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How is Death personified in the opening lines of the poem, Death be Not Proud? - English Literature

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प्रश्न

How is Death personified in the opening lines of the poem, Death be Not Proud?

विकल्प

  • As a desperate man.

  • As a gentle agent of Fate.

  • As a mighty conqueror.

  • As a reaper of souls.

MCQ

उत्तर

As a mighty conqueror.

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  क्या इस प्रश्न या उत्तर में कोई त्रुटि है?
2024-2025 (April) Specimen Paper

संबंधित प्रश्न

Thinking about the Text
Discuss in pairs and answer question below in a short paragraph (30 − 40 words).

How many characters are there in the narrative? Name them. (Don’t forget the dog!).


Thinking about the Text
Answer these question.

I said it with bullets.”
(i)
Who says this?
(ii)
What does it mean?
(iii)
Is it the truth? What is the speaker’s reason for saying this?


Thinking about the Poem

What did Saint Peter ask the old lady for? What was the lady’s reaction?


Study the words in italics in the sentences below. They are formed by prefixing un – or in – to their antonyms (words opposite in meaning).

• I was a short boy with rather undistinguished looks. (un + distinguished)

• My austere father used to avoid all inessential comforts.(in + essential)

• The area was completely unaffected by the war.(un + affected)

• He should not spread the poison of social inequality and communal intolerance. (in + equality, in+ tolerance)

Now form the opposites of the words below by prefixing un- or in-. The prefix in- can also have the forms il-, ir-, or im- (for example: illiterate –il + literate, impractical –im + practical, irrational – ir+ rational). You may consult a dictionary if you wish.

_____adequate _____acceptable _____regular _____tolerant
____demanding ____active _____true _____permanent
____patriotic ____disputed ____accessible _____coherent
_____logical _____legal _____responsible _____possible

Why does the author say, “Toto was not the sort of pet we could keep for long”?


Now rewrite the pair of sentences given below as one sentence.

He gave the little girl an apple. He took the computer apart.


Listen to the poem.
 Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth,
And spotted the perils beneath.
All the toffees I chewed,
And the sweet sticky food,
 Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.


I wish I'd been that much more willin'
When I had more tooth there than fillin'
To pass up gobstoppers.
From respect to me choppers,


 And to buy something else with me shillin'.
When I think of the lollies I licked,
And the liquorice all sorts I picked,
Sherbet dabs, big and little,
All that hard peanut brittle,
 My conscience gets horribly pricked.


My mother, she told me no end.
'If you got a tooth, you got a friend.'
I was young then, and careless,
My toothbrush was hairless,
I never had much time to spend.


Oh, I showed them the toothpaste all right,
I flashed it about late at night,

But up-and-down brushin'
And pokin' and fussin'


 Didn't seem worth time-I could bite!
If I'd known, I was paving the way
To cavities, caps and decay,
The murder of fillin's
Injections and drillin's,


 I'd have thrown all me sherbet away.
So I lay in the old dentist's chair,
And I gaze up his nose in despair,
And his drill it do whine,
In these molars of mine.


"Two amalgum," he'll say, "for in there."
How I laughed at my mother's false teeth,
As they foamed in the waters beneath.
But now comes the reckonin'
It's me they are beckonin'
 Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.
About the Poet
Pam Ayres (1947- ) is a contemporary writer, a great entertainer who writes and performs
comic verse. She started writing poems and verses as a hobby and has appeared in every
major TV show in the U.K. She has published six books of poems, and cut seven record
albums including a collection of 50 best known poems.


India's Major concerns 

Read the following paragraph. Then work in pairs and list the different ways in which you can contribute to save Mother Earth. As an individual you can make a major contribution towards reducing India's over all emission level. 

How to save the Environment at Home 
There are plenty of small steps that people can take at home to help save the environment. While the eco-footprint of each step is small, thousands of people doing the same thing can make a difference. In making some small changes to the way that you do things at home, you are gradually making a difference, even as an individual. You will kill costs and improve your health at the same time, so helping to save the environment isn't an entirely altruistic exercise after all! 

SAVE MOTHER EARTH CAMPAIGN 
(a) Turn off the computer when not in use. 
(b) ____________________________
(c) ____________________________
(d) ____________________________
(e) ____________________________
(f) _____________________________
(g) ___________________________
(h) ___________________________
(i) ___________________________
(j) ___________________________


This is a meeting of the school's Parent-Teacher Association. Some student representatives have also been invited to participate to discuss the role that Information Technology I Computers play in the growth and development of children. 


