Milestone Academy

nd
2 Weekly English test 2019-20
Class XI

Section A- Reading Skills

1. Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow: (m 8)
1. It is common knowledge that school children are under great pressure to perform well in all fields,
study ten subjects, play games and develop an impressive image. How do they manage? The skills,
techniques and principles which they pickup while still young help them cope.
2. Two of twentieth century’s finest minds have lamented that schools are not teaching the basics of
personal excellence or the science of success. Edward De Bono: "Almost all of what a child learns at
school after the age often is totally irrelevant to his need in later life. Most schools do not teach thinking
at all.” The serious thesis of this article is that management must be taught as a school subject. The
weightiest argument is that children arc managers.
3. Many of children are called upon to play directly three of the interpersonal roles: “Figurehead”,
“Leader" and “Liaison Officer". They do this while assisting teachers as monitors or class
representatives or group leaders during educational tours and field work; while captaining teams on
playgrounds; and while leading teams in quiz, debating and other competitions. Many more play these
roles as surrogates.
4. The decision role of “Entrepreneur and “Resource Allocator” may only occasionally be assigned to
children. However, it is worth noting that, according to a recent survey in Delhi, a monthly allocation of
up to Rs. 1000 is available as pocket money to school children. Therefore, school children too need to
have control over money and to develop a sense of budget. If we add to these financial resources, the
resources of time, information and intellect available to children, the first two decision roles are not
irrelevant to them.
5. Children play the other two decision roles: “Disturbance Handler” and “Negotiator more often. True,
the international roles of “monitor, “disseminator and “spokesman” are not so frequently and formally
engaged in by children as by CEOs, MDs, Vice Presidents and other adult managers.
6. If you cannot see children as managers, they arc managers in the making: Many of the management
habits (e.g., using a to-do list), management skills (e.g. Sensitive listening), management attitudes and
values are formed early in life. Personality theorists believe that it is extremely difficult to change
personality traits, styles of thinking and habits of behavior once they are formed.
7. As in language learning, where basic aspects of language like pronunciation and rhythm are extremely
resistant to learning after puberty, good management habits, attitudes and values are difficult to acquire
in adulthood. In the fifties, even in the educationally advanced countries such as the U.S. Algebra was
thought to be too abstract to be taught even in senior schools. Now it is taught from upper primary
classes onwards in both educationally progressive and developing countries. Computer skills, lateral
thinking and swimming, often felt to be forbidden by adults are easily learnt by children. In fact, both
research evidence and specialists beliefs strongly support the view that children's ability to learn skills
like swimming and creative thinking is much more developed than adults. Equally important, complex
organisms (a) learn what is necessary or pleasurable and (b) adapt themselves in ways that will serve
their needs and interests with amazing enthusiasm, ease and effectiveness.
a. On the basis of your reading of the above passage, answer the following questions by choosing the correct
option given below:
i. The reason of pressure on children is:
a. Common knowledge
b. Absence of skills
c. Choice between studies and games
d. Performance demand in all fields
ii. What according to few educationists, is lacking in school teaching?
a. Basics of personal excellence
b. Science of success
c. Thinking
d. All of the above
Answer the following questions briefly:
i. How the interpersonal roles are performed by students? (Any One)
ii. What are the attributes of good management?
iii. Why is it difficult to acquire good management habits in adulthood?
iv. Which roles according to the author are occasionally performed by the students?
v. Which word in the above passage means the same as-Regretted (Para 2)
vi. Which word in the above passage means the same as-officially (Para 5)

