English Set D 2017-2018 HSC Commerce (English Medium) 12th Standard Board Exam Question Paper Solution

Read the following extract and answer the questions given below:
That day Reuben fold two sacks, which he took to the rambling wooden factory and sold to the man in charge of packing nails. The boy's hand tightly clutched the small five-cent pieces as he ran two kilometres home.
Near his house stood the ancient barn that housed the family's goats and chickens. Reuben found a rusty baking- soda tin and dropped his coins inside. Then he climbed into the loft of the barn and hid the can beneath a pile of sweet-smelling hay.
It was supper time when Reuben got home. His father sat at the big kitchen table, working on a fishing net. Dora was at the black kitchen range, ready to serve dinner as Reuben took his place at the table.
He looked at his mother and smiled. Sunlight from the window gilded her, shoulder-length blond hair. Five foot three, slim and beautiful, she was the centre of the home, the glue that held it together.
Her chores were never-ending. Sewing clothes for her family on the old Singer treadle machine, cooking meals and baking bread, planting a vegetable garden. milking the goats and scrubbing soiled clothes on a washboru·d. But she was happy. Her family and their wellbeing were her highest priority.
Every day after chores and school, Reuben scoured the town, collecting the burlap nail bags. On the day the two-room schoolhouse closed for the summer, no student was more delighted than Reuben. Now he would have more time to devote to his mission.

(1) What is the main theme of the extract? (1)

(2) Where did Reuben keep his savings? Why? (2)

(3) Describe Reuben's mother and her daily chores. (2)

(4) What would you like to present to your mother on Mother's Day? Why? (2)

(5) Rewrite the following sentences in the ways instructed :

(i) He looked at his mother and smiled.
(Rewrite it as a Simple Sentence.) (1)

(ii) Her family and their well-being were her highest priority.
(Rewrite it in the Positive Degree.) (1)

(iii) She was the centre of the home. (1)
(Make it a Rhetorical Question)

(6) Find out the words from the extract which mean -

(i) dried grass (1/2)

(ii) routine tasks (1/2)

Do as directed :

He wanted to become _____ artist and live in ____ Himalayas.
(Fill in the blanks with the appropriate articles.)

Do as directed :

 She was able to talk ____ the group______ her experience.
(Fill in the blanks with suitable prepositions.)

Do as directed:

"Why are you crying?" said the woman to a little boy.
"I want a balloon," he said.
(Change it into Indirect Speech.)

Read the following extract and answer the questions given below:
But even in a poverty-free world where every man and woman would earn enough to take care of themselves and their family, there would still be situations of temporary poverty due to a sudden catastrophe or misfortune, a bankruptcy or business downturn leading to failure, or some personal disease or disaster.

A poverty-free world might see a whole group of families, locations, or even regions devastated by some shared disasters, such as floods, tire, cyclones, riots, earthquakes or
other disasters. But such temporary problems could be taken care of by the market mechanism through insurance and other self-paying programmes, assisted of course by social-consciousness-driven enterprises.

There would always remain differences in lifestyle between people at the bottom of society and those at the top income levels. Yet that difference would be the difference between the middle-class and luxury class, just as on trains in Europe today you have only first-class and second-class carriages, whereas in the nineteenth century there were third- class and even fourth-class carriages - sometimes with no windows and just hay strewn on the floor.

Can we really create a poverty-free world? A world without third-class or fourth-class citizens, a world without a hungry, illiterate, barefoot under-class?

(1) What is the extract about?

(2) How will the poverty-free world take care of natural disasters?

(3) According to the writer, what would, 'the world without poverty' be like?

(4) What can we do to help the poor in our society?

(5) Rewrite the following sentences in the ways instructed:
(i) Temporary problems could be taken care of by market mechanisms.
(Rewrite the sentence beginning with 'Market mechanism ........ ')

(ii) In the nineteenth century, there were third-class carriages.
(Form a Wh-question to get the underlined part as an answer.)

(iii) There would still be situations of temporary poverty.
(Rewrite it using 'can'.)

