ENGLISH PAPER II

Reading and Literature

Three hours and a quarter
(The first fifteen minutes of the examination are for reading the paper only.
Candidates must NOT start writing during this time.)
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Instructions:
1. This paper has four sections, Section A for Short Stories, Section B for Essay, Section C for
Poetry and Section D for Drama.
2. In each section, there are two sets of questions: Set 1and Set II. Set I comprises of Question nos.
1a and 1b and Set II corresponds to Question no.2 across all sections.
3. You are required to answer four sets of questions in all, one set from each section. Your choice
must include one Set II question (question no.2) from any section.
4. The choices offered are between the sets and not among the questions within the sets.
5. The intended marks for each question is given in brackets.
6. You are reminded to mention the section, question set number and question numbers before writing
your response.
7. You should begin each answer on a fresh page.
8. No marks will be awarded for any extra questions attempted.
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Section A: Short Stories

Direction: From the two sets of questions under this genre, choose one set and write your
responses in your answer sheet. Answer the questions in this section with reference to the
story ‘Jamaican fragment’ by A.L.Hendricks.

Set I
Question 1a. [1x5]

Direction: Each question below is followed by four responses. Choose the correct answer or response
that best fits the given question and write it in your answer sheet.

(i) My spirit laughed within me. Here „me‟ refers to

(A) Jamaican (B) the father of the boys
(C) the brown woman (D) the author

(ii) The road on either side is flanked by

(A) yellow roofed bungalows (B) garden roofed bungalows
(C) red and green roofed bungalows (D) roofed bungalows

(iii) The narrator says that his walk was beneficial because:
(A) he has good company (B) the road is full of greenery
(C) he learns something new now and then (D) the morning air is fresh and clean.

(iv) The author was amazed, when

(A) the dark boy obeyed the white boy‟s orders faithfully
(B) he saw the boys playing on the lawn
(C) he thought about the inferiority of his race
(D) the white boy enacting the role of a master

(v) The white man‟s wife was a brown woman. This tells us that
(A) Jamaica was a democratic country (B) there was no racial discrimination
(C) there was racial discrimination (D) Jamaicans were loving people

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SRHSS/Annual examination ’09 Page 1 of 7 Eng/Paper II/Class XI
Question 1b. [20]

Directions: Read the following questions carefully. Copy the number of the questions onto your answer
sheets and answer them briefly.

(i) Explain the connections between the beginning and the ending of the story? [5]
(ii) How effective is the technique used by the author in creating suspense in the story? [5]
(iii) What assumptions are made about the relationships between Blacks and Whites? [5]
(iv) „I will save him his puzzle.‟ What did the narrator think the man would puzzle all day? Was the
narrator right? [5]

Set II
Question 2. [25]

Directions: Read the following questions carefully. Copy the number of the questions onto your answer
sheets and answer them accordingly.

(i) Do you think that the narrator was prone to be Prejudicial? Support you answer with reference
to the short story. [10]
(ii) Do you, as a Bhutanese, share similar sentiments with the narrator who is Jamaican? How?
Why? Where have you experienced it? [15]

Section B: Essay

Direction: Read the essay given below carefully. From the two sets of questions on this text,
choose one set and write your responses in your answer sheet.

That was a jolly story which Arthur Ransome told the other day in one of his messages from Petrograd a place in
Russia. A stout old lady was walking with her basket down the middle of a street in Petrograd to the great
confusion of the traffic and with no small peril to herself. It was pointed out to her that the pavement was the
place for foot passengers, but she replied: „I‟m going to walk where I like. We‟ve got liberty now.‟ It did not occur
to the dear old lady that if liberty entitled the foot passenger to walk down the middle of the road, it also entitled
the car driver to drive on the pavement, and that the end of such liberty would be universal chaos. Everybody
would be getting in everybody else‟s way and nobody would get anywhere. Individual liberty would have become
social anarchy.

There is a danger of the world getting liberty-drunk in these days like the old lady with the basket, and it is just as
well to remind ourselves of what the rule of the road means. It means that in order that the liberties of all may be
preserved, the liberties of everybody must be curtailed. When the policeman, says 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 motor 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? Then, if you are a
reasonable person, you will reflect that if he did not, incidentally, interfere with you he would interfere with no
one, and the result would be that Piccadilly Circus would be a maelstrom that you would never cross at all. You
have submitted to a curtailment of private liberty in order that you may enjoy a social order which makes your
liberty a reality.

