s overlooked natural resources
(f) A nation’s cuisine as its autobiography
Q2. Write arguments for and against each of the following statements: (2×20=40)
(a) Boredom is essential for creativity, and modern children are being deprived of it.
(b) A country that protects its languages protects its future.
Q3. Write reports on the following in about 200 words each: (2×10=20)
(a) The decline of traditional crafts and artisans in India
(b) Noise pollution in religious and public festivals
Q4. Attempt a précis of the given passage in one-third of its length. Do not suggest a title. Write, as far as possible, in your own words.: (15)
Every city is, in a sense, a conversation among strangers. Millions of people who will never learn one another’s names depend daily on one another’s small, unspoken decisions: the driver who stops at a red light on an empty road, the shopkeeper who gives the correct change, the neighbour who does not throw rubbish into the shared courtyard. None of these acts is watched, and few are rewarded. Yet without them the city could not function for a single day. What holds a city together, then, is not its police or its laws alone, but a widely shared habit of trust.
This trust is a fragile inheritance. It is built slowly, through thousands of small experiences in which people find that others behave as expected. It can be destroyed quickly, for a single well-publicised act of fraud or violence teaches thousands of onlookers that caution is wiser than generosity. Once the belief spreads that everyone else is cheating, honest people begin to cheat also, not from wickedness but from a reluctance to be the only fool. Societies that fall into this condition find that they must spend enormous sums on inspection, guarantees and surveillance, all to replace what trust once provided for nothing.
It is often assumed that modern technology has made trust unnecessary, since a digital record can now verify almost any claim. But every system of verification rests upon a prior act of faith in those who designed it, maintain it and interpret its results. Technology does not abolish trust; it merely relocates it, often to institutions that ordinary citizens can neither see nor question. A society that hands its trust over to machines without asking who controls them has not become more secure, only more dependent.
The renewal of trust cannot be ordered by decree. It grows where institutions keep their promises, where officials explain their decisions, and where wrongdoing, whether by the poor or the powerful, meets with the same response. Above all it grows where ordinary people are given reasons to believe that honesty is not foolishness. A city that achieves this will find its streets safer, its markets cheaper and its people happier, without having spent a rupee more on guards. (Approx. 375 words)
Q5. Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow: (5×4=20)
The map is not the territory, and yet we spend most of our lives navigating by maps. The words we use, the statistics we quote and the categories into which we sort our fellow citizens are all simplifications, useful precisely because they leave things out. A road map that recorded every pebble would be as large as the country and as useless as no map at all. The danger arises only when we forget that a simplification has been made, and begin to treat the map as though it were the land itself.
Consider how often this happens in public life. A nation’s prosperity is reduced to a single figure of growth, and a government congratulates itself when the figure rises, though the farmer, the fisherman and the domestic worker may notice no change in their lives. A student is reduced to a percentage, and a school is judged by how many of its pupils exceed a certain mark, though the qualities that make a person wise or kind are nowhere recorded. What cannot be measured is quietly assumed not to matter, and what is measured becomes the goal, whether or not it was ever the point.
None of this is an argument against measurement. Without numbers we should be at the mercy of anecdote and prejudice. It is rather an argument for humility. Every figure should carry, in the mind of its user, an invisible question: what has been left out, and who might it have been left out for? The honest administrator, like the honest traveller, keeps one eye on the map and the other on the ground, and is prepared to trust the ground when the two disagree.
(i) What does the author mean by saying, “The map is not the territory”?
(ii) Why does the author say that a map recording every pebble would be useless?
(iii) According to the passage, how does the reduction of a student to a percentage create problems?
(iv) What is the “invisible question” that the author wants every user of a figure to ask?
(v) The author advises keeping “one eye on the map and the other on the ground.” Explain this advice and illustrate it with an example from your own experience or observation.
Q6. (a) Rewrite the sentences as directed: (10×1=10)
(i) She waited for ________ hour before the results were announced.
(Fill in the blank with the correct article)
(ii) The villagers were deeply grateful ________ the doctor ________ saving the child.
(Fill in the blanks with the correct prepositions)
(iii) Had I known about the delay, I ________ left earlier.
(Fill in the blank with the correct auxiliary verb)
(iv) Who taught you to swim so well?
(Change into passive voice)
(v) You are requested to keep the windows closed.
(Change into active voice, as an imperative)
(vi) “Do not touch the wires,” the electrician warned the children.
(Change into indirect speech)
(vii) The judge asked the accused whether he had anything to say in his defence.
(Change into direct speech)
(viii) Let us begin the meeting, ________ ?
(Put the correct question tag)
(ix) As soon as the bell rang, the students rushed out of the classroom.
(Change into a simple sentence)
(x) The tea was so hot that I could not drink it.
(Rewrite the sentence using “too”)
(b) Give the plural form of the following words and make sentences using the plural form: (5×2=10)
(i) analysis
(ii) medium
(iii) cactus
(iv) appendix
(v) brother-in-law
(c) Correct the following sentences without making any unnecessary changes: (5×1=5)
(i) The news of the accidents were broadcast every hour.
(ii) I am looking forward to meet you next week.
(iii) Scarcely had she entered the room than the lights went out.
(iv) He is senior than me by three years.
(v) The team of scientists have announced its findings, which surprises everyone.
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