Section A: Reading ( 14 marks)

1. Read the following passage carefully.

1. The recent announcement of the world’s best loved comic book teen, Archie Andrews, being killed,
has sent shock waves throughout the teen world who have been fans of Archie comics and loving the
series. A decade ago, the thought of Archie dying would have been an unthinkable ending for these
books but in the decade after recession, change has set in. The era has produced gritty, realistic, even
grim adult fiction and researchers in England who carried out a recent study claim that there are
around 600 words relating to anger, fear, disgust and sadness, in use. These words have appeared in
more than 500 million English novels and factual books in the last five years. Similar results have
also been coming from Germany and the United States of America.
2. This trend is borne out by the novel titled Wonder, which was number One on the New York Time’s
best selling list in 2013. It’s a heart-wrenching story of a ten-year-old physically disabled boy who
wishes to be treated normally at school. In another work, the John Green best-seller, The Fault with
Our Stars, the protagonist, a teenager stricken with cancer, joins a support group, befriends a boy of
the same age, an amputee, who is also a bone cancer survivor. Even science fiction has not been off
this trend as the work Hunger Games and Divergent, with plots that are sad, morbid and depict the
deepest underlying emotions of pain, anxiety, fear, anger felt by these young adults, proves once
again that teenagers are becoming avid readers of this variety of fiction.
3. Why then are teenagers being drawn to this genre? According to social commentator Santosh Desai,
because of the Internet reality, kids are consuming emotions much early. Kids imagine themselves
more as adults early in life and want parents to treat them as equals. According to some
psychologists, such realistic fiction is going down well with young teenagers of today because they
imagine themselves more as adults and want their parents to treat them as equals. They want their
elders to grant them ‘personhood’, with individual characteristics and feelings.
4. But publishing director Amita Choudhury has another explanation. She believes that in this hyper
consumerist world of ours, social positioning is becoming more important than actually connecting
with people. Realistic stories dealing with the identity crisis are helping teens connect with the
humanity that lies within themselves.

5. Psychotherpist Seema Hingorrany explains that dealing with the unknown gives young adults a
hormone rush. In their own lives they are grappling with two words
Teen and adulthood. Reading realistic stories makes them feel like adults, without having
experienced adulthood. Chris Crutcher, an award winning writer of young adult fiction, says that he
wants his young readers to be exposed to gritty life situations. According to him, the value of young
 adult fiction is in the ability to bring dark subjects in the open where they are not so dark anymore
because they get talked about and considered by teens and adults alike.

6. Another author, Ravi, contends that the appetite for grim fiction is because the current generation is
severely competitive, yet lonely. As if functioning in a robotic world. The type of literature that deals
with raw emotions and tells stories about an individual’s solitary battle against the world helps
youngsters deal with loneliness and gear themselves up to deal with the big, bad world.

7. It is for the above reasons that books dealing with fear, pain and loneliness, is fast becoming a genre
that is steadily climbing the bestseller market worldwide. While the highest figures in such fiction
categories was in the 1940’s, followed by the recession-hit 1980’s, the post –Depression of the 1920s
came third and thus the writers and publishers predict that the future will see more dark and realistic
stories in the years ahead.

1.1 Answer the following questions briefly.

(a) What is the trend in English teenage novels of the last five years.
(b) What is the story outline of the fiction work Wonder?
(c) What effect does a consumerist society have on teenagers, according to AMita
Choudhary?
(d) Who is Chris Crutcher?
(e) What was the characteristic of teenage fiction after the 1940s?
(f) What do teenagers expect from their parents now way days?

