CBSE Class 12 English Section Wise Analysis Of Question Paper Notes

SECTION - A

READING COMPREHENSION

Comprehension means understanding or perception. The following points are to be carefully noted while attempting questions on comprehension.

• Go through the passage carefully and arrive at the general idea of the subject the passage presents.

• Read a second time to get a better understanding of the passage.

• Arrive at the meaning of difficult words by relating them to the preceding and following sentences.

• Underline relevant words and phrases of the passages which can help you deduce the answers.

• Read the questions carefully.

• Answer precisely using simple language.

• Answers should reveal your understanding of the passage.

• If you are asked to provide a suitable title or heading to the passage remember the title is hidden either in the beginning or ending of the passage.

• Title should relate to the main idea of the passage and should be brief.

Unseen passages for comprehension (Solved)

A. 1. Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow (12 Marks) 

1. First, a warning. The journey is tough, steep and peppered with hairpin bends. If you are not a hardened traveller, by the time you reach Tawang your head is likely to be spinning. Add to it the breeze which pierces through all your protective clothing and you could well be wondering what prompted you to make this arduous trip to such Himalayan heights.

2. To get acclimatized to high altitude, the recipe is simple and strict – take it easy on the first day, lest you find yourself out of breath and panting. Tuck yourself in  a warm bed and sip some thupka (Tibetan noodle soup) and begin your adventures the following day.

3. In fact when you get up the next morning, you will scarcely believe what you see. The picture postcard beauty of the hill station in Arunachal Pradesh will simply take your breath away. The scenery is pristine and the Himalayan ranges are lush with pine, oak and rhododendron forests. There is also a rich growth of bamboo, which is the favorite food of the red panda found in this part of the Northeast.

4. Located about 10,000 feet above sea level, the Tawang monastery is the second oldest monastery in Asia, which explains the rush of tourists to this remote settlement. The magnificent monastery overlooks the valley and surrounded by mountains that seem to be towering around it like guards. The monastery’s enormous yellow roof and white walls stand out like a beacon. The place is completely isolated from the world.

5. One of the biggest attractions of the monastery is the three storey dukhang (assembly hall) that has a magnificent eight-meter-high gilded image of Buddha.

6. The ancient library, leading onto the parkhang (main courtyard) has an excellent collection of old scriptures, images and thankas (traditional paintings and monastery – or gompa in local language – is over 350 years old and is an important centre of pilgrimage for Buddhists.

7. The sixth Dalai Lama was born here. Also known as the Galden Namgyan Lhatse, the monastery is a repository of Tibetan Buddhist culture.

8. Tawang does not have an airport or railway station of its own. It is connected with other town in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam by road. Reaching Tawang from Kolkata is braving a long but rewarding journey. The drive through the picturesque mountain country is spectacular and can leave you breathless as you wind around steep hill-roads and maneuver sharp hairpin bends. In parts, the road can be rather treacherous. This is definitely not a drive for the fainthearted. 

9. The journey to Tawang starts from Guwahati on a bus or a taxi to Bomdila. Past the Dirang valley with its old dzong (fort), the road climbs sharply to Sela Pass at 13,940 feet. This barren, desolate landscape is softened by a serene lake that liesbelow Sela Pass.

10. Twang has one main street and a warren on alleys to the houses that climb up the hillside towards the towering monastery. It also has one quaint little bazaar which sells products ranging from talismans and prayer wheels to garish sunglasses and transistors. The snack stalls are a plenty offering solja, the yak butter tea, thupka and hot memos, the delicious steamed meat dumpling with chilly sauce.

1.1. Answer the following questions briefly. (9 marks)

(i) Why is the journey up Twang so arduous? (2)

(ii) What should a visitor do to acclimatize to high altitude? (1)

(iii) Why do people like to visit Tawang? (2)

(iv) Describe the Tawang monastery. (2)

(v) How can one reach Tawang? (2)

1.2. Pick out words or phrases which convey the same meaning as the following. 

(i) Extremely attractive 

(ii) Holy place 

(iii) Huge, in great 

Answers

1.1.

(i) The journey to Tawang is difficult because the breeze pierces the protective clothes.

The traveler’s head starts spinning.

(ii) The visitor must get acclimatized to high altitude. He should take it easy on the first day.

(iii) People are greatly attracted by the beauty of this hill station. The scenery is wonderful.

(iv) Tawang monastery is the second oldest monastery in Asia. It is located about 10,000 feet about sea level and overlooks the valley and seems isolated from the world.

(v) Tawang does not have any airport. It is connected with other towns in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam by road. So the visitor should make up his mind to undertake a long and rewarding journey.

1.2.

(i) Magnificent

(ii) Pilgrimage

(iii) Rhododendron

Unseen Passages for Practice

1. Read the following passage.

Light Pollution

1. Every urbanite knows the bright lights of the city make it impossible to see the stars in a night sky. What most of us do not know is that those lights also may be making us sick.

The cause is light pollution – the unearthly glow of billions of street lamps, security and porch lights, searchlights, office lights and signs – as people everywhere try to dispel the darkness of the night.

2. For the first time, light is being investigated seriously as a pollutant and a health hazard – a possible cause increased incidence of breast cancer, depression and other ailments.

