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ST. JOHN S UNIVERSAL SCHOOL SECOND FORMATIVE EXAMINATION 2023-2024 ENGLISH LANGUAGE ONE HOUR AND FIFTY MINUTES CLASS XI DATE: 12/12/2023 MARKS: 50 Answers to this paper must be written on the paper provided separately. You will not be allowed to write during the first 10 minutes. This time is to be spent in reading the question paper. The time given at the head of this paper is the time allowed for writing the answers. Attempt all four questions. The intended marks for questions or parts of questions are given in brackets [ ]. Question 1 [15] Write a composition (in approximately 400 450 words) on any one of the following subjects: (You are reminded that you will be rewarded for orderly and coherent presentation of material, use of appropriate style and general accuracy of spelling, punctuation and grammar.) a) You recently went for a visit to a different state/country with your parents. Describe a local festival of that place, how the people celebrated it, their dresses, food and culture. What were your feelings when you attended the festival? b) Life is a series of choices that we have to make every day. Narrate an incident when you had to make a difficult choice. Elaborate on the positive impact it had on you. c) All citizens should have complete Freedom of Speech. Argue for or against this statement. d) Deception. e) Every individual has a mission to accomplish on this earth. Express your views on this statement. f) Write an original short story beginning with the following words: The voice was familiar but I could not recognize the face . Question 2 a) Write a review of a book you have recently read (in approximately 150 words) for your school magazine. Make use of the given points: [5] Name of the book-author-publisher-plot-characters-insight into some interesting incidents- reasons why the book should be a must read for students. 1 of 4 b) As the Head Boy/Girl of your school, you have been asked to organize an art and craft exhibition, where the students would sell the items created by them. The proceeds from the sale would be donated to an old age home nearby. Write a proposal in not more than 150 words, outlining the steps you would take to make this event a success. [5] Question 3 a) Fill in each blank with a suitable word. [5] i. You have to hand ________ your assignments on Friday. ii. Do you know when World War II broke _____. iii. The top and bottom come ______ if you pull hard enough. iv. My grandparents cut my father ______ after he permanently left the house. v. We haven t met in ages, lets catch _______ sometime soon. vi. Audrey dropped ______ to third place when she fell off. vii. The form must be filled _____ in capital letters. viii. I tried to get my point _______ to the judge but she wouldn't listen. ix. Please go _______ and eat before the food gets cold. x. I am looking ____ a red dress for the wedding. b) In each of the following items, sentence A is complete, but sentence B is not. Complete sentence B, making it as similar in meaning as possible to sentence A. [5] (1) (A) Jane is not as clever as some other girls of her class. (B) Some girls __________________________________ (2) (A) No sooner did he enter the room than he saw a snake. (B) Scarcely ______________________________________ (3) (A) He did not know that his friend had been undergoing a cancer treatment. (B) Little __________________________________________ (4) (A) Anil said to his sister, Please don t tell mother I broke the vase. (B) Anil begged __________________________________________________. (5) (A)Though the police searched the premises thoroughly, they did not come across anything suspicious. (B)In spite of a ___________________________________________ Question 4 Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow: [15] 1) Inside the cockpit of the World War II Mosquito plane, I could make out, against the light of the moon, the muffled head of its pilot and the twin circles of his goggles as he looked out of the side window towards me. Carefully he raised his right hand till I could see it in the window, fingers straight, palm downwards. He jabbed the fingers forward and down, meaning that we were going to descend and that I should follow him. 5 2 of 4 2) I nodded and quickly brought up my own left hand so he could see it, first pointing forward to my own control panel with one forefinger, and then holding up my five spread fingers. Finally, I drew my hand across my throat. By common agreement this sign meant that I had only five minutes fuel left, and then my engine would cut out. I saw the muffled, goggled, oxygen-masked head nod in understanding, and then we were heading downwards towards the sheet of fog. 3) My plane stopped trembling and plunged ahead of the Mosquito. I pulled back on the throttle, hearing the engine die to a low whistle, and the other pilot was back beside me. We were diving straight towards the shrouded land. I glanced at my altimeter, two thousand feet, still diving. 15 4) He pulled out at three hundred feet. The fog was still below us. Probably the fog bank was only from the ground to two hundred feet up, but that was more than enough to prevent a plane from landing without guidance. I could imagine the stream of instructions coming from the radar hut into the earphones of the man flying beside me, eighty feet away. I kept my eyes on him, following as closely as possible, afraid of losing sight for an instant, watching for his every hand-signal. Two minutes later he held up his clenched left fist in the window, then opened the fist to splay all five fingers against the glass, indicating that I should lower the undercarriage. I moved the lever downwards and felt the dull thunk as all three wheels went down, happily powered by hydraulic pressure and not dependent on the failed electrical system. 25 5) The pilot of the shepherd aircraft pointed down again, for another descent. I managed to flick a glance at my fuel gauge : it was on zero, flickering feebly. For God s sake, hurry up, I prayed, for if my fuel failed me now there would be no time to climb to the minimum five hundred feet needed for bailing out. A jet fighter at one hundred feet without an engine is a death-trap with no chances for survival. 30 6) For two or three minutes he seemed content to hold his position, while the sweat seat broke out behind my neck and began to run in streams down my back, sticking the light nylon flying suit to my skin. 7) Quite suddenly he straightened out, so fast I almost lost him. I caught him a second later and saw his left hand flash the dive signal to me. Then he dipped towards the fog bank, I followed, and we were in it, a shallow, flat descent, but a descent nevertheless, and from a mere hundred feet, towards nothing. 35 Adapted from : The Shepherd by Fredrick Forsyth (a) (i) Given below are the words or phrases. Find the words which have a similar meaning in the passage: [2] (1) go down (2) covered (ii) For each of the words given below, choose the correct sentence that uses the same word unchanged in spelling but with a different meaning from that which it carries in the passage: [2] 1) land (line 13) 3 of 4 a) The only cover on land that was available for the platoon was a series of palm trees. b) There is a vast area of barren land in the upper side of Los Angeles. c) To land such a heavy plane, in such weather conditions, is always a difficult proposition for even the most experienced pilots. d) Its cheaper to buy land in a village, compared to a city. 2) stream (line 18) a) The class received a stream of instructions from their teacher before they boarded the flight. b) It was a wondrous sight, the clear blue sky, the crystal clear sparkling waters of the stream were flowing with a musical gurgle. c) Despite the fact that the captain scored a century he received a stream of rules he had to follow as he had lost the match. d) Tears were streaming down her face while she bid farewell to her best friend. (b) Answer the following questions in your own words as briefly as possible: 1) What was the first instruction of the pilot of the mosquito plane? 2) What was the narrator's reply? 3) Why did the narrator begin to pay towards the end? [1] [2] [2] (c) In not more than 100 words, describe how the pilot of the mosquito aircraft guided the narrator to land. [6] *************************************************************************************** 4 of 4
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