Liberty is not a personal affair only, but a social contract. It is an accommodation of interests. In matters which do
not touch anybody else‟s liberty, of course, I may be as free as I like. If I choose to go down The Strand in a
dressing-gown with long hair and bare feet, who shall say me nay? You have liberty to laugh at me, but I have
liberty to be indifferent to you. And if I have a fancy for dyeing my hair, or waxing my moustache (which Heaven
forbid), or wearing a tall hat, a Frock coat and sandals, or going to bed late or getting up early, I shall follow my
fancy and ask no man‟s permission. I shall not inquire of you whether I may eat mustard with my mutton. I may
like mustard with my mutton. And you will not ask me whether you may marry the dark lady or the fair lady,
whether you may prefer Ella Wheeler Wilcox to Wordsworth, or Champagne to Shandygaff. In all these and a
thousand other details you and I please ourselves and ask no one‟s leave. We have a whole kingdom in which we
rule alone, can do what we choose, be wise or ridiculous, harsh or easy, conventional or odd. But directly we step
out of that kingdom, our personal liberty of action becomes qualified by other people‟s liberty. I might like to
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SRHSS/Annual examination ’09 Page 2 of 7 Eng/Paper II/Class XI
practise on the trombone from midnight till three in the morning. If I went on to the top of Helvellyn to do it, I
could please myself, but if I do it out in the streets, the neighbours will remind me that my liberty to blow the
trombone must not interfere with their liberty to sleep in quiet. There are a lot of people in the world, and I have
to accommodate my liberty to their liberties. We are all liable to forget this and, unfortunately, we are much more
conscious of the imperfections of others in this respect than of our own.

I got into a railway carriage at a country station the other morning and settled down for what the school-boys
would call an hour‟s „swot‟ at a Blue book. I was not reading it for pleasure. The truth is that I never do read Blue
books for pleasure. I read them as a barrister reads a brief for the very humble purpose of turning an honest
penny out of them. Now, if you are reading a book for pleasure it doesn‟t matter what is going on around you. I
think I could enjoy Tristram Shandy or Treasure Island in the midst of an earthquake.

But when you are reading a thing as a task, you need reasonable quiet, and that is what I didn‟t get, for at the
next station in came a couple of men, one of whom, talked to his friend for the rest of the journey in a loud and
pompous voice. He was one of those people who remind one of that stories of Horne Tooke, who, meeting a
person of immense swagger in the street, stopped him and said, “Excuse me, Sir, but are you someone in
particular?” That gentleman was someone in particular. As I wrestled with clauses and sections, his voice rose like
a gale, and his family history, the deeds of his sons in the war, and his criticisms of the generals and the
politicians submerged my poor attempts to hang on to my job. I shut up the Blue book, looked out of the window
and listened wearily while the voice thundered on with themes like those: „Now what French ought to have
done….?; The mistake the Germans made …. If only Asquith had ….‟ You know the sort of stuff. I had heard it all
before, oh, so often. It was like a barrel organ groaning out some banal song of long ago. If I had asked him to be
good enough to talk in a lower tone, I dare say he would have thought I was a very rude fellow. It did not occur to
him that anybody could have anything better to do than to listen to him, and I have no doubt he left the carriage
convinced that everybody in it had, thanks to him, had a very illuminating journey, and would carry away a
pleasing impression of his encyclopaedic range. He was obviously a well-intentioned person. The thing that was
wrong with him was that he had not the social sense. He was not „a clubbable man‟.

I believe that the rights of small people and quiet people are as important to preserve as the rights of small
nationalities. When I hear the aggressive, bullying horn which some motorists deliberately use, I confess that I
feel something boiling up in me which is very much like what I feel when Germany came trampling like a bully
over Belgium. By what right, my dear sir, do you go along our highways uttering that hideous curse on all who
impede your path? Cannot you take your turn? Are you someone in particular or are you simply a hot gospeller of
the prophet Nietzsche? I find myself wondering what sort of person it is who can sit behind that hog like outrage
without realizing that he is the spirit of Prussia incarnate, and a very ugly spectacle in a civilized world. And there
is the more harmless person who has bought a very blatant gramophone, and on Sunday afternoon sets the thing
going, opens the windows and fills the street with „Keep the Home Fires Burning‟ or some similar banality. What
are the right limits of social behaviour in a matter of this sort? Let us take the trombone as an illustration again.

