Periodic Test – I (2023-24)

Subject: English language & Literature (184)

Duration: 1hr.30min. Class: X M.M: 40

(Set- B)

General Instructions:

Attempt questions based on specific instructions for each part. Write the
correct question number in your answer sheet to indicate the options being
attempted.

Do not exceed the prescribed word limit while answering the questions

Q1.Read the extract and answer the following questions: (5x1=5)

On the day of the inauguration, I was overwhelmed with a sense of history. In the first decade of
the 20th century, a few years after the bitter Anglo-Boer war and before my own birth, the white-
skinned people of South Africa patched up their differences and created a system of racial
domination against the dark-skinned people of their own land. The structure they created formed
the basis of one of the harshest, most inhumane societies the world has ever known. Now, in the
last decade of the 20th century and my own eighth decade as a man, that system had been
overturned forever and replaced by one that recognised the rights and freedoms of all people,
regardless of the colour of their skin.

i) The system of racial domination against the dark- skinned people was called as………….

a) the policy of Apartheid b)Racial discrimation c)Inhumane system

d )Harshest system

ii) Why did the speaker call that structure ‘one of the harshest and the most inhumane’?

iii) Fill in the blank with one word only.

Mandela is filled with……………

iv) The inauguration was a celebration of South Africa’s first………….government.

a) autocratic, racial b) democratic, non – racial

c) democratic, racial d) monarch, non- racial

v) What did the new system recognize?

a) the rights and freedom of all people, regardless of the colour of their skin

b) the different rights of their different gender

c) the different rights for black- skinned and white- skinned people

d) all of the above

Q2. Read the extract and answer the following questions: (5x1=5)
The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree.

i)  What is a dust of snow?

ii) Where was the crow sitting?

iii) What kind of hemlock tree was?

iv) Who shook the dust of snow?

v) Name the poet.

Q3. Answer the following questions in 30-40 words each. Do any five. (5x3=15)
i) Why does Mrs. Pumphrey think the dog’s recovery is ‘’A triumph of Surgery’’?

ii) Did Hari Singh understand the value of education? How can you prove it?

iii) What do people think about the end of the world?

iv) What twin obligations does Mandela mention?

v) Why does the postmaster send money to Lencho? Why does he sign the letter God?

vi) What happened when the dust of snow fell on Robert Frost?

Q4. Answer the following questions in detail: (1x6=6)

Love, human sympathy and education can transform even a thief. How could Anil bring such a
change in Hari Singh?

OR

What circumstances made Lencho write a letter to God? What does this act shows about him?

Q5. The chart below depicts the number of students of class X speaking
English and Hindi in three different types of schools in New Delhi . Based on
the details given in the bar-graph below, write an analytical paragraph in 80-
100 words. (1x4=4)

Q6. Fill in blanks with suitable form of verbs: (5x1=5)

i) We are all sure that Lalita ………… (pass) the exam.

ii) You ……….(sleep) when I came to your house.

iii) Somebody…………… (steal) my sunglasses at the swimming pool last week.

iv) Look! It ………… (rain) so we can’t go to the beach.

Shalini Shaili