BA (Honours) Part I Examination 2013 English Course: 103 (Writing) Full Marks: 100 Time: 4 hours

[N. B. Marks for each question are shown in the margin. Answer all questions.] 1. Read the following conversation carefully. Mr Saleh: What was the weather like while you were camping? Orko: Not too bad. It rained for a few days towards the end of our holiday, but mostly it was fine. We werent able to visit the front hall ( Raj Durbar) of the Royal Palace of his Highness King Aung Shue Prue Chowdhury on the next to the last day, but Mr Saleh: What a pity! Orko: Well, apart from that we did everything we wanted towalking, climbing and just sitting in the sun. We even managed a visit to Tazing Dong. Mr Saleh: How on earth did you get that far? Orko: We cycled. We also went to the river Sangu several times. Mr Saleh: Did you take your bikes with you? Orko: No, we borrowed some from a place in the village. Mr Saleh: Whereabouts in fact were you? Orko: Oh, in a lovely hillsurrounded by woods and about twenty miles from Bandarban Sadar. Just north of Nilgiri. Mr Saleh: I remember one time when I went camping. We forgot to take a tin-opener! Orko: Thats nothing. A goat came into our tent in the middle of the nightit ate all the food we had with us! Mr Saleh: Well, you seem to have had a good time. Now write an account of Orkos holiday, using the conversation above as a guide. Imagine other things which happened to him during the camping holiday. Give a title to it. (J. B. Heaton 1976:130; Information for contextualization has been taken from http://wikitravel.org/en/Bandarban) 15 2. Use the following notes to write an account of an accident for a newspaper. You should write about 250 words. 10 Cyclist about to turn right. Not put hand out. Lorry behind slows down. Sports car behind lorry overtakes. Swerves to avoid boy. Knocks over old man on pavement. (J. B. Heaton 1976:132-33) 3. Develop the following topic sentence into a paragraph taking a foreigner as your audience. 10

Wedding waiters are different from regular restaurant waiters. (English Skills Handbook: Reading and Writing by Harvey S Weiner & Charles Bazerman: 271) 4. Amplify the idea contained in the following: Money is a good servant, but a bad master. 5. Write a letter to a friend describing how you spent winter vacation. 10 10

6. Write an application to the Chairperson of your department requesting her/him to postpone your Honours first year final examination. 10 7. Write a precis of the following passage giving a suitable title to it and write a paraphrase of the same one. 15 It pays to think carefully before letting a feeling lead to action. My experience with a beggar one Saturday night on a New York City subway taught me that. My friend Glenn and I, returning from a party, changed trains at Times Square. As we stood shivering, a young woman in a thin blue coat stepped towards us. Can you spare some change? she asked, her green eyes sad and tired. Looking at the torn elbows of her coat and at the patches on her pants, we gave her a dollar. As the train rolled into the station, we climbed on, the young woman thanking us and nodding. Later, when we got off at 116 th Street and Lenox Avenue, we stopped to stare at the same person. There on the brown steps she sat counting money. Change and dollar bills laid out on her lap, she must have had over fifty dollars. Glenn and I looked at each other in shock. After a few seconds, I pulled Glenns sleeve and we rushed away. I promised myself Id never be a sucker again. (English Skills Handbook: Reading and Writing by Harvey S Weiner & Charles Bazerman: 258) 8. Write the correct punctuation mark down for each of the blanks. 5

__ What do you want, __ I asked Henry__ __ May I use your telephone?__ he asked. __ Certainly __ __ I said. __ When you __ ve finished __ please let me know__ __ __ I shall only be a moment __ __ Henry answered. __ Has John Lee invited you to his party __ __ I asked. __ No, he hasn __ t yet __ __ Henry replied. __ He __ s invited Paul __ David __ David __ Tony and Mary __ __ I continued. __ He __ s probably forgotten about me __ __ Henry laughed. __ How strange __ __ I answered. __ Im sure he wants you to go to his party. __ (J. B. Heaton 1976:142) 9. Write down the words which are incorrectly spelt. 1. A. decieve B. belief 2. A. happening B. offering C. seize C. occuring D. ceiling E. thief D. beginning E. benefiting 5