Hazlitt said that a man who wanted to learn that fearsome instrument was entitled to learn it in his own house,
even though he was a nuisance to his neighbours, but it was his business to make the nuisance as slight as
possible. He must practise in the attic and shut the window. He had no right to sit in his front room, open the
window, and blow his noise into his neighbours‟ ears with the maximum of violence. And so with the gramophone.
If you like the gramophone, you are entitled to have it, but you are interfering with the liberties of your
neighbours if you don‟t do what you can to limit the noise to your own household. Your neighbours may not like
„Keep the Home Fires Burning‟. They may prefer to have their Sunday afternoon undisturbed, and it is as great an
impertinence for you to wilfully trespass on their peace as it would be to go, unasked, into their gardens and
trample on their flower beds. There are cases, of course, where the clash of liberties seems to defy compromise.
My dear old friend X, who lives in West End square and who is an amazing mixture of good nature and irascibility,
flies into a passion when he hears a street piano, and rushes out to order it away. But nearby lives a distinguished
lady of romantic picaresque tastes, who dotes on street pianos, and attracts them as wasps are attracted to a jar
of jam. Whose liberty in this case should surrender to the other? For the life of me I cannot say. It is as
reasonable to like street pianos as to dislike them and vice versa. I would give much to hear Sancho Panza‟s
solution of such a nice riddle.

I suppose the fact is that we can be neither complete anarchists nor complete socialists in this complex world – or
rather we must be a judicious mixture of both. We have both liberties to preserve – our individual liberty and our
social liberty. We must watch the bureaucrat on the one side and warn off the anarchist on the other. I am neither
a Marxist, nor a Tolstoyan, but a compromise. I shall not permit any authority to say that my child must go to this
school or that, shall specialize in science or arts, shall play rugger or soccer. These things are personal. But if I
proceed to say that my child shall have no education at all, that he shall be brought up as a primeval savage, or
at Fagin‟s Academy for pickpockets then society will politely but firmly tell me that it has no use for primeval
savages and a very stern objection to pickpockets, and that my child must have a certain minimum of education
whether I like it or not. I cannot have the liberty to be nuisance to my neighbours or make my child a burden and
a danger to the Commonwealth. It is in the small matters of conduct, in the observance of the rule of the road,
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SRHSS/Annual examination ’09 Page 3 of 7 Eng/Paper II/Class XI
that we pass judgement upon ourselves, and declare that we are civilized or uncivilized. The great moments of
heroism and sacrifice are rare. It is the little habits of common place intercourse that make up the great sum of
life and sweeten or make bitter the journey. I hope my friend in the railway carriage will reflect on this. Then he
will not cease, I am sure, to explain to his neighbour where French went wrong and where the Germans went
ditto; but he will do it in a way that will permit me to read my Blue book undisturbed.
- On the rule of the road
A.G.Gardiner
Set I
Question 1a. [1x5]

Direction: Each question below is followed by four responses. Choose the correct answer or response
that best fits the given question and write it in your answer sheet.

(i) “I am going to walk where I like.” Who said this?

(A) A stout old lady (B) Arthur Ransome
(C) A. G. Gardiner (D) The policeman.

(ii) One must have social liberties

(A) to maintain social order (B) so that private liberties must be curtailed
(C) to interfere in another‟s ways (D) so that everybody must follow the rules.

(iii) A civilized person is a judicious mixture of common sense and

(A) ideas (B) ideals
(C) good personality (D) sense of humour.

(iv)By “ On the Rule of the Road” the writer means:

(A) traffic rules to be followed by motorists
(B) road rules to be followed by pedestrians
(C) observance of rule of the road in our life‟s journey
(D) liberty that can be taken by citizens.

