2004, ENGLISH (PRECIS & COMPOSITION)

Time Allowed: Three Hours Maximum Marks: 100 

1. Make a precis of the given passage and suggest a suitable heading:

 

We’re dealing with a very dramatic and very fundamental paradigm shift here. You may try” to lubricate your’ social interactions with personality techniques and skills, but in the process, you may truncate the vital character base. You can’t have the fruits without the roots. It’s the principle of sequencing: Private victory precedes Public Victory. Self-mastery and self-discipline are the foundation of good relationship with others. Some people say that you have to like yourself before you can like others. I think’ that idea has merit but if you don’t know yourself, if you don’t control yourself, if you don’t have mastery over yourself, it’s very hard to like yourself, except in some short-term, psych-up, superficial way. Real self-respect comes from dominion over*self from true independence. Independence is an achievement. Inter dependence is a choice only independent people can make. Unless we are willing to achieve real independence, it’s foolish to try to develop human relations skills. We might try. We might even have some degree of success when the sun is shining. But when the difficult times come – and they will – We won’t have the foundation to keep things together. The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are. And if our words and our actions come from superficial human relations techniques (the Personality Ethic) rather than from our own inner core (the character Ethic), others will sense that duplicity. We simply won’t be able to create and sustain the foundation necessary” for effective interdependence. The techniques and skills that really make a difference in human interaction are the ones that almost naturally flow from a truly independent character. So the place to begin building any relationship is inside ourselves, inside our Circle of Influence, our own character. As we become independent – Proactive, centered in correct principles, value driven and able to organize and execute around the priorities in our life with integrity – we then can choose to become interdependent – capable of building rich, enduring, highly productive relationships with other people.

 

2. Read the following passage and answer the questions given at the end, in YOUR OWN WORDS. (20)

 

We look before and after, wrote Shelley, and pine for what is not. It is said that this is what distinguishes us from the animals and that they, unlike us, live always for and in the movement and have neither hopes nor regrets. Whether it is so or not I do not know yet it is undoubtedly one of our distinguishing mental attributes: we are actually conscious of our life in time and not merely of our life at the moment of experiencing it. And as a result we find many grounds for melancholy and foreboding. Some of us prostrate ourselves on the road way in Trafalgar Square or in front of the American Embassy because we are fearful that our lives, or more disinterestedly those of our descendants will be cut short by nuclear war. If only as” squirrels or butterflies are supposed to do, we could let the future look after itself and be content to enjoy the pleasures of the morning breakfast, the brisk walk to the office through autumnal mist or winter fog, the mid-day sunshine that sometimes floods through windows, tne warm, peaceful winter evenings by the fireside at home. Yet all occasions for contentment are so often spoiled for us, to a greater or lesser degree by our individual temperaments, by this strange human capacity for foreboding and regret – regret for things which we cannot undo and foreboding for things which may never happen at all. Indeed were it not for the fact that over breaking through our human obsessions with the tragedy of time, so enabling us to enjoy at any rate some fleeting moments untroubled by vain yearning or apprehension, our life would not be intolerable at all. As it is, we contrive, everyone of us, to spoil it to a remarkable degree.

 

 

1. What is the      difference between our life and the life of an animal? (3)
2. What is the      result of human anxiety? (3)
3. How does the      writer compare man to the butterflies and squirrels? (3)
4. How does anxiety      about future disturb our daily life? (3)
5. How can we make      our life tolerable? (3)
6. Explain the      underlined words/phrases in the passage. (5 )

3. Write a comprehensive note (250-300 words) on ONE of the following: (20)

1. One may smile      and smile, and be a villain.
2. Gather ye      rosebuds while ye may.
3. No sensible man      ever made an apology.
4. Our thoughts are      ours, their ends none of our own.

4. (a) Choose the word that is nearly similar in meaning to the word in capital letters. * (5)

(1) ARCHIPELAGO:

1. Reef
2. Glacier
3. Cluster of      islands
4. Lagoon

(2) PIAZZA:

1. Cheese dish
2. Veranda
3. Public Square
4. Style or dash

(3) BAKLAVA:

1. Stringed      instrument
2. Dessert
3. Whining dance
4. Gratuity

(4)  IONIC:

1. Indian stone      monument
2. Greek      architecture
3. Roman Sculpture
4. Mediterranean      Sea

(5) CICERONE:

1. Teacher
2. Literary classic
3. Chaperone
4. Guide

(b) Pick the one most nearly opposite in meaning to the capitalized word: * (5)

(1) DESICCATE:

1. Lengthen
2. Hallow
3. Exonerate
4. Saturate
5. Anesthetize

(2) APOTHEOSIS:

1. Departure from      tradition
2. Impatience with      stupidity
3. Demotion from      glory
4. Surrender to      impulse
5. Cause for grief

(3) SPUNK:

1. Success
2. Timidity
3. Growing      awareness
4. Loss of prestige
5. Lack of      intelligence

(4) CAVIL:

1. Discern
2. Disclose
3. Introduce
4. Flatter
5. Commend

(5) RAUCOUS:

1. Orderly
2. Absorbent,
3. Buoyant
4. Mellifluous
5. Contentious

5. (a) Change the Voice of any FIVE of the following sentences: (5)

1. International      Humanitarian Law forbids actions leading to unnecessary death and      suffering.
2. Why should I      antagonize you?
3. Let Manchoo be      told about the jokes of Mulla Nasiruddin.
4. Whv have the      roads not been constructed by the government in this part of the country?
5. Do not kill your      ability by roaming in the streets.
6. Your cousin is      drawing a large sum of money from his account.
7. The arrangements      of holding the Art Exhibition could not be completed on time.
8. Build your house      when cement is cheap;

(b) Correct any FIVE of the following sentences: (5)

1. Passing through      ten different cities, Karachi is the most active.
2. He was laid up      for six weeks with two broken ribs.
3. Someone showed      the visitors in the room.
4. Until you remain      idle you will make no progress.
5. It is very wrong      to be devoted to lying and cheating.
6. He told me that      he is waiting for me since a long time.
7. The .house stood      up in the dull street because of its red door.
8. He brought the      articles to the market which he wanted to sell.

 

6. (a) Use any FIVE of the following in your own sentences to bring out their meaning: (5)

1. To bring grist      to the mill.
2. Set one s cap      at.
3. To draw the long      bow.
4. To send a person      to Coventry .
5. Beer and      skittles.
6. The acid test.
7. A skeleton in      the cupboard.
8. To discover a      mare’s nest.

Use FIVE of the following pairs of words in your own sentences so as to bring out their meanings: * (10)

1. Auger, Augur
2. Fain, Feign
3. Emigrate,      Immigrate
4. Envy, Jealousy
5. Invade, Attack
6. Trifling,      Trivial
7. Simulation,      Dissimulation
8. Venal, Venial