The next man looking 'cross the way
Saw one not of his church
And Couldn't bring himself to give 
The fire his stick of birch.

The third one sat in tattered clothes.
He gave his coat a hitch.
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich?
The rich man just sat back and thought 
of the wealth he had in store
And how to keep what he had earned
From the lazy shiftless poor.

Read the lines given above and answer the question that follow.

In stanza 3, why did the man refuse to use his stick of wood?


The athletes had come from all over the country
To run for the gold, for the silver and bronze
Many weeks and months of training
All coming down to these games.
The spectators gathered around the old field
To cheer on all the young women and men
The final event of the day was approaching
Excitement grew high to begin.

Read the lines given above and answer the following question:

Explain with reference to context.


We will ponder your proposition and when we decide we will let you know. But should we accept it, I here and now make this condition that we will not be denied the privilege without molestation of visiting at any time the tombs of our ancestors, friends, and children. Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as the swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Our departed braves, fond mothers, glad, happy hearted maidens, and even the little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love these somber solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits. And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe^ and when your children’s children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts’that once filled them and still lover this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone.
Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds.

Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.

What plea does the speaker make to the white men?


An old man with steel rimmed spectacles and very dusty clothes sat by the side of the road. There was a pontoon bridge across the river and carts, trucks, and men, women and children were crossing it. The mule-drawn carts staggered up the steep bank from the bridge with soldiers helping push against the spokes of the wheels. The trucks ground up and away heading out of it all and the peasants plodded along in the ankle deep dust. But the old man sat there without moving. He was too tired to go any farther.

Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.

Who was sitting by the side of the road?


“There were three animals altogether,” he explained. “There were two goats and a cat and then there were four pairs of pigeons.”
“And you had to leave them?” I asked.
“Yes. Because of the artillery. The captain told me to go because of the artillery.” “And you have no family?” I asked, watching the far end of the bridge where a few last carts were hurrying down the slope of the bank.
“No,” he said, “only the animals I stated. The cat, of course, will be all right. A cat can look out for itself, but I cannot think what will become of the others.”
“What politics have you?” I asked.
“I am without politics,” he said. “I am seventy-six years old. I have come twelve kilometers now and I think now I can go no further.”
“This is not a good place to stop,” I said. “If you can make it, there are trucks up the road where it forks for Tortosa.”
“I will wait a while,” he said, “ and then I will go. Where do the trucks go?” “Towards Barcelona,” I told him.
“I know no one in that direction,” he said, “but thank you very much.

Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.

Where did the narrator want the old man to go?


Mr. Oliver, an Anglo-Indian teacher, was returning to his school late one night on the outskirts of the hill station of Shimla. The school was conducted on English public school lines and the boys – most of them from well-to-do Indian families – wore blazers, caps and ties. “Life” magazine, in a feature on India, had once called this school the Eton of the East.

Mr. Oliver had been teaching in this school for several years. He’s no longer there. The Shimla Bazaar, with its cinemas and restaurants, was about two miles from the school; and Mr. Oliver, a bachelor, usually strolled into the town in the evening returning after dark, when he would take short cut through a pine forest.

Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.

When did Mr Oliver return from the town?


Then there it lay in her wet palm, perfect, even pierced ready for use, with the sunset shuffled about inside it like gold—?dust. All her heart went up in flames of joy. After a bit she twisted it into the top of her skirt against her tummy so she would know if it burst through the poor cloth and fell. Then she picked up her fork and sickle and the heavy grass and set off home. Ai! Ai! What a day! Her barefeet smudged out the wriggle— ?mark of snakes in the dust; there was the thin singing of malaria mosquitoes among the trees now; and this track was much used at night by a morose old makna elephant—the Tuskless One; but Sibia was not thinking of any of them. The stars came out: she did not notice. On the way back she met her mother, out of breath, come to look for her, and scolding. “I did not see till I was home, that you were not there. I thought something must have happened to you.” And Sibia, bursting with her story, cried “Something did). I found a blue bead for my necklace, look!”

Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.

Why did Sibia not tell her mother about her fight with the crocodile or how she saved the woman?


Answer the following question.

Why was the bear looking sorry for himself in the evening? Why did the cook get angry with her mistress?


The following sentence has two blanks. Fill in the blanks with appropriate forms of the word given in brackets.

