MBOSE Class 12 Question Paper 2020 for English

Total No. of Printed Pages—15
HS/XII/A. Sc. Com. V/E/20

2020

ENGLISH

Full Marks : 100

Time : 3 hours

The figures in the margin indicate full marks for the questions

General Instructions :

(i) Write all the answers in the Answer Script.

(ii) Attempt Part—A (Objective Questions) serially.

(iii) Attempt all parts of a question together at one place.

( PART : A—OBJECTIVE )
( Marks : 50 )

SECTION—I

( Marks : 20 )

1. Complete the following sentences using the right
word from the alternatives given in the brackets
(any five ) : 1×5=5

(a) In smaller localities, the Indians were afraid to show
sympathy for _____ of home rule.
( advocates / champions )

/1 [ P.T.O.

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(b) Gandhi _____ the lawyers for collecting big fees from
the sharecroppers.

( scolded / chided )

(c) She was not at all pretty, but seemed _____ and
quite shy.

( humble / modest )

(d) The stranger made no attempt to _____.

( dissimulate / pretend )

(e) There is no school in my _____.

( neighbourhood / locality )

(f) Children grow up in them becoming _____ in
survival.
( partners / accomplices )

(g) He and I stood together in the _____.

( ocean / surf )

(h) The _____ stayed with me as the years rolled by.

( handicap / fear )

HS/XII/A. Sc. Com. V/E/20/1 [ Contd.

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2. Write whether the following statements are True or
False (any five ) 1×5=5

(a) Raj Kumar Sukla was literate and resolute.

(b) Champaran began as an act of defiance.

(c) To go up to the Manor house was like throwing
himself voluntarily into the lion’s den.

(d) The ironmaster failed to persuade the peddler to
come to his house.

(e) The author’s acquaintance with the barefoot
ragpickers led her to Ferozabad.

(f) Saheb was paid 800 rupees and all his meals for
working in the tea stall.

(g) William Douglas never went back to the pool after
his first misadventure.

(h) According to Rousseau, “All we have to fear is fear
itself.”

HS/XII/A. Sc. Com. V/E/20/1 [ P.T.O.

( 4 )

3. Complete the following sentences using the right
word from the alternatives given in the brackets
(any five ) : 1×5=5

(a) For once on the _____ of the Earth.

( surface / face )

(b) I want no _____ with death.
( deal / truck )

(c) A _____ quiet for us.
( bower / tower )

(d) Some shape of beauty moves away the _____.

( gloom / pall )

(e) A _____ of grey shades.
( collection / procession )

(f) From growing _____ and a moderate love.

( mercy / compassion )

(g) Is it with these _____ to our vision?

( menaces / threats )

(h) Familiar coconuts out of the _____.
( furnace / fire )

HS/XII/A. Sc. Com. V/E/20/1 [ Contd.

( 5 )

4. Write whether the following statements are True or
False (any five ) : 1×5=5

(a) The man gathering salt would not look at his hurt
hands.

(b) According to Pablo Neruda, life is what it is about.

(c) The loveliness of a thing of beauty passes into
nothingness in course of time.

(d) A ‘thing of beauty’ lightens the enlightened paths of
life.

(e) Jon Silkin finds an answer to his question.

(f) All the animals deserve a better treatment.

(g) Cousins arrived in Tiruchanur in overcrowded public
buses.

(h) Sundari was surrounded by her two daughters like
safe planets near her.

HS/XII/A. Sc. Com. V/E/20/1 [ P.T.O.

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SECTION—II

( Marks : 30 )

5. Answer any five of the following questions in not
more than 2 sentences each : 1×5=5

(a) Who was Raj Kumar Sukla?

(b) How was the deadlock finally broken between the
landlords and the sharecroppers?

(c) Why did the peddler decline the invitation of the
ironmaster?

(d) What was the peddler’s parting gesture?

(e) What is the main hazard of working in the glass
bangle industry?

(f) Why is garbage ‘gold’ to the young ragpickers?

(g) Why did William hate to walk up to the pool?

(h) What were the aftereffects of the drowning
experience on William Douglas?

HS/XII/A. Sc. Com. V/E/20/1 [ Contd.

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6. Answer any five of the following questions in not
more that 2 sentences each : 1×5=5

(a) What does Pablo Neruda suggest in the first two
lines of the poem, Keeping Quiet ?

(b) What happens when everything comes to a
‘standstill’ according to Neruda?

(c) According to Keats, what are the things that give us
pain?

(d) What helps Keats to lift his spirits?

(e) How, according to Silkin, does man abuse
animals?

(f) Why do animals have bitter eyes?

(g) What eventually happened in R. Parthasarathy’s
poem?

(h) What were the changes in Sundari?

HS/XII/A. Sc. Com. V/E/20/1 [ P.T.O.

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7. (a) Rewrite the following as directed : 1×8=8

(i) He will do it.
( Change the voice )

(ii) People want a government by the people as a
way of selecting representatives.
( Use one-word substitute for the
underlined words )

(iii) Everyone wishes to be happy.
( Change into interrogative sentence )

(iv) You will not get better if you do not see a doctor.
( Begin ‘unless’ )

(v) He said to us, “Are you going away today?”
( Change the speech )

(vi) None but the brave deserve the fair.
( Change into affirmative sentence )

(vii) It is a very charming sight.
( Change into an exclamatory
sentence )

(viii) The weather was fine and we went out for a
walk.
( Change into a simple sentence )

HS/XII/A. Sc. Com. V/E/20/1 [ Contd.