(v) In the midst of an earthquake one can enjoy reading a book on

(A) Don Quixote (B) Tristram Shandy
(C) Blue book (D) Tristram Shandy or Treasure Island.

Question1b. [20]
Directions: Read the following questions carefully. Copy the number of the questions onto your answer
sheets and answer them briefly.

(i) „The policeman at Piccadilly circus is a symbol of liberty and not tyranny.‟ How does the writer
explain this statement? [5]
(ii) Describe the experience of the writer in the railway carriage. [5]
(iii) How can the clash of liberties be resolved? Explain. [5]
(iv)Do you think, the essay conveys an important message to the readers? If so, why and why not?
[5]

Set II
Question 2. [25]
Directions: Read the following questions carefully. Copy the number of the questions onto your answer
sheets and answer them accordingly.

(i) How does Gardiner show that liberty is not a personal affair but a social contract? [10]

(ii) Do you agree that we have to preserve both the liberties - individual liberty and social liberty?
Support your answer with specific reference to the text. [15]
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SRHSS/Annual examination ’09 Page 4 of 7 Eng/Paper II/Class XI

Direction: Read the poem given below carefully. From the two sets of questions on this
poem, choose one set and write your responses in your answer sheet.
The tiger people went to their king
and said, „We‟re starving.
We‟ve had nothing to eat,
not a bite
for 15 days and 16 nights.
Ajamil has got
a new sheep dog.
He cramps our style
and won‟t let us get within a mile
of meat,‟
„That‟s shocking,‟
said the tiger king.
„Why didn‟t you come to see me before?
Make preparations for a banquet.
I‟m gonna teach that sheep dog a lesson he‟ll
never forget.‟
„Hear hear,‟ said the tigers.
„Careful,‟ said the queen.
But he was already gone.
Alone
into the darkness before the dawn.
In an hour he was back,
the good king.
A black patch on his eye.
His tail in a sling.
And said, „I‟ve got it all planned
now that I know the lie of the land.
All of us will have to try.
We‟ll outnumber the son of a bitch.
And this time there will be no hitch.
Because this time I shall be leading the attack‟
Quick as lightning
the sheep dog was.
He took them all in as prisoners of war,
the 50 tigers and the tiger king,
before they could get their paws
on a single sheep.
They never had a chance.
The dog was in 51 places all at once.
He strung them all out in a daisy chain
and flung them in front of his boss in one big
heap.
„Nice dog you got there, Ajamil,‟
said the tiger king.
Contd...
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SRHSS/Annual examination ’09
Section C: Poetry
Looking a little ill
and spitting out a tooth.
„But there‟s been a bit of a misunderstanding.
We could‟ve wiped out your herd in one clean
sweep.
But we were not trying to creep upon your
sheep.
We feel that means are more important than
ends.
We were coming to see you as friends.
And that‟s the truth.‟
The sheep dog was the type
who had never told a lie in his life
He was built along simpler lines
and he was simply disgusted.
He kept on making frantic signs.
But Ajamil, the good shepherd
refused to meet his eyes
and pretended to believe every single word
of what the tiger king said.
And seemed to be taken in by all the lies.
Ajamil cut them loose
and asked them all to stay for dinner.
It was an offer the tigers couldn‟t refuse.
And after the lamb chops and the roast,
When Ajamil proposed
they sign a long term friendship treaty,
all the tigers roared,
„We couldn‟t agree with you more‟.
And swore they would be good friends all their
lives
as they put down the forks and the knives.
Ajamil signed a pact
with the tiger people and sent them back.
Laden with gifts of sheep, leather jackets and
balls of wool.
Ajamil wasn‟t a fool.
Like all good shepherds he knew
that even tigers have got to eat some time
A good shepherd sees to it they do.
He is free to play a flute all day
as well fed tigers and fat sheep drink from the
same pond
with a full stomach for a common bond.
-Ajamil and the tigers
Arun Kolatkar
Page 5 of 7 Eng/Paper II/Class XI
 Set I

Question 1a. [1x5]

Direction: Each question below is followed by four responses. Choose the correct answer or response
that best fits the given question and write it in your answer sheet.