( 6) What do the following words in the extract mean -

(i) devastated

(ii) hay

Read the following extract carefully and present the information in the form of notes with the help of the given clues :
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was the first Vice President and second President of India.
He was a teacher, a philosopher and 'an author. He had introduced the thinking of Western idealist philosophers like Plato, Plontinus, Bergson into Indian thought.
He was born on 5th of September, 1888 in a poor Brahmin family. As his father could not afford his education expenses, Radhakrishnan supported most of his education
through scholarships. He completed his B.A. and M.A. with majors in philosophy. He went on to become a professor of philosophy. He showed that Indian Philosophy, once translated into standard academic jargon, is worthy of being called philosophy by Western standards.
He thus, placed Indian Philosophy on world map.
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan had established a strong relationship with the Soviet Union when he w Is appointed as the ambassador to the Soviet Union.
He has been honoured with many awards for his achievements nationally and internationally. He was honoured with the Bharat Ratna in 1954. He is also acknowledged with the Templeton Prize, Peace Prize of German Book Trade, Order of Merit and many other honours.
Title : Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
Birth : 5th September, 1888
Qualifications : B.A. ___________
Introduced thinking of : _________,_________and ____ into Indian thought.
Work : Translated_____________ into standard____________
Ambassador : __________________________________
Honours : National___________
                International Order of Merit

(A) Read the fo llowing extract and answer the questions given below :

Kalpana Chawla was extremely proud other birth-place and made every effort to bring it into the lime-light. During space flights she vit, (mid prondk point it out to her Fellow-astronauts. Once, during the second Hight she remembered her closest friend, Dais Chawla, who died in a road accident. In fact, despite her celebrity status, she took pains to track down her former teachers, classmates and friends in India and showed a keen desire to stay in touch with them.

Her affectionate and humble nature won the hearts of all who came in contact with her. Although Kalpana had a strong desire to go to Mars, fly over its canyons she was equally concerned about the well-being of the earth. She always urged young people to listen to the sounds of nature and take care of our fragile planet. During, her space trips, she took many breatlitakilig photographs of the earth for various terrestrial studies later on the ground. When she was in space, she always felt a sense of connection with everyone on the earth.

It was Kalpana's cherished desire to visit India again. But that was not to be. A few months after her tragic death, Harrison visited India. He went to her school and college, met her family, teachers and friends and scattered her ashes over the Himalayas.

(1) What is the extract about? (1)

(2) How was Kalpana connected with India and Indians? (2)

(3) How was Kalpana concerned about the well-being of the earth? (2)

(4) What would you like to do For India? (2)

(5) Rewrite the following sentences in the ways instructed:

(i) She took many breathtaking photographs of the earth.
(Rewrite it using the Present Perfect Continuous tense.) (1)

(ii) He scattered her ashes over the Himalayas.
(Rewrite it beginning with 'Her ashes ...... ')(1)

(iii) Kalpana was extremely proud of her birth-place and made every effort to bring it into limelight.
(Rewrite it using 'not only ...... but also'.)(1)

( 6) Give the antonyms from the extract for -

(i) collected                           (1/2)
(ii) forgot                              (1/2)

(B) Summary :
Write a summary of the above extract with the help of the following
points and suggest a suitable title :
Points : Kalpana's affection towards India and Indians her humble - nature her love for the earth Harrison's visit to India. (4)

Read the following extract and answer the questions given below :
We, heroes and poor devils;
the feeble, the braggarts; the unfinished,
and capable of everything impossible
as long as it's not seen or heard
Don Juans, women and men, who come and go
with the fleeting passage of a runner
or of a shy hotel for travellers.
And we with our small vanities,
our controlled hunger for climbing
and getting as far as everybody else has gotten
because it seems that is the way of the world.

(1) Who are heroes and what are they capable of? (1)

(2) According to you, what difficulties do the middle-class people face? (1)

(3) Name and explain the figure of speech in the following line :
... Women and men, who come and go. (1)

(4) Pick out the line from the extract, which shows the overambitious nature of the middle-class people. (1)

Read the following extract and answer the questions given below
All the rest of her children, she said, are on the nuclear
blacklist of the dead,
all the rest, unless
the whole world understands - that peace is a woman:
A thousand candles then lit
in her starry eyes, and I saw angels bearing a moonlit message :
Peace is indeed a pregnant woman Peace is a mother.

(1) What is the situation of the children in absence of peace? (1)

(2) Why should we avoid wars? (1)

(3) Name and explain the figure of speech in the following line:
that peace is a woman. (1)

(4) What message does the poet give through this poem? (1)

Read the following extract and rewrite it from the point of view of Roma : 
[You may begin with: Herman and I shared the backseat of Sid's car. .... ]
We piled back into Sid's car, Roma and I sharing the backseat. As European Jews who had survived the war, we were aware that much had been left unsaid between us. She broached the subject, "Where were you during the war?" she asked softly
"The camps," I said, the terrible memories still vivid, the irreparable loss, I had tried to forget. But you can never forget.
She nodded, "My family was hiding on a farm in Germany, not far from Berlin," She told me. "My father knew a priest, and he got us Aryan papers."
I imagined how she must have suffered too, fear, a constant companion. And yet here we were both survivors, in a new world.
"There was a camp next to the farm." Roma continued. "I saw a boy there and I would throw him apples every day."
What an amazing coincidence that she had helped some other boy. "What did he look like?" I asked.
"He was tall, skinny and hungry. I must have seen him every day for six months. "
My heart was racing. I couldn't believe it. This couldn't be. "Did he tell you one day not to come back because he was leaving Schlieben?".
Roma looked at me in amazement. "Yes!"
"That was me!"
I was ready to burst with joy and awe, flooded with emotions. I couldn't believe it! My angel.
"I'm not letting you go," I said to Roma. 
I proposed to her. I didn't want to wait.