It isn’t__________ that_________ should always be the mother of invention. (necessary)


Complete the sentence below by appropriately using anyone of the following:

if you want to/if you don’t want to/if you want him to

Don’t eat it____________________.


Notice how in a comic book, there are no speech marks when characters talk. Instead what they say is put in a speech ‘bubble’. However, if we wish to repeat or ‘report’ what they say, we must put it into reported speech.

Change the following sentences in the story to reported speech. The first one has been done for you.

(i) How much did you pay for that hilsa?


Who was Vijay Singh? What did he look like?


How did Vijay Singh feel when he was told to go to the Haunted Deserts?


What all instructions are given by the adults regarding noise?


How did Patrick get supernatural help? Was the elf intelligent enough to answer questions in all the subjects?


Multiple Choice Question:
What does the word ‘soars’ in the above extract mean?


Complete the following sentence.
The old banyan tree “did not belong” to grandfather, but only to the boy, because _________


Study the following phrases and their meanings. Use them appropriately to complete the sentences that follow.

If you want to go out, I will ………….. the children for you.


What event were the children in Ray Bradbury’s story, ‘All Summer in a Day’ eagerly awaiting?


What does Portia ask of Antonio as a remembrance before she leaves the courtroom?


Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:

Ashamanja Babu lived in a small flat in Bhowanipore. A clerk in the registry department of Lajpat Rai Post Office, Ashamanja Babu was fortunate as he could walk to his office in seven minutes flat without having to fight his way into the buses and trains of Calcutta. He lived a rather carefree life as he was not the kind of person to sit and brood about what might have been had fate been kinder to him. On the whole, he was quite content with his lot. Two Hindi films and fish twice a week-these were enough to keep him happy. The only thing that 10 perturbed him at times was his lack of companionship. A bachelor with few friends and relatives, he often wished he had a dog to keep him company. It need not be a huge Alsatian like the one owned by the Talukdars, who lived two houses down the lane; it could be any ordinary little dog which would follow him around·morning and evening, wag its tail when he came home from work and obey his orders faithfully. Ashamanja Babu's secret desires were that he would speak to his dog in English.

'Stand up', 'Sit down', 'Shake hands' - how nice it 20 would be if his dog obeyed such commands! That would make him really happy.

On a cloudy day marked by a steady drizzle, Ashamanja Babu went to the market in Hashimara to buy some oranges. At one end of the market, beside a stunted kul tree, sat a man. As their eyes met, the man smiled. Was he a beggar? His clothes made him look like one. Ashamanja Babu noticed at least five sewn-on patches on his trousers and jacket. But the man didn't have a begging bowl. Instead, by his side was a shoe-box with a 30 little pup sticking its head out of it.

'Good morning!' said the man in English. Ashamanja Babu was obliged to return the greeting.

'Buy dog? Dog buy? Very good dog.' The man had taken the pup out of the box and had put it down on the ground. 'Very cheap. Very good. Happy dog.'
The pup shook the raindrops off its coat, looked at Ashamanja Babu and wagged its minuscule two-inch tail. Ashamanja Babu moved closer to the pup, crouched ' on the ground and stretched out his hand. The pup gave 40 his ring finger a lick with its pink tongue. Nice, friendly dog.

'How much? What price?'

'Ten rupees.'

A little haggling and the price came down to seven rupees. Ashamanja Babu paid the money, put the pup back in the shoe-box, closed the lid to save it from the drizzle, and turned homewards, forgetting all about the oranges.

  1. For each word given below choose the correct meaning (as used in the passage) from the options provided:    (2)
    1. perturbed  (line 11)
      1. frightened
      2. unsettled
      3. confused
      4. mocked
    2. stunted  (line 25)
      1. prevented from growing
      2. prepared for tricks
      3. prevented from taking action
      4. allowed to do stunts
  2. Which word in the passage means the opposite of the word 'expensive'?  (1)
    1. carefree
    2. ordinary
    3. cheap
    4. haggling
  3. Answer the following questions briefly in your own words:
    1. What kept Ashamanja Babu happy?  (2)
    2. What does this tell you about him?   (2)
    3. What is that one other thing he needed to complete his happiness?  (1)
    4. Why did Ashamanja Babu think the man was a beggar?   (2)
    5. Why did Ashamanja Babu forget about his oranges?   (2)
  4. In not more than 50 words, narrate the series of events from the time the puppy was taken out of the box till it was paid for.  (8)

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