2. Read the passage given below the answer the question that follow: (m 8)
In Indian homes, the floor of the house is always the best maintained element, cleaned twice a day and wiped
down to a sparkling state. In front of the threshold of the home the floor often is decorated with Rangoli and
other ritual diagrams. This is true in rural as well as in many urban homes in metropolitan cities. When building
a new home people spend as much money per sq. foot for a beautiful floor as they would spend on the entire
structure. Yet, this pride and obsession for a clean floor suddenly vanish as we step out into the street: the floor
of the city.
In Delhi where 80% of the people are pedestrians in some stage of their commuting, least attention is paid to
pedestrian paths. Delhi’s sidewalks are too narrow, very poorly maintained and full of potholes, poles, junction
boxes and dangerous electrical installations, not to speak of the garbage dumps that stink and stare at the
pedestrian. Ashram Chowk is a good case in point where thousands of pedestrians change direction from the
Mathura Road radial to the Ring Road. A flyover facilitates the automobiles while the pedestrian is orphaned by
the investment hungry authorities. One corner of the Ashram Chowk has a ridiculous imitation wood sculpture
with an apology of a fountain and across the same Chowk, you have the open mouthed, massive garbage dump
right on the pedestrian path, in full exhibition for the benefit of the public. These symbols of poor taste and
abject apathy are then connected by narrow dangerous and often waterlogged footpaths for the hapless
pedestrians to negotiate. In the night, street lighting in the central median light up the carriageway for cars and
leave the pedestrian areas in darkness.
Delhi’s citizens leave home and want to get to their destination as fast they can. No one wants to linger on the
road, no leisure walks, no one looks a stranger in the eye. It is on the pedestrian path that the citizen encounters
head-on the poor pubic management and the excuse called ‘multiplicity of authorities”. One agency makes the
road, another dig sit up to lay cables, third one comes after months to clear up the mess and the cycle of
unaccountability goes on. Meanwhile crones are spent in repairing the carriageway for vehicles and in
construction of flyovers without a care for the pedestrians below.
Solution offered is to make an expensive underpass or an ugly foot over bridge, ostensibly for facilitating the
pedestrian, while in reality they only facilitate the cars to move faster at the expense of the pedestrians. Take
Kashmiri Gate, ITO, Ashram Chowk, AlIMS or Dhaula Kuan. At all these important pedestrian crossover
points the story is the same: They have pulled the sidewalk from under the pedestrians’ feet.
In modern cities across the world, the pedestrian is king. The floor of the city is designed and maintained as an
inclusive environment, helping the physically challenged, the old and the infirm, children and the ordinary
citizen to move joyfully across the city. Delhi aspires to be ‘world class city’. Hopefully the authorities would
look once again at the floor of Delhi.
The pleasure of strolling on the road is deeply connected to our sense of citizenship and sense of belonging.
Pride in the city grows only on a well designed floor of the city.
A. On the basis of your reading of the above passage, make notes on it using headings and subheadings.
Also use recognizable abbreviations, wherever necessary (Minimum 4) Supply a suitable title.
B. B. Write a summary of the above passage.
Section-B: Writing and Grammar
3. You are Raman/Ramnya the head boy girl of R.P.V.V. Lajpat Nagar. Your school has decided to celebrate
the coming Wednesday as Green Day. It will be a no garbage generation day and junk food will not be
allowed in the tiffin box. To promote the awareness a painting competition will be organized in the school
auditorium. Write a notice informing the students about it. (m 4)
4. Terrorism is no more a local issue. It has spread globally and is a universal concern now. Write a letter to
the Editor of a leading national newspaper voicing your concern and the need to combat terrorism globally
and suggesting remedial measures also. (m 6)
5. As compared to the older generation the youth of today are greatly inclined to pursue adventurous activities
either for money or fun. There is latest craze for joining reality shows, rafting, rock climbing, mountaineering
etc. write an article in 150-200 words on ‘Which life would you prefer- safe or adventurous’. (m 8)
6. Rearrange the words and Make the meaningful sentences- (m 2)
1. hunting tools / enable them to locale / seals whiskers / important / as far as/ 180m away / are /they / their prey
2. to be useful / whiskers / only / were / in detecting objects / one centimeter / of within a range / thought / or
less.
 Section: C Literature
7. Read the extract and answer the questions that follow: (1×3=3)

Showing her barred face identity mask.

Then with eerie delicate whistle-chirrup whisperings
She launches away, towards the infinite.
And the laburnum subsides to empty.
Q.1 Who is referred as ‘she’?
Q.2 What was the condition of tree, before bird’s arrival?
Q.3 which poetic device is used by poet in these lines?\
Or
And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin,
And make pure and beautify it;
(For the song, issuing from its birthplace, after fulfilment, wandering
Reck’d or unreck’d, duly with love returns).
(i) How is the cyclic movement of rain brought out in the poem?
(ii) What is the significance of the word ‘song’ here?
(iii) How does the rain benefit the earth?

8. Answer the following questions in about 30-40 words- (3x3=9)

1. How did Zahi Hawass feel before and after Tut's mummy was taken out for C.T. scan?
2. Narrator should have been very happy with the articles of her mother but she decides to forget and address:
No. 46, Marconi Street. Why did she take this decision? Explain.
3. How did the narrator suffer due to the wave hit?
4.

9. Astrologer’s perceptions are based more on hearsay and conjecture than what they learn from the
study of the stars. Comment with reference to the story, “ Ranga’s Marriage”. (m 6)

10. “With land under my feet, my thoughts were full of Larry and Herbie, cheerful and optimistic under
the direct stress, and of Marry, who stayed at the wheel for all those crucial hours. Most of all, I thought
of a seven year old girl and of a six year old boy”, describe the courage and maturity of all crew members
while difficult time at voyage. (m 6)