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(b) Change the following into direct/indirect
speech : 1×4=4

(i) “We shall go home”, he said to me.

(ii) The teacher told Arun that he should try hard.

(iii) He said, “I am glad to be here this evening.”

(iv) Ramesh told his sister that she was late that
day.

(c) Rewrite any three of the following sentences in
the correct form : 1×3=3

(i) The furnitures in this room has been polished
recently.

(ii) The coat is too tight.

(iii) I and my brother will visit you this evening.

(iv) Each of them are honest.

8. Answer any five of the following questions in not
more that 2 sentences each : 1×5=5

(a) Why did the angel disobey God?

(b) What were the three questions which Michael had
to find the answers of?

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(c) How did Simon react to the stranger when he first
saw him?

(d) Why did Michael make soft slippers instead of the
boots as ordered?

(e) What makes Meghalaya unique according to the
author?

(f) Who is a paleontologist?

(g) Why is Siju Dobakkol basically the most famous and
well-known cave in India?

(h) What was Meghalaya like millions of years ago?

HS/XII/A. Sc. Com. V/E/20/1 [ Contd.

( 11 )

( PART : B—DESCRIPTIVE )

( Marks : 50 )

9. Answer any two of the following questions : 5×2=10

(a) What made Gandhi comment, “Champaran was the
first victory for civil disobedience in India”? 5

(b) What happened when the ironmaster realised that
he had incorrectly identified the peddler as someone
he once knew? What did the peddler say in his own
defence? 3+2=5

(c) What was the misadventure in YMCA swimming
pool? How did the misadventure affect Douglas? 3+2=5

(d) Mention the hazards of working in the glass bangle
factory. 5

10. Answer any two of the following questions : 5×2=10

(a) How does Pablo Neruda tell us about the threats
mankind faces today and the ways to solve
those? 5

(b) What makes human beings love life in spite of
troubles and suffering? What are the images that
Keats uses to describe the things of beauty? 3+2=5

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(c) How does Jon Silkin convey the sufferings inflicted
on animals? What is the message conveyed in the
poem? 3+2=5

(d) Where is the next reunion held? How do the
members spend the afternoon? What is the familiar
lunchtime meal? 1+2+2=5

11. Answer any one of the following questions : 10

(a) Narrate Mary’s account of how she became the
mother of the twins. Why did her story make
Michael smile? 10

(b) How does Michael find an answer to God’s second
saying, “learn what is not given to man”? 10

(c) Give an account of cave history in Meghalaya. What
are the conditions for cave formation? 6+4=10

(d) Describe the Siju Dobakkol cave in your own
words. 10

12. Write an essay on any one of the following topics : 10

(a) On the use of plastics

(b) Tolerance as a human virtue

HS/XII/A. Sc. Com. V/E/20/1 [ Contd.

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(c) Mobile phones—a boon or a bane

(d) Books are our best companions

Or

Write a letter to your friend thanking him/her for the
special birthday present sent by him/her.

Or

As the President of the Literary Club of your school,
draft a notice to your fellow students for their active
participation in an inter-school debate competition to be
held in your school on account of its Silver Jubilee
Celebrations.

13. Read the passage given below carefully and answer
the questions that follow :

The most alarming of man’s assaults upon the
environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers
and sea with lethal materials. This pollution is for the
most part irrevocable. In this contamination of the
environment, chemicals are the sinister partners of
radiation in changing the very nature of the world.
Radiation released through nuclear explosions into the
air, comes to the earth in rain, lodges into the soil,

HS/XII/A. Sc. Com. V/E/20/1 [ P.T.O.

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enters the grass or corn or wheat grown there and
reaches the bones of a human being; there to remain
until his death. Similarly, chemical sprayed on crops lie
long in soil, entering living organisms, passing from one
to another in a chain of poisoning and death.

It took hundreds of millions of years to produce
the life that now inhabits the earth and reached
a stage of adjustment and balance with its surroundings.
The environment contained elements that were hostile
as well as supporting. Even within the light of the sun
there were shortwave radiations with power to injure.
Given time, life had adjusted and a balance reached.
For time is the essential ingredient, but in the modern
world there is no time.

The rapidity of change and the speed with which
new situations are created follow the heedless
pace of man rather than the deliberate pace of
nature. Radiation is no longer the bombardment
of cosmic rays. It is the unnatural creation of
man’s tampering with the atom. The chemicals to which
life is asked to make adjustments are the synthetic
creations of man’s inventive mind, brewed in his
laboratories and having no counterpart in nature.

(a) What is the most alarming of man’s assaults upon
the environment? 2

HS/XII/A. Sc. Com. V/E/20/1 [ Contd.

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(b) What is the prime reason behind the contamination
of the environment? 2

(c) How does radiation affect existence? 2

(d) How has life reached a stage of adjustment? 2

(e) What is radiation in the modern context? 2

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HS/XII/A. Sc. Com. V/E/20/1 20K