3. A. illegal 4. A. interrupt 5. A. achieve

B. generally B. support B. recieve

C. summary D. beggar C. answering D. ocasional C. perceive D. deceit

E. neccessary E. command E. All correct 5

10. Compare and contrast the women in the two pictures given below.

(http://books.google.com.bd/books? id=MX_uxznfFGIC&pg=PA172&lpg=PA172&dq=old+woman+with+a+large+headdress&source=bl&ots=eyHB14Kest&sig=sxj9VlFCVL0QPb9ju8XvICG9M8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mQ1oUcitDsbqrAeekICIAw&redir_es c=y#v=onepage&q=old%20woman%20with%20a%20large%20head-dress&f=false) 11. Write a narrative from the series of pictures given below. 5

(www.tumblr.com)

Arguments for choosing the test items: Something should be said at the very beginning of these arguments and that isit is always good to set objective type questions, but keeping in mind the contextual realities one ought to adjust the syllabus according to the students needs and hence, set subjective test items in the question paper if necessary. Then, though, it is said that a writing test should test nothing but writing and issues like problem of scorer reliability is effected, even then it can be counterargued that there can be no such test which includes only one aspect of language skills at a time. It is always easy to criticize something but difficult to do something flawless. 1. & 2. Heaton (1976) tells us that In addition to providing the necessary stimulus and information required for writing, a situational composition determines the register and style to be used in the writing task by presenting the student with a specific situation and context in which to write. Since it is easier to compare different performances when the writing task is determined more exactly, it is possible to obtain a greater degree of reliability in the scoring of situational compositions. Furthermore, tests of situational composition have an excellent backwash effect on the teaching and learning preparatory to the examination. Test items no. 1 and 2 have been set keeping in mind these words of Heaton. One thing which should be noticed here is that students are not allowed freedom in this question paper. Only one topic is given in every questions and all the students have to answer the same questions. Another very important thing is that this question paper never asks the students to write an essay, which according to Heaton (1976) actually cannot be written in a short period of time. One thing should be mentioned here that all the subjective questions set in this question paper should be scored holistically to increase scorer reliability and decrease the intensity of subjectivity of the test items. 3. This question tests the students knowledge of units and techniques of writing a paragraph. As this test item specifies a certain type of audience, so the answers given by all the students will be much more comparable than those would have been, had the audience not been specified. As a result of this, the subjectivity of the test item gets a bit lessened and the scorer reliability gets increased on the other hand. 4., 5., 6. & 7. These test items have been set following the syllabus. One negative side of these questions is that these are subjective type question. So, the answers to these questions should be scored holistically. 8. As Heaton (1976) tells us this test item is not truly objective, and the scoring of such an exercise would take considerable time since punctuation is to a large degree subjective and one particular use of a punctuation mark may well determine the correctness of the punctuation mark following it. According to him, it is advisable, however, to maintain some degree of control over the task which the student is expected to perform. One method of doing this, he suggests, is by substituting lines or circles for those punctuation marks which are being tested, thus also facilitating scoring; and this method has been used in this test item. Though, in other test items punctuation is indirectly tested, it is not illogical to test it separately, as things which seem easy are often not so. It is always disturbing for a teacher to find out his/her students making silly mistakes in using punctuation marks.

9. One may say that traps like these should not be set for students. But, it is also a fact that, an Honours first year student should be able to identify the correct spellings of these very basic words. Moreover, this test item is hundred percent objective and there is no scope for any bias on the teachers part, hence, adding to scorer reliability and reliability of the question paper as a whole. 10 & 11. One may argue that questions like these should not be set for Honours first year students as these are very easy. But, it is also a fact that, in Bangladesh, students do not normally have any experience of facing questions like these. So, these questionsthough set in the school level in foreign countriescan be very interesting for advanced level Bangladeshi students. Moreover, these questions are less subjective. While these questions carry less marks and scope for the students, the latters performance can be tested well by setting these types of questions and the scoring in these test items are more reliable.