Time: 90 Minutes

M.M: 50

General Instructions:

1. All questions are compulsory.
2. Separate instructions are given with each question. Read them carefully and follow them faithfully
3. Do not exceed the prescribed word limit while answering the questions.

 Q1. Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow: 8

1. Every urbanite knows the bright lights of the city make it impossible to see the stars in a night sky. What most of us do not know is that those lights also may be making us sick. The cause is light pollution – the unearthly glow of billions of street lamps, security and porch lights, searchlights, office lights and signs – as people everywhere try to dispel the darkness of the night.

2. For the first time, light is being investigated seriously as a pollutant and a health hazard – a possible cause of increased incidence of breast cancer, depression and other ailments.

3. In the most heavily urbanized regions, it no longer ever really gets dark. Satellite images reveal that in large areas of eastern North America, Western Europe, Japan and Korea, night has become a constant twilight. In a natural night sky, someone looking at the heavens should be able to see nearly 3500 stars and planets and the glow from the Milky Way, our galaxy. But in some brightly lit cities, the number of visible stars has dwindled to about a few dozen.

4. And for many wildlife species, light pollution seems to be as grave as environmental threat as bulldozed habitats and toxic-chemical dumping.

5. Lighting from office towers confuse migratory birds which fly into buildings lit up at night. Millions of birds in North America die from these crashes. Researchers have noticed since the 1980s that artificial lights along ocean beaches confuse millions of baby turtles. Observers say that the turtles instinctively crawl to the brightest thing on the horizon – normally the reflection of the moon on the sea. But where beaches are illuminated, baby turtles often crawl to the lit roads, where they are flattened by cars, or wander in circles on the beach. Once day breaks, they bake to death in the sun.

6. Sea turtles and birds are clearly in peril because of light at night, but scientists have begun to study whether human may share something of the same fate. Richard Steven, a US Epidemiologist, has developed the idea that night light can disrupt critical hormonal levels that affect human health. Stevens came to this conclusion while trying to solve the puzzle of why breast cancer risk is five times higher in industrialized societies than in non-industrialized countries.

7. Travis Longcore, Science Director at the Urban Wild lands Group says that light pollution should be receiving the same attention as other environmental ills. Canada has set up a conservation reserve north of Toronto, the first in the world to preserve a pristine night sky. Conservationists are hoping to expand the area of preserved night sky beyond the park’s boundaries by encouraging local municipalities to curtail the use of poorly designed night lighting.

 (a) On the basis of your reading of the passage, make notes on it using recognizable abbreviations wherever necessary (Minimum 4) use a suitable format. Supply an appropriate title. 5

(b) Write a summary of the passage in about 80 words. 3 

Q2. You want to sell your old Maruti car. Draft a suitable advertisement to be published in the For Sale column of a national daily giving necessary details. Your contact address is Ritesh, 56, Vikaspuri, Delhi.      4

OR

Imagine you are the President of Healthcare Blood Bank Society, New Delhi. You are going to organize a Blood Donation Camp in a nearby school. Write a notice in about 50 words urging the people to come in large numbers for this noble cause.         4

Q3. You are Manisha/ Manish of 10/A, Preet Vihar, New Delhi. You come across an advertisement about a degree course in Hotel Management to be organized by The Institute of Hotel Management, 116, Mathura Road, New Delhi and write a letter to the Director of the institute enquiring the necessary details about the course. Invent other details yourself.    6

OR

Ankush Menon, 321, Avantika Enclave, New Delhi sees an advertisement for the post of Office Accountants in The Times of India and decides to apply for the job. Write the application along with a detailed resume. Invent other details yourself.  6

Q4. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:  4

 Aunt Jennifer’s tigers prance across a screen,

Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.

They do not fear the men beneath the tree:

They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.”

(a) How do the tigers made by Aunt Jennifer look like?

(b) Why are they referred to as ‘denizens of a world of green’?

(c) What qualities of the ‘tigers’ are highlighted here?

(d) What does prancing tigers symbolize?

Q5. Answer any three of the following in about 30-40 words each:  3×3 = 9

(a) Why did Shukla want to meet Gandhiji?

(b) How did Zitkala-Sa feel when her long hair was cut?

(c) What does Sophie want to do after she passes out of school?

(d) What advice did Annan offer Bama?

Q6. Answer any one of the following in about 125-150 words each:   6

(a) How did Gandhiji help the poor in Champaran to achieve freedom from fear?

(b) Contrast Sophie’s real world with her fantasies?

Q7. Answer any one of the following in about 125-150 words each:   6

(a) Describe how the issue of untouchability is dealt by Bama? How did the narrator succeed in the end?

(b) What was the hardest trial that Zitkala-Sa was yet to face after her unpleasant experience in the dining room?

Q8. Answer any one of the following in about 125-150 words each:   7

(a) Describe Griffin’s struggle as an invisible man.

(b) Write a character sketch of Dr. Kemp.

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