3. In the most heavily urbanized regions, it no longer ever really gets dark. Satellite images reveal that in large areas of eastern North America, Western Europe, Japan and Korea

night has become a constant twilight. In a natural night sky, someone looking at the heavens should be able to see nearly 3500 stars and planets and the glow from the Milky Way, our galaxy. But in some brightly lit cities, the number of visible stars has dwindled to about a few dozen.

4. And for many wildlife species, light pollution seems to be as grave as environmental threat as bulldozed habitats and toxic-chemical dumping.

5. Lighting from office towers confuse migratory birds which fly into buildings lit up at night. Millions of birds in North America die from these crashes. Researchers have noticed since the 1980s that artificial lights along ocean beaches confuse millions of baby turtles. Observers say that the turtles instinctively crawl to the brightest thing on the horizon – normally the reflection of the moon on the sea. But where beaches are illuminated, baby turtles often crawl to the lit roads, where they are flattened by cars, or wander in circles on the beach. Once day breaks, they bake to death in the sun.

6. Sea turtles and birds are clearly in peril because of light at night, but scientists have begun to study whether human may share something of the same fate. Richard Steven,

a US Epidemiologist, has developed the idea that night light can disrupt critical hormonal levels that affect human health. Stevens came to this conclusion while trying to solve the puzzle of why breast cancer risk is five times higher in industrialized societies than in non-industrialized countries.

7. Stevens turned to literature on circadian rhythms- the 24-hour biological clock that guides daily body functions – and on melatonin, a hormone most living creatures produce only in darkness. In a study published in 2001, Stevens says that there is ‘mounting evidence to suggest that disruption of the melatonin rhythm may lead to chronic fatigue, depression, reproduction anomalies and perhaps even cancer’. Melatonin is produced in the brain’s pineal gland only when the eyes signal it is dark.

Those working under lighting at night could be reducing the amount of melatonin they produce.

8. Travis Longcore, Science Director at the Urban Wild lands Group (a Los Angeles conservation group), says that light pollution should be receiving the same attention as other environmental ills. Canada has set up a conservation reserve north of Toronto, the first in the world to preserve a pristine night sky. Conservationists are hoping to expand the area of preserved night sky beyond the park’s boundaries by encouraging local municipalities to curtail the use of poorly designed night lighting.

9. In the United States, the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) has been campaigning for bylaws requiring ‘night-friendly’ lights, with the bulbs recesses into the fixture so that the light does not glare out horizontally or upwards. Lamps that direct a light beam at the ground use less electricity and do not uselessly light the sky. While the health and environmental impacts of night pollution are starting to capture attention, Dave Crawford, the executive director of IDA, has other concerns too. He too worries that light may be making people sick and harming wildlife, but he says the fading of the heavens could also cause a fading of the human imagination – in many ways a greater long-term threat.

10. Writers and artists have been drawn inspiration from the night sky. Says Crawford, “It’s the glamour and wonder of the universe we live in. We’ve got to preserve that.”

1.1. Answer the following questions

1. How is light a pollutant? What harm does it cause?

2. What startling revelation does this passage provide about death of turtles?

3. How does lighting affect our daily body functions?

4. What measures have been taken in Canada to reduce light pollution? 

5. What are the suggestions given by the IDA to counter light pollution? 

1.1. Pick out words or phrases which convey the same meaning as the following: 

(i) Threat or danger 

(ii) Unusual, irregularity 

(iii) To limit 

2. Read the passage.
1. A scholar is refused admission to a good school primarily because of his weak interactive skills. It is indeed pathetic that though English is spoken fluently and used every day; yet none is satisfied with their abilities. A learner feels he cannot express himself the way he wants to. And he fails miserably to connect with his own hidden power.

2. The Education system, in its endeavors to make Curriculum relevant and lifeoriented has, as a matter of fact, fallen short of its standards. It is oblivious of the fact that the most applied and practical subject- English: is devoid of practical afflatus.

English is at cross roads. Both aspects of Education: the cultural that empowers a learner to grow and the productive aspect that makes him do things, is relegated to the background curriculum thus stands lopsided. It fails to provide full range of services and cannot tap teachers’ expertise. No proper moves and strategies have been formulated to make it unique. English courses are mushrooming and alluring advertisements clip are often spotted.
3. With the onset of the new millennium, demands of the Educational System to sensitize itself to changing societal needs has also increased manifold. The new race of human beings has to be served New Curriculum that caters to the Unity Of Thought,

Action & Deed and help evolve an integrated human personality. A Comprehensive Curriculum alone can enhance their understanding of four basic skills.

4. Acquiring the skill of English is no Catwalk. And English is no Science where results are verified; but it means Construction; ingenuity at work. The Architecture that it builds can never be complete if it is divorced from learning by doing.

5. There are a number of Projects like Phonetics, News-reading, Indian literature, Poetry- composition, Interview skills, biography- launch, etc. which can help a pupil to experiment till he finds a medium that helps free flow of thoughts, to think critically and creatively and emerge as literary competent. As long as there is proper

 Please refer to the link below for CBSE Class 12 English - Section Wise Analysis of Question Paper