Read the following extract and convert it into a dialogue between Mrs Green and the mother in about 120 words :
[You may begin with: Mrs Green: May I come in .... ]
"May I come in?" asked the pink lady.
"Please come in," said my mother. "Do sit down. Do
you require a room'?"
"Not today, thank you. I'm staying with Padre Dutt.
He insisted on putting me up. But I may want a room for a day or two -.lust for old time's sake."
"You've stayed here before."
"A long time ago. I'm Mrs Green, you know. The missing Mrs Green. The one for whom you put up that handsome tombstone in the cemetery. I was very touched by it. And I'm glad you didn't add 'Beloved Wife of Henry t'reen', because I didn't love him any more than he loved me."
"Then - then you aren't the skeleton?" stammered my mother.
"Do I look like a skeleton?"
"No!" we said together ..
"But we heard you disappeared." I said, "and when we found
that skeleton"
"You put two and two together."
"Well, it was Miss Kellner who convinced us," said my mother. "And you did disappear mysteriously. You were missing for years. And everyone knew Mr Green was a philanderer"
"Couldn't wait to get away from him," said the pink lady. "Couldn't stand him anymore. Ile was a lady-killer, but not a real killer.'
"But your father came looking for you. Didn't you get in touch with him'"'
"My father and I were never very close. Mother died when I was very young, and the only relative I had was a cousin in West Africa. So that's where I went- Sierra Leone!"
"How romantic!" said my mother.

Read the following extract and extend it by adding an imaginary paragraph of your own in about 120 words

Then two little boys came out of the garden; one of them had a large sharp knife, like that with which the girl had cut the tulips. They came straight towards the little daisy, which could
not understand what they wanted.
"Here is a fine piece of turf for the lark," said one of the boys, and began to cut out a square round the daisy, so that it remained in the centre of the grass.
"Pluck the flower off said the other boy, and the daisy trembled for fear, for to be pulled off meant death to it; and it wished so much to live, as it was to go with the square of turf into the poor captive lark's cage.
"No let it stay," said the other boy," it looks so pretty."
And so it stayed, and was brought into the lark's cage.

Letter Writing :
Write a letter of application in response to the following advertisement with the help of the given C. V. (Resume):                 

C. V. (Resume)

Name :Aruna Anil Shinde
Address : Bl-104, Rose Parade, S. B. Road, Nagpur.
Educational Qualifications :

Other qualifications : Successfully completed
Computer Diploma from NIIT, Nagpur 2014.
Work Experience : Worked as the Purchase Officer in
Login Private Ltd., Nagpur.
Interest/Hobbies : Reading, music, swimming, chess.
Languages Known: English, Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati.

Write a letter to the Editor of a Newspaper drawing attention to the noise pollution in your locality. Suggest some solutions.

Write a short tourist's leaflet about any Hill Station that you know with the help of
the following points :
• How to reach there
• Accommodation facilities
• What to see
• Shopping attractions
• Anything special about the place.

Imagine that your college arranged a Cleanliness Drive in which your Principal, social activist, the local MLA, doctors, teachers and students participated on a large scale. The event was a grand success as it made people aware of cleanliness and social hygiene. Prepare a short report for your college magazine with the help of the following points :
Venue, chief guddest, inauguration, unique participation, and conclusion.

Read the following tree diagram about 'Morphemes' and write a short paragraph on it.

Prepare a paragraph with an appropriate title to be used for the Counter-View Section on the following topic in about 120 words :
"Facebook is a user-friendly device."
You may take help of the following points included in the View Section:

Answer the following question as per instructions:
Framing Questions :
            On the occasion of 'Annual Sports Prize Distribution' programme a well-known sports personality is invited in your college as a chief guest. As a sports secretary you have got an opportunity to interview him/her. Frame a set of 8-10 questions regarding his/her achievements, inspirations, best moment and prizes he/she has won.

Answer the following question as per instruction:
Speech Writing :
Imagine that your college has organised an 'elocution competition' and the topic of the competition is 'Save Trees, Trees Save'. Prepare a short speech with the help of the points given below :
Providers of human needs, ecological balance, rain showers, etc.