(i) The tigers should be careful because:

(A) the forest was a dangerous place (B) they were very weak
(C) the sheep dog was more skillful (D) the forest was full of gorges

(ii) “Nice dog you got there, Ajamil” indicates

(A) the tiger king‟s admiration for the dog
(B) the tiger king‟s attempt to hide his disgrace
(C) the tiger king‟s attempt to please Ajamil
(D) that the tiger king was rearing nice dogs.

(iii) “I know the lie of the land,” suggests that the tiger king
(A) knew the natural features of the enemies‟ territory
(B) knew that the people of the land were liars
(C) had the clear picture of the situation
(D) knew where the land lay.

(iv)“He strung them all out in a daisy chain” means

(A) garland of small flowers (B) circle of flowers
(C) chain of flowers (D) basket of flowers.

(v) The tiger king said to the shepherd that he could wipe out the entire flock. It was an example of
his:
(A) bravery (B) desperation
(C) cunning nature (D) tactfulness

Question 1b. [20]

Directions: Read the following questions carefully. Copy the number of the questions onto your
answer sheets and answer them briefly.

(i) How did the tiger king set out on his task and how did he return? [5]
(ii) How did the tiger king attempt to cover up his disgraceful defeat? [5]
(iii) „We were coming to see you as friends and that‟s truth‟ – was it really truth? Explain. [5]
(iv) How does Ajamil establish „a common bond‟? [5]

Set II
Question 2. [25]

Directions: Read the following questions carefully. Copy the number of the questions onto your
answer sheets and answer them accordingly.

(i) A satire is a form of writing in which the follies and foibles of institutions, individuals and
systems are humorously exposed. Can this poem be considered as a satire? If so what are the
elements of satire that you find in this poem? [10]

(ii) “Who can protect anyone if the lord Himself kills”? What will happen if the protectors themselves
are traitors? Discuss. [15]

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SRHSS/Annual examination ’09 Page 6 of 7 Eng/Paper II/Class XI
 Section D: Drama

Direction: From the two sets of questions under this genre, choose one set and write your
responses in your answer sheet.
Set I
Question 1a. [1x5]

Direction: Each question below is followed by four responses. Choose the correct answer or response
that best fits the given question and write it in your answer sheet.

(i) In Greek dramas, character changes were achieved by…

(A) Changing the mantle (B) Changing props
(C) Changing the headdresses (D) All of these

(ii) What did the King of Thebes declare?

(A) Eteocles is to be left for the carrion animals and Polynices thrown into the sea
(B) Eteocles is to be given a funeral and full honors while Polynices' body will be left unburied.
(C) Thebes should have a drama festival to celebrate victory in war against the Persians
(D) Polynices is to be given a funeral and full honors while Eteocles‟ body will be left unburied.

(iii) What does Antigone ask Ismene to help her do?

(A) Escape Thebes (B) Accept their fate
(C) Start an armed revolt against Creon (D) Bury Polynices' body

(iv)„I certainly hope I don‟t have a second niece as mad as Antigone.‟ Who is the Speaker?
(A) Creon (B) Flutist
(C) Tiresias (D) Haemon

(v) According to „Chorus‟, the great philosopher Aristotle said that...

(A) drama is for entertainment (B) drama is the Art of Theatre
(C) drama is a fine way of teaching universal truth (D) None of these

Question 1b. [20]

Directions: Read the following questions carefully. Copy the number of the questions onto your
answer sheets and answer them briefly.

(i) Why did Eteocles and Polynices fight each other? What were their differences? [5]
(ii) Bring out the contrast in the opinions of King Creon and Princess Antigone regarding law?
[5]
(iii) Sketch the character of Antigone? How is it revealed? [5]
(iv) What is the seeming reason for Haemon's suicide? Does he kill himself only out of desperate love
for the dead Antigone? [5]

Set II
Question 2. [25]

Directions: Read the following questions carefully. Copy the number of the questions onto your
answer sheets and answer them accordingly.

(i) If you were the King of Thebes, what resolution would you take? Why? Explain. [10]
(ii) The play “Once upon a Greek Stage” is a tragedy. Justify your answer. [15]
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Prepared by: Roshan.P
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SRHSS/Annual examination ’09 Page 7 of 7 Eng/Paper II/Class XI