1.2 Find words from the passage that mean same as:
(a) Maintain (para 6)
(b) Lonely (para 6)

2. Read the passage given below.

1. China’s ruling Communist Party said on Monday that it would allow all married couples to have three
children, ending a two-child policy that has failed to boost the country’s declining birthrates or
address an impending demographic crisis. The move reflected concerns that the rapidly number of
elderly in China could exacerbate a shortage of workers and strain the economy in the near future.
2. The party made the announcement after a meeting by the Politburo, a top decision-making body. It
said the decision would “improve our country’s population structure and help implement a national
strategy to actively responds to the aging population”. China’s family planning restrictions date to
1980, when the party first imposed a “one-child” policy to slow population growth and booster the
 economic boom that was then just beginning. In 2013, as Chinese officials began to understand the
implications of the country’s aging population, the government allowed parents who were from one-
child family to have two children themselves. Two years later, the limit was raised to two children
for everyone, effective January 1, 2016.
3. The new policy change will come with “supportive measure, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Among those steps, China will lower educational costs for families, step up tax and housing support,
guarantee the legal interests of working women and clamp down on ‘ sky-high” dowries, it said,
without giving specifics. IT would also look to educate young people “on marriage and love”.
Population Pyramids: India VS China

4. The total fertility rate- an estimate of the number of kids born over a woman’s lifetime – now stands at
1.3, well below the replacement rate of 2.1. China’s rapidly graying population has started to impose
increasing pressures. IN its announcement, the party said it would increase funding to expand
services for retires. In 2020, the number of people age 60 and above in China stood at 264 million,
accounting for 18.7% of the population. The figure is set to grow to over 300 million people, or about
one-fifth of the population, by 2025 according to the government.
5. The party’s announcement is likely to receive long standing complaints about the government’s
invasive control over woman’s bodies in China. On Weibo, users were quick to post remarks
criticizing the move as ineffective. Don’t they know that most young people are already tired enough
just trying to feed themselves?” wrote one user, pointing to a common lament about the rising costs
of living.

Based on your understanding of the passage, answer the following questions.

 (a) What were the consequences of China’s two-children policy?
(b) Give another noun form of the word ‘retirement’ given in para 4 of the passage.
(c) Why are the experts not hopeful of the success of new child policy?
(d) Which political party rules over China?
(e) Mention at least one alarming drawback of China’s earlier policy.
(f) Based on the chart given in the passage, choose the option that correctly states the comparative
increase of population of India (I) and China(C) from 1981 to 2021.

I C I C I c C I

Option 1 Option 2 Option 3 Option 4

Section B: Writing ( 8 marks)

3. You are Amitabh/Amita of Malaviya Nager, Agra. You have been invited to attend the wedding of your
friend’s sister. Send a reply confirming your acceptance to the invitation in not more than 50 words.

4. You are Ranjana/Rakesh, living at 87, Tandon Road, Sipri Bazar, Jansi. Read the following
advertisement and apply for the job that suits your qualification. Give your resume too( Word limit: 120
– 150)

Bhudelkhand Degree College

Jhansi
Requires lectures in English, Physics, botany and chemistry for their new campus at Datia.
The candidate with a minimum of 3 years experience need to apply. Excellent command of English
is mandatory. Salary no bar for the right candidate. Those interested may e-mail to
bundelkhandcollege@gmail.com or respond to Box No. 376, Dainik Jagran, Jhansi, within seven
days.
 Or

You are Lalith /Latha of Gargaon. You attended the inaugural ceremony of the newly opened vocational
stream and hobby classes at the secondary school level in Paras Public School, Guragon. Draft a report in
120-150 words to be published in ‘Gurgaon Times’. Invent other details.

Section C: Literature (18 marks)

5. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow.
When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will be
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

(a) Who is Aunt? Describe her.

(b) What do the tigers symbolize?
(c) What is the point of contradiction between her and the tigers?
(d) Name the poem and the poet.

6. Answer any one of the following questions in 20-40 words.

(a) Why were the lawyers chided by Gandhiji?
(b) What is the significance of uncle’s “wedding band”? Why does Aunt Jennifer find it heavy?
7. Answer the following question in 120-150 words.
“Civil disobedience had triumphed the first time in modern India”. How? Explain with
reference to the chapter ‘Indigo’.

8. Answer any one of the following questions in 20-40 words.

(a) Why was Derry drawn towards Mr. Lamb?
(b) Show how the title ‘Evans Tries an O-Level’ appropriate for the story.

9. Answer the following in 120-150 words.

What impression do you form of Jack as a father?