SET - 1 1/1 Series : SGN/C Code No.

Candidates must write the Code on

the title page of the answer-book.

Roll No.

• Please check that this question paper contains 11 printed pages.

Code number given on the right hand side of the question paper should be written on the title page of the answer-book by the candidate.

• Please check that this question paper contains 13 questions.
• Please write down the Serial Number of the question before attempting it.

• 15 minute time has been allotted to read this question paper. The question paper will be distributed at 10.15 a.m. From 10.15 a.m. to 10.30 a.m., the students will read the question paper only and will not write any answer on the answer-book during this period.

ENGLISH (Core)

Time allowed: 3 hours

Maximum Marks: 100

General Instructions:

1. This paper is divided into three sections : A, B and C. All the sections are compulsory.
2. Separate instructions are given with each section and question, wherever necessary. Read these instructions very carefully and follow them faithfully.
3. Do not exceed the prescribed word limit while answering the questions.

SECTION – A

30 12

1. Read the passage given below:

1. If one early June morning you are suddenly stopped in your walk by a ringing "piu-piu-pee-pee-piu-piu" call coming from the trees in your park or garden, you will feel your heart suddenly lifted. Look around and you may see two large, handsome, black-and-white birds with long coattails chase each other through the trees. They are pied cuckoos, that have come from Africa, and are said to announce the arrival of the greatest show on earth – the Indian monsoon. Be assured, the curtain will rise in a month or so.

C/1 1/1 1

1. To get a proper view of the onset of the monsoon, you really need to be stationed anywhere on the coastline of India or up in the hills. The grand show of grey clouds approaches like an airborne army, preceded by cool breezes, filling the air with electric charge so that you feel very happy. Spear of lighting

flickers in the sky and the sound of thunder makes you feel excited.

And then, it pours. The cracked earth without any green cover sucks down the flood of water-and then Mother Nature goes mad. Seeds scattered or buried like grains of sand or pebbles in the ground suddenly come to life. Shoots of plants rocket skywards, roots plunge into the soft, spongy earth sucking up water and nutrients. It's a hint the grasshoppers have been waiting for. And bugs, beetles, caterpillars, centipedes, etc. emerge in their billions, feasting on the fresh green plants in the fields (to the annoyance of many a farmer) as also on each other.

1. There are miracles and there is music too: singing golden frogs appearing in large numbers in a rain-filled ditch, taking part in a group song that Bollywood would have envied. They vanish the very next day. They'd been waiting patiently all through the blistering summer, deep underground, conserving whatever moisture they had soaked up. Fireflies wink through the trees in the hills, sending their greenish signals to one another in codes as precise as any we may use for our most secret messages.

1. All this is what the birds have been waiting for. Most birds have spent the spring and summer courting and now it's time to settle down. Baby birds need a lot of high protein at frequent intervals, which the rich supply of insect life so happily provides: Caterpillars are eaten up in their millions, as are furry moths, earthworms slurped down like noodles, spiky dragonflies beaten to bits to soften them up into baby food. The long-legged storks and herons – get busy with fishing.

As for the big guys like lions and tigers in the jungles: they too had it relatively easy during the summer when their thirsty prey came to the waterholes. Now, with water easily available, in streams and ponds all over, they need to work harder for their meals. But yes, this is, perhaps, compensated by the arrival of baby deer – and fawns are sweet and soft, not very experienced in the merciless ways of the lions and tigers, even if they may seem more like a snack than a main meal. The animals get a rest from us, too, as parks and sanctuaries close down, not so much out of kindness as because the roads become impassable. C/1 1/1 2